Monday, August 2, 2010
YouTube banned by Russian court
Court in Khabarovsk region orders internet provider Rosnet to lock YouTube over ultra-nationalist video. Read more here.
By AllOfUs
Thursday, July 1, 2010
The myth of autonomy debunked, what about the myth of initiative?
We've all been conditioned into believing that only a small percentage of all people are able to work autonomously. The machine/control paradigm of management is founded in this belief. In order to make people productive apparently you need to tell them what to do and how to do it.
Classical hierarchical organizations work that way. The executive sets up goals and directions, managers translate them into concrete directives and actions and pass them to their employees. Employees execute these orders. The employee is seen as a mechanical piece, part of a complex mechanical system. The machine metaphor is clearly apparent here. He/she needs to execute the given tasks within the imposed constraints. Yes, there is feedback going from the employee to the manager, and up to the executive, but there is very little autonomy.
It turns out that human organizations behave quite differently from mechanical automata, especially when creativity is the goal of the game. First, an organization needs to win the cooperation of it's members. A mechanical piece has no consciousness, no free will. You put it into its place within the system and it turns the way it is supposed to. A human being has the choice to do a great job, or a crappy job. In order to gain the full cooperation, organizations must satisfy for the individual some fundamental psychological and material needs. The individual needs to perceive that his/her contribution is important, that he/she is part of something bigger-a form of spirituality. The individual needs to perceive that he/she is respected, valued, appreciated. The individual must also believe that his/her contribution is justly rewarded, etc. etc. Second, it is now well understood that the working environment and all the psychological needs of the individual affect creativity in a major way. Even if you gain the full cooperation of your employees, you are still not sure that the creative juices are flowing to the optimal capacity.
Google understood all this! Among all the successful companies, their employees have the greatest autonomy. On Google's campus you find cafes, bars, swimming pools, game rooms, parks, you name it. You can take your laptop and work from the swimming pool, and your boss is not going to be there to pass you the sunscreen. Google understood that they can get more from their employees if they only emphasize on the job that has to get done, and let the employee decide how to do it. And it works! The myth of autonomy was debunked.
But there is another myth. We are told that the great majority of us have no initiative. If we are not given directions we don't know what to do. We might be autonomous, i.e. able to organize ourselves once we know what has to be done, but the majority of us are apparently incapable of setting goals and directions. What about Linux? Who tells developers which directions they should take? This myth is about to be debunked as well.
I am not advocating that all human beings are autonomous and show initiative. But what is the real percentage? The opposition to my argument brings up statistics, scientific studies made on our actual society, showing only a very small percentage of driven individuals with initiative. But wait a second! There is something scientifically wrong here, the method could be good, but the conclusions are false. The logic used is flawed. We are talking about what us humans are capable of, about our potential, we are NOT describing our actual society. We've seen that before. A scientific study on black slaves on a plantation in South Carolina USA, at the beginning of the century, would most probably reveal that the majority of these individuals were submissive and dependent. Can we conclude that it is in the nature of a black person to be submissive and dependent? Of course NOT! We know that humans are malleable. Put a child into slavery and he/she will adopt a slave mentality. It is a matter of adaptation! You don't comply you die! It is about adaptation, it is a force rather than a weakness. This shows the capacity of all humans to thrive in harsh situations. But once slavery was abolished these same people rapidly acquired the skills to live in society. They become teachers, business man, scientists, doctors, and even presidents.
Our actual system has made us dependent! Our masters only need us to produce, not to be autonomous, not to show too much initiative. We have bee conditioned into being docile and dependent. The scientific data describing individuals only describe the actual system, NOT the our potential.
What is the percentage of autonomous individuals with initiative, potentially speaking, within a culture of freedom and self-determination? If YOU are not a such person you may want be become one, YOU CAN.
By AllOfUs
Social assets
The global economical and financial crisis is NOT generated by scarcity. It's not like the entire planet became unfertile, unable to sustain our civilization. There are enough resources to feed the entire world population, even by classical means. But our technology, if put to good use, can dramatically increase the capacity of our ecosystem, and make it even possible to start the colonization of the outer space. The current economical crisis is an anthropogenic "mechanical" problem. The needs are there, the resources are there, the knowledge is there, the means are there, but the classical mechanism of production and distribution is broken. We've lost our ability to work together constructively, for the benefit of all. Our institutions are corrupt, rotten.
