When KONY 2012 hit the tubes of the Internet the world was alight with passion, emotion and drive. The reality of becoming a Batman-like justice bearer was closer then ever for millions around the world. The Invisible Children had presented an argument, and associated data and facts, that presented a situation that was fraught with inhumane living conditions, child soldiers and an ill-equipped Ugandan government struggling to deal with a terror like no other. The time to act was now! Armed with our highly polished argument we were asked to channel our Western guilt into action. Just empty out our wallets and petition the shit out of our leaders and collectively we will “capture” Mr. Joseph Kony, the world’s most notorious villain. The message was clear and the purpose was just. Then the Internet took hold.

Conversations about the “truth” of KONY 2012 began to trickle in and the facts and arguments presented by the Invisible Children began to be challenged. An obscure blog post from 2009 surfaced and contrary evidence began to mount. The discourse shifted from an apolitical one surrounding action and justice to an entirely dialectical one, with everyone appropriating THEIR perspectives on the validity of KONY 2012. Instantly, the Internet had replicated the crappy cable news “debates” around KONY but rather than having experts on camera we now had thousands of armchair pundits, myself included, battling for the “truth” through argumentation. But as it always happens lost in the discourse was both the truth and the people involved in the truth.

The reality is that this is not unique to KONY 2012. In fact, as I write this we have a new dialectical process surrounding a censored (or not censored) TED Talk. On almost an hourly basis the conversation grows, new “facts” emerge and the result is an already exhausted populace who barely cares chooses to close their browsers in search of reprieve. You wonder why the Kardashian’s are millionaires?!?

Big data is a challenge in many verticals but arguably none more essential to our survival than the resolution of the dialectical approach to events / issues / topics. Traditionalists will call for a return to true journalism with massive investments in fact checking and proper sourcing. But this loses the ability to give voice to the voiceless through citizen media. Progressives will look to the “unbiased” nature of technology, rank-ordering the discourse in search of truth. The trouble here is that perspectives get lost through this ordering and as big search engines like Google and BING start to incorporate social graphs into their results we end up with an even more narrow view with harsher argumentation and fewer resolutions.

The truth is that we need a solution that resides in the middle. Something that takes the balance and brilliance of old network TV news and adds the participatory media of citizens closest to the events / issues / topics. We never really knew our place in the universe until we saw that photo of our watery earth floating in space. It is this perspective we on the events, issues and topics that dominate our headlines because without it we are on a path towards gridlock with an Internet that looks for truth entirely through opinion.

Image from Wikipedia

We’ve all been there. We’re “surfing the web” looking for things to read, and it hits us. We see a story link, a tweet, or perhaps something that pops up on Facebook that makes us click. It’s not because the topic is of any particular relevance to us, it’s because the story lets us vilify or make fun of someone or something. We see the headline, and we ask ourselves, “really? REALLY?? Is that person or that organization REALLY doing X?”

But then something happens. We start to read the story. We start to ask questions and perhaps even try to empathize with the “villain” in the story. Sometimes we even start to judge the credibility of the author. We ask why certain glaring elements of a story seem to be missing, or at least get acknowledged. Sometimes we begin to realize that the majority of the story is actually quite irrelevant to the sensational headline that comes with it.

The thing is, the second part of this scenario often doesn’t happen. What does happen, is a headline frequently takes on a life of its own. Through lack of context and powered by an internet that makes resharing stupidly easy, “news” and opinions representing the masses of the collective web quickly form. And what happens is a picture easily gets painted that, although somewhat cathartic for us all, isn’t a true representation of “reality.”

There’s no particular story that I’m channelling here. It’s just something I’ve observed to be a recurring theme in the last few days.

Perhaps as someone who works in the world of PR I’m a bit more sensitive to this. So much of my job focuses on protecting the identity of brands from misinformation online and it irks me to see people blindly sharing mischaracterized headlines or conveying opinions that lack fairness. I’m not talking about companies that I serve, I’m talking about everything out there. People, technology, brands, you name it. Sometimes it feels like we’re all being tricked into clicking on links and paying the advertising monster through a network of emotionally driven news headlines.

