Joi Ito, Chairman of the Creative Commons, describes what Creative Commons is, and how it works. Visiting the Supernova DC Mixer last week, he noted that CC allows creators to license their works with specific freedoms the creator wants it to carry, so others can share, remix, use commercially, or any combination of those things. He also describes companies and government agencies that are using it, and how the use of the Creative Commons license is evolving to enable sets of data to be shared more widely. This is effecting science and education in profound ways.
One of the things I found most profound was when Joi noted that the Creative Commons was looking less like a legal or political movement, and more like a technical standards body, helping enable interaction of previously incompatible things. Joi is an early stage investor in many popular Web 2.0 companies including Socialtext, Six Apart, and Last.FM, and he’s always worth listening to for his predictions (in this video) of the direction the net is going to take.
One of the defining properties of the Network Age is being connected. It’s connect or bust for business, for government, for pleasure — indeed, for survival. But being “always on” must take a toll on us. Are we dodging “meatspace” relationships by burying our noses in our smartphones? Are we burning out? Is a backlash coming?
When do you turn off the ringer? What about email purges? Is it ever acceptable to not even read what comes in? What is the best way to take a break? And why are people so sensitive about it? Are we coaxed by the sweet enticements of the net into distractions that keep us from focusing and being productive at our jobs? If so, how do we mediate the distractions and stay on point?
kathrynshantz: #supernova SUPER thanks to Kevin and team – no booze but the talk and report was a rare and generous present about 10 hours ago from web · Reply · View Tweet
kathrynshantz: #supernova anyone who’s ever been in a small co that grew into a big co knows the drastic impact on knowledge flow about 10 hours ago from web · Reply · View Tweet
kathrynshantz: #supernova any good case studies out there of big companies that figured out how to opp like a small company? about 10 hours ago from web · Reply · View Tweet
kathrynshantz: #supernova -still think it comes down to scale enabling creative execution – small co’s have more creative edge about 10 hours ago from web · Reply · View Tweet
Persistance: RT @gbolles: “John Hagel & John Seely Brown @supernovahub mixer, talking about the big shift toward a networked economy” great convo & crowd about 10 hours ago from web · Reply · View Tweet
iPolicy: #supernova Chart said middle 6 yrs of Bush 43 was grt time for US bidness. Hard to see that, ROA not all that. about 11 hours ago from TwitterBerry · Reply · View Tweet
thekenyeung: Good times at the Supernova Mixer tonight. Very thought provoking & I even got @cathybrooks to almost laugh. oh, and got a cool takeaway. about 11 hours ago from TwitterBerry · Reply · View Tweet
DivShare: John Hagel & John Seely Brown @ Supernova mixer, talking about the big shift toward what I’d call the networked economy. (via @gbolles) about 11 hours ago from Tweetie · Reply · View Tweet
supernovahub: RT @gbolles: John Hagel & John Seely Brown @ Supernova mixer, talking about the big shift toward what I’d call the networked economy. about 12 hours ago from cotweet · Reply · View Tweet
chiah: Can look at knowledge flows or talent metrics by proxy, panel hopes to not go back to transactional measures. New paradigm time? #supernovaabout 12 hours ago from Snaptu · Reply · View Tweet
ahesse: Hagel (Shift Index): every public policy question should be reframed as a talent development issue (!) #supernovaabout 12 hours ago from TweetDeck · Reply · View Tweet
gbolles: John Hagel & John Seely Brown @ Supernova mixer, talking about the big shift toward what I’d call the networked economy. about 12 hours ago from txt · Reply · View Tweet
ahesse: #supernova – all work could be set as creative, problem solving. Use of right tools for knowledge flows and creation is key about 12 hours ago from TweetDeck · Reply · View Tweet
silverton: #supernova you. yes YOU won’t “let” me be “real” simply because my body isn’t there right now. personhood revoked. about 12 hours ago from web · Reply · View Tweet
