BigMother.dk

I actually never thought that the ideas presented on this blog would be my everyday work; bread and butter. Was I a visionary or is is just that tracking and monitoring has become the new black and a passing fad?

Well, just today in /KL7 I:
- am conducting a campaign with cameras monitoring a lot of drivers to learn more about their behavior to improve road safety. And the drivers? They love the idea. So much for the bigbrother cliché (as I predicted the demise of when I started bigmother.dk).
- I’ve had meeting with a potential client (public organization) on how to apply monitoring to gather social data to identify and data mine the roots and patterns of entrepreneurial ‘civic-mindedness’ in Denmark. The new critical capital for saving our welfare system bottom up.
- I’ve discussed using social tracking in companies to map social capital and improve workflows and productivity with a potential partner company.

Interesting times. Technology is no longer evil and alienating. Monitoring is OK for learning and as CareWare. The most requested consultants are the ones understanding technology, complexity, monitoring design and deployment. And strategies to remedy cognitive biases and common sense through data-based decisions, persuasive design (Nudging) and plain cognitive theory are hot management literature (Duncan Watts, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, and even McKinsey Consultants). And oh, Harvard Business Review’s latest issue is dedicated to complexity and how to view business as a complex adaptive system (what you could call biomimetic management theory). We can call ourselves ‘social engineers’ in /KL7 without evoking dreadful associations. Perhaps all the years spend at university wasn’t wasted after all…Stay tuned as I explore the phenomenon of Bigmother’s renewed relevance.

Yesterday, two mails popped in notifying me of a couple of (quite) different articles of mine gone into print. The oldest is called ‘Agents without Agency’ and argues for a process understanding of agency (cognitively and ontologically) and the consequences for AI and robotics of such an approach (find it here here). I had great fun writing the paper together with Prof. Tom Ziemke and but I’m not sure it’s an equal blast to read. The topic was tangential to my PhD research and submitted back in 2003 when I was still a fullblood academic (in terms of self-understanding . The paper is part of the inaugural issue of the new Cognitive Semiotics journal (website underway).

The second was created recently together with Nicolai Peitersen; it’s in Danish and less abstarct. It’s titled ‘CSR 2.0′ and about the way Internet technologies and new social and economical models is reshaping Corporate Social Responsibility and how to deal with it for companies in the front line. Basically, it’s one long salespitch for Actics as any other consultancy report. Actics. It’s being published in the quarterly handbook ‘Social ansvarlighed‘ (Social responsibility) for CSR officers. I’m currently working on an extended version in English for publication later this year. Check out the Actics blog for more on this.

In what seem to be either a conceptual experiment or a desperate move of necessity in a new world order of me too indie musical marketing, the father of dub minimalism and it’s signature label ~scape, Stefan Betke, has created a MySpace profile for his Pole moniker. Even if he has tried hard to keep the design cool and calm (check out the minerally aesthetic picture and the fact thatit’s poleartist not polemusic), there’s still a long way to Pole’s classically minimalist cover art. Among the standard elements Betke is suffering under is ‘Band members’ (to which Betke has written “I edited my profile with Thomas’ Myspace Editor V4.4″) and a screaming yellow as the most suitably monochrome color Betke could come up with. It’s truly tragic-comic to see an iconic electronica avantgarder like Betke submerged among friendship and ‘thanx-for-the-add’ craving wannabes and the worst of web-Americana of MySpace. Brave new world.

But from a new principle of always bringing you at least one pleasant information per post (however misanthropic and gloomy it might otherwise by), note that Betke promises new material out soon. Moreover, Jan Jelink is also about to follow up his kraut-rock studies of Kosmischer Pitch with more organic stuff on Tierbeobachtungen (listen here) on the ~scape label. Ganz toll!

Most often mashups are merely two or more tracks multilayered for the fun of it. Others create a new expression and a pristine track. I just fell over this, which simply sounds right (however my judgement is handicapped in not knowing the original material). And those of you who speculate if the DJ Kicks serious is still any good (if it ever was – oh yeah, the Erlend Öye was of course great) I can inform you that the latest of its kind with Four tet is nothing short of amazing. As you probably expect from Kieran Hebden, I know I do. Go buy it NOW!
I’ve started to use Last-fm more systematically (read: get it to work properly) but my stats don’t give an adequate picture of my present sonic world, as I listen a lot to music on my phone and have started to dig through the archives of Samurai FM which holds so many quality shows. Recommended. So even if Last.fm doesn’t track these other sources yet I still find it a very interesting piece of social software with lots of inspiration for musiclovers.

As always: if you got any tips on new music or sources I (and probably other readers) will love to get the tips.

Finally the little start up I’m involved with has a pre-beta ready to show our friends and other very tolerant people before last redesign and public beta launch later this summer. We are dependent on your feedback and input in order to stand any chance of succeeding with this. On the concept, on communication, on (lack of) usability, on functionalities and everything else you think it’ll take to make a general audience start using it. Please press the logo and go check it out. See you in there.

We’re slowly moving towards launch of Actics.com (which is presently in no-show-pre-beta) amidst investor negotiations, staff recruitment, publication deals, research projects and other everyday Actics stuff. We begin by firing up under our community with the Actics blog on everything related to an ethical social software startup with galactic aspirations. Currently the blog is manned by a sweet mixture of entrepreneurial, bright and visionary Actics personas namely Nicolai, Adam and yours truly writing on the new paradigm of users in charge and corporate transparency, the emerging ethical economy, and more mundane issues relating to the creation of useful social software. We will widen the scope, improve our arguments and encrease the number of contributing authors down the line so you might as well subscribe right away and improve your chances of winning one of our ‘dedicated reader’ trophy awarded sometime in the future… As always, comments are appreciated.

Recently I posted an idea how to inform hungry homeless people on free lunch from leftovers from receptions and similar events. GarbageScout is a congenial ‘let’s recycle and distribute goods to those who need them’ service that allow people to post, search and find usable items thrown away by others. The service probably only work in places such as New York where people actually dump their old stuff on the streets. But it’s a nice way to promote more sustainability. (http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/004071.html well I do read other blogs

I just stumbled upon a service in the US for homeless people called Community Voice Mail. It offers free voicemail for people without an address or phone. The service thus provides homeless people with the possibility of for instance applying for a job (to end a negative spiral). And according to the testimonies at the site, the service does have a positive impact. I myself have been playing around – mostly for fun I have to admit – with the idea of creating a service that helps homeless finding food. Although rather subversive (and a bit to conceptual), the service would simply track receptions and formal cocktail parties in the area by means of web crawlers and some contextual information and broadcast where the free food and beverage was available in the neighborhood. Too much food is thrown away anyway, so we might as well distribute some of the waste from our excesses. The service unfortunately depends on technology and even if we could equip homeless with the proper wireless devices or internet kiosks through donations and sponsorships, most devices or kiosks probably wouldn’t survive the rugged and wet life of a homeless or public placement. If you got good ideas let me know, and we’ll start developing proper careware together.

A friend recently send me a link for Pledgebank, a new service uniting people with certain goals but insufficient means to bring it about on their own. Make a pledge and wait for like-minded to join you in your specific quest. Social software and co-creation at its finest. Link: http://www.pledgebank.com/