I know I’m just as guilty of feeding the beast. One way or another I’m sure that on a weekly, if not a daily basis I’m right there with you reposting one of those infamous Gawker or HuffPo articles that just flares up my section of the Internet. Sometimes, I’ll admit, I don’t read the article properly. I skim, I look for quotes, I insert snarky commentary, and I tweet… I continue the cycle of pushing along information without proper context.

I’ll try to be better about this, you should too.

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This is the letter that Apple gives to employees on their first day.

You might call it ‘company culture’, but it surely makes you think about business organizations as groups of people, and how important some values are for them to prosper and generate value. For themselves and their community.

We are seeing some organization being more successful in creating a culture than others, and that’s been traditionally associated with better employees’ engagement and retention. However if we look at successful companies today we can see how some of the principles of the Internet culture are actually becoming critical in creating successful organizations. Actually it seems that the Internet culture is setting the foundation for a different way of generating economic and social value.

A good list of these principles has emerged at the recent Members meeting at the MIT Media Lab. In this occasion there’s been a lot of debate about the role of the Media Lab for organizations and people. Joi Ito - the director since less than a year- is a big supporter of openness and inclusiveness. He believes it is important to shake the academic status of the Media Lab and explore new territories for such an influential and innovative entity.

So what he did: he called a few tinkers (Seth Godin, Reid Hoffman, Peter Gabriel, just to name a few) and asked them to form a council and discuss the role of the Media Lab. The result was an interesting set of values that I believe are relevant for all organization wishing to reinvent their model to be more successful, attract talent and be more sustainable.

- Resilience (instead of Strength): if an organization is resilient against what makes the world challenging today it has more chances to successfully face complexity, speed and unpredictability. Bouncing back is more valuable than being tough. In fact if I think of traditional ‘tough’ organizations – like car makers- I can see how some are trying to find their inner resilience to survive the bad hit they’ve received. European countries like Greece, Spain and Italy will need to rediscover resilience to overcome this big economic hit. I wonder which of these will find it in its culture more than others.

- Pull (instead of push)/ Smart crowd (instead of experts): get the resources from your network, from outside, rather than stocking them. This is a big leap from old models of organization that believed they had to control every aspect of their process. However if a group wants to rely on external collaboration it has to establish a circle of trust, through clear principles and transparency. Being honest creates value, because both your customers and partners are willing to support and contribute. Also as problems need to be solved and innovative solutions need to be found, groups of people can produce a better outcome than single individuals. What if customer care would finally acknowledge this? How would it change the post-sale structure of most product and services? You could argue that the real Apple Care is done by users, everyday, online.

- Portfolios (instead of planning)/ Practice (instead of theory): build and prototype innovation rather than investing time and money to plan the possible upsides or downsides. Prototype, and leverage the ecosystem to fail fast (or scale rapidly). It is still challenging for most traditional industries, however there is great value for R&D in testing less than perfect products into a receptive and responsive ecosystem. Right now ‘if reality doesn’t match the theory they question the reality instead of the theory” (Joi Ito).

- Systems (instead of objects): companies used to make products and services. But the growing importance of user experience has placed more focus on the system around them, the social components, and the interdependence of people, groups and objects. That’s how Nike could create FuelBand, that’s how Fiat could create Ecodrive. That’s probably how the next generation of commerce will be conceived, possibly replacing money with a new set of currency that will merge the intrinsic value with the extrinsic social components associated with it.

- Compasses (instead of maps): the 5-year ahead planning of every organization is now increasingly difficult to achieve. Also planning everything excludes the unexpected (innovation, big changes in the market) and the serendipitous (strike of luck). A compass is necessary to see where groups are going, but keeping the eyes open helps reacting fast to external changes.

- Encourage rebellion (instead of compliance)/Constant learning (instead of education): in traditional schools we are thought answers rather than how to learn. Oftentimes learning requires constantly asking questions and not accepting the traditional answers as given. In every organization there should be space for this, structurally encouraged to question in order to guarantee future development and innovation. Facebook has “Hack” sessions. I wonder what would happen in traditional organizations like Parma companies or transport systems..

