What Mark refers to as depth is what Linda Stone calls “the next aphrodisiac” in her talk at Supernova 2005 – Full Focused Attention.
 
Five years into Linda’s 20 year cycle framework of culture, cycle where swinging back to the individual as a centre of gravity. Full focus attention. It’s why I’ve focused, from time to time, on things such openness, sharing, and context.

Culture creates the technology it needs to fulfil its desires.

Mark Pesce, author, technologist, futurist.
We have become broad grazers of culture. Over the last decade, our ability to ‘go wide’ has reached unprecedented levels.

Whether an uprising in Iran, a celebrity marriage gone sour, or the trivial factoids which obsess us, we now have the tools to take it all in, all the time, wherever we are.

The mainstream media have tried to follow us on or flight path into breadth, only succeeding in becoming more insubstantial.

But the time for breadth is over. We’ve passed the test – with high marks. We need to move along.

The other and mostly unexplored axis of an information-saturated culture is depth. Each of us has the capacity to dive in and learn more about almost anything than ever before.

It nearly always starts with Wikipedia, which then points you to another resource, which points to another, and another, until, at the end, something like real mastery has been achieved.

With depth comes judgment; walk a mile in another’s shoes and you can know their thoughts. It’s not fast food, but it is a nutritious meal.

It’s interesting to note that the big movie this year (and probably the decade) is James Cameron’s Avatar. Uttered at its climax, the film’s catch phrase is, ‘I see you.’

Three words framing an experience of depth, one soul knowing the soul of another. That might be too much to ask on a planet of nearly seven billion souls, but we know we are lacking, and long to restore balance. Depth must take its place alongside breadth as a core human capability in the era of hyperinformation.

Without it, we will simply evaporate into ephemera and trivia. But with it – and this is my dream – we can reach the rock-solid core of being.

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The other day whilst reading a feed somewhere in my hundreds, I came across a link to a video .. this video in fact :

I instantly felt a recognition and affinity and especially wth the subtleties in the kaos (yes, oh yes, there’s subtleties), so much so it sent me hunting for more. I found it’s a creation by John Callahan who has a wikipedia entry here.

If anybody really knows me they’ll see why I like this so much. Some, like the person who complained about the ‘insensitivity’ of the cartoon shown above, won’t see anything, as they really don’t wish to see the reality of humanity in all its raw openness anyway.

You see I realise the affinity I felt was with John’s humanness, not specifically his disability.

I’m not gonna say much more except this guy has insights only other quads could recognise and does a bloody fine job pointing out some of the idiocy anyone with a disability lives around and through. A true artist.

Here’s links to some of his other stuff worth a watch:

Interview snippett

Part 1 of a tv documentary shown on Dutch TV:

and his other ‘Quads’ animated cartoon series

and his songs on youtube

For many years I’ve had an image in my head of an absurd cartoon that I’ve just been waiting for opportunity to be drawn. It’s the kind of image I think someone like John would appreciate and could really do justice – If there ever was such a thing in this world.

FWIW

Dave

It makes me think a lot about what I said regarding Social Isolation over on my Lifekludger blog recently.

[audio:http://media.dnwallace.com/mp3/Snippet-Keynote_MeWeandtheNetwork.mp3]
Shout-out by Nancy White

Nancy White
Keynote: Me, We and the Network
Learning Technologies 2009 Conference

The power of you – or of me, is mighty. But when and how do we tap into the power of “we” – bounded groups, or networks which flow beyond our personal lines of sight. What practices enable us to utilise the power across these three forms?

Learning Technologies 2009 Conference Podcasts from both days available now at http://bit.ly/2zq7yv

Strangely or not, I tend not to see myself as disabled. Maybe that’s why I tend to focus on sharing more about what I’m doing than who I am or what I think about disability specific things – whatever those are.

It’s possibly also why when I refer to people with a disability I use the term people ‘living’ with disability. After all, tha’s what I’m doing. It’s also the focus I put on the possibilities technology can and does offer to enrich that ‘living’.

Besides which, I’m just a practical sort of guy.

I’m not the best at conveying what I feel either about what runs deep and not most elequant expressing what I really believe.

Sure I’ve had my lucid moments on issues I’m passionate about, which you’ll find within the years of posting here, and on my other blog - like Social Isolation, Co-presence and Barriers. Generally though words get in my way. Thankfully others don’t have the same problem.