Despite all the rhetoric coming out from the G8 and G20 meetings, we are not out of the woods yet. Some influential economists predict a double dip. What is the way out? Do we need to patch up our failed system, letting the same individuals who brought us on the verge of destruction in charge of it? Perhaps we need to think of creating new alternatives.
When you cannot bring your products to the people in need because the classical channels are broken what do you do? Do you stop production and close shop? What about the people on the other side, waiting for the necessities you can surely produce? You need to find alternative ways to feed the hungry market. I am not talking about abusive consumption here. We are in trouble, most of the people on this planet are struggling to stay alive. We need to create alternative institutions, new ones, more efficient ones that use effectively the new technology, adapted to the new reality.
Your social assets become the most important assets! Alone you cannot establish new ways of production and new channels of distribution. You need to team up with people who think like you, and who find themselves in the same situation, they have a product, a market, but no effective means to reach it. You capacity to organize large scale collaborations have became vital.
Communicate, collaborate, coordinate, you have the tools!
See more on the Discovery Network concept.
By AllOfUs
Despite all the rhetoric coming out from the G8 and G20 meetings, we are not out of the woods yet. Some influential economists predict a double dip. What is the way out? Do we need to patch up our failed system, letting the same individuals who brought us on the verge of destruction in charge of it? Perhaps we need to think of creating new alternatives.
When you cannot bring your products to the people in need because the classical channels are broken what do you do? Do you stop production and close shop? What about the people on the other side, waiting for the necessities you can surely produce? You need to find alternative ways to feed the hungry market. I am not talking about abusive consumption here. We are in trouble, most of the people on this planet are struggling to stay alive. We need to create alternative institutions, new ones, more efficient ones that use effectively the new technology, adapted to the new reality.
Your social assets become the most important assets! Alone you cannot establish new ways of production and new channels of distribution. You need to team up with people who think like you, and who find themselves in the same situation, they have a product, a market, but no effective means to reach it. You capacity to organize large scale collaborations have became vital.
Communicate, collaborate, coordinate, you have the tools!
See more on the Discovery Network concept.
By AllOfUs
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Monday, June 28, 2010
Outsourcing and innovation
Somebody on LinkedIn asked if innovation will be outsourced.
In some sense, outsourcing is decentralization of production, but not quite so... because in some cases, General Motors for example, you get one large entity, GM, surrounded by a constellation of suppliers, which are entirely dependent on GM, who in turn calls the shots. Outsourcing was made possible by the increased level of coordination, and by the sophisticated logistical tools we have at our disposal. Technology made it possible. Its success demonstrates that production is more efficient, more flexible, more reliable, if it is organized on a broad base of well-coordinated small and specialized entities. Does the production network need to be centralized? If there is good coordination among these entities centralization is not necessary. In other words, in today's world enhanced with the new technology it is not necessary to have a strong center of command and control, like GM for example, to have a stable network capable of innovation, production and large scale distribution. Both structures can coexist, and many variants in between, and they will compete to impose their hegemony during this transition from the old economy to the new. In the end, I believe that big verticals will fall by shedding weight, outsourcing, and finally by morphing and dissolving into decentralized super-networks.
Outsourcing means externalizing highly formal processes. Processes that can be specified and controlled very well. People now are asking the question, can innovation also be externalized? I just think this is the WRONG question to ask, because I think the "box" paradigm is obsolete. Future organizations that will drive innovation will not look like a box, but rather like a gravitational system, therefore there is no sense in talking about internal and external.
If you want to know weather India will play a role in innovation in the future, my answer is YES. Is innovation coming to India the way outsourcing came? My answer is NO. In the near future innovation will happen within (semi-) open collaborative networks - see the Discovery Network concept. Open networks are far more creative than boxes, if there are effective processes in place. Because of that, and because of the very effective tools of communication, collaboration, and coordination we have at our disposal, (semi-) open collaborative networks will drive innovation, and they will drag within them highly specialized units of production and distribution, prototyping units, manufacturing units, marketing units, etc. The old classical boxes, the companies, will be surpassed in creativity, and starved on resources. So don't wait for a big company to pay you in India to innovate, rather take initiative and join these collaborative networks just emerging, capable of putting an idea on the market, being limited only by coordination, using the redundancy and under-capacity already existing in our economy.
