There is no “I” in “Team”….but there’s a “me”!

I cringe at the word “leadership” – or at least I feel fits of hysteria boiling up inside of me. To explain, I spent my undergrad years in what was called the Leadership Academy, which was a joke of an honors program. For four years I had leadership theory shoved done my throat only to walk away with a certificate and the feeling that anyone can function in a group as long as they have common sense and an understanding of collaboration.

 So, when having to read Verzuh’s “Building a High-Performance Project Team” and Lipnack/Stamps “Working Smart: A Web Book for Virtual Teams” by eyes glazed over and I returned to my happy place that I haven’t visited since I graduated college. But I’ll digress from all of that.

 The important thing to remember is that there are leaders and there are followers. Sometimes we are more of one than the other, sometimes we can play both roles. If you are going to function as a team, which all three authors hit upon, you need to have trust and respect; each individual needs to be treated fairly; and everyone needs to identify that they’re contributions are important. We all come from different walks of life and have different opinions and one can not be closed minded (check your egos at the door type thing).

All Verzuh, Lipnick, and Stamp are providing is a “how to” guide on a successful team, models and theories to provide ideas of functionality, and encouragement that though things may be stressful, its all part of the process. You have to keep in mind, though, that there are several models for project teams, its just finding one that suits you. To me, they all seem the same.

I do have to mention that working as a ‘virtual team’ is a new concept to me. It’s pretty much all the same leadership rules (respect, honesty, trust, etc.), but there is a heightened awareness of communication. It cannot be stressed more that if you are collaborating on a project and your team members are half way across the state/country/world, then you need to establish strong communication ties and constantly make sure everyone is on the same page. It’s the whole social media thing in regards to project management. In order for it to be successful, the team needs to understand the role that each plays and how to maintain a continuous connection with each other.

 In the end, I didn’t get very much from these articles that I haven’t heard before. I understand that it is important to someone somewhere, but the concepts are the same and the end result is that a project team needs to be a well oiled machine where all of its parts work together for a result. We all have our separate functions, but without the other people that we work with, we would be just a sole wheel turning and not producing anything.

Wicked Cool Wikinomics

So, I found that adding/editing the entry on Wikinomics was fairly easy. I can easily understand how several minds contributing to a subject or topic is a good thing, everyone picks up different details and can provide important information.

The only downfall that I see in such collaborative efforts is misinformation and clashing views/facts/interpretations. The old saying is too many cooks can make a soup go bad (or something to that effect). I guess the likelihood of this happening could be pretty rare, but collaborations like this are pretty cool in that it always people to contribute information on subjects that other people may have thought as useless.

So for all those people who are a bottomless barrel of trivia and random information, I think a safe haven has finally been created for you…..

“The future’s so bright, that I gotta wear shades…”

“The goal for the observer of sociable media is to understand the implications of media as they are built; for the designer, it is understand what sort of world he or she hopes to foster, to learn from these observations and create new technologies that lead to this goal.” ~ Judith Donath, Wikinomics, 2004 

As human beings, we need to accept our responsibilities in the world. We must accept that everything we do, create, express, etc. has an effect and/or consequence on the future. The roles and identities that we play now carry on to our future endeavors and beyond.  We have begun to build a new structure with technology and it has begun to affect us socially, taking form as sociable media and creating new public forums. And as the designers, builders, and, maintenance crews for this structure, we are responsible for its functionality and upkeep. Sociable media is a lasting structure that our future world will depend on.

We are the frontiersman of a global shift, moving from the industrialist titans to a type of information bohemianism. On the Internet, we can be whoever we want, say what we want, and learn what we want. Almost anything goes on the Internet, our own standards and morals keep us (or at least some of us) from being completely obscene, but it’s a network without rules, or rules established by like minded people. It’s organized anarchy of the information age.

Benkler and Tapscott have both noted that we are moving away from passive roles to becoming active participants. Through networking and sociable media, we find like minded people and forums of discussion and thought that can eventually amass to some collaborative movement. This movement is affecting life on a global scale. It is dictating changes to our roles and identities, products and services, the economy, politics, and policy. Rules and regulations that we have known all of our lives are being challenged (What does the “right to bear arms” really mean is now an old question) by the people who seek the information (the individual) and the people who seek to control it (government). When I first learned about US history, I was taught the first amendment. Will our children learn about rules of censorship instead?

I think it is important to understand that what we establish now through social media, active participation, collaboration, globalization, and the “networked public sphere” is the groundwork for the future. What lies before us is unknown territory and we have the greatest responsibility not to screw it up. Can we face the challenge and succeed? How far will the remaining “industrial titans” go to stop the flow of information? Will we stop them instead?

