chieftech’s 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.

I had the honour of presenting this Vital Issues Seminar today for the Parliamentary Library, at Australia's Parliament House. In between interruptions by the bells, Sen. Kate Lundy chaired the meeting and even managed to throw me some curly questions to deal with.

Also demonstrating that the Parliamentary Library is walking the Gov 2.0 talk, you will find a copy of my slides and also a sound recording* of my presentation on the Parliament's Website. This I should add is not only a great resource for people working in parliament, but also those that wouldn't necessarily normally have access to these sessions either.

*BTW that noise at the beginning is the bells ringing through the PA system.

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 look at kids who complain about having only a 4 Mps Internet access or about having an 8 rather than 32 Gb iPhones, who can do their home assignments by effortlessly accessing information from the Internet without even processing it, who measure their coolness not by what they know but by how many Facebook friends or Twitter followers they have.

I wonder how this generation will be able to cope with the extraordinary problems of scarcity of resources (oil, water, food) that we are going to leave to them as our legacy. And I feel that only blending our ability to master scarce resources and find individual solutions with their ability to socialize and crowdsource will move us all forward. But what I do not see is how that balance is being determined, developed or enforced from when they are in school to when they join the workforce and beyond.

Very much in the vein of the Digital Nation documentary, Andrea DiMaio's reflective post on his fears for the generation of digital natives ultimately points to a broader theme of the conflict between scarcity and abundance thinking.

Personally, I'm slightly more optimistic about the situation. But equally as much as the digital generation needs to learn about dealing with scarcity in the physical world, I think that the generation of digital immigrants (and perhaps the digital laggards) that DiMaio describes also need to take some time to reflect deeply on the power of digital abundance and how that abundance can be brought to bare on issues of scarcity.

Digital Nation is a US PBS produced documentary by Rachel Dretzin and Douglas Rushkoff, which examines the digital culture we how inhabit. There is a lot of focus on the impact of digital technology on how we learn and think, particularly the impact on the current generation of children and also virtual reality.

Rushkoff you might recall presented at the Headshift/Dachis Group's Social Business Summit. He was also recently interviewed on one of my favourite podcasts, Australia's ABC Radio National's Future Tense. Both the podcast and the documentary are both well worth a look.

Hat tip to Radio National and a big thanks to PBS for allowing non-US residents to watch it online.

If we're building a public stage, we need to give people the ability to protect themselves, the ability to face the consequences honestly. We cannot hide behind rhetoric of how everyone is public just because everyone we know in our privileged circles is walking confidently into the public sphere and assuming no risk. And we can't justify our decisions as being simply about changing norms when the economic incentives are all around. I'm with Marshall on this one: Facebook's decision in an economic one, not a social norms one. And that scares the bejesus out of me.

People care deeply about privacy, especially those who are most at risk of the consequences of losing it. Let us not forget about them. It kills me when the bottom line justifies social oppression. Is that really what the social media industry is about?

Danah Boyd makes an important point about the relationship between privacy and privilege - its fills a nagging doubt I have had about social networks and privacy. I always think about the story of the 16 year old, who was sacked for complaining about being bored at work. Her comments might well have been wrong, but her treatment is a stark contrast to people in other public positions who have been caught out doing things that are far worse or when dubious aspects of the private life have come to light. The social Web isn't always as egalitarian as we might think.

BTW Its a real shame we can't get more intelligent commentary from the traditional media, but instead they prefer to be fuel FUD about this topic.

UPDATE: Another interesting post around this topic is from Stowe Boyd, who talks about Secrecy, Privacy and Publicy.

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.

Responsibility for this situation is apportioned widely -- from users who lack basic ICT skills, to IT staff who can't or won't connect with the people they serve, to a tech industry which iSociety says is over-hyping its products and failing to deliver on its promises.

But the report gives particular mention to the "lost generation of low-tech managers" who don't understand what technology is about, and therefore fail to make the right strategic decisions.

"Much of UK management make up a 'lost generation' that does not understand ICT, because it did not grow up immersed in technology," the organisation said in a statement. "Technologists, who do have this knowledge, tend to be sidelined in key decision making and are disconnected from the management mainstream. In effect, low-tech managers are forcing the UK economy into a low-tech equilibrium."

The quote above is from a news story about a 2003 report that was in part the inspiration behind my consulting philosophy. The report, Getting by, not getting on: Technology in UK workplaces, was an output of the UK's Work Foundation's iSociety project but unfortunately it appears to have disappeared from the Web.

The reason I'm mentioning it again now is that I'm reflecting on the comments to my post, Enterprise 2.0: Show me the money (a spreadsheet might help).

Everything this report talks about is still true: Yes, the vendors are over-hyping Enterprise 2.0 and some of the geeks have trouble explaining it. But fundamentally, if you don't want to even try to understand the impact of this technology trend then you too are part of the problem of getting by, not getting on.

Meanwhile there are plenty of organisations that are trying to get on. I've even worked for some of them. And Headshift has its own list of clients as well.

BTW Coincidentally, Lee Bryant from Headshift blogged about this very same report back in 2003 too. :-)

SIMON: We, as you know, have tried to work the use of social media into our program. We do get some resentment from people who, some people, not everybody has access to the internet or think that they have no interest in social media sites.

Mr. SHIRKY: The conversation around the digital divide, this gap between who can participate and who can't, has shifted. In the '90s, it was mainly about access to hardware and network connections. Right? Not everybody has a computer. But as computers have gotten cheaper and spread, as they started showing up in specific places like libraries, and as phones increasingly have, even just through SMS, these kind of functions, the conversation's really shifted from the question of access to a hardware to the sense of permission and to the sense of interest. And that's a much squishier, more social question.

So part of the digital divide question, the new digital divide question is, how do we go to people who don't sense they have permission to speak in public and offer them that permission? And then the other, as you say, is the interest. If there are people who are just uninterested in this stuff, how can you make an experience that's still satisfying for them as, you know, traditional consumers of media, without making them feel bad for not being the people posting the Flickr pictures of potholes or, you know, adding a comment to an NPR story?

This is from an interview of US National Public Radio with Clay Shirky. The Digital Divide issue is often seen in simple terms - those that can access and those that can't. However, I think Clay is right that the issue has shifted. While not discussed in this interview, another point is the gap between those that do want to engage online but in a particular domain are not given the chance (such as local government consultations that are only conducted face-to-face).