So what is next for organizations? I’d like to hear some more thoughts…

If the authors of this blog are lucky, someone on the internet has recommended this post to you. One might say, we hope it was curated amongst the other 500,000 wordpress blog posts each day. The topic of web curation has been explored extensively in the past year, and as social networks and applications continue to lower the entry-point of what is perceived to be curation, we wanted to explore the future of where this form of activity will go in the very near future.

Even with incredible filters, are we still exposed to far more information that we can/should consume?

Francesca: For the first time people can access more information than they can consume. And every time people face complexity, they turn to ‘experts’ for simplification. I don’t see curators as necessarily ‘filters’, I actually believe that the art of curation implies knowledge, expertise and the conveyance of a point of view. The most successful curation- whether of information, entertainment, or simply retailing are the once that express a perspective, and select content (or commerce) in accordance. The shopping element is particularly interesting. As the internet as opened access to virtually any merchandise with a one-click stop, successful formats are relying on curated selection: think of Opening Ceremony, la Garconne, or The Coveteur- that merges content and commerce through imagery.

Len: What’s starting to dissolve from our knowledge consumption experience is deep thought and analysis. We’re skimming through articles and on the rare occasion we read a piece word for word, we’re not generally stopping to think about what we just were exposed to. Because almost every article is filled with links to other sources, and the next article is always waiting to be read, we’re getting a more superficial form of exposure to other people’s knowledge, opinion, and creativity. With the added “pressure” of feeling like we all need to be our own sharers and curators of information, many of us certainly are only spending enough time to understand web content enough to recommend it, but not personally benefit from it as much as possible.

Gunther: I’m not sure if it’s a matter of exposure so much as it is a matter of choice, relevance and the ability to expand. In a world of rigged feeds (“We, platform X, are going to give you what we think you want…”), it seems like we’re headed towards a very refined, very rigid form of programming that harks back to the 50s, when you had just a few channels of media, and limited means for conducting a conversation outside of what you thought was going on in the world around you. In some respects, I think the filtering mechanisms we have now almost make things worse, because the grab-bag is often light, biased and largely superficial, and you’re not really prompted to think about what you’re consuming or sharing. It still takes a good amount of effort to curate feeds and process information, filters or not.

Is paying for a filter the next form of subscription?

Francesca: Isn’t it always been? Isn’t New York Times a curator of news, and paying for it a form of subscribing to its curation? I don’t necessarily think that all successful form of curation will attach a fee to it. There are different ways of monetizing curation- actually Hearst invented the advertising model. If I think of individual-curators, they can monetize their influence through consultancy, in the end they feed their own brand by attracting an audience. Or, less tangibly, measuring the success of curation can improve one’s status in the influence score- that will possibly become the new currency. I also find interesting that ‘curator’ could becoming a profession in itself. The MIT Media Lab people define themselves as ‘curators of innovation’, meaning that they bring together experts of problems and experts of solutions. Digital convergence is creating so much complexity for businesses, and at the same time it offers so much room for innovative solutions, that ‘curators’ are necessary to advise industries and direct research and innovation.

Len: I can see there being a small number of individuals who would pay for curation the same way there is a small group willing to pay for online news subscriptions (when so much “free” news is available elsewhere.) Ultimately, the majority of information seekers will be willing to sift through the piles of data out there, but the few who appreciate the luxury of a quality filter, one that can be trusted to deliver unique but also critical news, will pay for the service of saving time.

Gunther: I look at filters as licenses — licenses to access specific information (perhaps of “higher quality”) and those in which you have access to specific people (perhaps of “higher stature”). It’s all very hegemonic. If you look at the UK’s efforts to impose journalistic licenses for pretty much anyone who wants to write a story or an editorial, you have an interesting paradigm here, because now you’re looking at subscriptions as filters that impose limited access to stories and the people who write them, as well as the communities that converge around them (think if HuffPo “removed the waste”), and I’m not sure that this is even a bad thing (did I just say that?). We’re all wrestling with the quality versus quantity dynamic, and we can’t seem to move away from scarcity-led distribution, so how else are we going to monetize? One thought I’ve had along the lines of a curated subscription model is “build-your-own-community”, which comprises writers, editorials and commentors, using, among other things, filters. HuffPo is kinda-sorta doing something like this through social network integrations in an ad model, and frankly, I’m amazed that the NYT isn’t already doing this through its own subs…

Will filtering ability begin to surpass reach in terms of “influence?”

