virtual xmas present & max' life's venture

It has become a tradition for me to share a mash-up of my "Best Brainfood of the Year" as my virtual present with my friends and peers. This year i selected books, videos, sites, and services waiting to be cognitively unwrapped right below the few paragraphs about what happened in my life in 2008:

My year was dominated by my experiences in the bay area (San Francisco):

Stanford's d.School
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During my post-doc in Stanford i learned in & about the d.school, which is the best educational institution i have ever seen. Why is it so great? Because it is an environment where creative thinkers coach transdisciplinary teams of learners to design adequate innovative solutions (to any kind of problem) - they teach design thinking - hence d.school is a mindset and a set of solution development practices - @ d.school knowledge is created and enacted rather than consumed and memorized.

Startup Experience @ Supecool School
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During my time in California i also met Steli Efti, the founder of SupercoolSchool. Steli became my best friend in the area and SupercoolSchool.com became "my first start-up". The idea is really really supercool: it's a webplatform that offers a marketplace for learning (it allows you to say i want to learn X and team up with others with the same interest). I am "only" an adviser to the company, but it really feels like my baby and it provided the opportunity to live the life of a silicon valley entrepreneur (meetings with venture capitalist, pitching, bootstrapping, networking, organization building...). If you are interested to learn more, I co-authored an article with John Seely Brown, and Howard Rheingold "Entrepreneurial learning in the networked age: How new learning environments foster entrepreneurship and innovation" where we discuss Supercool School. I also wrote several substantial pieces on our educational philosophy. It will be amazing to see our baby grow up! Please come and join our educational revolution!

Research @ Google
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After a great summer Europe VW-bus road-trip to a friends wedding in Greece I returned to California to do a research project investigating learning & leadership development practices @ Google. During the two months there i interviewed more than 20 Googlers and Nooglers (new googlers) and deliberated with veteran managers on Google as a Complex Adaptive System - I'd say my initiation into Google culture and practices has been versatile & profound and i am now ready to roll up my sleeves and apply the insights gained. In short, my experience there was supercool and I am looking forward to work with my Google peers in 2009.

Yosemite
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Oh and i climbed of course. Man, do they have great rock in Yosemite (some pics)! I spend almost every second weekend there and after adapting to the craziness of traditional climbing i slowly but surely did longer and longer climbs (up to about 1000m = 16 rope lengths = 16 hours) including my first big wall - where we slept on a little ledge at about 300m.

Internet Governance & Human Rights on the Internet & India
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In 2008 i accepted to coordinate the Dynamic Coalition on an Internet Bill of Rights. It is a true challenge: super complex discourse space, globally dispersed volunteer participants, etc. etc. nevertheless for me it's the perfect cause. To contribute actively to the humanization of Internet Governance and thereby help shape how we participate in Cyberspace & network societies is for me the most rational citizen/netizen engagement. And it is highly rewarding; I learn and become competent in pragmatic leadership, political alliance building, (online) collaboration and community building, plus it is great for networking and social capital building. Lastly it is a fascinating field for academic reflection (I co-authored two papers and participated for the first time in GigaNet's conference planning committee).

The yearly gathering - the UN lead Internet Governance Forum (IGF) - happened to be in India. The timing was tight, but i squeezed in one week of travels before the conference. The quest was clear: full immersion in indian culture, "instant expert" in indian philosophy and of course inner peace and happiness in an ashram crash-course ... impossible to convey what happened in this mail, but we can surely have a good conversation next time we meet. In short i fell in love with the country, i feel humble (with regards to the insights of modern western philosophy) and a deep respect for the human centeredness and idealistic foundation of indian philosophy/spirituality.

Social Media & Virtual Communities @ UOC
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In december Howard Rheingold and myself started to work with a team from UOC.edu to develop a Social Media & Virtual Communities Strategy and conduct 4 pilot projects to foment virtual community building and collaboration. So far the kick-off workshops went really good and i am looking forward to co-lead this knowledge entrepreneurship initiative meant to appropriate internet based innovations into a university (= my phd theme).

And here are my brainfood recommendation:

BOOKS
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Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis - a man who lives his life to the fullest, a man who acts, a man with a examplary life philosophy; a great book about the flow, the energy, the unplanability of life; a book of down to earth pragmatic philosophy of the heart not the lofty intellectual philosophy of the post-modern refelctive citizen. [This book is considered THE modern greek classic]

Goodbye Tristesse by Camille de Toledo - the first intellectual social-critique of substance i read who is my age (30). The book is fun to read, because he uses our language, because he sees the world through the eyes of someone who came of age between the 9th of November 1989 (when the Berlin wall came down) and 11th of September 2001. Sarcastic post-modern french intellectual.

