–+ ROAM DIGITAL +–

The below is from The Cluetrain Manifesto … We are so far behind…

The connectedness of the Web is transforming what’s inside and outside your business — your market and your employees.

Through the Internet, the people in your markets are discovering and inventing new ways to converse. They’re talking about your business. They’re telling one another the truth, in very human voices.

Intranets are enabling your best people to hyperlink themselves together, outside the org chart. They’re incredibly productive and innovative. They’re telling one another the truth, in very human voices.

You have two choices. You can continue to lock yourself behind facile corporate words and happytalk brochures. Or you can join the conversation.

Found this post … Must explore network journalism further …

From http://www.newassignment.net/blog/david_cohn/sep2007/06/network_journali

These definitions are in large part inspired and playing off of Steve Outing’s Poynter post 11 Layers of Citizen Journalism.

Citizen Journalism: An umbrella term, without a doubt, citizen journalism is when a person who does not make their living as a journalist engages in an act of journalism. Simple enough right? Again, this is a broad definition, which means citizen journalism encompasses all the other acts of journalism that will be described below. But not all acts of citizen journalism are necessarily “network journalism” or “open source journalism.” These are unique types of citizen journalism. Another way to think of it: Citizen Journalism is the class and “network journalism” is a species. SAT Question: Mammal is to Human as Citizen Journalism is to Open Source Journalism.

(More After the Break)

“Stand-alone journalism”: Stand-alone journalism is one notch above citizen journalism because the individual isn’t reporting out of happenstance. Instead, the reporter, who might not be a “professional” has every intention of going out to report on a topic. It was a conscious choice to go out and investigate a topic, but the endeavor is done by a lone reporter. This term was coined by Chris Nolan at Spot-on, so really, I am not the one to define it — and I hope I’m doing justice to Albritton’s original conception. Either way, this is how I see “stand-alone journalism.”

“Participatory journalism”(Pro-Am Journalism): This is the most basic form of citizen journalism that news organizations engage in. It occurs through basic comments on an article — when those comments add extra information, examples, or new views that the original writer left out or didn’t know about. These comments can be an incredible source of value to a story and are very easy to invoke (just ask). It is what Jay Rosen used to help research his recent LA Times editorial: Rosen explained to the DailyKos community that he was looking for examples where blogging was used to do journalism and the community gave over 250 comments that we then combed through. It was participatory — all you had to do was comment. Because
it’s easy to invoke and easy for others to participate (commenting takes minutes) it happens all the time, it is just a part of the greater blogosphere culture.

This is also the basis of “Pro-Am Journalism” when professional and armature reporters work together. Pro-Am journalism continues into network and open source journalism, but this is where that relationship begins and I suspect it is where Pro-Am relationships are most common right now — regular commenters become trusted sources on topics that they are experts in.

“Network journalism”: Using “distributed reporting” (below) “network journalism” is when groups of people come together through the Internet to work on a single story. Like stand-alone journalism it is a conscious decision, but the work is not done by a lone reporter. Instead, it requires a group of people. Network journalism rests its fate on two principles: First — the “wisdom of the crowd,” the notion that a large network of people will have a collective intelligence that is greater than any single reporter. The second is “crowdsourcing” (crowdsourced journalism is below), in this case — crowdsourcing is the idea that a group of people will be able to tackle a large investigation in a more efficient manner than a single reporter. A recent example of network journalism that I was a part of was NewAssignment.Net’s OffTheBus project, where we gathered a group of 30-40 people to cover the CNN/YouTube Debates (The previous link describes that example of network journalism — and here is some media commentary on that just for fun).

Right now I don’t think “network journalism” has reached its full potential, but I am hopeful and ambitious.

“Open source journalism”: Okay, now we are getting into complicated territory, because open source is itself an umbrella term outside of journalism that is often misunderstood. First, open source journalism presupposes a network of people — multiple points (sources) of information. Like network journalism, open source projects are collaborative by nature. But open source journalism adds two more nuances to network journalism. Either (a: the re-release of stories or (b: sharing information among competitors (the second has amazing potential, but I don’t expect it to happen anytime soon).