kevinmarks: John Hagel: looking for proxies for knowledge flows – cant yet take it down to an individual company #sn09about 12 hours ago from mobile web · Reply · View Tweet
silverton: #supernova the only *why* of geo-aggregation is anachronistic & vestigial meatbot bias & behavioral inertia. about 12 hours ago from web · Reply · View Tweet
daveambrose: Shift Index: what type of Return should we track? What generates value add? Capital assets? Knowledge? Creativity?#supernova (via @ahesse) about 12 hours ago from Tweetie · Reply · View Tweet
supernovahub: IT focused too much on ‘Scalable efficiency’ and not on creating creativity for workers – John Hagel ^HG about 12 hours ago from cotweet · Reply · View Tweet
supernovahub: RT @chiah: Talking about passion in employees, most engaged workers find new knowldge flows- but these are often not the satisfied ones. about 12 hours ago from cotweet · Reply · View Tweet
kevinmarks: John Hagel: in a high growth environment you get inequality; question is how fluid it is – continual disruption of winners #sn09about 12 hours ago from mobile web · Reply · View Tweet
ahesse: Shift Index: what type of Return should we track? What generates value add? Capital assets? Knowledge? Creativity?#supernovaabout 12 hours ago from TweetDeck · Reply · View Tweet
ahesse: Hagel: “passion” is part of the Shift Index. Passionate people engage stronger in knowledge flows. #supernovaabout 12 hours ago from TweetDeck · Reply · View Tweet
chiah: Talking about passion in employees, most engaged workers find new knowldge flows- but these are often not the satisfied ones. #supernovaabout 12 hours ago from Snaptu · Reply · View Tweet
alevin: Is there evidence that the trend is global or is this us declining relative to rest of world? #sn09about 12 hours ago from Tweetie · Reply · View Tweet
kevinmarks: John Hagel: measuring worker passion is important – passionate workers join knowledge flows. Passionate people arent the most satisfied #sn09 about 13 hours ago from mobile web · Reply · View Tweet
ahesse: Hagel, Shift Index: ROA is declining. So, is that a problem? Return on knowledge and creativity is up. #supernovaabout 13 hours ago from TweetDeck · Reply · View Tweet
kevinmarks: John Hagel: companies failing to capture knowledge flows; Next report will look at company sectors and outside US #sn09about 13 hours ago from mobile web · Reply · View Tweet
ConcepcionBoldA: 1) Barriers down. 2) Competitive forces HIGHER #supernova Creative Talent: knowledge workers cash comp rising. about 13 hours ago from API · Reply · View Tweet
chiah: Listening to how speed of knowledge flows out is often bad for institutions and corporations but good for the rest of us. #supernovaabout 13 hours ago from Snaptu · Reply · View Tweet
kevinmarks: John Hagel: 3rd element is flow index – knowledge flows. Knowledge flows faster; innovation spreads, learns faster. Big co’s suffer #sn09about 13 hours ago from mobile web · Reply · View Tweet
larrychiang: 1) Barriers down. 2) Competitive forces HIGHER #supernova Creative Talent: knowledge workers cash comp rising. about 13 hours ago from txt · Reply · View Tweet
kevinmarks: John Hagel: companies caught between customers and creative talent both extracting the value, not going to return on assets #sn09about 13 hours ago from mobile web · Reply · View Tweet
larrychiang: Fixated on ROA (return on assets). Its collapsed 75%. Asset profitability has dropped. Labor productivity UP #supernovaabout 13 hours ago from txt · Reply · View Tweet
MagicSauceMedia: Am at Supernova mixer in SF at Wharton School, John Seeley Brown and John Hagel talk about The Shift Index Report about 13 hours ago from TwitterBerry · Reply · View Tweet
ggdm: At Wharton for the #Supernova event talking about The Big Shift. Can someone give Internets to the WIFi router beaconing the event? about 13 hours ago from txt · Reply · View Tweet
rycaut: I have migrated to the back room of a Starbucks on Howard across from the Rincon center. OJ, wifi & power before Supernova mixer about 15 hours ago from web · Reply · View Tweet
“We have to make our passions our professions. If we don’t, this [the economy] is going to be uglier and uglier, and we’re going to feel more and more stressed.” -John Hagel
John Hagel gives his thoughts on the importance of “passion” at last night’s sold out SupernovaHub Mixer at Wharton | SF. This is just a 30sec snippet; the whole event was over an hour in a packed house. More videos and coverage of the Mixer will be up soon.
