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Shortened: http://bit.ly/econsense2010
Are you on the bridge seeing, acting, taking responsibility?
Are you in the Marconi Room sending SOS? Or are you in the squach court? A call from the sidelines with an eco-singularity point of view (http://blog.futurefacts.net/2010/10/09/eco-singularity-is-near-definition-ii/).
econsense meeting, 10th anniversary – So what is the level of awareness in Germanys industry?
Just the new green markets in mind? Or is it more? I have been attending the meeting Oct 12th and will tell you a bit more soon.
Three posts about ecological singularity and the avalanche of change
The Eco-Singularity is near. Preface (I) - … Definition (II) - … Solutions (III)
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The planet issue
Part I was about getting there, the backstory of why and when I wanted to get deeper into the issue of “PSP” – planet saving politics : ) Before I start to explain that strange neologism “eco-singularity” let us have some reality check: Where are we today, about eleven months after the failed summit? A reality check is quite easy since there is a meeting in these days again.
Yesterday, today and tomorrow: Climate talks without adequate political will
In Tianjin, China, negotiators from 177 nations are meeting for U.N.-mandated climate talks . Guess we will see the same syndrome as in Kopenhagen. Even after this years extreme weather events (from Poland to Russia to Pakistan to bring some to mind – and: yes I know the difference of weather and climate!) we do not see “adequate response”. Diagnosis: The econo-techno-political system in it’s entirety just is not capable to process the (mostly unambigous) input of science into the output of necessary decisions.
We are over capacity! Will innovation stretch our limited ressources somehow? Image source: Wackernagel 2010
Connect the both time series. We are part of non-linear systems – surprising changes to the worse are probable. Image source: Munich re 2004
Three posts about ecological singularity and the avalanche of change
The Eco-Singularity is near. Preface (I) – … Definition (II) – … Solutions (III)
.
Eco-Singularity? Never heard of it?
About “the Singularity” you find a lot on the web, due to the wellknown notions of Vernor Vinge, I. J. Good and of course Ray Kurzweil. But before I introduce the concept of eco-singularity I will tell you the personal backstory for better understanding.
Extended fires (n=600) in Russia after high temperature anomalie in 2010 (image is processed; source: Google earth, dutchintell.com http://bit.ly/cU3g57)
Hello, the world is burning, I am back blogging
You know the Social Web universe is still in dynamic change – and it will remain so. Did twitter kill the blogs – and my blogging drive? No. The 140 characters limit is really restrictive. It is absolutely impossible to unfold arguments, showing some new theory or an innovative point of view in this tiny space (see the post of Paul Carr, Techcrunch). And it is meant to be for status messages, aka it is the beat of the social pulse in your network somehow – at least for some. Even the (more than ambigious) ”power of Facebook” was not the reason to retreat a bit from my narrowcasting habit, which never was very ambitious.
Backstory: Fail of global politics causes crisis on the individual level, sometimes
What was the reason to become hesitant with blogging? It was something beyond social media overkill and the inevitable social media fatigue I felt since end of 2009: It was a crisis in thinking and orientation. This phase actually started same time, when the Copenhagen Climate Summit failed in December 2009. No political realist thought of a “real success”, but the summit failed to an extent I did not expect. I was not prepared to this total fail of politics. Brave men have identified eight reasons for the disaster (news.bbc.co.uk), maybe I would find eight consequences resulting from it on a personal scale.
Consequences of Russian heat record 2010. First man tamed the fire, now it might tame him. (Source: dutchintell.com http://bit.ly/cU3g57)
For me the Kopenhagen fail meant rethinking the business of corporate foresight, being concerned with the future in general. Assume that the very framework for our global/local/personal future is about to be destroyed, why should you construct any narratives around that term, why construct scenarios the way you did the last ten years? Responsible foresight should stop the “business as usual” attitude here, it should take a break and think about the big picture, reflect the own role and draw some consequences. Fore some months now I am trying to develop insight, strategy, find a viable path for the decade ahead, a decade which might be more troublesome than e.g. the financial crisis, which apparently is lying behind (second dip not excluded).