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera superb Kundera style tales of life; Kundera has a unique skill to mash psycho-analysis with rich and engaging stories that hit the essence of what's "really going on" when people accept, revoke or shape their destiny.

When Nietzsche Wept by Irvin D. Yalom entertaining (fictional) contest and dialogue between Nietzsche's radical life-philosophy and (Breuer/Freud's) psycho-analysis; wrapped in a well designed storyboard situated in Freud's Vienna.


FABULOUS FLICKS (Movies)
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The City Of Lost Children (1995) if you liked Amelie and Delicatessen this one is right down your ally. Rather sur-realistic somehow darkish fairytale.

Into the Wild - i guess it comes as no suprise that this movie about a guy who leaves civilization to live in the wilderness of alska speaks to me, and i believe most of you will like it (at least as a thought experiment)

Tropa de Elite (2007) same atmosphere and intensity as City of God. Hard core, hyper-real impressions from Brazil's social dillema.

Serenity (2005) - really nice Star War's style science fiction

Maria Full Of Grace (2004) - this one is heart breaking. Story of a young columbian girl who becomes a coke smuggler. I don't know why exactly, but this movie was really really intense. I guess it was because the main actress does an outstanding job and the director manged to produce a super credible setting.

No Country For Old Men - Coen brothers at their best; modern city-cowboy adrenalin with strangeness mix

Charlie Wilson's War (2007) - tells the story of a politician who runs the US foreign affairs committee on afganistan in the 70/80ies and describes how he created a war there. I am not sure how much of the movie is based on historic facts, but the movie claims to be based on a true story.

I.Heart.Huckabbes (2004) - surrealistic funny - something for the whole (post-modern) family



SERVICES & Tools
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- drop.io is a place where you can drop up to 100MB files (or you can fax, email, call to the "drop-box"), no registration, but password protected if you want, and the best is it's sooooo simple everyone can use it instantaneously

- Ubiquity - the modular mash-up web we will take for granted in a couple of years - http://labs.mozilla.com/2008/08/introducing-ubiquity/

***The apple side of life (Best Free Mac Tools):***

- Copy & Paste Pro - is a tiny tool that remembers the last 30 things (text snippets, pix, files) you copied and gives you a shortcut (double paste) so you can select which one you want to paste - i experiment with many services over the year, Copy & Paste Pro is by far the most useful new tool i have adopted this year. I use it about 100 times everyday.

- Quicksilver - makes starting all programs much faster - ctrl + space and the first letters of the program name replaces looking and clicking around before you found the right launch icon.


WEB SELECTION
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Best documantary about kids' internet use: FRONTLINE: growing up online: watch the full program | PBS

Supercool videos explaining social media, wikis etc. so your grandma will understand: The Common Craft Show | Common Craft - Explanations In Plain English

A real utopia! 1800 people who live together in india Where is Auroville and how to get there?

Does the internet change the way we perceive the world? Is Google Making Us Stupid? (New York Times article)

TED videos are cult: Clay Shirky on institutions vs. collaboration | Video on TED.com

My good friend and mentor: Howard Rheingold on collaboration | Video on TED.com

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I hope you find something meaningful amongst the recommendations above!

and i am of course looking forward to hear from you and hopefully spend some time with you in 2009

happy holidays
Max

Notorious Prankster

This very very naughty fellow frenchmen pulls a thousand unique "he can no do THAT" pranks (he is a living legend amongst french - the stunts are not staged): http://www.nimportequi.com/

KANGOUROU (REMI GAILLARD)
by nqtv

Humanizing Internet Governance

The two papers i co-authored for this years Symposium of the Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet) are available for download from the conference site:


The Humanization of Internet Governance: A Roadmap Towards a Comprehensive Global (Human) Rights Architecture for the Internet, together with Wolfgang Benedek and Matthias Ketteman paper presented at 3rd GigaNet Symposium.


Toward a Humanistic Conception of Cyberspace. A Twofold Challenge for Netizens Mobilizing for a Democratic Internet Governance, together with Elena Pavan and Konstantin Komaitis presented at 3rd GigaNet Symposium

The Path Towards Centralization of Internet Governance Under the UN

An interesting article appeared on Publius Project "Essays and conversations about constitutional moments on the Net collected by the Berkman Center". The article discusses ten steps that are (in the opinion of the author) bound to hinder the creation of a good Internet Governance (IG) regime.