Just recently I came across a post by Lauredhel titled “On ambient intimacy and assistive devices” that had me saying “yes, yes, yes; that’s what I wanted to say to so many people so many times”.

In part she writes about being social …

The internet is the virtual watercooler (or coffeehouse, or playgroup, or pub) for people like me, isolated due to disability. And I’m fed up with able-bodied folk slamming electronic community as a meaningless half-life. I’m sick of internet use being constructed as a signifier of a person as a pathetic loser worthy of mockery. And I’m over ignorant pundits reviling the rise in electronic community as The End of the World as We Know It, a one-way highway to the inevitable disengaged, apolitical fragmentation of society.

And in an analogy to be physical assistive devices… ”

People who use wheelchairs, for example, use wheelchairs. They get around in them. Wheelchairs are useful, value-neutral objects. People are not “bound” to them; they’re not “condemned” to life in a wheelchair. The use of a wheelchair doesn’t mark a person as either a sinister or pitiable caricature. And above all, people are not synonymous with their wheelchairs. They’re people who use a mobility device, a tool. (emphasis mine)

The internet may be many things, but it is also my social assistive device. And that’s not tragic, or threatening, or worthy of scorn. It just is.”

Do yourself a favour and read the whole thing on her blog “Hoyden About Town”

Thanks Lauredhel. This so underlines why I have felt strongly for nearly 30 years about technology as a tool in general, why I think the connection and openness that a social web enables is important and points to why I keep persisting with the idea that is Lifekludger.

Dave

Get your twitter mosaic here.

]]> http://dnwallace.com/blog/2009/02/15/my-twitter-friend-mosaic/feed/ 0 http://dnwallace.com/blog/2009/02/12/adelaide-tweetup-at-kappys/ http://dnwallace.com/blog/2009/02/12/adelaide-tweetup-at-kappys/#comments Thu, 12 Feb 2009 09:50:56 +0000 dnw http://dnwallace.com/blog/?p=512 Went to my first Tweetup today. Was held at Kappys in Flinders St. Was great meeting some of the Adelaide twitter folk (oh, and @silkcharm, who is an ex-Adelaide girl). Some I already followed and now have some new ones.

Here’s some pics: (more here)

UPDATE: @silkcharm has posted a qik video:

Dave

Now the secrets. Enjoy!… or in Mike’s case ‘suffer in ya jocks’.

More Photos on Flickr

Photos posted to Twitter from my phone – one, two.

And finally, some audio captured off my Camera. Two and a half songs: geezers version of “eight days a week” then some noise and @fang filling in with strumming while tracking a sound fault (or maybe that *was* thesound fault), then “everywhere you go you always take the weather”, just for UncleNick, and half of “sunny afternoon”. It’s all unedited, use your FF button.

Raw audio here – listen at own risk.

Dave

My mate Roy Blumenthal from South Africa, who is the man behind my portrait on my lifekludger blog, has scored himself a gig as a weekly co-anchor of CNBC AFRICA’s business magazine show, ‘Kaleidoscope‘ where he employs his visual facilitation skills to draw the info under discussion live on screen on his tablet pc.

While Roy’s talent is undisputed, I rekon this is a great example of the “Because Effect” (as termed by Doc Searls) as an indirect outcome of Roy’s digital networked life of openness.In the connected network world,  the Because Effect feeds on openness. And it’s more than an API.

Kudos Roy.

Dave

So this evening I threw together a yahoo pipe of Mark’s feeds.

Get it how you like it here or if you want, the rss here.

rss: http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?_id=6P41wPJp3RG3_neFIGsPpw&_render=rss

Pipe: http://pipes.yahoo.com/dnwallace/mpesce

Mark posts : http://blipvert.markpesce.com/?p=21

Sanity returns.

Dave

For someone special I know.

The rules:

1- Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2 – People who are tagged need to write a post on their own blog (about their eight things) and post these rules.
3 – At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
4 – Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

My 8 Facts:

1. I like and collect elephants (no, not real ones)
2. When I was 18 I’d never broken a bone – so I broke my neck,
3. I love eating lamb anything (well within reason)
4. I never really liked school except for Tech Studies and Art
5. I love peace but like to think I would kill or die for my family and close friends
6. I once sang in school choir at Adelaide Festival Centre (where later on saw Skyhooks in concert)
7. Favourite musician is Bruce Cockburn
8. Second life saved my sanity

Now, the 8 I get to tag. And if you’ve already done it before, just let me know?