Okay, we’ve got a stream and chat set up for the Wharton | SF mixer event tonight. The main stream will be live at 6:00pm PDT, with the presentation starting at 6:15pm PDT tonight (Tues, 11Aug), for John Hagel and John Seely Brown’s presentation. Here they are:
Wow! Tonight’s mixer at Wharton | SF with John Hagel and John Seely Brown is SOLD OUT! Looking forward to seeing everyone there! We’re working on getting a UStream live video feed set up for everyone as well, so you can participate over the web. More soon.
Comments Off | Supernova Staff | August 11th, 2009 | Strategic Change
One of the key challenges in the Network Age is how to absorb all the information flowing through what’s being called the “Real Time Web.” Howard Greenstein spoke with Andrew Keen (self-proclaimed “Anti-Christ of Silicon Valley,” Author of “The Cult of the Amateur”), TechCrunch Co-Editor and moderator of the Real Time Stream Crunchup event Erick Schonfeld, John Borthwick, Kevin Marks, David Talley and others on the topic. Click the player above to hear the conversation. The conversation continues in the comments below.
Background: In recent video interviews on the Supernova Hub, Keen and author Clay Shirky, perhaps surprisingly, agree that the information flowing across our news, email, Facebook, Twitter and other networks needs to be curated and filtered. But will the curators be “experts,” acting as the gatekeepers of All The News That’s Fit To Share? Will we simply filter our information based on the concept of “greylisting,” where we simply see the items that were interesting to our closest contacts and colleagues? What can we learn from the TechCrunch event where experts gave their opinions recently?
Chat Transcript:
*** (18:04:37):Welcome to the Supernova Chat Room.
Supernova says (18:05:37):
welcome all
Kevin Werbach says to (18:06:19):
Ironic that we’re talking about the real time web today when Twitter was down for hours from a denial of service attack
Supernova says (18:06:28):
agreed
ccarfi says to (18:07:23):
Hi, all
Kevin Werbach says to (18:08:54):
Andrew sees real-time replacing email. Another reason that is happenign is the continuing growth of spam.
ccarfi says to (18:10:20):
if anyone has a question for the callers, either put them here, or if you would like to ask live on the call, please let me know.
Jonathan Trumper says to (18:11:39):
go bitly!
Kevin Werbach says to (18:11:47):
Who woulda thunk there was a biz in link shorteners?
Jonathan Trumper says to (18:11:58):
John did.
Kevin Werbach says to (18:12:03):
(I know)
Jonathan Trumper says to (18:12:12):
of course.
Kevin Werbach says to (18:12:12):
Johnborthwick says to (18:12:34):
thank.ly
Jonathan Trumper says to (18:12:39):
well said.
Supernova says (18:13:11):
welcome John . we’ll include you if you ahve a comment or question
Johnborthwick says to (18:14:05):
ok
Kevin Werbach says to (18:15:47):
Memory vs. consciousness? Yes, this is getting deep.
Supernova says (18:17:43):
maybe we should take it up a level
ccarfi says to (18:20:38):
“recency effect?”
Supernova says (18:21:21):
i want it now
Supernova says (18:21:34):
shiny object syndrome?
Kevin Werbach says to (18:21:54):
Is Facebook really about realtime? Even with the news feed, I mostly use it for connections, rather than stream updates.
Jonathan Trumper says to (18:24:39):
A new way of experiencing the world?
Jonathan Trumper says to (18:25:14):
Are we experiencing it with our minds or our hearts?
Johnborthwick says to (18:25:32):
here howard
Johnborthwick says to (18:25:50):
tell me what to do to talk
Supernova says (18:26:02):
we will addyou
Supernova says (18:26:04):
in 1 min
Johnborthwick says to (18:26:54):
ok
Jonathan Trumper says to (18:28:20):
All these streams…what Joseph Campbell spoke of -we’re “standing on a whale, fishing for minnows”
blephen says to (18:28:45):
fb is hardly realtime and i doubt it will ever be as “realtime” as twitter. i don’t see that as their core competency or their offering.
geoffabrown says to (18:29:26):
Perfect timing for this debate. I just finished reading “Cult of the Amateur” as research for a recent panel on Citizen Journalism and found Keen’s points to be quite relevant.
Supernova says (18:29:49):
is FB making pages the public component
blephen says to (18:30:22):
hi andrew, hi eric, it’sjeff, “the schwartz” here…interesting stuff both of you, thx.