Very provocative and a good "checkpoint" to have in mind when shaping IG

Reflections On "Fear of Knowledge" by Boghossian

Boghossian has surely written a well informed and thoroughly argued book entitled "Fear of Knowledge". And I have to admit in most cases he was able to make me doubt what I would call my “common sense” approach to knowledge . What Prof. Boghossian proclaims in very elaborate terms is that there is a historic evolution and that there exists a factual world outside of our cognition , and I won’t argue that it doesn’t seem to me like that.

However I found several sections where I think he is a bit out of balance, but I will focus on two fundamental problems with his well crafted rationalization. He himself states one contradiction on page 78, where he writes: “We ourselves seem to acknowledge that WE CANNOT HOPE TO DEMONSTRATE THE CORRECTNESS OF AN EPISTEMIC SYSTEM BY USING THAT VERY SYSTEM”. (emphasis added)

A) He is dealing with facts/truth/knowledge on a meta-level, because he already uses the we clause, hence indicating that his demonstration makes only sense when communicated with others

B) He is right – how can you possibly claim you are right based on your own observation.

I think that my relativism has is based on reason. It allows me to engage in constructive – as in productive/diplomatic/sythesis-seeking communication .

Hence a relativist position allows to accept the fact that you might be wrong (and as a package/worldview) allow to disregard aspects of believe e.g. religious, that you don’t share without disrespecting other positions – one theme at a time.

I’d describe my Weltanschauung in this case as pragmatic relativistic (rather than radical relativism).

At one point Boghossian uses the example of the perception that the world is flat, while in reality it is a sphere. Isn’t that a wonderful example of the usefulness of pragmatic relativist thinking: in everyday life the world is flat, for aeronautical engineers the earth is a sphere, but to a theoretical physisist the earth is a space with tons of molecules in a quantum state. It makes sense to accept ‘facts’ relative to what you want to do.

Especially in the case of scientific knowledge I am with Habermas’ existence–reality split. In this view existence describes the world of objective factual truth (as in the objects that you see in front of you) and existence is gradually (say hyperbolically) verified with the amount of observations that coincide. However just because you and nobody else has ever seen a pink elephant doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist – as discussed at length by philosophers of science under the theme of induction. It results that once again my pragmatism solves the problem – as long as the existing insight provides correct explanations to the phenomena I will use it as reference.
Or in other words so is my reality. Because reality is in Habermasian terms nothing but what one individually believes to be true. Hence each individual lives or constructs his/her own reality.

Which brings us to the second component, constructivism. It is relevant only for the description of the human construction of knowledge in the brain, rather than the collective construction and codification of scientific insights in the noosphere. Both are constructed, but on very different scales/dimensions.

I believe in radical constructivism (ala Watzlawick). The brain constructs reality out of the experience it is exposed to.

I have to end here (I just cant find more time right now), but if you want to engage in a discussion, feel free to comment – and I will follow up.

Also please check out the cyberphilosophy collaboratory some friends and myself just started.

you say Ohhh we say BAMA - what a great celebration

this was the most emotional and uplifting democratic experience ever - and i wasn't even able to vote ;-) No but really, i have never experienced anything similar - masses of people celebrating, taking over the streets - a stereo and a DJ emerged from nowhere and smiling faces all over...WOW i am really proud of this new generation of americans, i am so happy this country which has so many great people and that has so much power is reigned again by someone who is really smart and whats even more important who spreads hope and the spirit of optimism around the world - let's go and make this planet a better place - Yes we can.

Best Docu on Kids and the Internet

my sister always asks me what she should allow her kids to do online. It's a difficult question to answer, because she doesn't really understand what's going on so everytime i end up explaining here what this or that service is in the first place.

But as a good uncle i do reflect quite a bit about what my nephews and nice should be doing online and from a professional perspective i am really intrigued to understand how they can exploit the net for learning and "contextual intelligence booster'(checking wikipedia etc.).

Anyways PBS has produced a really good documentary about the reasons why kids love their online lifes and what's good and what's bad about it. I really have to say that this is probably the best docu on the subject i have ever seen!

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/kidsonline/view/main.html

Goooo Barack!! Groovy Obama Vibes

The US elections end race is really giving me goose bumps and shivers. Depending whether i hear and think about the positive vibes and epochal advancement should Obama win, or whether i think about what a sad and scary scenario will unfold in case the world has to deal with a new rendition of a conservative commander in chief fear-monger.