There’s a new god in town, and its name is Media.

Disclaimer: Please keep in mind when you read this that I did not want to regurgitate the content of these articles. What has been written are the thoughts that surfaced as I read, so this may come off as crazy ranting.

 

Jenkins, H. 2006. Introduction: “Worship at the alter of convergence” (pp. 1-24). Convergence Culture. New York:NYU Press.

Nelson, T. 2003. Computer Lib(Selection). In Waldrip-Fruin & Montfort (Eds.), New Media Reader, Cambridge:MIT Press.

Negroponte, N. 2003. Soft Architecture Machines(Selection). In Waldrip_Fruin & Montfort (eds), New Media Reader, Cambridge:MIT Press.

 

In the world of technological advances and media convergence, the individual, as a user and creator, is taking a step forward and the professional, or the professionals who are accepting the change, are taking a step back. Nelson found it necessary in the institution of education, Negroponte calls for it in the world of architecture, and Jenkins claims that we find ourselves in the midst of the change where the individual takes control and the professional sits back. It’s a form of existentialism by way of media and the computer.

 

The individual is experiencing freedoms of information and participation levels that have never truly been experienced. Jenkins mentions reality TV, fan based followings that have created offspring of highly commercial products (movies and books), the creation of fictional worlds where people can take on new roles, and even political campaigning as evidence that the individual has control and influence on the outcome and development of events. Institutions and old conventions struggle with this knowledge because they were the ones in control of their products and set the rules for use. Are we entering a type of free market of information and entertainment? Is the line between “us” and “them” vanishing where we will always demand a say in what happens to a character in a show or how intellectual property will be distributed? I think egos are flaring with the access of knowledge and power that technology has been providing for us. Everyone thinks they know a little about a lot of things, and consideration is starting to wane with those who used to be known as “experts”.

 

I also wonder if traditional roles of teacher and designer are going to start to disappear. I asked myself this when reading Nelson’s model for educational computer devices and Negroponte’s ideas of architectural programs where the home owner, assisted by a “design amplifier”, can design a house. These are more ways of putting control into the hands of the individual, redefining intricate roles that have been played a certain way for centuries, if not the entire history of human kind. I see the teacher and the designer becoming a silent wall flower with programs like these – just modest observers offering verbal support. I’m not saying that these ideas are evil; I just see them, and similar ideas, changing the way of the world in such a drastic manner that, in the present moment, the consequences are too hard to foresee.

 

I believe in the freedom of information, the crossing of mediums, and the creation and sharing of new ideas, but I’m a skeptic and believe in Murphy’s Law – if something can go wrong, it will. I mean, look at the ripple effect that the simple art piece from the “Bert is Evil” series, what started as a local idea grew into a global uproar. And that was created by a high school student! Individual control is great, but in order for it to be successful, there needs to be a revival and/or transformation of ethics and morals for these new freedoms.

Hi, my name is Cait, and I like to play Sims….

Yeah, I admit, I’ve been playing Sims for years…..I think it became a crutch in a failing relationship, but the obession started years before that.

 Anyways, I’m assuming this is considered a mashup. My friend sent it to me, but I think it’s so geekily (what?) cool.

This may be another….if not, you’ll enjoy it anyway, especially if you are a fan of the old GI Joe cartoons.

PS There are better ones of GI Joe, but I think this was one of the least obscene.

Google on Mars…what next?

So, I heard this on the news and thought I would share it with everyone…the fight to be in space has now moved on to internet moguls…

http://www.news.com/Google+puts+30+million+behind+lunar+robot/2100-11397_3-6207800.html?tag=newsmap

For Your Viewing Pleasure

So, I established an aggregator (or whatever you want to call it) through Bloglines.com. It didn’t require much thought, which was nice since most of it went into my last blog.

It took me awhile to find blogs or sites that pertained to ICM that actually held my interest or that I thought was worthwhile, but I did find them.

I started off with Wired.com because I figured that this was a good site for me to expand my horizons. I remember my Dad used to read it when I was in high school and he tried to get me into reading it, but I was much too involved in spending my allowance on Rolling Stone. Since I’m over that phase, I figured I would revisit my father’s past attempt and enrich myself with worthwhile material.

Another site that I came across was a blog that was dedicated to the influence that media and marketing have on kids. Shaping Youth is a recommended site to browse if you are interested in the affects of media on our future. It is our responsibilty to make sure that the messages we want to communicate are the right ones – or at least not setting the world up for failure.

