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Socially, work-wise and in the macro-economic sphere the late 20th century
computing paradigm and even the internet made less sense to us users than
it did to investors and geeks. Web 2.0 is re-empowering people and how it
plays out is less of a technical issue than it is an issue of how
enterprises deal with people who are rediscovering creativity.
@Haydn: Wow... what you said: an issue of how enterprises deal with people
who are rediscovering creativity.
It makes so much sense! Thanks for this. I really believe you have a point.
Hi Dion,
Some articles I have written on this subject: The
Singularity: Purpose and Transition, Can the Internet
Think?, The Open Source
Singularity and Disorganized Incremental Software
Development.
Dion - Thanks again for inspiring my thinking. My follow-up went way, way
beyond Web 2.0. Suffice it to say that I don't think our vocabulary today
(SOA, SaaS, AJAX, etc.) is even sufficient (or appropriate) for talking
about Internet singularity. I think this parallels other hard sciences
where you must leave conventional thinking (mechanics, physics, etc.) aside
to really make extraordinary leaps in progress (e.g. quantuum physics).
I think these shifts in web 2.0 and beyond reflect a cultural consciousness
that has been afoot at least since the mid-nineteenth century in thinkers
like Kirkegaard. While Enlightened thinking introduced a modern world of
individualism and advances in science, it also cut humans off from a sense
of connectedness to each other and the world found among pre-Enlightenment
people (who were often repressed on multiple levels). Thinkers like
Kirkegaard and many writers after the Great War (WWI), bemoan the sense of
human isolation and absudity of our disconnectedness. Some writer foresaw a
new trend to community or other forms of reconnecting. Writers like Eugen
Rosenstock Huessy suggested as early as the 1940s that a new tribalism was
coming. I believe this trend to reconnecting and finding new way to connect
to one another and our world drives (consciously or unconsciously) much of
the development we've seen since the beginning of the Internet. I expect it
to continue and I agree that it will most likely manifest ways that bring
together a hybrid of online and offline connecting and relating.
Social computing seem inversely proportional to actually socializing. You
know, in real life. If only it were a positive relationship.
There can be no Web 2.0 Singularity in the enterprise until organizations
tap into the social networking power of their customers and employees. The
central ideas of Web 2.0 are that organizations 1) expose their APIs and
metadata to generate external innovation and interest, 2) tap into the
attention/intention economy of their audience (inside and outside), 3)
apply that feedback to evolve better products. Unfortunately, traditional
companies are terrified of exposing themselves to their customers (and
competitors) and are awful at acknowledging the value of ideas from within
and without.
Hi Dion,
Web 2.0 is an open to all platform, as such – it must hold all information
with no restrains. That is the beauty of this platform and yes, it does
imply that you will find a lot of irrelevant information (The web 2.0
antagonists claim that "we get too much crap"). But, this is exactly why
contribution is necessary. If you meet unimportant information – you should
"bury" it, or rank it low. This contribution will serve to sort the
information by its relevancy and true value. I see contribution as means
not only for adding more information but as a key to help others navigate
in the endless information offered. With others actively responding you can
decide what is best to read and what is worth your attention.
Improving the contribution behavior is a necessary key to web 2.0 success
but unfortunately it hasn't yet received the attention it deserves. We can
easily recognize that not a lot do contribute to this collective
intelligence as the ratio data (views per voters or per rankers, viewers
per comments; viewers per members) found at web 2.0 reach about 3-5% at
most. for more of these insights based on my academic experience see
www.trendsspotting.com/blog/?p=1 and www.trendsspotting.com/blog/?p=4
I know some will laugh, but the future is Second Life (or a competitor).