Francesca: I don’t think it’s possible to answer this, as we all use curation for some aspects of our life and we curate our own content for others- when we feel we have more expertise. So the balance between intelligent filtering and wide ‘inventory’ is always personal, and I believe everybody needs both. In the end we need freedom of access to ideas, information and services. I dread a world where everything’s curated. I dread a world where nothing’s curated. Also it’s not just about the ability of filtering, but also the ability to understand supply and demand of the element you are curating, bring them together in an intelligent way, and establish the curator’s point of view without diminishing the value of the other parties- readers/users and content/offer. It’s a rare combination, very powerful when successful, but difficult to accomplish.

Len: Influence will likely continue to focus on getting as many people as possible to think, click, or do a certain action. That said, I look at people like Maria Popova, Scott Beale, and even Ben Huh who have been able to take their ability to filter and turn it into influence. In a world of retweets, repins, and rehashed news stories, people appreciate deeply thoughtful curation and individuals who paint context around otherwise disparate pieces of media. Ultimately, the curators doing this consistently well grow an audience, get listed by aggregators (think Zite and Flipboard) and become authors in their own right.

Gunther: We’re just beginning to understand “influence”, and I don’t think filtering per se has that kind of impact. This may sound hypocritical, but the interesting part to me is that this actually has very little to do with semantics or media-based systems — those are indicators of behavioral shifts tied to influence, but not proxies or markers for them. For one, interpretations of language are ever-expanding, making it harder to gauge where influences come from and why, and for another, we haven’t yet correlated exactly how digital interactions influence our behavior IRL (and every situation is unique). What you need are less filters and better ways to establish connections from the ground up. Instead of reducing the amount of information you receive through filters, you use things like APIs to write protocols that get you to the “right” information at the “right” time, and in a way that enables you to make more comfortable decisions. And while it’s really cute to score people and brands (I have a platform that does it), I don’t see filtering making a play on reach in the same way that influence does in, say, spawning revolts. One example is how online communities struggle with innovation; you have all the opinions and inspiration (i.e. “influence”) you need, but taking things to task is incredibly difficult — and I would think that’s a true measure of influence. Personally, I may connect with someone through a feed (and a filter), but my decisions to act are based on me meeting with them, getting to know them, reading their expressions, knowing their disposition and then taking action. It’s an analog thing, at least for now.

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It’s hard to consume any kind of media and not identify some form of rejection of consumerism. Global capitalism, for all its virtues, has propelled our world into a direction that has seemingly far more casualties than it does benefactors.  One needs only to turn to the global ecological crisis or the debt nightmare in Europe to see casualties mount as democracy, rule of law and climate all fall victim to the persistence of chasing endless growth.

What is especially interesting is looking at the role and effects that technology has had in the development of the current state of affairs. On one side we have the obvious acceleration technology has had on global capitalization, driving efficiencies, profitability and scale. Its cost, the massive disintermediation of a workforce in which global capitalization requires to exist. On the other side we have a new emergent, internet-based system that is beginning to take on its own identity, beliefs and characteristics. This emergent, internet-based “system” is comprised of platforms, lack of scarcity, community and permissions. In essence, technology destroys and creates through its very existence.

This dichotomy of destruction and creation is fairly unique to technology and while many may attribute it to capitalism’s “creative destruction” I would argue that its pace and scale have yielded an outcome that is non-capitalistic in nature. In fact, I would go as far as to categorize that technology, specifically Internet-based technology, as the most un-capitalistic manifestation that capitalism has ever had. It is a system that gives you all the benefits of capitalistic consumerism without the costs associated with consumerism. It also features a new way version of psychological fulfillment that is usually reserved for good old capitalistic consumerism.

