–+ 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.

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

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

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!

Watch out Does this mean more suicide bombers and machete wielding tall black men? Or a new generation equipped with a deep understanding of what it means to be on the outside and know how to win the hearts and minds of a scared minority and introduce the ideas and knowledge needed to re-shape how the world works…

“The great bulk of today’s 1.2 billion youth—nearly 90 percent—are in developing countries,” said Carl Haub, PRB senior demographer and co-author of the data sheet. Eight in 10 of those youth live in Africa and Asia. “During the next few decades, these young people will most likely continue the current trend of moving from rural areas to cities in search of education and training opportunities, gainful employment, and adequate health care.” One of the major social questions of the next few decades is whether their expectations will be met.

http://www.prb.org/Publications/Datasheets/2009/2009wpds.aspx

Google are doing some very interesting research in to visual recognition … So much for putting up weird codes on billboards.

Roberto Verganti’s DESIGN-DRIVEN INNOVATION

Changing the Rules of Competition by
Radically Innovating What Things Mean

How to create innovations that customers do not expect, but that they eventually love? How to create products and services, that are so distinct from those that dominate the market and so inevitable that make people passionate?

Design-Driven Innovation unveils how leaders such as Apple, Nintendo, Alessi, Whole Foods Market build an unbeatable and sustainable competitive advantage through innovations that do not come from the market but that create new markets. These leaders compete through products and services that have a radical new meaning: those that convey a completely new reason for customers to buy them. The cases, data and stories in the book show how to create this new vision and how to successfully propose it to customers. A strategy and a process that leverage the rich and multifaceted network of a firm outsiders, looking beyond customers to those “interpreters”– such as scientists, customers, suppliers, intermediaries, designers, artists – who deeply understand and shape the markets they work in.

Once upon a time, I thought that ‘anyone could an anything’… But I don’t think this now – not so much… Crowds  are useful to get a sense of trends. The world is curated and our stories are edited by a top down machine that, as written above, “convey a completely new reason for customers to buy them”.

But within that curated (=controlled) space, there still remains holes to intervene and glitch the system. A little hope…

Also see The Customer Isn’t a Human Being and the more comprehensive Marketing, Innovation and the Creation of Customers.

Originally from Research in focus: Social entrepreneurship – LabforCulture

This Research in focus is devoted to the essence and characteristics of social entrepreneurship as a new global phenomenon, the policy objectives behind social entrepreneurship programmes and their impact on long-term policy decisions, including in the cultural sector.

“The most powerful source in the world is the big idea, but only if it is in the hands of a good entrepreneur. This can move the world” – Bill Drayton

Is social entrepreneurship one of the possible responses to the growing uncertainty in the global economy? Is the benefit of social entrepreneurship embedded in its unique nature to operate in areas’ where both the market mechanisms and the government-based support structures for allocating resources and power have failed? Are social entrepreneurs ordinary or extraordinary people, inventors or enthusiasts? How could they pursue social goals, starting with limited resources and supported by the power of global networking and partnership? What models of social entrepreneurship could be applicable for the cultural sector to compensate for fewer resources and the ongoing financial instability?

1. Social entrepreneurship
2. Social entrepreneurship: between market and government failures
3. Characteristics of social entrepreneurship
4. Social entrepreneurship initiatives and the cultural sector
5. Interview with Eva Moe, Swedish Knowledge Foundation
6. Video interview with Bas Ruyssenaars, The Beach (Netherlands)
7. What is a social entrepreneur?
8. Leading social entrepreneurs
9. Research mapping

Download PDF version of the entire article

After scanning through Koert van Mensvoort’s Real Nature is not Green, I was a little confused. Maybe I should read it more carefully, but his point seemed relatively straightforward.

Culture is that which we control. Nature is all those things that have an autonomous quality and fall outside the scope of human power. In this new classification, greenhouse tomatoes belong to the cultural category, whereas computer viruses and the traffic-jams on our roads can be considered as natural phenomena.

I wonder what Koert thinks of the whole global warming thing. I thought that our culture influences nature. What falls outside the scope of human power? I am sure if nature is within the domain of human power, then it ain’t autonomous. Maybe the asteroids and comets fall outside of human power…

Is the grass real?

The above photograph depict’s Melbourne’s Federation Square’s Urban Garden. You can do drumming workshops on Wednesday afternoons. I don’t think the grass is real.