Supernova says (18:30:36):
geoff if you have a quest. pls dial in and press 1 to ask it
blephen says to (18:34:42):
good point andrew
blephen says to (18:35:37):
this is a very old discussion that began back before web 1.0 dotbombed. glad to see/hear it recapitulated and mapped onto today.
Supernova says (18:36:21):
we’re open to your questions
Supernova says (18:36:27):
you can call in and press 1` or ask them here
blephen says to (18:39:23):
suggest folks take a look at this video rant by alan kay and andy van dam from last year’sprogramforthefuture.org conference. https://admin.adobe.acrobat.com/_a295153/p99875217/
blephen says to (18:39:51):
the stream from twitter contains 20+ percent bots…that’s well more than enuff to game the system
RandyGiusto says to (18:42:56):
regular people have to take the next step and look at Twitter apps to “get it” as Twitter.com is limited in functionality- great chat!
blephen says to (18:43:15):
it’s simple, you don’t follow your friends, you search subjects and look at people who are tweeting on the subject you are interested in. if they’re tweets are 20% useful, i follow them. in one hour i was able to uncover most of the backchannel on iran.
blephen says to (18:44:39):
it’s not about nowness it’s about relevence and context.
geoffabrown says to (18:46:30):
At our Social Media Club Los Angeles panel, Chris Tolles (Topix CEO) said, “assume all news from unconfirmed sources” as untrustworthy” and “you have to triangulate reports” to get at the truth. I prefer to wait for a trusted news source…
Supernova says (18:46:48):
excellent geoff but who do you trust?
blephen says to (18:46:59):
bingo
blephen says to (18:47:10):
trust is the key
blephen says to (18:47:56):
what is a trusted news source?
blephen says to (18:48:43):
in an echo-chamber of spin, there are few “genuine” voices
geoffabrown says to (18:48:44):
Each source leans one way or another…I suppose you can have a better triangulation by taking a few different major media outlets
RandyGiusto says to (18:48:51):
Yes, I’ve created a “sages” group in TweetDeck that is growing, but it’s from following various streams and other industry people I know. Over time, I trust these people the most
blephen says to (18:49:41):
yes, editing is still an essential function
blephen says to (18:49:52):
but who is going to do it?
Jonathan Trumper says to (18:50:22):
public versus private sources
blephen says to (18:51:04):
that’s not true
blephen says to (18:51:11):
all the source data is hardly public
blephen says to (18:51:44):
much of the “source data” is just referencing hearsay
blephen says to (18:52:16):
there’s less and less real research and more and more obfuscation
David Talley says to (18:52:31):
One excellent source of credible filtering might be a professional association in the space (says the guy who works for a professional association).
David Talley says to (18:53:09):
Few associations are all that agile but they can catch up.
ccarfi says to (18:53:17):
yup.
Supernova says (18:53:51):
david – which association?
David Talley says to (18:54:09):
American Water Works Association (awwa.org)
RandyGiusto says to (18:54:22):
more data does not equal more insight, just more noise!
Kevin Werbach says to (18:54:33):
“slicing and dicing the stream”
blephen says to (18:54:50):
@randy, tru dat s/n ratio is the problem
geoffabrown says to (18:56:09):
News aggregators can add value by having various “trust” levels associated with each article they publish I suppose.
ccarfi says to (18:56:09):
David…you are totally on to something. Didn’t associations used to do “research” and publish it, but perhaps that raw-data info comes from the web now. But it’s too much, not credible, etc. So, assoc. can (re-)become the authoritative source?
blephen says to (18:56:44):
remember that associations often have a bias of their own…
David Talley says to (18:56:51):
We do that now in old-web terms — online pubs, mainly.
blephen says to (18:57:48):
what is needed i think is a spin indicator…hey there’s an idea for a biz…mebbe i’ll get to work on that.
geoffabrown says to (18:57:50):
Great call everybody. Thank you very much Supernova.
David Talley says to (18:58:12):
Those researched original stories & papers take time, though. We may be ignoring an opporunity to pick up bits from our community and retweet or post the best, according to our informed judgment.
blephen says to (18:58:13):
yes, great call. thx
JulianG says to (18:59:58):
Thanks
blephen says to (19:00:09):
just remember as billy wilder said: taken individually, the audience are all idiots, but together they are genius
Many-time Supernova attendee and co-founder of the Personal Democracy Forum Andrew Rasiej does a recap of this years PDF Conference with Howard Greenstein, and talks about how technology is changing and influencing politics. He discusses CIO of the White House Vivik Kundra’s announcement at the conference of the IT Dashboard on Federal spending at Data.gov.
