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Welcome to 2008!
For the last few years, we've led the January issue of Directions with a "New Year" theme. We've reflected on New Year's resolutions, and noted that January is a good month for reconnecting with your network. We've pondered the strange wisdom of the Google Zeitgeist.
A University of Washington study found that most people make at least a few resolutions
for the coming year, and of those that do, most stay with their top resolution at least for a few months. We generally think of resolutions as personal things, but they can be useful in a work context as
well. It's a matter of considering the future in the light of the recent past, and in our opinion, it's something we don't do often enough. What did you do last year, that you'd do differently today?
What did you learn and how did you learn it? Are there any assumptions you should revisit?
If you search the Web for "New Year thoughts," you can tap into a broad swath of insight and
wisdom. A lot of it is of the Hallmark Cards variety, to be honest, but every now and then you find one that hits home. Like this one: "Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality."
Onward and upward!
Ambient Information
We generally think of information gathering as an active phenomena: we open a book, search the Web,
check our wristwatch. But we're really swimming in a sea of information all the time, and a lot of what we absorb comes to us in rather passive ways. Information designers refer to this as ambient
information.
Delivering information through ambient channels means moving it out of a traditional display and into the fabric of a person's environment. An interesting example is something called
the Ambient Orb, a little gizmo from Ambient Devices of Cambridge, Massachusetts. It's a simple glass sphere with a
wireless connection, and it's programmed to change color based on fluctuations in some outside metric. Out of the box, it's set to track changes in the Dow Jones Average, but through a Web portal page,
users can redirect their orbs to other "channels," tracking changes in the weather, skiing conditions, highway traffic or presidential approval ratings. In one test in California, a utility
company distributed Ambient Orbs to about 1,000 customers and programmed them to show changes in electricity prices. When demand is high, the price goes up and the orb turns red. When low, the orb turns
green. They were surprisingly effective at reducing power consumption. The subtle, almost self-conscious nature of ambient information seems to be more effective than a direct appeal when it comes to
changing behavior.
In an interview on NPR's Brian Lehrer show, Wired magazine writer Clive Thompson compared the Ambient Orb to a speedometer. You don't look at it too often, but it's always there, in a persistent and unobtrusive way. As more and more devices become Internet aware, we can expect to see more gadgets like this.
The Ignorance of Crowds
The psychologist Stanley Milgram is probably best remembered for demonstrating a willingness to follow instructions can lead people to do surprising things. In 1961, he showed that if told to do so, an average group of folks would readily submit strangers to painful, even dangerous electric shocks. It seems our individual sense of morality can be trumped by an innate desire to obey. In another experiment, Milgram found that if a person stands on the sidewalk staring up at nothing, passersby will pause and take a look for themselves. If you can get enough people to stand and stare you can draw a crowd big enough to stop traffic, even when there's nothing to see.
There was an interesting article in The Washington Post last month, which considered how this lemming-like aspect of human behavior plays a role in information exchange. The truth is, we tend to use the behavior of others as a guide, even when they don't know any more than we do. Commonly held ideas come to be accepted as true, and the resulting feedback effects can lead to huge, irrational swings in everything from stock markets to real estate prices.
We've often written about how the Internet has changed the game of human communication, by bringing more information to more people and doing it more quickly than ever before. Generally speaking,
that's a good thing. But it's worth remembering that bad ideas can spread just as quickly as good ones.
Don’t Just Recycle, Freecycle!
We've recently discovered the Freecycle Network,
which is yet another example of how the Internet enables endless variations in community building. Freecycle was founded by Deron Beal in 2003, when he was working for a small recycling company in
Phoenix, Arizona. He recognized that a lot of perfectly good stuff was being thrown away, and Freecycle was conceived as a mechanism for keeping that stuff out of landfills. Today (thanks to the Web) the
idea has spread to 75 countries around the world, with a simple model of centralized mission and localized implementation.
At the Freecycle website, you can search for nearby groups, which are
moderated by one or two volunteers. These local groups provide a way to post "Offers" and "Needs:" things you want to unload, or things you'd like to get. There are only a few rules, and the only important one is that all transactions have to be free. It's known as a Gift Economy.
We've been hooked into Freecycle for a few weeks, and so far have been charmed by the concept. In this morning's digest, there are offers for a free desk lamp, a refrigerator and a "gallon
bag of candy." Someone is hoping for a VCR, another person wants a pair of sawhorses and a third is looking for a Ghostbusters costume. With its emphasis on local transactions, it's an interesting
alternative to eBay, especially if you're more interested in cleaning house than making a profit. There's no need to pack and ship, and it's an easy way to make contact and pass things along. Definitely
a cool idea.
However, even cool ideas can go astray. The Wikipedia reveals a surprisingly dark story behind the scenes, marked by trademark disputes, organizational rivalry and personal attacks. That doesn't mean it's not a worthy exercise, but it's sort of sad nonetheless.
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