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Three posts about ecological singularity and the avalanche of change
The Eco-Singularity is near. Preface (I) - … Definition (II) - … Solutions (III)
Service Design / Design Thinking
I have an incling to the issue of knowledge communication and the technological platforms supporting it since I have been studying (somehow exotic) “information science”. With this background I feel close to the issues of information architecture (IA), usability, user experience design etc. This year the German conference of IA had a double focus on two great concepts/methodologies: Service Design and Design Thinking ( http://www.iakonferenz.org/ ).
For some impressions, links and slideshows you might consult the saved tweets at http://www.twapperkeeper.com/hashtag/Iak10 and the tag search at slideshare http://www.slideshare.net/search/slideshow?searchfrom=header&q=iak10
There was a great opportunity to collaboratively think about the practice, obstacles and future of these two great concepts. Issues of Augmented Reality, mobile lifestyle and Internet of Things have been touched. Some attendees where rolling back from Cologne to Berlin by train and had a good time in the dining car. One of the lessons learned was that Design Thinking has to enter the management level and hence I thought about Leadership 2.0 and the concept of an “innovation architect”. Is it a self-contradiction since the innovation process cannot be “constructed”, only enabled?
Managing as Designing
I have found no answer whether this concept is leading to anywhere, but I found an interesting video on one of the blogs of Jan Jursa: Managing as Designing: http://iatelevision.blogspot.com/2010/05/managing-as-designing-multiple-models.html
I am not a techie.
I am not a techprogressive.
But I bet on Augmented Reality to be a decisive component of the fine-granular information ubiquity environment, which is emerging in this decade 2010-2020.
The reality is becoming a web
The web has become a reality in the last 20 years – and now we witness that the reality is becoming a web. It is transforming into a weblike matrix of “activated space”. The space of today may be called “mute space” and “blind space” in the future – if it is not
enriched with information, not “talking”, not “hearing”, not reacting to the people around. The analyst predicts this. (My personal opinion is that we still should strive for silence and contemplation in the future.) See the merging of AR principle and powerful recognition technology in the video – to allow/limit this kind of (intrusive?) social transparency is a political issue in this decade.
AR to counterbalance the technological intelligence around us (Subjectoid)
Remind the lesson of evolution biology: A population is shaped by the environment, but at the same time it is shaping the environment. With Augmented Reality on the one end and Sensor Web on the other we envision the Mixed Reality and Ambient Spaces reacting
Augmented Citizen – a concept for the time to come
The times are changing – and the semantics of our expressions too.
When I brought the concept of the “Augmented Citizen” into being it was rather narrow, thanks to the context of Government 2.0 Camp in August 2009 (see slideshare.net). Then in December I realized the full potential and future usage patterns of (Social) Mobile Augmented Reality at the AR meeting in Rotterdam (NL). In the keynote I even encouraged the folks to think beyond the interaction concepts and sensory channels of today, when thinking about augmentation. E.g. we can have augmentation and overlays of other perceptive fields than the visual – and with al kinds of immersion in a social-networked surroundings (for Rotterdam AR meeting see blogpost: Augmented Citizen – next: augmented reality ecosystem).
Later mobile business visionary and social technology architect Dan Romescu and I had some fruitful dialogues concerning the evolution scnarios of mobile AR. Actually he seriously caught fire and went to Mobile World Congress as an “Augmented Citizen Advocate”, blogging at http://www.augmentedcitizen.org So I am proud to present our slides from the Mobile AR Summit at MWC.
Are you a skeptic and have read up to here? Then remind that Juniper talks about a market size of USD 732 million for 2014. Or just think about slide 8:
Q: Isn‘t AR just a new mode how to display information?
A: Yes, but this in fact means to change the
mode of interaction with the world,
your physical and social reality.
16 business models for Augmented Reality (remind the hype curve)
Just as an addon to the previous post talking about mysterious “augmented participation” as a possible growth field here is the colorful Gary Hayes list:
16 Top Augmented Reality Business Models | PERSONALIZE MEDIA
With some well known examples as seen on youtube (2009!). The collection and systematic has not been evaluated by me, just want to kick it in here as a starter for the AR skeptics.
