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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)
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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)
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.
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 »
One year ago I blogged that post: iPhone 2010: Bet on mixed reality apps as a standard - and I felt the risk to fail with my prediction. Today I have found some news concerning that speculations:
Augmented reality startups want iPhone to open up
More than a dozen augmented reality companies have asked Apple to open up the iPhone 3GS’ live video feature for their apps. (mobile-ent.biz)
So wait and see. And iPhone will not stay alone – “Mobile Augmented Reality” could be one of the most exciting trends and disruptive innovations in the next years. Google that phrase and see Nokia on top of the listing … And there is that Layar video from June 2009 (“Browse the world!”).
The World-as-a-Store – uPOS, the “Ubiquitous Point of Sale”
New buzzwords for 2010 might be: MARcommerce. ARcommerce, the long tail of “reality shopping” … Scenario as shown in the clip: See something, get info, get price, (call the owner with the next click if you want), buy it. Hmm, actually a wellknown usage scenario to the futurist – but now it is knocking on your door, no longer a “vision”.
Augmented reality startups want iPhone to open up | Mobile Content | News by Mobile Entertainmenthttp://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/33644/Augmented-reality-startups-want-iPhone-to-open-up
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MBA oath – a social innovation at Harvard Business School
The MBA Oath is a voluntary student-led pledge that asks graduating MBAs to commit towards the creation of value “responsibly and ethically.” The grassroots effort was launched in late May 2009 by a group of thirty graduating Harvard Business School (HBS) students in Boston, Massachusetts.
Source: Wikipedia
The principles (short)
Therefore I promise:
- I will act with utmost integrity and pursue my work in an ethical manner.
- I will safeguard the interests of my shareholders, co-workers, customers and the society in which we operate.
- I will manage my enterprise in good faith, guarding against decisions and behavior that advance my own narrow ambitions but harm the enterprise and the societies it serves.
- I will understand and uphold, both in letter and in spirit, the laws and contracts governing my own conduct and that of my enterprise.
- I will take responsibility for my actions, and I will represent the performance and risks of my enterprise accurately and honestly.
- I will develop both myself and other managers under my supervision so that the profession continues to grow and contribute to the well-being of society.
- I will strive to create sustainable economic, social, and environmental prosperity worldwide.
- I will be accountable to my peers and they will be accountable to me for living by this oath.
Source: Wikipedia
Some weeks ago I reached some conclusions about the demographic/technographic wave of the Digital Natives. I foresee deep impact, if not cultural clash. For a CEO or manager there are narrow options for sustainable strategic response to this challenge.
So my pro-active imperative was: Time to transform your company into an academy
Today some other fruit of analyzing the wave and emerging power of Digital Natives / Millenials dropped. Manager Magazin online published the article about the emerging issue:
“Digital Natives”: Die Revolution der Web-Eingeborenen – manager-magazin.de http://www.manager-magazin.de/it/artikel/0,2828,625126,00.html
“Digital Natives”: Die Revolution der Web-Eingeborenen – manager-magazin.de
(Andreas Neef, Willi Schroll, Björn Theis)
Just enjoy the insights.
See my business mind map
Dear reader, you realized my low blogging frequency. I am so busy with projects and my own business development of <Strategic Labs> in these days of exciting developments in the media and communication industry.
Just follow @willischroll and watch my tweets about emerging trends and the future at twitter.com/willischroll.
Will microblogging kill the blogs, will it kill my blog? No way, don’t worry. Social micro and macro media are in great symbiosis! 140 letters is just too short for complex knowledge communication. But I see a bright future for twitter and other microcommunication stuff. As I twttered: It could be some stem cell (with pluripotent applications) in the coming realtime – social – semantic – sensing – paraphysical Web 3.0. Just think about a mashup like this, found at mashable:
++ Twitter Meets Google Street View: Stweet! http://mashable.com/2009/05/09/twitter-street-view/
