Category: Collaborative Age

How the Value of Social Networks Could Correlate to their Emotional Impact

I have a theory which is that the value of social networks could be directly connected to their emotional impact.

Following our post on ‘Why Facebook’s Power is About Fostering Emotions‘ we could maybe go one step further and look about the emotional impact of other social networks. Here’s my view on a few I am using regularly:

  • Social MediaTwitter does not create so much emotional impact except on those of us that are attracted by instant news and updates, so I do not believe in its ultimate success unless it enriches content with the objective of improving significantly its emotional impact (which it has started doing adding pictures and videos, but it remains limited and focused on news and events, so I am not convinced they’ll pull it through)
  • the weakness of Google+ in my view is also the sleekness of the interface and the lack of a similar emotional impact like in Facebook, except for those that crave for great high-quality artistic pictures
  • YouTube’s success could be attributable to the fact that video as a medium is much more emotionally inductive than pictures or text due to its rich content

Maybe you could think about other social networks and share how it fares in terms of emotional impact, and share whether it is correlated with its value. Please share in the comments!

Share

Why Facebook’s Power is About Fostering Emotions

The power – and the value – of Facebook is about fostering emotions. Why should we then be surprised when Facebook conducts research about emotional reaction to posts?

emotions and social networksThere has been a lot of uproar last year when a report detailed some research done by Facebook about how certain types of posts create different emotions (see for example this Guardian article ‘Facebook reveals news feed experiment to control emotions’ and this Atlantic column ‘Everything We Know About Facebook’s Secret Mood Manipulation Experiment’).

The interest of Facebook, of course, is to make sure that it creates the most positive emotions in its users, as well as curiosity, so that users stay and come back (under the assumption that we are always weak when it makes us feel good). It can even sometimes border on addiction – another emotionally-related reaction.

The value of Facebook in our lives is about the experience, i.e. our emotional response to the stimuli presented to us. It is what makes the attractiveness and ultimately the market value of Facebook. Why are we so surprised that Facebook tried to improve that experience to hook us up?

Share

How We Have Increased Dramatically our Feedback to all Services We Use

Following up on our post ‘How Social Ratings Determine Our Choices‘, let’s add how much more often we are asked to rate, and we do rate services.

Ratings have also been introduced for toilet service at Singapore airport!
Ratings have also been introduced for toilet service at Singapore airport!

I am amazed at how often I am prompted to give my feedback now. In all situations: when using a website or a service on internet; when visiting a hotel on the reservation platform; when downloading or using an app; when reading a book on my Kindle; and even when visiting the toilet at the airport!

And when we don’t do it consciously, the machine does infer some ratings: for example, how much and quick I read my book on Kindle certainly creates some rating in Amazon.

When we put this situation together with the fact that this forces the system to behave like a complex systems, reinforcing the popularity of the popular services and diminishing greatly the popularity to the others, we can see how our world is increasingly transforming in all spaces to a “winner takes all” situation, or that everything will be increasingly governed by the famous long tail distribution.

Welcome to the Collaborative Age!

By the way: how do you rate this post? 🙂

Share

How the Rate of Violence Worldwide Is As Its Historical Lowest

During the summer I read a great book by Steven Pinker, ‘The Better Angels of Our Nature: The Decline of Violence In History And Its Causes‘. Basically it demonstrates how the rates of violence in all categories have dramatically decreased over time.

decrease of violenceThe emotionally-laden coverage of today’s news hides the fact that homicides and wars have reached an historical low point. Steven Pinker shows that this observation that violence has decreased dramatically has happened simultaneously in many dimensions:

  • wars (civil wars and wars between entities)
  • homicide and other day-to-day violence
  • punishment by the power in place
  • family-related violence
  • violence against minorities, gays, racial etc.

In our societies, it is 50 to 100 times less probable to be the victim of a homicide than a few centuries ago. In many primitive societies, 50% of people die violently.

I think we need to put in perspective the continuous flow of atrocious information that is fed on us. Of course, what is happening in Syria or elsewhere is terrible, but it is bloated out of proportion by manipulations from all sides.

The world is becoming a better place, Europe has never had 70 years without war for ages, and this will continue to be the trend in the Collaborative Age, with increasing networking and trade between us.

The book is quite long and detailed, alternatively, a video presentation by Steven Pinker is available on Youtube.

Share

How We Can’t Escape Being Tracked and Photographed

With the Fourth Revolution, we can’t escape being photographed, recognized and tagged. Lately I was waiting to cross a street in Singapore when a Google Car passed by – and there am I on Google Streetview. My face is blurred but I remain quite recognizable!