By AllOfUs
In some sense, outsourcing is decentralization of production, but not quite so... because in some cases, General Motors for example, you get one large entity, GM, surrounded by a constellation of suppliers, which are entirely dependent on GM, who in turn calls the shots. Outsourcing was made possible by the increased level of coordination, and by the sophisticated logistical tools we have at our disposal. Technology made it possible. Its success demonstrates that production is more efficient, more flexible, more reliable, if it is organized on a broad base of well-coordinated small and specialized entities. Does the production network need to be centralized? If there is good coordination among these entities centralization is not necessary. In other words, in today's world enhanced with the new technology it is not necessary to have a strong center of command and control, like GM for example, to have a stable network capable of innovation, production and large scale distribution. Both structures can coexist, and many variants in between, and they will compete to impose their hegemony during this transition from the old economy to the new. In the end, I believe that big verticals will fall by shedding weight, outsourcing, and finally by morphing and dissolving into decentralized super-networks.
Outsourcing means externalizing highly formal processes. Processes that can be specified and controlled very well. People now are asking the question, can innovation also be externalized? I just think this is the WRONG question to ask, because I think the "box" paradigm is obsolete. Future organizations that will drive innovation will not look like a box, but rather like a gravitational system, therefore there is no sense in talking about internal and external.
If you want to know weather India will play a role in innovation in the future, my answer is YES. Is innovation coming to India the way outsourcing came? My answer is NO. In the near future innovation will happen within (semi-) open collaborative networks - see the Discovery Network concept. Open networks are far more creative than boxes, if there are effective processes in place. Because of that, and because of the very effective tools of communication, collaboration, and coordination we have at our disposal, (semi-) open collaborative networks will drive innovation, and they will drag within them highly specialized units of production and distribution, prototyping units, manufacturing units, marketing units, etc. The old classical boxes, the companies, will be surpassed in creativity, and starved on resources. So don't wait for a big company to pay you in India to innovate, rather take initiative and join these collaborative networks just emerging, capable of putting an idea on the market, being limited only by coordination, using the redundancy and under-capacity already existing in our economy.
By AllOfUs
Saturday, June 26, 2010
A light infrastructure that can support massive collaboration and coordination
The Multitude Project is proposing an example of an infrastructure that can support massive social movements. It is a LEGO-type infrastructure, which means that it is composed of inter-operable individual services. It is a FREE infrastructure, all services used are available for free on the Internet.
This entire infrastructure can be put together and deployed in only a few hours. Because it is free and easy to build, it is the perfect solution for very dynamic massive actions. It enables massive movements to form spontaneously and act swiftly. Because there is no cost associated with it, this infrastructure can be simply dismantlement after it has served its purpose. For actions of a longer duration, the advantage of this type of infrastructure is that all its development and maintenance is delegated to the service provider.
This example is mostly based on Google free products/services. The beauty of this is that almost all of the infrastructure runes on mobile devices like the iPhone and the Google pone.
Multitude Project built this infrastructure to support an international coalition fighting an ecologically unstable gold mining operation in Rosia Montana, Romania. It is tested for the first time in a real situation, on a massive scale.
By AllOfUs
This entire infrastructure can be put together and deployed in only a few hours. Because it is free and easy to build, it is the perfect solution for very dynamic massive actions. It enables massive movements to form spontaneously and act swiftly. Because there is no cost associated with it, this infrastructure can be simply dismantlement after it has served its purpose. For actions of a longer duration, the advantage of this type of infrastructure is that all its development and maintenance is delegated to the service provider.
This example is mostly based on Google free products/services. The beauty of this is that almost all of the infrastructure runes on mobile devices like the iPhone and the Google pone.
You can consult it HERE.
By AllOfUs
Friday, June 18, 2010
Organization in production, the machine vs the social paradigm
I think the machine paradigm is essentially out of the picture, but not in every domain of our complex economy. As long as there will be hard jobs there will be control and over-functionalization of the worker. I don't see a coal mining operation adopting the social model. Only when robots will take over these harsh tasks we will be able to avoid treating human beings like biological automata. Before that day comes, we can continue our work on improving the situation of billions of us out there.
I also want to add that the social paradigm is not imposed from up to bottom. It doesn't come from somebody up there deciding to make society a better place. The elite doesn't have too much appreciation for the lower casts. Eugenics is still very alive up there, under various forms. Look at the "Singularity" movement for example. I am sick and tired of these talking heads in shiny suits telling us in our face that there's too many of us on Earth, comparing us with parasites infecting our "Mother Planet". This re-valuation of the human being is a button-up movement. The individual emerges with its full capacities because he has room to express himself. The new technology gives him the tools and the environment to do so. He can now escape monopolies and express his creativity freely. He can directly exchange with his peers, and for the value he produces he can get a buck in return, without having to beg for a stand in a highly controlled marketplace.
