This week on Outriders a longer discussion as Clay Shirky chats about his new book Cognitive Surplus and how he switched from theater and the arts to new media observation.

The time that we may use to passively watch television or take in traditional media could be changing as audiences become active and productive consumers, not content to sit and watch when they can create something for themselves and their friends. A tricky dilemma while traditional media formats flounder or panic about new media models, but are we all prepared to play nice with the new arenas available to us?

An absolutely great interview with Clay Shirky. You can download the podcast recording.

BTW I haven't read Cognitive Surplus yet, but in the meantime Peter Kim has posted a review on the Dachis Group blog. My 1998 review of Shirky's earlier book, Here Comes Everybody, is on my old blog.

Wired magazine's Steven Levy says the 'Hackers' of the late 20th century set the philosophical base for the digital information age of today -- and he says their mind-set will shape our future.

I remember reading an electronic copy of Steven Levy's Hackers book downloaded to a PDA (I'm pretty sure, if I recall correctly, I had a Psion Series 5 at the time) during my daily commute across Sydney harbour back in the later part of the 1990s. I remember it feeling quite subversive just to be reading an electronic text, while everyone else had their heads stuck in a newspaper! Of course, the beauty of this book is that it challenges the common view of what hacking culture is all about - less about being illegal and more about being collaborative, through open technologies and an open and experimental culture.

In this radio interview with Levy, he comments:

There were so many people who read my book and told me it changed their lives, and this was then a fantastic experience. For me, to see so many people who have read my book saying it had an effect on them.

I'm not sure this book changed my life, but it certainly was very influential. It really must rank along with other books like Cluetrain (which Euan Semple reminded us about in his workshop at Headshift yesterday) and Being Digital as one of the classics of the digital era. BTW It appears that Hackers has recently been re-released as an updated 25th anniversary edition.

PS. What other *classics* of the digital era would you recommend? Feel free to add your suggestions to the comments.

When I picked up this book, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. Tim Brown and IDEO would both be well known to anyone interested in design and innovation, but along with this fantastic reputation I also get a sense of exclusiveness - so, my initial thought was to wonder if Brown would actually reveal any of the secrets behind design thinking and his work at IDEO.

To answer that question now, the answer is both yes and no. You shouldn’t expect to pick up Change By Design and find a manual that will give you a short cut to design thinking. Instead, what you will find is two things - an introduction to the patterns of design thinking (part one - "What is design thinking") and stories of how design thinking can be applied to business and society (part two - "Where do we go from here?").

The narrative of the first part of the book really does a good job of capturing the essential differences between classical management thinking and design thinking. Just to pick out a few of the topics covered, they include:

• How designers collaborate.
• The processes of analysis and synthesis.
• The use of observation and empathy.
• Using visual thinking and story telling.
• Risk taking through experimentation and prototyping.

Overall I found this first part of the book the most interesting and as Brown promises, this does provide a framework for design thinking. I think the first part of the book probably caught my attention more than the second part because I came to it already convinced of the value of design thinking - I didn’t really need further evidence or help to understand where it could be applied. However, if you are new to design thinking or need further convincing about its application to real business or social issues, then the second part will be very worth while.

The final pages of the last chapter also provide some useful pointers for everyone to remember:

• Don’t ask what? Ask why?
• Open your eyes.
• Make it visual.
• Build on the ideas of other.
• Demand options.

I also enjoyed the reference to Victorian engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel that Brown uses to both open and close the book. I have often thought there was something different about the engineers of that era and perhaps Brown is right - people like Brunel and innovators that followed him were in fact design thinkers of sorts:

What they all shared was optimism, openness to experimentation, a love of stroytelling, a need to collaborate, and an instinct to think with their hands - to build, to prototype, and to communicate complex ideas with masterful simplicity. They did not just do design, they lived design.

If I had one major criticism of this book, then it would be the book itself rather than the ideas it contains. We are teased by a fantastic mind map on inside cover, which provides a visual table of contents. But the rest of the book contains just a few incidental sketched diagrams (and they all look like elements from a MBA’s play book, not a design thinker). Unfortunately I think Brown missed a fantastic opportunity to both engage his readers more effectively but also to show case different techniques for sharing stories and patterns.

Despite a missed opportunity with the actual design of the book itself, Change By Design is still a very good read - you will probably get more value from it if you are new to design thinking since as a package the book really provides a great introduction to the topic and examples of how to apply it. But just remember that design thinking is both a process and also an attitude, so don’t expect a step by step manual.

BTW While you are waiting to get hold of a copy of Change By Design, you can read his HBR article on design thinking or watch this TED talk.

This collection of essays, put together by Bill Bryson as editor, to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), really is something to savour.

I must admit that while I already had a positive regard for the RSA, it was the presence of Georgina Ferry in the list of contributors that first caught my attention (she wrote one my of favourite non-fiction books, A Computer Called LEO).

