Nico Luchsinger

trying to make sense out of stuff

Chatroulette for businesses?

Success in business increasingly relies on chance encounters, argues a new book that is reviewed in this week's Economist:

[...] today’s technology, especially the internet, is undermining the old top-down approach to business, which the authors call “push”, by giving individuals more power to shape their working lives. There are huge opportunities available to people who can figure out how to use the “power of pull”, a term the authors define as “the ability to draw out people and resources as needed to address opportunities and challenges.” They propose a three-pronged pulling strategy. First, approach the right people (they call this “access”). Second, get the right people to approach you (attraction). Finally, use these relationships to do things better and faster (achievement). For example, SAP has an online chat service for its NetWeaver software, where customers and staff can collaborate with the people who design it.

Maybe a Chatroulette for businesses would help?

Postmodernes Lesen?

Im Nachgang zu meiner Kritik von Nicholas Carr's neuem Buch auf NZZ Online hat mir Sandboxer Jonas von der Heyden eine Seminararbeit über "Literale Nichtlinearität" zugeschickt. Ein paar Auszüge:

"Bezogen auf das Lesen hieße [Nichtlinearität], dass sich die durch Autopoiesis aufrecht erhaltene Kommunikation zwischen Schrift und Leser beim nichtlinearen Lesen durch störende Umwelteinflüsse (Hyperlinks) ständig ändert, es jedoch Wege gefunden werden, um diese Änderungen als Fortsetzung derselben Kommunikation bezeichnen und beschreiben zu können. Anders als beim - wohl nur theoretisch existierendem - linearen Lesen wird hier auf Umweltstörungen produktiv reagiert - man lässt sich vom Hyperlink weiterleiten, sorgt aber dafür, dass der neue Inhalt neue Anschlussoperationen ermöglicht und die Informationen irgendwie im Kontext der bisherigen Kommunikation interpretiert werden können [...]."

"Das Lager der "postmodernen Digitalen" [...] propagiert nicht-lineares Denken, welches das Verknüpfen von Denkpunkten in den Vordergrund stellt, zur Selbstreflexion und Flexibilisierung des eigenen Standpunktes anregt und eine nicht an Hierarchien und Autoritäten geknüpfte Vorgehensweise priorisiert. Sie sind zumeist nicht im konservativen Wertekanon verankert und sehen das Internet als eine Bereicherung für die Informationsbeschaffung und -distribution."

"Durch nichtlineares Lesen wird den Anforderungen der nächsten Gesellschaft an die Informationsbewältigungskapazitäten Rechnung getragen, indem man sich bewusst oder unbewusst der prinzipiellen Kontextabhängigkeit jeder Information stellt. Es gibt keine hinreichend und temporal langfristig sicheren Informationen. Deshalb kommt es auch nicht darauf an, einen bestimmten Literaturkanon möglichst gut zu kennen, sondern eher flexibel zu bleiben und Mittel und Wege zu finden, wie man sich unter Berücksichtigung und im Austausch mit der Umwelt, also vielen Texten von heterogenen Quellen weiterentwickeln kann, dabei aber die Änderungen irgendwie als Fortsetzung desselben verkaufen kann. Der Sinnüberschuss, der nicht mehr durch Teleologie oder Überprüfung auf Funktionalität bewältigt werden kann, wird nun einfach akzeptiert und gerade dadurch gemeistert, weil man durch die Einsicht in die Überforderung zum Bemerken und zur Akzeptanz von Anschlussoperationen hin sensibilisiert wird."

Friday readings: Thinking and forgetting

As part of my new work habits, I try to spend Friday afternoon reading stuff I've come across during the week. Here are some of the things I read today.

 

Jeffrey Rosen has a great article about forgetting on the web in the NYT Magazine. As our formerly differentiated identities merge online, we need to think about new forms of digital forgetfulness and forgiveness.

On Edge, David Gelernter writes an interesting (if somewhat lengthy) text on the next level of artifical intelligence. He argues that a computer (or, rather, a network of computers) will never be conscious, but that it might, at some point, pretend to be. In other words: Computers will never possess human-like intelligence (because they are physically not human-like), but they might mimic human-like intelligence.

Paul Graham argues that you can't control when you have good ideas, but that you should control which ideas are on top of your mind. His lesson: "Be careful what you let become critical to you." (Maybe somehow linked to my learning that you should think hard about what you want to think about.)