Auguverse?
Google “auguverse” and you will find virtually nothing – however we will call it, the “mixed / augmented reality universe” might be a 1.000 times bigger in 2020 as a information space, than the web of today (measured in counted information objects, not the exabyte volume). Hey, I am a futurist and it is Friday, I can talk like this – with IPv6, sensor web, social ubiquity and internet of things in mind.
Straigt to flickr image in a readable form.
Mr. Schirrmacher is one of the smartest minds in Germany, commenting latest developments in the media business and the radical challenges for the print media and their business models. I even share a lot of his worries concerning information overload. Clay Shirky famously said: “It’s Not Information Overload. It’s Filter Failure.” – but, Clay, does not the filter management (= social media management) today cost us to much of our valuable time? Schirrmacher is quite right in analyzing the trouble of “digital life” complexity.
Time of transition, yes
Confession: I personally got rather tired of social media and the social network issue, often I am even skeptic about the longterm effects of social hyperconnectivity. Construcitve turn: Thinking about the future of balanced connectivity and tools for that. Actually I am thinking like so much folks about the transition from Web 2.0 to the next paradigm and how this will look like (web squared, third wave, pragmatic web, synaptic web, just “Web 3,0″?)
iPad pre-configures usage patterns, yes
Mr. Schirrmacher commented on the nice new shiny i-thing in town, the iPad (Die Politik des iPad, faz.net). Steve Jobs actually is a top business genius, may be the top in consumer IT today. Schirrmacher is right to think about the “politics of the iPad”. Hardware, end devices and their layout shape our doings and action patterns, channel our needs and wishes. But Schirrmacher is not quite right, when he thinks that the web of the future will not be so participative – after the iPad.
Participation will change, grow – Augmented Reality participation tools ahead
With mobile end devices allowing to contribute reviews, ratings (thumbs up/down) in a monent, participation will change in content, effort and intention. In the nearest future every smart phone has augmented reality apps as a standard. This will enable us to post annotations just in the physical space around us, attached to buildings, things, shops, even persons with some face recognition. Finally, new participation tools are spreading, pushing transparency – with huge impact to society and our lifestyle, shifting values (for more see Augmented Citizen post).
There was an inspiring AR congress in Rotterdam, NL, on 4th of Dec and I had the honor to be in the hosting team with Claire Boonstra (from famous LAYAR) Christina Rittchen (Mobilizy – the guys from Austria, who created Wikitude), Truus Dokter of ItFits, Jan Misker (project manager for V2_ AR), Artm Baguinski, Carl William Kerchmar, Kwela Sabine Hermanns. See links for more here: http://portaltoyourdreamsblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/v2-ar-ecosystem-hosting-team.html
- The site for the gathering: Augmented Reality Ecosystem — V2_ Institute for the Unstable Media http://www.v2.nl/events/ar-ecosystem
- The v2ar community, growing – join! http://v2augmentedreality.ning.com/
- My presentation “Augmented Citizen (towards an ecosystem)” left my mind map behind from time to time, but here is the mind map anyway: http://www.mindmeister.com/36532577
Get some impressions of presentations and the creativity of the breakout sessions here:
Update 2009-12-21
- Find developer camps for Augmented Reality next to you: ardevcamp.org
- changed word: gathering
There has been a future conference (Übermorgenkongress) on October 19/20 in Oldenburg. The issue was living in 2020: food, body, luxury, identity in 2020.
I have had the opportunity to go a bit beyond my focus there as a technology analyst and care for my more speculative side as futurist. Normally I resist the temptation to talk about time horizons like this one, when there is no really deep research before, but in this case it was more like a nice “thought experiment”. See for yourself – sorry, preso is only available in German up to now.
This presentation is “post hoc”, the slides have not been shown at the event, since the event format was delibertely “no powerpoint please”. This is to avoid some disadvantages of powerpoint presentations, but I created this one to share my thoughts with a broader audience.
Human Enhancement Technology – Logical Evolution or Pandora’s Box?
The realm of technologizing the human being is a persistant issue in foresight, let alone science fiction. I guess that I am in a minority position in the Read the rest of this entry »