But as it turned out, it was Henry Petroski's essay, Images of Progress: Conference of Engineers, that I turned to first. A chapter inspired some what by this painting. And really, from this point I explored the chapters in a random and leisurely fashion.

The twenty-one essays in this book covers science from all angles - the science itself, its relevance to issues we currently face and how scientists themselves are situation in society. If you are like me, you will warm to some chapters immediately but others take a little time to appreciate. I suggest you take you time!

I also suspect that some of the more historical or philosophical based essays will age well, and others - addressing current issues from a contemporary scientific view - will in a decade or so perhaps be less relevant. However, as you read this book you become aware that this very much reflects the nature of the RSA. They a collection of explorers, build on a solid foundation of credibility but they do not have perfect foresight (as Simon Schaffer's and Richard Holmes' chapters demonstrate), they are simply always moving forward.

Overall, I found this book very encouraging is the broadest sense. Bill Bryson writes in his introduction:

"The Royal Society has been doing interesting and heroic things since 1660 when it was founded, one damp weeknight in late November, by a dozen men who had gathered in rooms at Gresham College to hear Christopher Wren, 28 years old and not yet generally famous, give a lecture on astronomy."

I immediately thought of my present day peers, coming together at different BarCamps and similar unconferences to exchange ideas. Perhaps these modern day collaborations have more potential than we imagine? We shouldn’t forget that by modern day standards, many of the RSA's early history is full of experiments and ideas that sound completely absurd too!

The physical (hardcover) book itself and its visual design has also been put together with great thought. Just the right number of images and photos have been used in each chapter, so that they embellish the experience of reading rather than overwhelming it.

Incidentally, the RSA continues to be a thoroughly progressive and modern global organisation - for example, check out their YouTube. They also have Fellowship chapters around the world, including here in Australia.

Hopefully I won't be accused of being a troll, because I'm not hiding behind anonymity here on this blog. However, I can't find any way to sugar coat this: I found this book both disappointing and frustrating.

Disappointing because my expectations had been built up by the promotion surrounding the author and this book. Frustrating because the critical thinking I was expecting lacked clarity and depth.

This doesn't mean there aren't some interesting ideas in the book. Certainly, we should explore issues such as how the Internet affects our ability to be creative (and earn a living from being creative), and how it changes how we think and behave. But I'm simply not convinced by the author's arguments (or rather, the way they are articulated in this book). Also, while the main thrust of Lanier's manifesto is focused on the impact of information technology on dumbing down and control of how we create and exchange meaning, I think he fails to address another important aspect of people and culture, being relationships.

If anything I formed the impression that far from being unhappy with the digital world, the author is simply disappointed with the industrial revolution that is taking place online. He says on many occasions that he isn't anti-Web - in fact his concluding argument attempts to demonstrate that point - but his nostalgia for the past is obvious. His problem then is perhaps that the Web has suddenly been invaded by the Proles*. And perhaps that is the core of the warning in this book that you will need to answer for yourself - has 1984 come to pass or is this just another conspiracy novel?

BTW Compared to the book, Lanier's essay on Digital Maoism is worth reading.

*Yes, the irony of linking to Wikipedia is noted :-)

I'm a big fan of the Charles Handy's 1991 classic, the Age of Unreason and the concept of the Shamrock Organisation that he describes in it. However, I wasn't quite sure what to expect with The Elephant and the Flea. The style is very autobiographical, which some people might see as being quite self-indulgent by the author since the book isn't sold as a biography. However, really it is like sitting down and having a one-on-one interview with Handy where he explains his own story and how his professional and personal life experiences have come to shape his management ideas and theories, as well as his concerns for the future. But there is no hype or guru worshipping here. Handy isn't perfect, but his honesty about his own mistakes along the way and awareness of his own limitations is refreshing.

Despite being published in 2001 and the fact Handy is a little bit of a technology laggard (but not a luddite), I was surprised at how relevant the conversation still is to a world undergoing the influence of the Internet revolution. Handy doesn't predict the rise social media and social networking as we have now experienced it, but the underlying issues of the social and organisational changes taking place that are characterised by the concept of the Elephant and the Flea are part of that trend. However, Handy isn't going to do that thinking for you. Read his story and then make some time to go away and think about it. One of the key challenges I see now is that while social software makes us all 'Fleas', even if we work inside an 'Elephant', do we all want to be 'Fleas' and do we need the 'Elephant'?

There are many more ideas and issues to explore, if you give this book a chance. However, I also have to say that this probably shouldn't be the first Charles Handy book you should read. If you have enjoyed his other work and would like more insight into the mind of this great thinker and teacher, then it makes a pleasurable and satisfying read. It is almost as good as meeting him in person.

This book is an expanded version of a four part BBC Radio 4 series of the same name:

which tells the stories of some of the computer pioneers in Britain, America and the Ukraine. Each is a little cameo of social history of the early post war years half a century ago, from a time when "everything you did was new, no-one had ever done it before".