Me waiting to cross a street in Singapore - on Google Streetview!
Me waiting to cross a street in Singapore – on Google Streetview!

Often on the streets we meet people taking pictures with their phones and it is quite certain that we must be in the background of numerous shots. Face recognition algorithms (such as Facebook’s) have certainly identified us in many situations, not to mention the public video surveillance systems.

Public space is more public than ever, and broadcast worldwide. Even private space is not so safe (I am surprised by the number of people in Asia who constantly cover the video camera of their laptop for fear of pirates shooting videos!). Many videos and sound tracks leak that are taken in otherwise supposedly private meetings.

That’s definitely a trend we can’t escape. I understand people are anxious with this change in particular if they’re caught in an unsuitable situation. Personally it makes me sometimes uneasy to think that in theory, someone could certainly track in detail my whereabouts (not to mention the GPS on the phone I carry). On the other hand, it can also be enhanced safety compared to the situation years ago.

As with everything, we will need to learn how to put safeguards and take advantage of the phenomenal advantages of modern technology. This one might be tougher as it visibly enters our private life.

Share

How the Fourth Revolution Definitely Made Reductionism Obsolete

Antireductionism “advocates that not all properties of a system can be explained in terms of its constituent parts and their interactions” [Wikipedia]. It stands opposed to reductionism, the approach typical of the Industrial Age, which considered that the behavior of entire systems can be explained completely by a description of their individual constituent parts and their interactions.

In the 18th century people thought animals could be described as a mechanical apparatus
In the 18th century people thought animals could be described as a mechanical apparatus

Already the philosophers of Enlightment struggled a bit with reductionism that was contradicting our free will. Still, the mechanistic view of reality dominated science and our understanding of the world until far into the 20th century.

Today in many areas such as chaos, systems biology, evolutionary economics, and network theory, we know that complex, unpredictable behavior arises from large collections of simple components.

“By the mid-twentieth century, many scientists realized that such phenomena cannot be pigeonholed into any single discipline but require an interdisciplinary understanding based on scientific foundations that have not yet been invented. Several attempts at building those foundations include (among others) the fields of cybernetics, synergetics, systems science, and, more recently, the science of complex systems.” writes Melanie Mitchell in ‘Complexity: A Guided Tour‘.

The study of complex systems is an emerging and still very incomplete science. It is the hallmark of the Collaborative Age.

Share

How the Internet Has Become the Nervous System of the 21st Century

“The internet has become the nervous system of the 21st century, wiring together devices that we carry, devices that are in our bodies, devices that our bodies are in“. This observation is from Cory Doctorow in a great column in the Guardian ‘The internet is the answer to all the questions of our time’.

internet map
A map of the internet. Doesn’t it look like a neuron map?

Internet is now the location where all the societal fights will be won or lost. It is increasingly the dominating medium of all the conversations that really matter. And following on his usual battle cry on a free internet, Cory Doctorow continues: “Without a free, fair and open internet, proponents of urgent struggles for justice will be outmaneuvered and outpaced by their political opponents, by the power-brokers and reactionaries of the status quo. The internet isn’t the most important fight we have; but it’s the most foundational.”

I like this image of the internet as a nervous system pervading our society, linking together the members of humanity. It is not just a neutral communication medium. It is now a pervasive part of our humanity.

Share

Why We Should Limit our Usage of Instant Messengers

As you know, I am quite keen on new communication technology and I love the possibilities brought to us by the Fourth Revolution. At the same time, minimizing attention-disturbing interruptions is essential for productive work. As a result, I find myself taking an increasingly strong position against all sorts of Instant Messaging Apps, in particular on the phone.

instant_message
These are all attention killing, important work avoidance beasts. Learn to tame them!

For example lately I had an argument with an acquaintance because I did not want to install on my phone a widely known chat app. Of course it makes communication easy, free and instantaneous. My point was that I did not want to be interrupted constantly, and that I try to keep significant chunks of time available for focus. Therefore, I prefer asynchronous communication means such as email, and limit drastically instant messaging tools. I keep old-fashioned SMS for emergencies, because it’s harder and it costs a bit of money – so that people think twice before using it!

Have you ever tried to focus on meaningful work while responding to Instant Messages? I can’t. As a result I tend to lose time or do things of minor importance in the meantime. Instant Messenger is supposedly designed to save time, but it distracts us from doing the important stuff.

I thus minimize those tools, remove all sorts of notifications on my phone, and for those that are unavoidable, I use the functions that allow to be undisturbed while I do important work.