The psychology of consumerism is a long-studied phenomenon with perspectives ranging from the most symbolic with Baudrillard’s theory of simulation to the most practical with Oprah’s retail therapy. With a light examination of the key epochs of consumerism we see an evolution from the early days of utility to the “keeping up with the Jones’” phenomenon and now into a mild anti-consumerist, consumerism with eco products (Seventh Generation) and charity brands (Tom’s, OXFAM). The slow path to the rejection of consumerism seems obvious but it leads to an obvious but difficult question: Can we have consumerism without the consumption costs? I think this is where Internet technology comes in.

If the primary motivations of consumerism are the exchange of symbols, the development of identity and a new cultural network of controls we can easily find these being satisfied online. In fact, with technology we can see an interesting new form of consumerism take shape based on permissions, access and platforms. While hegemonic tendencies still exist online the proliferation of available networks yield probably one of the most equitable societal exchanges that has ever come to be. Access is rarely restricted and the costs associated are a bunch of 1’s, 0’s, some connection costs and a crap-ton of energy. But these are much more palatable problems then riots, ecological disasters, economic crisis’s and traditional class struggles. In fact, class struggles may soon be less based on the ability for one to consume and much more about the amount of access one has.

While it is highly unlikely that technology will fully be able to replace consumerism in the immediate term the prospects of a less volatile and costly version of consumerism is still somewhat appealing. And while the psychological controls and hostilities may still exist in a tech-utopian consumerist world it would be hard to argue with the inherent benefit of a kind of consumerism without the destructive physical costs associated with it.

Image source

Len: This panel-style blog post was spawned by my recent interest in the game Zombies, Run! As someone who is passionate about the Zombie genre, but not at all passionate about exercise, I was excited to find a fusion of mobile technology, storytelling, and real-world activity that would help gamify my healthy habits. I’ll let the video above speak for itself, but what I really love about this app is how it reveals the story based on your physical motion. It also affects your movement by initiating ”zombie chases” that require you to run faster to evade.

Although I’m early into the game, I’ve started to notice fascinating ways this technology has changed my consumption of a story. 1) It has made my imagination race as I hear audio that augments my perception of my surroundings. 2) It doesn’t let me completely control the pace of the story. I can only run so much per day, so I can’t consume the entire narrative quickly. 3) Because the game-makers intend on adding missions to the game, and because the story only exists as a digital audio file, this story potentially can go on forever.

With this example in mind, I sought to hear more from Gunther, Sasha, and Francesca regarding how technology has changed the ways stories are being told, and how location plays a role.

Gunther: I’ve had healthy debates with folks like Brian Clark (a world renowned experience designer and multi-platform storyteller) about the idea that “new” forms of storytelling have been brought out by technology, and more specifically, geolocative apps and platforms. Whether these approaches are new, or just recontextualized through a wider array of unique physical experiences, it’s safe to say that, today, we are treating the relationships between stories and their respective media differently.

Sasha: What is inherently interesting about transmedia is that the best examples are not closed narratives, but open ones. Gunther’s example of Pandemic allows the narrative to extend beyond the bounds of the creator’s vision and into the lives of constituent participants.

The single best example of a transmedia campaign has been the evolving campaign started by the Occupy movement. The narrative, driven by its simple condition of addressing income inequality and systemic failures, has brought to bare journalistic narratives, musical narratives, film narratives, live stream narratives, heroic narratives, global narratives, local narratives and television narratives. The occupy campaign was transmedia by design. It had simple local rules (demand the address of income inequality and systemic failures) and was entirely built across multiple media for which the creators were intimately familiar.

The best transmedia campaigns are emergent in nature so rather than trying to manipulate them for short-term campaigning companies / marketers should look to how it can be used to convey and iterate on their corporate identities and allow those stories to evolve naturally.

Francesca: I like the idea of talking about new forms of storytelling – even if there is not a definitive approach, there are interesting examples, and we can have some good thoughts without claiming to have THE answer (because nobody has one, for the moment).

Personally I think that digital convergence is allowing authors to push the boundaries of how their stories can shape through the interaction with the ‘users’ (a couple of centuries ago we’d have said ‘readers’).

The idea that a story is not a close system, but actually a form of virtual interaction between an author and an ‘ideal’ audience is not new at all. Only today the participation of the audience becomes part of the story itself, and that’s what makes it exciting.