Some entrepreneurs have decided to experiment with this "social economy" idea, because the individual had this window of opportunity to express himself, to demonstrate that we are intelligent, creative, motivated creatures, to demonstrate that all social casts are based on fabulations, are merely social constructs. This is how Google made it big. Once the social paradigm demonstrated its efficacy in turning a group of people into a very creative and productive enterprise, some of those up there, who still control the major part of our resources, are trying to turn the "social thing" for their own benefit. Those of them who really see what is happening, who understand that the new technology is totally remodeling society, those who are not sleeping in their ignorance believing that the Internet is only for porn and for playing online games, are trying to come up with new models of social control. But I don't see any brilliant idea emerging. I don't even see how this would be possible. You may think that I am blinded by my optimism, but I really believe that the multitude is emancipating.
By AllOfUs
I also want to add that the social paradigm is not imposed from up to bottom. It doesn't come from somebody up there deciding to make society a better place. The elite doesn't have too much appreciation for the lower casts. Eugenics is still very alive up there, under various forms. Look at the "Singularity" movement for example. I am sick and tired of these talking heads in shiny suits telling us in our face that there's too many of us on Earth, comparing us with parasites infecting our "Mother Planet". This re-valuation of the human being is a button-up movement. The individual emerges with its full capacities because he has room to express himself. The new technology gives him the tools and the environment to do so. He can now escape monopolies and express his creativity freely. He can directly exchange with his peers, and for the value he produces he can get a buck in return, without having to beg for a stand in a highly controlled marketplace.
Some entrepreneurs have decided to experiment with this "social economy" idea, because the individual had this window of opportunity to express himself, to demonstrate that we are intelligent, creative, motivated creatures, to demonstrate that all social casts are based on fabulations, are merely social constructs. This is how Google made it big. Once the social paradigm demonstrated its efficacy in turning a group of people into a very creative and productive enterprise, some of those up there, who still control the major part of our resources, are trying to turn the "social thing" for their own benefit. Those of them who really see what is happening, who understand that the new technology is totally remodeling society, those who are not sleeping in their ignorance believing that the Internet is only for porn and for playing online games, are trying to come up with new models of social control. But I don't see any brilliant idea emerging. I don't even see how this would be possible. You may think that I am blinded by my optimism, but I really believe that the multitude is emancipating.
By AllOfUs
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
The Multitude Project is building the engine of the new economy
This is an experiment of historical proportions. A strong and diverse group was formed to build the infrastructure of a new kind of economical entity. We called this new institution, which is a global collaborative innovation network capable of putting an idea on the market, a "Discovery Network".
The Discovery Network is a value-based structure as opposed to a power-based structure. It is a decentralized network as opposed to a hierarchical centralized organization. The core values are sharing, collaboration, openness. The Discovery Network is kept together by symbiotic relations, interdependency, synergy. This new form of organization will enable an individual in a poor country, possessing only brilliant ideas and sharp social skills, to generate tremendous wealth for his local community.
We are testing the Discovering Network architecture for the first time on the Matchmaking Device System, an invention of Multitude Project's founder Tiberius Brastaviceanu. You can read more about the "Discovery Network" concept here.
Anybody interested can join our group as an active participant or just as an observer. You can do so by filling the form on the Matchmaking Device System homepage.
By AllOfUs
Saturday, June 5, 2010
The Israeli apartheid regime is falling
It is not governments who solved the Palestinian problem. A very complex global coalition of activist networks and NGO's, helped by some governmental institutions, academic institutions, independent private institutions, have debarked on the shores of Gaza. The Palestinian D-day was made possible by a powerful wave rising from the grass roots of society. Look at the tools used in this unprecedented campaign, in this pacifist war against a brutal, racist regime. The digital technology has its marks everywhere. The Internet was used to organize these networks, to gather resources, to coordinate actions, and to win the public opinion through a very well orchestrated and very creative (alternative) media campaign. After a few failed trials in the Republic of Moldova and in Iran, the multitude movement has its first governmental victim. Who's next?
The Multitude Project was, and remains a member of the Free Palestine network.
By AllOfUs
Information flow and power
Ultimately, power in society boils down to the ability to influence people. We must not understand power only in its pejorative sense. Hitler had power and so did Mother Teresa. The most fundamental process involved in the creation and the projection of power is communication. One must exchange information with the individual(s) he wants to influence.