Discipline is required for instant messaging tools. What is your’s?

Share

How Mindfulness is a Reaction to Stimuli Overload

The last years have seen a tremendous development of mindfulness, including on the workplace where it becomes mainstream. It happens at the same time where our attention is increasingly diverted through various devices, notifications and information availability. This is not chance – I believe it is the symptom of a deep struggle. And it is a major issue that we need to deal with as we enter deeper into the Fourth Revolution.

meditationMany mindfulness programs are based on the premise of mindfulness training whereby we take some pauses, cutting ourselves off from the demands of modern life for a few minutes for example by meditating. This regular exercise reinforces our ability to focus and manage our thoughts.

The question is whether this practice is sufficient, or whether it just reflects the need to find some balance. Shouldn’t we learn to manage our attention on a continuous basis, not just by taking some pauses off? Mindfulness should thus become an ongoing practice, and this will need to become ingrained in our way of life.

A major issue is that our children do not learn so much at school today how to deal with their focus and attention when faced with the multiplying stimuli of modern life.

Mindfulness is a clear symptom of a societal issue, and the question remains open if the current practices resolve it fully. I believe that more progress will have to be made to define how to deal with modern stimuli overload and find the practices that will be required by all in the Collaborative Age.

Share

How Solar is Spreading to Unexpected Places

Following up on our post on ‘How Solar Becomes an Energy Revolution‘, some new developments place solar energy generation in new promising locations: roads!

Installing a pilot solar generation cycle path in the Netherlands
Installing a pilot solar generation cycle path in the Netherlands

This post on Quartz summarizes this development: ‘The day when roads will harness solar energy is drawing near‘, with loads of interesting links.

This is an obvious choice – everybody knows how asphalt roads can become substantially hot as soon as the sun shines! Some technological challenges need to be overcome, but that could be a decisive usage of public space for energy generation.

Solar Farm France

At the same time we note that a number of large solar farms projects are also spreading in many countries, including France (the image is from a project in the Alps mountains). These are huge areas covered with solar panels and can generate up to 100MW. Expect a few of these fields to develop too in the very near future, changing landscapes!

 

Share

Why It Always Seems Impossible Until It’s Done

“It always seems impossible until it is done” is a famous quote by Nelson Mandela. To all of us who try to do things outside our comfort zone, or try to change the world (or, in a more limited manner, some organizational entity), it sounds very true. And always related to the tough ancillary question: if it does not happen yet, should be persevere?

impossibleThe fact is that in complex systems (our world), change will be sudden and what looked like an abysmal failure or a mediocre endeavor one day might become a sudden success overnight. At the same time it is difficult when we are in the midst of action to realize what is the amount of progress we might be making.

A significant level of perseverance is always needed to cross the stage where it seems that progress is very little until we reach effective change. And we are always surprised as how change can be sudden and widespread when it occurs. It takes a lot of background work in a lot of areas to effectively create change.

What is important is to have and to kindle the vision of what we want to achieve. If it’s ambitious it will look impossible. Just go and do it! It will be long, and it will eventually happen.

Share

How Power Utilities need to Overcome the Power Revolution

In the wake of the energy revolution that unfolds quietly (see our post on solar power), power utilities face tough decisions. Their model is generally an industrial-age model where efficiency is gain by ever bigger power stations that benefit from scale effects to produce cheap power.

power_station
How long will be centralized power generation model survive?

The drawback is of course, the size of these stations and the related need for a very extensive distribution network, and also that to be profitable, investments need to be used for a large number of decades. Nuclear Power Plants for example, are now typically designed to last 60 years or more to amortize the investment cost.

Today, those utilities face a double threat:

  • the development of competitive distributed generation, which diminishes consumption from centralized stations and creates distribution network instability,
  • the increasing cost and lack of proper control on large power stations investments, for a variety of factors.
solar-panel-houses
A new urban landscape we need to get used to!

Centralized production capability will remain needed for a long time, in particular due to large industrial consumers and the need to have the capability to support power networks in case of extreme conditions. Yet it is will become increasingly difficult to justify the huge investments with the uncertainties of the market over the next decades. A major factor will be to be much more reliable in predicting the actual cost and schedule of construction projects. Some effort is needed in that respect in the power industry.

Utilities will soon face significant challenges to their traditional business model and they’d better take the issue upfront than become defensive. A major shift will happen, and as in all good things, a balanced approach that can be adaptable is always better than to bet too much on a single way of producing power. With some effort, thanks to our connectivity and processing capability, we will be able to manage the associated complexity of multiple sources of energy.

Share