Tag: reboot8

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My site as a graphThis is a multi-part story about the themes I picked up at the Reboot 8 conference in Copenhagen, June 1st and 2nd.
Relationships above Information/Technology
Putting relationships above information shifts your perspective on what information filtering is dramatically. Something I noted here a number of times but which is not something that everybody easily or automatically grasps and accepts. On a number of occasions the notion came up that if you want to keep knowledge alive in your organisation, or want to ‘store’ it or protect from getting lost, you need to share it, and need to build more and stronger relationships around it. The announced death of marketing as broadcasting fits here too, as does the rebirth of marketing in its original shape of bringing your goods to market and weaving relationships around it.
Visualization
Another major ingredient for filtering and dealing with information abundance. Visualization so that we may see the patterns. Pattern watching is much more important than the individual pieces of information when you are trying to make sense of the world around you, and want to see trends. Combining visualization and relationships is when information filtering really starts to get into its own.
Contactivity
Technology helping you to be a social animal while on the move. Staying connected to your existing relationships and being able to spot the opportunities for new ones. Who is near you, in your proximity, who is in your general location, and how can I share with them and my relationships at home and elsewhere. Plazes and Imity are examples of aspects of this. Contactivity is social connectivity. It needs technological connectivity but is a totally different beast.
ContactivityThis posting and the last four sum up the major themes I took away from Reboot, and which are likely to come up in the postings in the coming months.
All parts in this story:
I Renaissance
II Diversity
III Good Enough
IV Privacy and Ownership
V Relationships, Visualization, Contactivity

Photo’s: both by me.

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This is a multi-part story about the themes I picked up at the Reboot 8 conference in Copenhagen, June 1st and 2nd.

Privacy and Ownership
Without wanting everything to be free (as in both beer and in speech), or everything to be protected under exclusive rights, it is still possible to think about whether the systems we use are really helping us in achieving what we need. And that we can do something to make those systems better tools for us.
Without wanting everybody to know everything, or wanting to hide everything from everybody it is still possible to discuss the nature of privacy.

That privacy is not the place where you can be on your own without anyone knowing what you are doing, that is merely solitude. That privacy is the gift you receive from others when you are in that grey zone where you are in the public space but somewhat withdrawn from it in your own space. When we visited the Illum department store on Saturday there was a couple kissing while riding down the escalators. People looked elsewhere, or merely smiled when they saw. We gave them their privacy.

Privacy is not a place seperate from the commons, it is something right inside the commons that I can give you and you can give me. We really know that already in our hearts, otherwise we wouldn’t say “can you give me some privacy?” on occasion. It’s not ours to take, it is ours to give, asked or unasked.

Privacy and copyright are in that sense also similar to me: copyright is not an exlusive right of me on my writings to keep it from you. It is a gift from the commons to the author so that he may have enough time to gain back the money and energy he spent on creating it. If you want to exclude others, keep it in your drawer; the copyright’s equivalent of solitude in the case of privacy.

All parts in this story:
I Renaissance
II Diversity
III Good Enough
IV Privacy and Ownership
V Relationships, Visualization, Contactivity

Photo’s: Privacy in Public by Susan NYC, license CC BY, Privacy Eroding by Fred Armitage, license CC BY NC SA.

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This is a multi-part story about the themes I picked up at the Reboot 8 conference in Copenhagen, June 1st and 2nd.
Good Enough
Jacob Boetter brought this to daylight for me over dinner on Saturday. All of these new web apps are built to be good enough. Not perfect.
I always accepted the fact that the net is inherently messy, just like human behaviour is messy. People thrive on messy, because it challenges them, causes coincidental connections, associations and serendipity. In my mind though new web apps were primarily decentral, catering to the edges, where old apps were primarily centralised catering to command and control.
Good enough however is not just about that. It is also about accepting that you cannot predict the future, and mostly don’t need high precision info to be able to navigate the world. This means you don’t need to script all possibilities into your technology, and don’t need military precision for a lot of your info. I don’t need to know where exactly you are, as long as I can find out if you are near to me, so we can meet up, for instance. A lot of the web apps we saw at Reboot take the messiness of human behaviour as given, don’t try to put it in a straightjacket, but use it as a feature rather than a bug.
All parts in this story:
I Renaissance
II Diversity
III Good Enough
IV Privacy and Ownership
V Relationships, Visualization, Contactivity

Photo’s: Target by David M license CC BY NC.