Nathanael Boehm
Gary barber
Eshi Otawara
Naked Biff
Nick Hodge
Tracey Crisp
Roy Blumenthal
Rick Clise

Dave

It’s been a heady couple weeks which started innocently enough with Cameron Reilly asking me about getting a little place in SL that TPN supporters could meet up. I found a good priced parcel that within a few days proved too small. I think the first time Cam dragged a building across the ground got him hooked and from there I’ve been running after him since. We then found an island cheap and started setting that up. Soon however Cam’s love of geodesic domes had us hitting the limits of our island and so we had to scale back our aspirations and adjust to what was possible with where we currently are at.

Having a presence for people to connect on SL has been great. Many who drop by are sharing and helping each other in all sorts of areas, both in and off world as well as socialising. Certainly I’ve connected with a lot of the TPN followers and using voice has helped in strengthening that connection. Twitter as a way of notifying that there’s actually people in SL has helped and Duncan Riley has written on TechCrunch about this aspect.

I’ve been pleased that there has been a strong Australian contingent in those visiting which has made quite a difference in my experience seeing how SL population online seems to fluctuate to the West Coast US time zone. However there have been visitors from listeners around the world. too.

I find it interesting that community is actually being lived out in many places and aided by the myriad of online services each adding their particular specialty to the mix. So people connected on blogs or flickr or twiter or skype also connect on SL, sometimes even on many at one (like Twitter from within SL).

Just like communities, friends don’t have to live in silos.

Break out – Join in!

Dave

TechCrunch : Twitter + Second Life =Spontaneous Web Meetspace

SLURL : The Podcast Network HQ in SL

Nick Hodge blog : @dnwallace, SecondLife Engineer

Not only do I work on the web, I wouldn’t be able to work too well without it. Even though I have tele-worked since before the web was open, it’s made it so much easier. If you want to know a bit more you can start here, here, here, or here.

If you work on the web and feel so inclined, do a post of your own, with a photo on flickr and tag it iworkontheweb for the group on flickr.

Dave

[tags]flickr, iworkontheweb[/tags]

….We should use the potential openness of social networks to make a difference, to shape the future into a much more intimate place – a world of ‘we’.

This comment about ‘we’ resonated with what I read Father Bob talk a lot about – like is typified in the post quoted below. It’s even more pertinent because of the sentence about the blogging ‘we’.

I still believe that a culture (people) creates the technology it needs to bring about what it desires – and in it’s simplest form that is summed up as ‘we’.

No longer us and them, just WE!

6:45pm Wednesday August 8, all the lights go out at my place in South Melbourne. 6:50pm all the lights are back on. Lucky me.

The only torch at hand had flat batteries. The only cigarette lighter had no fuel. It’s a two storey house – dark as the tomb. What would I have done? I wasn’t prepared. Someone was. The electricity grid was prepared. Thanks to lots of fellow citizens who work all hours that the rest of us in a big city may live in comfort.

No longer us and them, just WE. Yet another example of how we depend on each other to do our duty. Ok, a computer put the lights back on but someone programmed that computer. Thank you, that someone.

Hospitals function because some people look after others, put others before themselves.

Traffic flows according to the same principle, whether on earth, sea or in the sky.

When a disaster strikes, natural or manmade, police and other essential service providers swing into action. Duty calls, some go even beyond the call of duty.

Churches do their duty when they behave as centres of hope in their neighbourhoods.

Bloggers do their duty when they act as “social” reporters. The mainstream media is jealous of this emerging information sharing phenomenon.

Pictures are taken by phone cameras and downloaded (or is it uploaded) onto MySpace or YouTube. Is this done from a sense of duty or a desire to become known?

……….

(emphasis added)

Dave

[tags]we, naked, bloggers, culture, signal, openness, sharing, giving, father bod, naked yak[/tags]

It’s reflected in the comment I jotted down here while liveblogging. During his keynote, Daniel Ben-Horin from Compumentor made reference to the emergence of a fourth platform. Mike Twittered it at the time as this : “May 14, 2007 Mike Seyfang: Now it gets interesting – Daniel Ben-Horin: the fourth platform (the terrain has shifted)”

This whole “Social Sector”, as Laurel terms it, encompasses all the elements of ‘Free as in Freedom’ and is an economy of sharing that builds with relationship and thrives on openness and connection. All the things that amplify an individual’s life ‘signal’.