Bruce Sterling’s comments and responses are relatively interesting…

Also check out his keynote at http://www.transmediale.de/en/keynote-bruce-sterling-us-atemporality

Repost: http://www.cis-india.org/research/dn/dnrep

The Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore and Hivos have assessed the state of knowledge on the potential impact of youth for social transformation and political engagement in the South. This report ‘Digital Natives with a Cause?’ charts the scholarship and practice of youth and technology and informs further research and intervention within diverse contexts and cultures.

The report displays that digital natives have a potential impact as agents of change. It concludes that multidisciplinary theoretical approaches venturing beyond the cause-and-effect model and providing the necessary vocabulary and sensitivity are crucial to understanding Digital Natives. The lament that youths are apolitical is a result of insufficient attention to activities that do not conform to existing notions of political and civil society formation. Digital Natives are sensitive and thoughtful. It is time to listen to them and their ideas, and to focus on their development as responsible and active citizens rather than on their digital exploits or technologised interests.

The report specifically focuses on youth as e-agents of change within emerging information societies to explore questions of technology mediated identities, embedded conditions of social transformation and political participation, as well as potentials for sustained livelihood and education. It identifies the knowledge gaps and networks and further areas of intervention in the field of Digital Natives.

As a first step in working towards enabling Digital Natives for social transformation and political engagement, Hivos and CIS will organize a Multistakeholder Conference Fall 2010.

Digital Natives with a Cause? – Report Summary    Download Pdf document  Here

Digital Natives with a Cause? – Report                    Download Pdf document Here

About Apple’s iPad via here and via iWorry …

“iWorry” is my foray into the iPad discussion, focusing less on the product and more on its support infrastructure:

But the iPad isn’t a phone; it is a general purpose computer. It does email and Web and documents and presentations and games and all of the other kinds of things we do with our “regular” computers. Yet it will suffer under the same restrictions as the iPhone–prohibition of any application that Apple doesn’t like, for whatever reason. Sometimes that means the application uses undocumented features, but startlingly often it just means “duplication of features”–the application does something that Apple’s own software does, but does it differently. (This raises the uncomfortable question as to whether the Kindle app for the iPhone–which works quite nicely, actually–will run on the iPad.)

As futurist Jamais Cascio told io9:

This is Apple’s big push of its top-down control over applications into the general-purpose computing world. The only applications that will work with the iPad are those approved by Apple, under very opaque conditions. On a phone, that’s borderline acceptable, but it’s not for something that is positioned to overlap with regular computers.

The iPad has all the problems of television, with none of the benefits of computers.

Karen doesn’t need to tell Gen Y to shut up and shop … Where is Karen?

Read more at The Age – Get Y @ 30 … Here’s what their sample looks like:

It’d be interesting to read about India’s Gen Y or China’s Gen Y.

GML = Graffiti Markup Language from Evan Roth on Vimeo.

Original vimeo link also see the open database for GML

By Moska Najib  - BBC News, Delhi
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8426436.stm

This is music from Afghanistan, of a kind seldom heard before, but now produced by a trio of young men.

The band, Kabul Dreams, is made up of vocalist Sulaymon Qardash, bass player Siddique Ahmad and drummer Mujtaba Habibi, who claim to be the country’s first and only rock and roll group.

“One year ago in December we decided to create this band and since it was happening in Kabul, we thought Kabul Dreams is a good name,” says the 19-year-old vocalist, who bears a distinct resemblance to Liam Gallagher of the British band Oasis.

“It’s a real dream to play indie rock music in Afghanistan.”

Catching on fast

I caught up with the three-piece in Delhi, where they took part in the South Asian Bands Festival, which seeks to promote regional cultural ties.

Qardash – who likes indie fashion – grew up listening to Britpop bands like Radiohead and Travis.

With the political turmoil which gripped Afghanistan in the 1990s, all three members sought refuge in the neighbouring countries of Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Iran, where they were influenced by the Western music they heard.

“During the years of the Taliban, we were away and one positive thing for all of us was that we had an opportunity to learn music and have good facilities where we could practise,” says Ahmad, who lived in Pakistan for 10 years and played with bands producing new music.

While original Afghan music is closely associated with traditional instruments like the rubab and dombura, indie rock is still a new genre – but it is catching on fast among Afghan youth.

Exposure

“Lots of young people are listening to rock music,” says Ahmad.

“Because we don’t have any rock music, they listen to international bands and music from neighbouring countries like India and Pakistan.

“We thought it was about time for Afghanistan to have its own rock band.”