Because the story is always a story- with the hero’s journey, folktale’s structures, everything that was already uncovered by Russian formalists. However styles have not evolved since postmodern literature- regardless of the media used.

Whereas today a good story really needs to craft in advance not only what is going to happen, but where, when and how people will experience it. Sleep No More- the theatre experiment- has attempted to prove it through an analog experience. We could probably start picking good examples and try and find why we think they are good, what are the new rules for making a great story today.

I think that imagining in advance who’s the ‘ideal’ audience for the story is critical. In a way it’s not very dissimilar to the point I was making with “The gender of the internet“: if you imagine a specific user you can develop a better, more exciting interaction.

So can the internet save Europe? Europe is an old continent, one that thinks in terms of centuries and embraces change at very slow pace- hey, what’s a year compared to the history behind our back? So as troubled economies have put the Euro-zone under scrutiny, the immediate reaction on behalf of many has been to challenge the whole idea of a convergent currency. But the linear progress of technology suggests that convergence is the only way forward, and the EU economy has the opportunity to come out of this economic recession by truly embracing the internet culture.

In fact even if there is not really such a thing as an “European culture” – a united Europe is a very recent phenomenon compared to centuries of separate Countries divided by languages, borders, customs and sometimes actual walls- there are indeed some commonalities when we compare the European mindset against US or Asian ones. So at the risk of oversimplifying I’d like to list some opportunities that the internet can offer to address some key cultural barriers that currently prevent Europe to develop a successful digital economy.

1) Think big. There is an absolute necessity for scalability in today’s economy, and I think Europe has now – lately- realized that, well, ‘size matters’. The cultural barrier to address is the negative attitude that many European cultures have towards ambition. In many countries there’s an accepted notion that being ambitious is good but showing ambition is inelegant. The likes of Facebook and Google are demonstrating that in a digital world you must be ambitious to create scalable success, and that a certain dose of ‘ballsiness’ is actually inspiring and energizing. By breaking down the legacy regulations that prevents business from scaling, digital could pave the road for a culture of healthy ambition. Young people all over Europe would certainly need it to find their spirit in these gloomy times!

2) Move fast. Europeans have the tendency to overthink things, an habit inherited by a longstanding and rich philosophical culture. However this attitude totally undermines the ‘fail fast’ rule of any innovation. Access to scale and the widespread of a digital business culture could actually re-balance the dynamics between thinking and doing. Digital can reduce the cost of trying out innovation so much that there is actually less risk in doing things than thinking them too much, and this could rehabilitate the culture of “doing” at the eyes of Europeans.

3) Move. Since the EU was created some Eurocitizen have started traveling from their place of origin to seize work or lifestyle opportunities. However only a small 3% of people live away from their place of origin. This is due to many reasons: cultural heritage, language, lifestyle.. but also economic ones. The traditional economy and tax regulation still make it a hassle to move around the EU unless you are driven by a strong need or a strong incentive. I can see how a digital-friendly tax regulation could create higher freedom in picking a residence for businesses or choosing collaborators from different countries. This could increase competitiveness, a better circulation of talent and, as a result, a more dynamic working population.

4) Think different. The digital economy is challenging some accepted notions of how business works and how companies should be run. We see the emergence of a new marketplace where a democratized production meets niche demands (Etsy), we see opensource tools and collaboration challenging the IP dominance. These models can actually shake traditional ones- built around barrier to entry- generating opportunities to innovate in every space, from private economies to public administrations.

5) People first, not systems. This might be difficult to explain, but I’ll try. Europe has built its entire social, economic and political infrastructure around systems, and people are often seen as receivers/contributors/pieces of mechanism rather then the focal point of it. This has some benefits (eg. some truly democratic healthcare systems) but also disadvantages (sometimes the system’s benefit supersedes the one of individuals, like in many political systems). The web is built around people, and nothing is successful unless it is created with people in mind. I wonder if in a (distant) future this culture will create not just an economy, but a whole society that is measured more directly against the value it provides to individual and communities.

If Europe will succeed in making this changes happen it could actually turn its mature approach to business into a real competitive advantage against the “teen spirit” of US digital companies, or the purely “scale-driven” approach of Asian businesses.