Here’s a snippet from Laurel’s post “dotSub and the fourth Social Sector”

Social Sector is destroying companies and doesn’t even notice. Government – watch out, Social Sector is only about activism, without even realising it.

Get over there and read it all. Go on…you know you want to.

Dave

(Photo by 4MAX, via flickr)

[tags]cu07, social sector, activism, fourth platform, openness, freedom, signal[/tags]

Gday UnclePaul.

Stickyness of connection only works if you don’t kill the signal (feed).

Dave

From Park Paradigm, via JP

Just wish I had a clearer view…persevere, it’s worth it.

Edglings – some previous thoughts about life on the edge

Dave

Recently he developed another of his own guides to direct his twitter use and is only going to follow twitter conversations of people who follow his own. A fair idea I reckon. He calls it his ‘Pink Floyd Policy‘.

I love Pink Floyd. As it turns out, Kent has hit on a theme song I’ve aquired since my accident, albeit in a different context. But I digress.

Twitter. I’m not signing up for twitter – yet. You may’ve seen I wrote that I’m watching my friends twitter away, including Kent, and that it’s a shame that I cannot see what one of my real, not-twitter friends is saying simply because according to twitter I’m not her friend!

So, in a sense, I’ve created my own twitter policy and it revolves around not fragmenting my life any further than it already is. You could call in my ‘Brain Damage‘ policy. I’d rather think of it as ‘Breathe‘.

You see, I realised something today. It became clear when typing in google chat to one of my very good real-life friends who, although living nearby, we can’t seem to syncronise calendars to meet up. She made the comment something about having no life yet still can’t get to see me. I returned that my time is so fragmented currently that my life’s not a life. I recorded in my google notebook :

fragmentation=existence

signal=life

So, for now, I’m resolved not to sign up for twitter, even though I see it has potential – even as a ‘signal filter’ too. But let it be known, I’m the one making the policy and hereby reserve the right to re-make it later. But this is not easy for me, being the alpha-geek I am. This is no easy line in the sand I’m drawing.

So Kent, here’s my Nod. I can hear you. If you can’t hear what I’m saying, it’s because my lips are not moving. I am still home. We all don’t have to live in the same home (silo) to communicate effectively.

Peace

Dave

I took the opportunity to capture the opening and snipped together my versy first video with iMovie and on YouTube. See what you think.

Mike emailed me about Peter Clitheroe (suffolkandcool.com) saying he’s a mate of Pete Cogle (pcpodcast.podsahow.com) and how he was heard on his podcast talking about having tshirts in Second Life and needing a hand with getting them out in-world. So, I left a comment on the suffolk ‘n’ cool site offering help.

So, there I was in SL and Peter IM’d me. I was in middle of an opening where my art was being exhibited but he joined us and I got one of his t-shirts and a shot of us wearing them.

If you have SL you can get your own shirt from this location using the following slurl : http://slurl.com/secondlife/Sobaeksan/67/5/65

Now, if I can just get a t-shirt designed for our podcast, extraordinary everyday lives.

But it takes time to share. And right now I don’t have time to share. So I’m making time to share a little bit, show the overlap and the connections from that.

Mike, my mate, brother in munge and podcast co-host is in Sydney at the Unlimited Potential conference where Hugo is who is also a mate and was the first guest on said podcast. Hugo leant me a Tablet to review after hooking up with him on a podcast on TPN, a hookup which Mike is going to play the audio of upconf2007. I see Mike is thinking of a UMPC which reminds me. Hugo, isn’t it time a UMPC got a Lifekludger going-over? Meanwhile Beth Worrall, a friend of Mikes, appeared on her first podcast and gives the shoutout to Mike and I.

Remember…connections happen when stories overlap!
Stories need to be shared for the overlap to occur.
Share or die!

Dave

This was a piece by Fran Molloy as part of her series on how people use technology. Fran is the same person who featured me as Lifekludger a few weeks back in the same section.

Show your support…Digg Cam’s piece here.

Dave

The winner gets $50 donated to a charity of their choice. Here’s the details.

Here’s my entry. Now the mashup might not be obvious unless you are a Second Life citizen…but I’m sure Beth will see it.

