Friday’s Finds:
“first come the innovators, then the imitators, then the idiots … you can set your watch to it.” – @littleidea
“Sad. So many education questions now start with, “Do you know any apps for … ?” and nearly none with, ‘What outdoor games do you know … ?'” – @surreallyno
“Ninety percent of what we call ‘management’ consists of making it difficult for people to get things done.” – Peter Drucker – via @davidgurteen
serendipity: let’s talk numbers – via @jhagel
For example, my research found that, on average, people made up one third of the participants (the nodes illustrated by person thumbnails in the networks illustrated above) of a serendipity story, where the remaining participants were deemed to be either information or physical objects. This is practical information of potential value to a designer of a serendipity system: if, say, ten participants are somehow simulated, engineered or factored into a system, then it might be a useful starting point, although by no means any guarantee for serendipity—remember that control is too simplistic a concept—to allow or arrange for around three of these participants to be people.
Social enterprise tools: an industry in denial? via @sheynkman
Teens have problems like pregnancy, truancy, drug use, low grades. They also use Facebook. If I were to suggest that I can solve these problems by creating a Facebook page, I’d be rightfully laughed at.
Yet this is often the sales tactics in my industry: five bucks a month per employee and all or most of those pesky problems with productivity and barriers to collaboration magically go away. It may increase sales, but this strategy all but guarantees a blowback in the future.
From “unemployed” to unworking – via @tiacarr
“Jobs” are a product of industrial society, those typified by economic growth. However, as economic growth becomes untenable and businesses continually streamline their processes through automation, society is left with deep structural unemployment and wealth inequality. More people find themselves with less disposable income and so they consume less and have lower social mobility.
“Networked minds” require a fundamentally new kind of economics – via @eprenen
Networked minds create a cooperative human species
“This has fundamental implications for the way, economic theories should look like,” underlines Professor Helbing. Most of today’s economic knowledge is for the “homo economicus”, but people wonder whether that theory really applies. A comparable body of work for the “homo socialis” still needs to be written.
“While the “homo economicus” optimizes its utility independently, the “homo socialis” puts himself or herself into the shoes of others to consider their interests as well,” explains Grund, and Helbing adds: “This establishes something like “networked minds”. Everyone’s decisions depend on the preferences of others.” This becomes even more important in our networked world.
Have you mapped your network? Here’s some methods and tools – by @kanter