Well, next week we'll know - that much is for sure. For now check out these pretty groovy Obama support songs:

Yes We Can - Will.i.am (Black Eyed Peas)


Coco Tea - Barak Obahama



PRINCE THOMPSON - Obama Reggea



GOOOOOO Barack!!!!!

I love these Statistics

I usually argue for qualitative analysis, because i believe that statistical data might be good in describing trends, but it does not determine the individual case (which is what is IMHO most relevant most of the time).

In this TED video Hans Rosling presents some amazing data very nicely animated and passionately commented:




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVimVzgtD6w

Book chapter published: Virtual worlds as environment for learning communities

I am happy to announce that the chapter i wrote together with Marc (Ludo) Alier (Sciences of Education Institute, UPC, Spain) in "Knowledge Networks: The Social Software Perspective" (editors: M. D. Lytras, R. Tennyson & P. O. d. Pablos) is available @ e.g. Amazon

Here is the abstract:

This chapter discusses the potential of three dimensional virtual worlds as venue for constructivist learning communities. To reach a balanced answer to the question whether virtual worlds are likely to evolve into satisfying educational instruments (1) Authors retrace the historic trajectory of virtual world development and computer based learning, second they describe how (2) learning communities function in general and how virtual worlds in particular can be exploited for collective educational experiences. With this basis, authors then present (3) a structured analysis of the strenghts, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) found to bound the potential of SecondLife for institutionalized learning based on their expertise from working and teaching in virtual worlds. In conclusion authors argue that a critical but optimistic approach towards virtual learning environments (and SecondLife in particular) is adequatee. In their assessment virtual worlds bear great opportunities for educational purposes; however most of today’s educational institutions will be challenged to encompass the informal and holistic learning scenario.

Just drop me a line and I am happy to send you a working draft of the chapter.

Concetrated multitasking and lost linear comprehension - what's cognitively happening when we are online

Some reflections on Nick Carr's pretty good article "Is Google Making Us Stupid?":
In general i have to commend him for writing a thought provoking article and I agree with his core argument: "The more [we] use the Web, the more [we] have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing."

But Scott Karp gives a good counter argument - in his reflections about the Atlantic's piece: "Maybe the reason why Nick and so many other literati are losing their patience with long form information is that it is so fundamentally inefficient and inferior to connected bits of information."

What i would like to add is that the even more fundamental shift is not the way we perceive information (surf the net) but how we are engaging and participating in the discourse (by blogging, etc.), hence not only taking in, but creatively processing the info. The web has the potential to transform couch-potatoes in creative activists!

But coming back to reading and concentration: I think Nick has a point in saying we don't read linear and the text must also keep us interested - in fact i have read at least 6 comments embedded in the article by an web-annotation service called diigo, and one of the comments send me off to read half of Scott's response to Nick quoting him. My point support's Scott's: We are searching, identifying and continuously critically assessing all the information opportunities we have in front of us - as I see it: the amount of relevant info processing is really high while on the other hand it is true that this type of learning/experiencing information has become my dominant style and it costs me to following one long linear experience.

After a quick google search resulting in a wikipedia lookup to confirm that my conceptualization is reasonable, I would like to also critique Nick's use of the term concentration: He writes: "Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text." Again I agree in principal, but it is attention span that is shorter, because there is a related/networked task or piece of information that draws the attention. Nevertheless i claim that when i - like now - working with 16 tabs and 8 programs open (involved in about 4/5 different work tracks) i am in a very concentrated (alert) state of mind. What's happening is I am jumping between tasks to maximize my productivity. While working on a task I am either instigated to switch to another by a thought triggering idea i perceived, or there is a certain boredom or lack of creative thought which drives me to look through the options running on the machine. No matter what is exactly going on with Being online (i am reflecting on these themes in the Cyberphilosophy classes @ SupercoolSchool) i would describe my state of mind as concentrated multitasking.


On a side note - I really grumbled when i read the following taylor'ist quote in Nick's article: “In the past the man has been first,” Taylor declared; “in the future the system must be first.”
Wow - know your enemy: This is exactly the contrary to what John Seely Brown, Howard Rheingold and myself are writing about in an article about the use of technology for humanistic education.

Rapping Physicists

Some folks at the CERN research center produced a rap video about what they are researching with the Large Hadron Collider. It uses original footage from the center, so you can see the actual machinery and visualization tools etc.

the future of browsing / web-collabloration

peter - a.k.a. the waving cat - pointed me to a really interesting video in which mozilla's concept browser labs showcase their vision of web-browsing/collaboration. Really cool interfaces. And I really liked the idea of having "objects"/mini-programs/macros that i can use e.g. to do certain things like visualization of tables, searching & clustering information, etc. etc. etc.