At the smallest scale, an individual can project physical power over another individual without having to communicate much, but here we are not concerned with individual-level physical power. At the societal level, the projection of military power, which is also a form of physical power, involves a lot of communication. The very fact that there is military power to be projected supposes some level of coordination and cooperation within that particular society, not only for the military act but also for military support systems. An army requires a sophisticated economy, central governance system and so on.
What if the means of communication change suddenly in a society? How would this affect power structures?
In the pre-Internet society, the most effective means of communication was one-to-many, like the radio, the television, the book, the newspaper, etc. It is a direct type of communication, in the sense that the message can reach the target, in one step. But these broadcast-type, one-way, one-to-many communication channels are usually very costly to create and to maintain. In order to sustain them, they require central governance, and over time they eventually become corrupted (not serving the interest of the masses) and get monopolized. These means of communication are, by nature, non-democratic, because they are not within the reach of every individual and have a strong tendency to get subverted and used against the masses. In fact, there is an abundance of examples where mass media was used by the social elites to increase their domination and to further their own agendas. That in itself is an indicator of how important information and communication is in building and projecting power.
The new digital technology introduced new channels of communication, in parallel with the classical direct one-to-many. The particularity of these new channels (now called social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc. ) is that they are NOT direct. They propagate through the population from one individual to another. The process is very similar to word of mouth, but it is greatly enhanced by the new technology (larger scale, involving much more individuals, transcending geographical barriers, transcending language barriers, more dynamic). The fact that these new communication channels are NOT direct, are almost free, popular, and democratic changes everything. This means that the multitude has a lot more control over the narrative. Information doesn't follow along predefined paths as in a hierarchical social structure. It bounces around within decentralized online networks that individuals freely form. The dominant narrative emerges from this chaotic process, rather than being carefully crafted at the top of the pyramid and distributed down in a controlled and direct manner. In this new context the hierarchical power structure collapses because the information pathways it normally uses are no longer effective.
The elites have lost their monopoly on direct mass communication, people get their information from alternative sources, therefore the elites' ability to influence directly is greatly reduced. Moreover, they have also lost the ability to shapes preferences via values, norms, ideologies.
By AllOfUs
At the smallest scale, an individual can project physical power over another individual without having to communicate much, but here we are not concerned with individual-level physical power. At the societal level, the projection of military power, which is also a form of physical power, involves a lot of communication. The very fact that there is military power to be projected supposes some level of coordination and cooperation within that particular society, not only for the military act but also for military support systems. An army requires a sophisticated economy, central governance system and so on.
What if the means of communication change suddenly in a society? How would this affect power structures?
In the pre-Internet society, the most effective means of communication was one-to-many, like the radio, the television, the book, the newspaper, etc. It is a direct type of communication, in the sense that the message can reach the target, in one step. But these broadcast-type, one-way, one-to-many communication channels are usually very costly to create and to maintain. In order to sustain them, they require central governance, and over time they eventually become corrupted (not serving the interest of the masses) and get monopolized. These means of communication are, by nature, non-democratic, because they are not within the reach of every individual and have a strong tendency to get subverted and used against the masses. In fact, there is an abundance of examples where mass media was used by the social elites to increase their domination and to further their own agendas. That in itself is an indicator of how important information and communication is in building and projecting power.
The new digital technology introduced new channels of communication, in parallel with the classical direct one-to-many. The particularity of these new channels (now called social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc. ) is that they are NOT direct. They propagate through the population from one individual to another. The process is very similar to word of mouth, but it is greatly enhanced by the new technology (larger scale, involving much more individuals, transcending geographical barriers, transcending language barriers, more dynamic). The fact that these new communication channels are NOT direct, are almost free, popular, and democratic changes everything. This means that the multitude has a lot more control over the narrative. Information doesn't follow along predefined paths as in a hierarchical social structure. It bounces around within decentralized online networks that individuals freely form. The dominant narrative emerges from this chaotic process, rather than being carefully crafted at the top of the pyramid and distributed down in a controlled and direct manner. In this new context the hierarchical power structure collapses because the information pathways it normally uses are no longer effective.
The elites have lost their monopoly on direct mass communication, people get their information from alternative sources, therefore the elites' ability to influence directly is greatly reduced. Moreover, they have also lost the ability to shapes preferences via values, norms, ideologies.
By AllOfUs
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