He states that the new tools and networks allow “organized minorities to be more effective than disorganized majorities” and this will change some very major power structures in the political landscape. He also talks about the way the rise of citizen journalism is helping to replace the holes in coverage left by ailing mainstream media outlets.
There is additional discussion regarding political fund raising using online networks, and the power of organizing on social networks.
(Disclosure: the author has worked on projects recently for Andrew, but nothing related to the PDF conference).
A friend asked me to post an explanation of what I meant when I said at PDF09 that “transparency is the new objectivity.” First, I apologize for the cliché of “x is the new y.” Second, what I meant is that transparency is now fulfilling some of objectivity’s old role in the ecology of knowledge.
Outside of the realm of science, objectivity is discredited these days as anything but an aspiration, and even that aspiration is looking pretty sketchy. The problem with objectivity is that it tries to show what the world looks like from no particular point of view, which is like wondering what something looks like in the dark. Nevertheless, objectivity — even as an unattainable goal — served an important role in how we came to trust information, and in the economics of newspapers in the modern age.
You can see this in newspapers’ early push-back against blogging. We were told that bloggers have agendas, whereas journalists give us objective information. Of course, if you don’t think objectivity is possible, then you think that the claim of objectivity is actually hiding the biases that inevitably are there. That’s what I meant when, during a bloggers press conference at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, I asked Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Walter Mears whom he was supporting for president. He replied (paraphrasing!), “If I tell you, how can you trust what I write?,” to which I replied that if he doesn’t tell us, how can we trust what he blogs?
So, that’s one sense in which transparency is the new objectivity. What we used to believe because we thought the author was objective we now believe because we can see through the author’s writings to the sources and values that brought her to that position. Transparency gives the reader information by which she can undo some of the unintended effects of the ever-present biases. Transparency brings us to reliability the way objectivity used to.
This change is, well, epochal.
Objectivity used be presented as a stopping point for belief: If the source is objective and well-informed, you have sufficient reason to believe. The objectivity of the reporter is a stopping point for reader’s inquiry. That was part of high-end newspapers’ claimed value: You can’t believe what you read in a slanted tabloid, but our news is objective, so your inquiry can come to rest here. Credentialing systems had the same basic rhythm: You can stop your quest once you come to a credentialed authority who says, “I got this. You can believe it.” End of story.
We thought that that was how knowledge works, but it turns out that it’s really just how paper works. Transparency prospers in a linked medium, for you can literally see the connections between the final draft’s claims and the ideas that informed it. Paper, on the other hand, sucks at links. You can look up the footnote, but that’s an expensive, time-consuming activity more likely to result in failure than success. So, during the Age of Paper, we got used to the idea that authority comes in the form of a stop sign: You’ve reached a source whose reliability requires no further inquiry.
In the Age of Links, we still use credentials and rely on authorities. Those are indispensible ways of scaling knowledge, that is, letting us know more than any one of us could authenticate on our own. But, increasingly, credentials and authority work best for vouchsafing commoditized knowledge, the stuff that’s settled and not worth arguing about. At the edges of knowledge — in the analysis and contextualization that journalists nowadays tell us is their real value — we want, need, can have, and expect transparency. Transparency puts within the report itself a way for us to see what assumptions and values may have shaped it, and lets us see the arguments that the report resolved one way and not another. Transparency — the embedded ability to see through the published draft — often gives us more reason to believe a report than the claim of objectivity did.
In fact, transparency subsumes objectivity. Anyone who claims objectivity should be willing to back that assertion up by letting us look at sources, disagreements, and the personal assumptions and values supposedly bracketed out of the report.
Objectivity without transparency increasingly will look like arrogance. And then foolishness. Why should we trust what one person — with the best of intentions — insists is true when we instead could have a web of evidence, ideas, and argument?
In short: Objectivity is a trust mechanism you rely on when your medium can’t do links. Now our medium can.
) 
A friend asked me to post an explanation of what I meant when I said at 