The group mixes Afghan rhythmic patterns with rock and roll music.

And what’s more unusual, they sing in English.

“Since the three of us come from three different parts of Afghanistan and speak in three different languages – Pashto, Dari and Uzbek – we thought it would be a good idea to sing in English,” says Ahmad.

Habibi, on drums, feels they will also get more international exposure with a language that is spoken widely.

But first things first: the band has yet to release an album.

So far the trio have only performed for a niche group of expats, non-governmental organisation workers and educated young Afghans familiar with the new genre.

But the continuing security threats in the country have placed restrictions on public gatherings and their performances.

And in the absence of an organised music industry, new bands like Kabul Dreams face difficulties in financing and producing their music.

“Other bands around the world have lots of opportunities and facilities, but we have to do everything ourselves,” says Ahmad.

“We have a video shoot, we have to take care of everything. There is no production house that we could go to.”

Provocative

The 27-year-old studies during the day and works with Habibi in a recording studio.

Qardash is a presenter with a private TV and radio station. Much of their salaries is invested in Kabul Dreams.

Despite the challenges, the trio want to bring a musical revolution to the Islamic country, where playing rock music is considered too Western and provocative.

“Playing rock music is a risk but we want to play in Afghanistan,” says Qardash, as he tunes his guitar.

“We love our country and we want to change our young generation, we want to make something new.”

Ahmad points out that Kabul Dreams is truly multi-ethnic, consisting as it does of an Uzbek, Pashtun and Tajik.

“The reason we formed this band was to give a message to the Afghan youth, a message that they can live together,” he says.

“Because Afghanistan has always been a country with different ethnic groups, different people who speak in different languages and even have different cultures, our message is that it is possible to be together because we have examples all over the world.”

Ahmad feels the younger generation of Afghans has learned from the mistakes of war and is now indifferent to the issue of ethnicity.

“One Afghan,” he reiterates. “That’s it.”

At this moment, 61,199 members have joined the group – http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=219739857206&ref=mf

This group was formed to condemn the behaviour of a lone numbskull who has just dragged Nigeria’s already sodden image more into the mud. Folks, this is not a group to speak about religion…we are talking about someone who is either mad, or a moron….and has put a BIG QUESTION MARK on d sanity or sincerity of purpose of 150 million pple who are already sick of other name-callings. Period!

The lyrics of popular FELA ANIKULAPO KUTI hit: Sorrow Tears and Blood aptly sums up the real Nigerian’s Attitude to life:
”i no want die
i no want quench
mama dey for house
papa dey for house
i want enjoy….’

This song, done in Nigerian pidgin english sums up thus: Our people (regardless of religion, geography or culture) DO NOT WANT TO DIE, THEY WANT TO ENJOY.Even our petty miscreants run away from the crime scene and prefer to enjoy their loot in (at least) hideaways.

For 50 long years of independence, this action has been unheard of, unseen in Nigeria or even outside Nigeria by a TYPICAL NIGERIAN even if he/she was brought up outside its shores.

That VALUE FOR LIFE IS OUR TRADEMARK. Every parent instils it in their wards as can be seen by the REPORT MADE BY HIS VERY RESONSIBLE FATHER to the US Consulate in Nigeria.

This is not about a north, south,east or west thing. This is not about religion. It is about a long held traditional attribute of Nigerians: perseverance and love of life, broken by this unfortunate incident. We are chagrined by such misbehaviour DURING a long-sought RE-BRANDING PROCESS.

We therefore use this medium to let the world know: the REAL NIGERIAN LOVES LIFE!

I keep forgetting their names – Victor Turner and Clifford Geertz … In 1993, I was planning to become an casual athropologist…

I remember the stuff on ritual was closely connected with festivals – often when there was a temporary inversion of social structure/order… The poor dressed up as the rich in big parades funded by the rich. One of the ideas was that by allowing this kind of expression by the poor, the establishment provided a moment for the poor to feel liberated, before they returned to their daily grind. Possibility for revolution was limited.

I also liked the idea of “betwixt and between”. As wikipedia notes:

they did not belong to the society that they previously were a part of and they were not yet reincorporated into that society. Liminality is a limbo, an ambiguous period characterized by humility, seclusion, tests, sexual ambiguity, and communitas.

For me, it was about the ‘edge’ – existing in that exciting space between two world, between the alternative and mainstream perhaps…