Excellent! Ray Ozzie is talking about one of my favorite papers by a guy named Granovetter's called the "Strength of Weak Ties" which talks about how weak ties between distant nodes are more valuable than the strong ties within tight groups. I can go on for hours about this idea, but Ray also talk about another VERY important thing that I think we're all thinking about. Are blogs an extension of email and can blogs get rid of spam, most email, bulletin boards and all sorts of things in one huge P2P swoop! That WOULD be cool.
Ray Ozzie
Jon, your talk about mail brings up a discussion that I had with someone lately about email, linking, and transparency. One of the unfortunate aspects about "googling email" is that there are really no inbound links except those that can be reverse engineered through threading. But in social systems, those are the "strong ties" - the obvious relationships. What is more interesting, I believe, are the "weak ties" that would emerge if people outside of your social group started pointing into an interesting message of yours. (Weak Ties are precisely why I read blogs!!) Imagine the field day that Google could have if 1) all email files had access controls removed, and 2) people started surfing each others' email messages.
Unrealistic, right? Well, think again. Why have we grown so accustomed to the social norm that email should be private? Think about it. Start small. And remember that your company owns your inbox and outbox. What if all engineers within a company were given a new email address when they started, and were told "just use it for business" and "please note that everything that you do in email is in public view. In order to prevent embarassing moments, please keep matters of your personal privacy OUT of your assigned email box; use Groove for private matters. Oh, and by the way, here are the URLs of all of your team members' mailboxes, in case you care. Oh, and by the way, here's a site where you Google across all of them. Oh, also, I should mention that we never delete any email, by policy."
OK. We're getting serious now... ;-p We've just set up the Official Neoteny Blogging Team (as in the Jamaican Bobsled Team), the first blogging team in Japan that we know of. We're going to get serious about messing around with stuff like using mobile phones, recruiting interesting bloggers, trying to build a photo album/blog, integrating IM and lots of other cool things. If you know of or run a cool service like blogrolling.com that we can integrate, let me know. I'll be integrating stuff into my site as we get it going. Also, if you have have a cool blog idea that you would like hosted or would like to participate or contribute in some way let me know.
When I first told Jun that "neoteny" meant the retention of childlike attributes in adulthood, he told me he thought it meant giant tadpoles. Iwrote an entry earlier about the meaning of Neoteny.
Since then, the business press has been using the word to discuss leadership. There is a great piece from Harvard Business School about it. I'm glad I have www.neoteny.com. ;-)
The new book Geeks and Geezers by Warren Bennis and Robert Thomas, argues that all the leaders they studied, whether "geeks" (under thirty) or "geezers" (over seventy), have the ability to engage others in shared meaning; a distinctive and compelling voice; a sense of integrity; and "neoteny," a trait that makes them "addicted to life" and able to recruit protectors, nurturers, and believers through a long and productive leadership career.
I was supposed to see Lawrence Lessig a few weeks ago, but he cancelled the meeting because he was busy preparing his argument for the U.S. Supreme Court. I forgive you Lawrence. ;-) This is a very important case for the future of copyright. As the digital world and all of our blogging and links show that copyright is less important when everything is live, the copyright manufacturers are trying to push the law in the other direction. All hands on deck to prevent a serious step backwards in the way we think about information.
I am doing my part in Japan organizing study groups and lecturing, but the US laws always tend to be "globalized" so I think the real battlefield is the US at this point.
eldred.cc
This site collects material related to the constitutional challenge of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which extended by 20 years both existing copyrights and future copyrights.
Eric Eldred is the lead plaintiff on the case (for other plaintiffs, click here), and on May 20, 2002, opening briefs were filed in the Supreme Court. Arguments will be heard October 9th, 2002, and a decision is expected next spring. Watch here for the latest news, and click on "how you can help" to join our (e) campaign.
This is how it started....I created a series of posts related to various AOL T-W issues. These posts prompted responses, counter arguments and related statements from several different bloggers.
Each point and counter-point can now be revisted - with viewers adding their own synopsis, opinions and counter-points - at anytime. Anyone can come into a 'conversation' - at any point in the conversatiin - at any time.
The problem I see with the current blog format is that it still has to sort of end up making sense in one place. Shouldn't each block of text or multimedia only have to exist in one place. One of our guys says we need "text src". Basically, what I want is a way to embed stuff from other people's sites or a way to just cluster little windows into other people's sites instead of having to write all the links up in a story. I really like your format/style Marc, but two things. I still have to click on the links and jump to the sites and YOU still have to write some redundant content. It would seem better if you could really just open little windows and arrange them, adding only your own stuff...
From: "Marc Canter"
To: "Joichi Ito"
Subject: RE: Design review - feedback requested
Date: Mon, 7 Oct 2002 16:02:30 -0700
No - EXACTLY!
Ted nelson called that 'transclusion' and Marc Barot has that working NOW!