The radio series only covers some aspect of the early history of computing in the US, UK and what was post-war communist Ukraine. It also includes an episode on an unusual economic simulator that water rather than electronics . However, the book expands on this and manages to also include a chapter about the first digital computer in Australia. This coverage of the history of computing from around the world is probably the most interesting thing about this book, as it gives you an interesting perspective on the process of technology innovation.

I must admit the story from the Ukraine ("So Then we Took The Roof Off") failed to grab me, but maybe I should go and listen to the original radio version as I suspect some of the impact of that story might have been lost in translation to the written word. However, the key message of that story was that the invention of the computer wasn't something based on a sudden flash of inspiration - instead, it was the natural evolution of technology that created the potential for it to happen. In other words someone, somewhere was going to invent the computer at that point in human history.

Of course the commercialisation and mass popularisation of that technology is another story all together, which is touched on in the final chapter with the story of IBM ("It's Not About Being First").

Overall, I enjoyed this book but was also a little disappointed because there is only so much you can fit into a single chapter about each of the periods covered. Perhaps I would have enjoyed it more if I had listened to the radio show first, as the book claims to also expand further on the stories in those original broadcast rather than simply being a transcript. On the plus side, it was good to learn something new about the history of computing in places outside of the US and UK.

If you like the idea of this book, I also suggest you have a look at A Computer called LEO (the story of Britain's first business computer - reviewed over on my old blog) and also The Electric Universe (which places computing in the context of the history of electricity).

Free wasn’t what I expected. Its not a manifesto for simply giving everything away. Instead its a broad discussion of the economics of free and the disruptive business models that the Internet has created. As part of this, the book also looks the motivation for people to participate without compensation and behavioural economics, including the inherent conflict this creates for organisations that deal in content and intellectual property (like the media, gaming and music industries).

Free is written by Chris Anderson, editor at Wired Magazine and the author of The Long Tail. Fundamentally, if you accept his arguments, Free comes down to set of business model that depending on your viewpoint either take advantage of the Internet or force you to change how you market your products and services because of it. These are:

1. Direct Cross-subsidies
2. Three-party markets
3. Freemium

On the Internet, the first two models are really an extension of traditional marketing techniques - e.g. advertising on television and radio. However, the popular Freemium model is really one that has come of age in the digital Internet era. The Freemium model is particularly evident in the software industry and can be seen as a distinct variation of the direct cross-subsidy model - instead of a cross-subsidy across products purchased by a customer, a minority of premium customers pay for the majority of free customers. This is not as unfair as it sounds, since the overall scale of the user base actually benefits those premium customers but ensuring a better, well supported and scalable product.

A fourth market is non monetary markets. In a way this is a challenger to all of the above business models, if critical mass is achieved. Wikipedia is the classic example, but Anderson also includes file sharers under this banner. Unfortunately non monetary markets reflect the nature of the beast - Anderson says he doesn’t condone copyright infringement, but that in effect it would appear a non monetary digital market trumps any other kind of digital market. This is very much in the vein of Negroponte’s classic, Being Digital.

The only defence against non monetary markets appears to be related to identifying needs that the market can’t serve, such as convenience. For example, in Anderson’s view paying a small fee for a music track from a site like iTunes is much easier for the vast majority of adult users, who lack both the time and patience to deal with P2P. Alternatively, companies are faced with the choice of adopting this market as part of their business model. For example, make your profit on live events but tap into non monetary markets as a low or no cost way to promote your brand.

In this respect Anderson acknowledges that there is a fundamental different between selling things that are made atoms versus bits in the digital world. This is positioned essentially as the difference between the scarcity of the physical world and the abundance capacity of the digital environment. To be successful we need to reconcile both and the challenge is that we are a point of transition, trying to work what will be free online, what people will pay for online and how to draw a line between that and the physical world where traditional rules still apply.

Personally I thought this was a great book - the ideas above have certainly got me thinking about not only the bigger picture of the impact the Internet is having, but even my business model as a consultant (I’m actually already a participant in the free-based economy). However, I think there are still lots of unanswered questions:

• How will we manage this transition so that society isn’t too badly affected in the process?
• Applying the concept of the Long Tail (Anderson’s earlier book), how will people on the tail make a living or will this just create a new kind of digital economic divide?

These aren’t arguments against change, just a statement of the issues and challenges ahead of us.

Also, on the theme of abundance versus scarcity, I would also like to see someone write about the idea of applying the digital abundance idea inside organisations in relation to Enterprise 2.0 (a kind of “Free Enterprise 2.0” - maybe I’ll talk about this in another post one day).

As part of his own promotion of the book, Anderson did release the whole book online so it could be read gratis. Unfortunately that promotional period has expired so you can’t access the free text version of Free on Scribd anymore, but a free audiobook is still available for download.