CommunityCamp 2008 was the first of it’s kind in Berlin – a thematic barcamp, focused on the fuzzy issues of community. There were practical down to earth sessions around community management and some sessions for research issues and academic reflection as well. In my first session “Mobile Communities – types, trends, potentials”, I was trying to think forward beyond the services of today. There are apps on the mobile device just to keep in touch, others are location aware or realize social mapping. The combination of 

mobile, social, semantic and sensor technology will bring a new space of possible “socio-technical configurations”. My abbreviation for the monster word “mobile-social-semantic-(sensor)-web“ is “moss web”. Succesful design of the architecture and interface needs a lot of sociological analytics and kind of “social usability” concepts.

The Saturday session was rather huge and we only made first steps to find relevant building blocks and understand the problematic situation of “transparent society” (David Brin 1998). The following Sunday session I held together with “Mo” (Mostafa Akbari, mosworld) a mobile expert from RWTH Aachen. The fruitful discussions resulted in the following slideshow (but I take all responsibility for any weaknesses).

More presentations (German): CommunityCamp Dokumentation

Update: More impressions from the CommunityCamp: blog.blinker.net

my.barackobama.com knows the tools of the social, viral, swarming web

It was not an easy task for Barack Obama’s team to find the right “historical place” for his appearance in Berlin. I am a foresight consultant (in Berlin) with a focus on technology, esp. ICT – but as a futurist I have to keep my scope broad up to 360 degrees – causal hyperconnectedness of things, you know …

Today I ponder about the interference of technology and politics. There has been written a lot about how the internet esp. the social media of web 2.0 changed the way of doing politics. But often the analytical categories don’t match the dynamic reality of the web.

I want to introduce the “swarm” as a serious category for a better understanding of things happening when some millions of connected users are losely coupled, interact and follow tags, interests, people, events, brands and … politicians.

SIGNAL: A political blogger is conceiving a new phenomena in the context of online campaigning

The democrats.org blogger “JMesserly” wrote on Mar 27th, 2008:

Notice is being taken of the connection between new phenomena: Swarm politics, Blog swarms, Fear in the ranks of traditional party and PAC professionals towards armies of volunteers that are indifferent and even hostile towards their efforts at command and control.

Folks may find this article interesting in the context of the newly dominant role of internet communications which is enabling a revolution in the way politics and collective activities like Wikipedia or Kiva can and are working today. [...] We must consider how the dynamics of swarm theory can be leveraged on the internet and in the marketplace to rapidly and decisively attack social problems. [my emphasis]

I found this post when I was googling in preparation of a presentation about swarm intelligence and its effective applications. There was this idea, that swarms are formations, that will play a role in the future. There have been four occasions of “public thinking” about swarms an their limits as a new organisational model – a tiny wiki has been initiated – swarmology.pbwiki.com

CONTEXT: From web 2.0 community to web 3.0 swarm dynamics

In 2008 we see a ripe environment of web 2.0 with a lot of people using social media routinely. Teens grow up with facebook, youtube and mobile twitter. And with the feed world there comes something new.

RELEVANCE: “Ecology” of communication and companion is extended and more fluid in the future

Maybe Obama can win with swarm mobilisation effects in the internet – and is the first “user generated president” of the USA. Swarms with their flexibility can play a role in the future. But to be true: I am sure that the “establishment” has some ideas to stop the “swarms of change”. And don’t forget, it is nearly impossible to impose control on a “swarm of self-thinking individuals” from the outside.

by the way: polls are so 1.0 – prediction markets e.g. at intrade.com are a more accurate tool

Update 2008-07-24 LT 01:12

• “And with the feed world there comes something new.” Need some explanation? What I mean is micro blogging like twitter or something like mini feeds on facebook – the interesting thing there is: the user experience is more that of a swarm, not a community with “stable border” in a sociological sense. User joins “gradually” – not in a discrete sense of being member/not member, when he signs up formally. Just notice the basic relation type of twitter, the “following” relation, you are “followed” and have “followers” – and that is a relation type of swarms.
• Inserted the screenshot detail from my.barackobama.com
• Inserted the intrade.com screenshot

Update 2008-07-26 LT 17:04

• Related stuff: Obama and Politics 2.0: Documenting History in Real-Time
  A conversation with Arun Chaudhary, director of field production for Barack Obama, and Ellen McGirt, Senior Writer for Fast Company – July 16th 2008, video at designmind.frogdesign.com

Coming home from some “field research” in the local Berlin Kreuzberg scene. Pecha Kucha No. 9 was fun. Most people are loaded like a gun with their ideas when presenting and … btw I am always interested in new formats of the social (socio technical) space. 20 seconds per slide – I’d like to see this staccato style at some boring conferences!

Now I just select one nice presentation for confronting it with the newest paper I got from McKinsey Quarterly. Completely different contexts, intentions and so on – for sure.

• The presentation at Pecha Kucha No. 9: “Cäthe Pfläging (Amt für Gestaltung / about girls and motorbikes”.
• The newest McK Quarterly article: “The next step in open innovation” – first you have to register, then McK is open .-(

Cäthe told us about her love for motorbikes and her approach in the subject, which is a bit different for women than for men. Now for my argumentation here I only want to select from Cäthe’s nice slide show (a) the fact that there are no magazines for motorbike liking girls – and (b) what she (as a woman) would like to see in a motorbike magazine. For example: Which bike fits to a certain style type of woman – from enduro to chopper. Most girls e.g. need not: All these technically detailed stuff men can discuss for hours.

McKinseys authors tell us: “The Internet and new social-networking technologies are allowing companies and their customers to interact with unprecedented levels of richness. Some leading organizations are using this opportunity to draw customers into the heart of the product-development process.” (quote from article at a glance)

Now, isn’t that a funny coincidence? To be honest the McK article tells not so much news – the web 2.0, wikinomics and open innovation issues are some years around now, the question I want to pose is just: Isn’t it a bit frightening, that the market has not created a magazine for female bikers in the last decades (while there is a high frequency of newly launched “woman magazines” – at least in Germany). What goes wrong here? Looks like that all the surveys targeted only the demographics, and just did not aim at the interest group “female bikers”. Well, the players in the media business would benefit a lot from open innovation – but they have to simply ask the right questions at the first place.