Into The Shallows

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ell-r-brown/4607718218/sizes/l/

I've published my extensive review (or, rather, rant) of Nick Carr's «The Shallows» yesterday on my NZZ blog [in German]. Here's a (very short) version of my argument:

Carr argues that the web - or, rather, reading on the web - is tinkering with our brain. Drawing on the idea of neuroplasticity (the fact that our brain is changed by experiences), he cites numerous studies that are supposedly showing that web promotes cursory reading and superficial learning and that, consequently, the human race gradually loses its ability for «deep thinking». 

I have several issues with the book, the first being what I call an overly naive cultural pessimism. Carr for example reminisces about how libraries used to be places of contemplation where books were read, but are now equipped with computers with internet access - ignoring that libraries are (and always have been!) places of access to knowledge - whether this comes in the form of books or not. The scientific foundation of his argument is also shaky: While there is good cause to believe that digital reading is different from "offline" reading, there just isn't nearly enough research to support any of Carr's apocalyptic prophecies.

Most important though, I believe, is the fundamental misunderstanding of how the web works. Carr focuses solely on online texts that have hyperlinks in them and thus promote distraction. He completely ignores all the other effects the web has too, and that (very likely) also have an effect on the human brain - the unprecedented access to information, the ease of collaboration and communication (Clay Shirky even argues that the web leads to a «cognitive surplus»). This makes Carr's book sound like a disgruntled rant from someone who misses the good old times.

Friday readings: Protectionism and startups, the death of the browser, and Russia's internal abroad

Photo

As part of my new work habits, I try to spend Friday afternoon reading stuff I've come across during the week. Here are some of the things I read today.

"Simply put, the U.S. has become wildly inefficient at creating American tech jobs", says Andy Grove, co-founder and former CEO of Intel. Grove attacks the idea, put forward among others by Thomas Friedman, that (tech) startups can be the cure to America's unemployment problem. It's not sufficient, he says, to keep the "knowledge jobs" in the U.S. and outsource all the manufacturing to Asia - manufacturing and scaling are essential for innovation. The solutions that Grove proposes, however, strike me as inadequate: He wants a tax on the product of offshore labor and even seems to advocate a resulting "trade war". I believe that Grove has a certain point in arguing that keeping (some) manufacturing in an economy is important - but protectionism is certainly the wrong way to reach that goal.

The era of the browser is coming to an end, argues Michael Hirschhorn in the current issue of The Atlantic, and with it dies the "ideology" that information wants to be free on the web. The "digital frontier" is now shifting to the smartphone, says Hirschhorn, where the (paid) app rules. We don't have a "Wild Digital West" anymore, a chaotic, unorganized place where we needed a search engine like Google to find our way - we now have Apple's neatly organized and monetarized store. - I am not yet convinced by the argument. It's true that there is a shift in attitude when it comes to monetizing online content, but I believe it's not from "free" to "paid", but rather from "ad-supported" to "freemium" and thereby less fundamental than often stated (I wrote about this in more detail in my review of Chris Anderson's book "Free" - sorry, German only). And I don't see browsers dying just yet - in fact, I could imagine that technologies like HTML5 might shift attention away from apps back to browsers (more on this here, and yes, you guessed it, that's German only too).

In a long essay in Foreign Affairs (full version only available with subscription), Charles King and Rajan Menon analyze Russia's growing problems in it's "internal abroad", the Caucasus. The rise in violence and unrest in the region is not caused by a single factor like Islamism or nationalism, argue the authors, but by a combination of them. And the problems can only be solved if Moscow offers the region a place in the Russian Federation, instead of handing over power to local authoritarian rulers who exploit for their own benefit. - Kings and Menons analysis is not very surprising if you have been following the news from the region just a bit, but the essay provides a good overview and the current state of the conflict.

Mobile donations on the rise

Mobile donations are on the rise, reports a study by Pew: 10 percent of cell phone users have made donations through their mobile phones, and even 19 percent of 18-29 year olds. What's interesting is not the figure itself (26 percent of the 18-29 year olds have mailed donations, reports the Nieman Journalism Lab), but that it's catching up quickly.

At Sandbox, we're currently discussing a trend we call "Temporary Global Response": crowdsourced response to crises worldwide, e.g. the earthquakes in Haiti or Chile. Mobile and online donations play a crucial part in this.

Simplicity is bliss

Letter

I just came across a service called letter.ly (homepage pictured above). I love the concept - letter.ly lets you easily send out paid newsletters to subscribers - but I'm equally fascinated by the super-simple design of the service. It feels to me that there are more and more services out there - not just online - who are designed to be as simple as possible and that can do only one thing - but do that thing really well.