So what you're asking for is to 'transclude' other sites, or chunks of
info - and build it INTO the conversations.
YES! We got that working NOW!
:-)
I just received - and I think he were cc:ed (and the rest of the recipient
list - oooops) this from Marc Barot:
Marc Barot
From an interface point of view, I would like the links not to disrupt the
flow by replacing the current window's content, instead sliding neatly in
place, below their calling paragraph.
Sure - that would be a formatting option. I think they'll be a bunch of
different ways to 'view' this stuff - including entirely in an outline form.
Launching second windows, different sized titles, doing 2 way links,
trackback, occluding images, media embedding - the issues go on and on. But
I had to start somewhere :-)
We have these investor types who actually are getting serious - so me
spelling out - in umpteenth details - was what spurred me onto this 'mockup'
[[[Marc's insert here - I think everyone will end up with their own
formatting solution which works. We may find that easily going back (maybe
gesturally based) between display formats - is the way to go. CERTAINLY
we'll have to make it obvious and intuitive how one can CHANGE and adjust
the way the conversation is displayed (and we'll need lots of pre-fabbed
display solutions - as well.)
It's clear from the first five comments I've received - that EVERYONE has
their OWN idea as to what works. In less than an hour I received almost 10
reply's - out of a list of 30+ That's 33% interest level!
So this to me - defines a system which can flexibly display:
- linked pages
- transcluded entries (from elsewhere)
- media
- faces
- some sort of an outline structure
- even collapse unto itself - allowing readers to compartmentalize
sections....
And ties to:
- IM - email
- Outlining
- Blogging
- your PIM info
- your media (stored in your private cloud)
- your Home LAN (and your traveling cyber existence)
- and your devices
is in order.
This is what "Hubbie" would output. I think you can see how the
activieOutliner (or WebOutliner as Doug refers to it) is along the
trajectory towards Hubbie.
[[[Marc's insert here - "Hubbie" is the code-name for our big magilla-cutty
product, WebOutliner is a first step, on-line outliner that..... well you
can imagine. WebOutliner will also be part of a Radio 'sweet suite'
collection of tools and customizable Home Page. We then will investigate
creating 'sweet suites' of add-ons for Blogger, LiveJournal, Moveable Type,
Grey Matter.
We think integrating blogging with media with your Home LAN is key. We'll
start our concentric circles strategy with bloggers and move out from there
towards the Home LAN owners who have devices........]]]]]]
I know I'm an outline nut, but I really appreciate the ability to keep
everything in perspective, that is within the same flow of conversation.
Certo (that's Italian for 'sure!')
[[[Marc's insert here - or in Japanese they say "Gam baht ai - Kurd usai!"
This is why I love 'elision' (those collapsable paragraphs with a wedge) and
'transclusion' (insertion of the linked contents in place).
ah yes, yet another new term........
[[[Marc's insert here - Marc Barot has true transclusion working on
activieOutliner - RIGHT NOW! So expect translcusion in these
conversations - FOR SURE!
From a structural point of view, I guess we can achieve this with any kind
of Xpath explorable, XML hierarchical structure as the supporting format.
OMPL, with more specialized attributes, comes to mind. So does RSS for
referred conversations.
think GIANT XML OPML extension........
[[[Marc's insert here - the original usage of the term 'MacroMedia' was as
our own compound document architecture.]]]]]]
Cheers
Marc
Marc
and even more Marcs
-----------
Marc Barrot
IT Consultant
Precision IT Management,Inc
We will be announcing later today the establishment of Neoteny Venture Development Co., Ltd. which will be lead by Hidehiro Matsumoto as its CEO. Neoteny Venture Development is a spin-out of the consulting business of Neoteny Co., Ltd. which has been in development for a year. Neoteny Venture Development Co., Ltd. will be a subsidiary of Neoteny Co., Ltd. The team has delivered five consulting engagements to large Japanese companies. NVD will focus on corporate venture consulting, entrepreneurship support and corporate spin-out consulting. Neoteny Co., Ltd. will focus on venture investing in information technology businesses. Neoteny will update its web page tonight. (It will be a blog ;-) )
I will of course continue to be CEO of Neoteny and current am focused on investing in personal communications technologies and networked consumer electronics and enabling technologies and services...
Hirata found it on IP. It is very cool. I think the best avatar style space I've seen so far. The only thing is, the site is in the UK and I can't buy credits to furnish my room. If anyone else is a member, My Habbo is "Joichi"...
Hat's off to Dan who wrote about this a year ago!
Dan Gillmor
From: Gillmor, Dan
To: Dave Farber
Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2001 18:53:11 -0400
HELSINKI -- Buying virtual furniture for a virtual hotel room may seem likan odd enough exercise. Now add this: You pay by mobile phone.