Aurora (Part 1) from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

Tuolumne Meadows (Yosemite)

I usually spear you the misery of my weekend adventures, but in this case I can not hold back - it was probably the most intense climbing i did in a long time (12 pitches fairview dome, 5 pitches cathedral, and 5 pitches eichorn pinnacle - all in two days).




(some pix are taken from the web)

next - car design revolution

this morning i had one of these moments when you find something on the net which makes you think - Jeeez that might well be the beginning of a very new way of doing X - in this case "build cars". Ideo's Diego Rodriguez commented in his metacool blog about BMW's GINA prototype:

Hail the Peer-Production Revolution

Yochai Benkler is possibly the man with the most convincing argument for a knowledge work revolution based on the radical change regarding the control of the means of production.

If you have not heard of his thesis developed in wealth of networks you have to watch this TED video. If you know about his work watch this video to re-engage, he is really convincing:

(should the video not work for you go here)

delicious visualizations

inspired by the hypergraph tool i blogged about in my last post i thought that delicious would be a great playground for this kind of visual navigation. and sure enough, there is a ton of really nice and (possibly :) usefull interfaces designed already. The only one's I handpicked:

Revealicious allows for pretty neat bubble network diagram style browsing of your bookmarks

Delicious Mind i haven't tried it out yet, but it looks like an awesome app which allows you to make a mindmap out of your delicious tags

please send me if you find widget style visualization in the hypergraph direction Please comment or contact me!

Hypergraph for navigation

about 8 years ago i experimented with the Brain as website navigation tool, and i was really won over by the smooth visualization that gives you a good impression of Where you are on a page.

Yesterday Sam finally showed me the open source equivalent - hypergraph was of course developed for more sophisticated purposes and it isn't as eye-candy as the brain, nevertheless i would reckon we see this type of navigation more and more on the web.

In fact Patrick immediately wondered why the heck we can't browse our delicious bookmark tags through a hypergraphed interface? I agree, that would be great! please make me aware of any similar tool esp. to be used with delicious!

Supercool Philosophy - Learning to be Free

I have recently written some substantial blogposts on the supercoolschool blog:

Supercool Philosophy - Learning to be Free

Is the most profound one as i am sharing the first 1.0 of the educational philosophy of supercool school. It links to the full text (22 pages) and a shortened manifesto (3 pages)

Supercool School will set minds on fire

Is a review of John Seely Brown's Minds on Fire. It elaborates on the multitude of synergies of his text and the supercool philosophy.

Supercool learning = to inquire and to create

Is a review of a 1971 text by Noam Chomsky. The text entitled "Toward a humanistic conception of education" also has several great passages that align perfectly with the educational approach of supercool school.

You know you are talking to the right people when...

...the "warning screen" for a conference registration contains Hail Discordia! propaganda ;-) (For those of you who don't know Discordia - check out the wonderfully anarchic/psychedelic world setup in Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminati).

I just registered for the iCommons Summit and when i made a mistake in the form it prompted me with the following message:

Pentabarf Meditation has been interrupted by worries.
The Erisian dwarfs have been notified. In the meantime you are encouraged to read The Five Commandments below or go back in history instead.

KNOW YE THIS O MAN OF FAITH!

1. There is no Goddess but Goddess and She is Your Goddess. There is no Erisian Movement but The Erisian Movement and it is The Erisian Movement. And every Golden Apple Corps is the beloved home of a Golden Worm.
2. A Discordian Shall Always use the Official Discordian Document Numbering System.
3. A Discordian is Required during his early Illumination to Go Off Alone & Partake Joyously of a Hot Dog on a Friday; this Devotive Ceremony to Remonstrate against the popular Paganisms of the Day: of Catholic Christendom (no meat on Friday), of Judaism (no meat of Pork), of Hindic Peoples (no meat of Beef), of Buddhists (no meat of animal), and of Discordians (no Hot Dog Buns).
4. A Discordian shall Partake of No Hot Dog Buns, for Such was the Solace of Our Goddess when She was Confronted with The Original Snub.
5. A Discordian is Prohibited of Believing what he reads.

IT IS SO WRITTEN! SO BE IT. HAIL DISCORDIA!
PROSECUTORS WILL BE TRANSGRESSICUTED

This is the way i want cyberspace to communicate with me! Of course it turns out Pentabarf is a conference management system programmed for the 21C3...