Going off on the conversation of AI and robotics, I came across this blog http://smart-machines.blogspot.com/. I thought it would be an interesting blog to keep track of once in awhile to see what advancements in the robitics field that the writers come across.

The last site I added to my Bloglines was as site that I haven’t gone to since I was an undergrad. Really, the way it relates to ICM is to not believe in everything you read. It’s a good laugh when life gets too serious. The Onion.

Pinky and the Brain

Following the Industrial Revolution, society was soon faced with the Information Revolution that was primarily generated and controlled by the government or the upper levels of a hierarchical organization. In order to manage and maintain the increase of industrialization, information technology had to be developed at an immense speed. All of this led to the rise of “bureaucratic organization, the new infrastructure of transportation and telecommunications, and system-wide communication via mass media.” (Beniger, 7) But at the time that Beniger wrote his book, Control Revolution, computers at the time were a centralized tool of the government and certain institutions. The decade following his book saw computers quickly becoming accessible to the public and the Internet becoming a new major mass media (Stadler).

So where are we now? If we are still involved in a control revolution of information, who controls it? And where will the control pass to in the future?

Much of what Beniger wrote has become obsolete. The development of information technology over the past century has moved society from a hierarchical organization to one that is composed of networks (Ronfeldt & Arquilla). We have become a community of what Barry Wellman calls a “network of networks” where we can connect to any person in any place about anything. We have entered into a new phase of the control revolution where information is controlled by the individual – both as sender and receiver.

The advancements in technology – laptops, cell phones, texting, etc. – has aided and abetted to society’s security in getting what information they want, when they want it. We have re-established and expanded community ties into what Wellman calls as CMC (Computerization of Community) where we can connect to people on a local and global level. People control the expansions of their relationships and find specific niches where they gain a sense of identity in a network. And it is the network that has allowed the power of information to fall into anyone’s hands.

We would like to think that the people controlling the information that we are seeing are honest and trustworthy people; that they are “do-gooders” and are passing along information for the greater good of mankind. But what if they are not? What if they are Dr. Evils trying to take over the world? I’m sure that Beniger never foresaw the netwar.

Though the network has been claimed as “mankind’s finest forms of organization” (Rondfeldt & Arquilla), it has brought about some negative side effects and concerns. The network has not only re-defined the community, but it has also re-defined the functionality of criminal minds and the information they output. Terrorism has found a new playing field in the world wide net where they can reach any weak mind with its propaganda and instigate acts of violence half way across the world. And that is just the icing on the cake. Criminal activity has found a host through the internet, and now the whole world can be infected and no one has the cure.

Though the individual has control of the information that they receive, one still has to be careful with what is fact and fiction, who we can trust and who we can’t (the constant war on pedophiles comes to mind), and how dependant we become on the internet for a sense of identity (how much time spent on the internet is decreasing our level of experience in the physical world?) As netwar becomes a growing battle of good versus evil, there is no telling who will control the information. I think that the individual will still have the greatest control because the number of networks increases every day, and it will take a complete technological blackout to kill the beast. But if the information age went from centralized (Beniger) to decentralized, will we go full circle and return to centralized? Where do we go from here and who will hold the reigns of information next?

Speedy Delivery

The human mind, when healthy and functioning, thirsts for knowledge and information. As technology advances, so does our desire to challenge the limits of what we know and what we want to know. The accessibility of information and how quickly we can receive it fuels the expansion of technology and developing networks. Without these advancements, we would be knowledge thirsty zombies searching for the next brain to suck. So what exists is a coexistence of the human mind and machine.

The egg cannot be without the chicken, and the chicken cannot be without the egg. It is an age old discussion, but in a way holds true to the symbiosis of human knowledge and the computer. Our advancing knowledge of the world around us has been aided by the growth of technology, which continues to grow because we challenge our limits of what we know. The world has grown significantly by the sharing of ideas and knowledge between humans and computers. Any information that needs to be acquired is available at the touch of a few buttons. Discussions between two people, or even multiple people, can occur when they are half way around the world from each other. People are finding that they do not need to be in the same room to be holding a discussion.

It is interesting to learn that information is as accessible as people had hoped it would be sixty years ago, their ideas of the future were not far off. However, it will be fascinating to see how it will be sixty years from now. All I can think of is Hyperion by Dan Simmons where people have chip implants and obtain information in nano seconds. And the warm human touch is being replaced by the glow of a computer screen, the haunting question is did people sixty years ago think of how these advancements would effect us culturally? I wonder how will it effect us as advancements continue?