That's how it works at online chat sites Hotelli Kultakala and Habbo Hotel, operated by a small Finnish company called Sulake. And people, mostly young people, are paying -- with real money -- by calling a special phone number, entering a few digits and having the cost of virtual furniture added to their next month's phone bills.
Across town, meanwhile, Riot Entertainment is getting ready to beam messages from Frodo the Hobbit to the mobile phones of ``Lord of the Rings'' fans.
The messages from Frodo and other denizens of Middle Earth will be part of a
movie marketing campaign when the first of three Rings movies opens later
this year.
Some of the most intriguing ideas about tomorrow's mobile communications and
commerce are coming from the people of this small Nordic nation, whose
influence on the world's telecommunications stage has long outweighed the
size of its population.
Earlier I wrote about suicides in Japan. I also recently wrote about the relationship between life insurance and murders. I found an interesting article in the Mainichi covering all of these issues.
This article is interesting because it points to life insurance as the cause of many suicides where life insurance is the only way to get out of debt. I guess the choice is either to kill yourself or someone else. ;-p They actually let you use your life insurance as collateral for home mortages in Japan..
Any wonder, then, that Sunday Mainichi (10/6) refers to Japan as the suicide capital of the world -- a dubious honor also recently bestowed by the World Psychiatric Association.
"Considering that both Japanese men and women have the world's greatest longevity, it came as a shock to learn that we're also number one for suicides," psychiatry Assistant Prof. Kazuo Yamada tells Sunday Mainichi.
National Police Agency figures released earlier this year showed that 31,402 people committed suicide in Japan last year, 915 more than in 2001. It was the fourth consecutive year that deaths by suicide had topped the 30,000 barrier and has prompted calls that the Japanese government isn't doing enough to help its people. Men in their 40s or 50s account for about 40 percent of all Japan's suicides, with health and financial problems the main reasons why Japanese are taking their own lives.
Yet another interesting aspect of Japan's suicide rate is revealed by its skyrocketing since 1998.
"That year the unemployment rate also rose rapidly and people were suddenly getting laid off in large numbers. Suicides became prevalent particularly in 40-something or 50-something guys. Life insurance companies were thrown into a panic. The amount of life insurance payouts the companies had to pay in 1998 threw the entire industry into a crisis. The companies responded by doubling the waiting period before they'd make payouts on suicides. That stemmed the flow of people taking their own lives a little bit," Yamada tells Sunday Mainichi.
Industry figures agree with the claim.
"Usually, payouts aren't made in cases where the cause of death is clearly suicide. And it is true that the decision that companies made in 1999 to extend periods before payouts are made was based on the rising suicide rate," a spokesman for the Life Insurance Association of Japan says.
Indeed, life insurance payouts seem to be a vital factor in Japan's suicide rate. So much so, it seems, that they can almost be rated along with depression as one the major reasons people take their lives.
"Guys in their 40s or 50s, the one's who're most likely to commit suicide, have got kids and home loans, yet when they lose their jobs they have no idea how they're going to cope. All they can think about is how much harder things are going to get each year when it comes to paying their mortgage or for education," psychiatry professor Yamada tells Sunday Mainichi. "Eventually, they come to believe that the only way they can fulfill the responsibilities they have toward their family is to commit suicide and ensure those relatives who remain are set up financially for life."
The EFF is one of the few organizations fighting on the issues of copyright and privacy in the US courts. They need our support more than ever. I just sent my contribution. If you care about the Net shouldn't you?
Had lunch with Justin and Jane. I met Jane for the first time and it was cool to be able to start talking about stuff right away since I read her blogs and she reads my blog. We were "synched" and ready to go. She was very cool and just like I imagined.
And Justin... I was once called ubiquitous by someone and I remember looking it up in the dictionary. Justin is ubiquitous. Not only does everyone know Justin, everyone has just recently seen him. Another ubiquitous person I know is Gohsuke Takama. I used to see him at every rave, walking in front of my car in Berkeley, under the table of an art exhibit I was judging for the Interactive Media Festival as "techno-shaman Gohsuke". Phil Zimmerman has signed Gohsuke's PGP key and he is always everywhere at once. Both Gohsuke and Justin are globally ubiquitous.
The other day, Barak told me I was like Forest Gump. (I didn't like this comparison of course.) I'm always around when big things happen, but not necessarily at the center. I was Pierre Omidyar's classmate in college. We were setting up Yahoo's server in Japan before Softbank invested in Yahoo. I was with Timothy Leary the night before he died... the list goes on. Being ubiquitous is very different from being a power broker or the center of things that happen. I think some people are nodes. Some people are hubs. Howard, for instance is a big node. Howard connects to a lot of things, but also does a lot of sitting and thinking. I may have been semi-ubiquitous, but I'm more and more a hub linking nodes I think...
Anyway, I was busy today, wanted to post at least one thing and all I could manage was this stupid comparison between human beings and computer networks. Sorry!
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