Dave

BTW: For those interested, this was created from a screen shot in SL, then mashed using mostly LiveQuartz on a Mac….and took 35 layers and most of the afternoon…probably because I don’t have the exact right tools for this kind of thing on the Mac. A donation of photoshop for Mac would be greatly appreciated.

He was on the front cover of The Bulletin this week featured in an article on how Australian entrepreneurs are being forced to leave home in search of the funding they need to become the next YouTube in the Web 2.0 dotcom boom.

Read the article online.

Shame, Australia, Shame.

I knew these things would be used for unsavoury purposes, but never dreamt it would be this shocking!

Dave

It was held where I work and my Boss, who was ill, was suppossed to meet and greet the Governor of SA, Her Excellency Marjorie Jackson-Nelson. All other Staff had prior engagements so the batten passed to me at the last moment.

It was a pleasure as my family had known her over thirty years ago. My Mother and her were friends and so she tagged along and they caught up. She didn’t recognise me, naturally, but remembered me as a little, blonde, 12 year-old.

Someone was taking pictures so will most likely get something for a momento sometime down the track.

After a comment on one of my posts on my Lifekludger blog and some discussion we had Roy went and did a portrait of me in my natural state – Lifekludging!

Thanks Roy!

Check out Roy’s work, no, his passion, over on his Flickr site.

We were talking about the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) bid and the desire to engage people with disabilities, and those whom to the CRC will be potential ‘end-users’, as an integral part of the CRC operations. Blogging and emerging citizen publishing and communication mechanisms is expected to play a big part. However the bigger question is what are the barriers for participation and being involved? What stops the conversation?

The goal is to get input from the end result – lets call it ‘5‘. However this requires enabling those you are wanting results from to be at a level of ability – this end result – this ‘5‘. But not all will be. Sometimes they’ll be starting at ‘3‘ or ‘2‘ or some even ’1‘.

Empowering the people with technical and even moral support that goes beyond (or even behind) the actual end result that is trying to be achieved is a huge part of enabling the conversation in my thinking and experiences.

There are some things you can’t get straight at. Sometimes you cannot get ‘second‘ things simply by seeking them. Often you have to do ‘first‘ things first. Even further than that, some things are only ever a RESULT of doing ‘first‘ things first and ‘second‘ things evolve naturally as a result of those actions.

Now Lloyd and I totally agree we need this. But the question we were pondering is how do we show or put up a good case that investment in the arena of getting from ‘1 to 5‘ is worthwhile and neccessary?
How do we do this so we can agrue that the CRC bid includes funding for those activities?

It concerns me that CRCs are so ‘output‘ focused that those ‘inputs‘ required that are sort of ‘outside’ the scope of what would traditionally be seen as ‘core’ business, will be overlooked. Or it might be argued that it’s ‘easier’ or more ‘efficient’ to bypass such empowerment and building.

This would be such a waste, both in terms of the potential of the relevence of the ‘outputs‘ from the CRC but also in the lost opportunity to build the ‘inputs‘ – the real people’s skills and abilities and talents and self, to be raised to new levels for the long term.

What we need is someone like Seth Godin onboard to challenge the ‘traditional’ thinking.

While it might be seen as a different context, I see similarities to what Doc Searls’ termed the ‘Intention Economy‘. Doc says …

The Intention Economy grows around buyers, not sellers.

We have an intention for a CRC to build technology for independent living to improve people’s lives. In effect we have people saying ‘build us widgets so we can have a better life with this disability’. The ‘buyers’ here are the people and organisations who will use the technology.
The ‘sellers’ will eventually be the companies formed out of the CRC endeavours, but at this bid stage the selller could be considered as the CRC.

Doc also outlines that …

The Intention Economy is built around truly open markets, not a collection of silos.

The whole CRC concept is about developing and growing a ‘market’ around disability based on research outcomes. The crafted mechanism to deliver that needs to be driven by those it is intended for -and to do so it must include them! To come at it from the other direction, the traditional way, is to build a silo. And we all know what silos are used for – to store stuff – not distribute it!

For the CRC to build and grow the market it aims to, it must engage all the ‘buyer’ groups and individuals in its’ ‘economy’, and it must do it in an environment and ‘spirit’ of openness – in an ‘open’ (not merely transparent) way.

The CRC should be all about the people in a holistic sense, not just about ‘outputted’ technology.

People-centric not technology-centric.

[tags]crc, lloyd+walker, intention+economy, disability, disabled, independent+living[/tags]