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This is a multi-part story about the themes I picked up at the Reboot 8 conference in Copenhagen, June 1st and 2nd.
Diversity
A theme I brought to Reboot myself with Lee Bryant and Martin Roell.
But it surfaced in a number of other ways for me as well. First and foremost that you have to act yourself if you really mean you need diversity around you. Use the European examples, look at who you invite for your event, look at the holes in your current network and fill them. And that if that is not working out, remember the key point Lee had in his talk about participation. If you are looking for participation and people are not responding, it is because of your system, the structure of your attempt to engage others, not because of the people. You make it work. If it doesn’t, redo it.
Interesting to note was that those present in the session really seemed to get energized by the topic. While at the same time also a number of people told me before the session that they’d already given up on Europe and had a Rumsfeldian look on Europe as the world’s retirement home. I was quite surprised by that. If I intend to keep on living in Europe I need to help find ways for creating new value. You can’t say your neighbourhood is going to waste and stay indoors bemoaning that, without acknowledging you’re part of that yourself and need to take co-responsibility.
All parts in this story:
I Renaissance
II Diversity
III Good Enough
IV Privacy and Ownership
V Relationships, Visualization, Contactivity

Photo’s: Strings by Brainless Angel license CC BY NC SA.

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Reboot is over, and am now in need of some serious down time.

Thomas had been afraid up front to not live up to expectations after the tremendous event we had last year. He did not have to be. Yes, it was a different event from last year. The world is different from last year. We are different from last year.
We had a different mix of people, different spectrum of topics, different conversations. Reboot was very much the same however in certain aspects: inspiring, challenging, fun, professional, interactive, deeply social, very real and about humans, not technology as such. And these were the aspects that made Reboot so good last year.

Meeting up with old friends, some for the first time. And in this day and age that thankfully is no longer a contradiction. Meeting up with new people, some not for the first time (oh that is you that writes ) And in this day and age that thankfully is no longer a contradiction either. Thanks. You know who you are.

The children and baby’s present in the audience. Keeps you connected, keeps you sane. All ‘real’ business conferences should have them mandatory. CEO’s: bring your family. If you learn one thing from the Danes, let it be the way they let their children really be part of all aspects of their life.

I did what I promised myself last year, be part of the programme, and found myself lucky to do that with Lee Bryant of the brilliant Headshift company, and Martin Roell. I also became part of the programme ad hoc by doing a session with Frank Meeuwsen. He made my day by the energy and inspiration he found for himself when he realized he could turn his criticism on a presentation into something constructive by voicing it and doing a session himself and add to the dialog that way.

The boat ride the evening before, the two days that were as socially relaxing as can be and at the same time tremendously intense to the point of exhaustion. The great atmosphere during the after conference dinner with 25 others, mostly new faces again, that triggered even more thoughts ideas, and even concrete steps to take.

The after party at club Rust, where I summarized everything in a simple “Good show” when I patted Thomas on his shoulder. Thanks to him and all volunteers and supporting companies for making it happen once more.

And on top of all that I got to share yet another conference with Elmine. Both working on our own stuff, doing our own thing, but able to share the same context and energy this created.

On the way to the after party, someone asked me what I like to do in my spare time:

THIS.


Thomas and his wife during the boat trip. Making one more Reboot happen. Photo by Jarkko, license CC BY.

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About two months ago I wrote here about how to celebrate diversity. I mused whether such a discussion might find a place at Reboot. Well it did and it does. Together with Lee Bryant and Martin Roell, the three of us will be hosting an open conversation session on diversity. We will try to keep things practical, and also very much welcome all contributions in terms of suggestions, questions and remarks in the wikipage of the Reboot site. Reboot takes place next Thursday and Friday in Copenhagen.
Basic premise behind the idea to have this session is that the cultural, lingual and historical diversity within Europe is a unique characteristic that can be leveraged as the driving force in working towards an innovative culture. It allows us to find a future oriented course that is not formulated defensively in relation to e.g. the USA and China. The latter is I think predominant in current discussions about innovation and a knowledge driven economy. We are in a position to employ our unique differences for creating value, because we have spend the last 50 years building enough common ground and trust to start from.
Head on over to the Reboot wiki if you like and add your thoughts.
Update: Nicole Simon recorded a Preboot podcast interview with me.