iMedia

"US Now"

[Cross-posted from the IdeaFestival] Featuring commentary from leading digitalist Clay Shirky, "US Now" documents a new form of organization that values transparency and self-direction, and is taking market capitalism in an entirely new direction. With low barriers to entry and almost zero cost for the exchange of information, networked communities challenge 20th century models of organization and value creation, which tended to hierarchically hoard power and information. In other words, the value produced came at a substantial cost in personal autonomy. Transparency? Not so much.

Left unanswered economically: Will this still-developing model of participation make it more likely that by doing good one might also do well? Left unanswered governmentally: how many services now provided by government will move into the public realm as people are able to take and implement common decisions?

If after watching the video all this sounds a bit suspicious, fear not. Wire-archies don't subvert authority, they just expose it.

Us Now from Banyak Films on Vimeo.

Hat tip: Putting People First

"Permission-based" innovation

Seth Godin famously came up with the phrase "permission-based marketing" to capture how the business dialog had become a two-way street. Businesses and organizations could no longer simply flood individuals with information and expect a significant return in an attention-challenged word.

Similarly, having successfully captured a significant share of the browser market from Microsoft, the open source organization Mozilla has an idea about how to make innovation a participatory process. In a "best of" McKinsey quarterly interview (free registration required) Mozilla Foundation chairman and former CEO Mitchell Baker had this to say about innovation:

The Quarterly: How do you think about your role in enabling innovation in the communities?

Mitchell Baker: Sometimes, just giving people permission does wonders. Consider our quality control process. We have a public process for finding, tracking, and correcting bugs in the code we’re developing, and thousands of people are involved. When several people within the community began to take leadership in that effort, someone who worked with me said, 'All we need to do is tell these people it’s OK.' So that’s what we did. We said to the leader, 'You’re awesome; keep doing what you’re doing.' And after that, he became our release driver. There are more people like that than you would expect.

Baker also describes how up to 40 percent of the code that makes its way into the browser comes from volunteer community.

Wayne

Google's Eric Schmidt on Innovative Public Policy: Pay for Performance

Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently appeared at the New America Foundation, and according to the foundation, talked about "technology, economic growth and open government." Intangible Economy points out that one of his proposals would incent Detroit's automakers.

Build more fuel efficient cars, get cash. I immediately thought of the auto bailout hearing that just ended and wondered if that proposal was legislatively doable. Schmidt also talked about cash incentives "to get people to study math and science," according to a Twittercast of the event. I can think of one very innovative program in Kentucky that proposes to do just that. 

Fun with Disasters

Most people will agree that the job of any government is to protect the life and property of its citizens. Linking to this Wired piece, Bruce Sterling asks: Can a game put the fun in disaster preparedness?

Internet: each year, more data than all other years combined

Saying that "social media is the future of technology," Harvard Business School reports that each year there is more information created on the Internet than all previous years combined.