But can the contemporary internet really change historic and long standing cultural dynamics? In a continent that has such a high percentage of resident population over 50 it seems unlikely. However we’ve always seen big changes coming out of necessity, especially when big economic recessions have happened, so I truly hope that the internet will actually save Europe.

Homeless Hotspots was a program developed by BBH Labs to help homeless individuals earn an income during the South by Southwest conference. By providing a wi-fi signal to hordes of connection seekers nearby (by literally carrying a mobile hotspot on their back) in crowded areas, members of the HH team were able to earn donations from users and socialize with individuals who might be able to find them permanent work. Some have criticized it, some have defended it. Regardless of right or wrong (we don’t think it was wrong), we wanted to explore this experiment a bit further.

1. “Will the future of the web’s population include more homeless people? Will even the most impoverished people still maintain a basic connected device even if they don’t have a permanent place to live?”

Gunther: Research says that 3.5 million people in America are likely to experience homelessness in a given year (National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, 2007-2010). I wonder if this number has spiked given the number of job losses in the industrial sector and the amount of recent foreclosures. Another interesting statistic is that as many as 44% of the homeless population have jobs. What these data suggest is that people are not always without shelter, and would probably use their time while being in a home or a shelter to use the Internet in various capacities, from interactions in social networks, to email, to other forms of online search or eCommerce. It also suggests that if they were “relocated”, they could maintain their online accounts, even if they didn’t carry a device with them all the time. There isn’t a ton of other research to support this, but we do know that the homeless have used social networking to maintain a strong sense of self-identity and in some cases, have even been able to find a steady flow of work. The net-net in this for me (pun intended) is that most people are willing to work at any cost and any sacrifice, including where they live.

Len: If we look at many 3rd world countries as an example, mobile devices are used as primary conduits for connectivity, and in some cases are helping lead economic revolutions. They are far more affordable than a personal computer, they don’t require an infrastructure as complex as broadband, and they are able to travel well with a individuals who have a nomadic lifestyle. A mobile device may be a rudimentary way to access the internet, but it works, and it provides the freedom of connectivity at a low(er) cost. In the United States, not having a home used to be a huge obstacle from getting a job because it meant that contacting the job prospect was difficult. The absence of a land line or an address made it difficult for employers to communicate with prospects. Today, a physical address is essentially irrelevant. What a person needs is an email, an electronic resume, and a perhaps a LinkedIn profile. When it comes to getting a job in 2012, an internet connection is more valuable than owning a house. Because of this new reality, for homeless individuals the ROI of a web-connected cell phone is far higher than a permanent residence.

2. The United Nations has declared internet access a basic human right. If countries move to give all citizens access, how does this potentially shape the methods of survival for the homeless? 

Gunther: I actually think this is a critical step in creating information abundance, and could catalyze far more movement towards emerging or secondary markets. The concept of mesh networks has been around for a while and has been implemented in a few developing regions — I’d say that the hotspots project is heavily geared towards something like it. One example I’ve used before on this blog is the flea market; imagine that cities and counties across the country allowed permits for folks who wanted to live and trade goods in an area where they could promote their products to local patrons. Or, the current markets (like Brooklyn Flea) could grow to the extent that homeless folks in need of work could go online and find out how to get jobs at the market. You could build shelters in these permitted areas, as well as set up outposts for microfinancing or alternative banking such that homeless folks could “plan” a move towards new living and work arrangements. In some cases, vendors could issue phones sponsored by local carriers and pay homeless workers through mobile wallets and/or issue them credits. All of this would be an expansion of mesh networking. At the end of the day, I think this is about transitioning people from survival tactics to growth tactics and new, creative forms of prosperity.

Len: I have a pessimistic and optimistic view of what guaranteed internet access for the poor. It will create a dichotomy that may empower the homeless who want to prosper by contributing positively to society, and it will also fuel abuse of the system by people who find easy ways to take advantage of it. Much like the Nigerian scammers who try to scam naive internet users into sending them money, or the twitter spammers who make money via us clicking on their shady links, there may unfortunately be homeless individuals who are desperate enough to use such tactics to make a quick buck. On the positive front, I see guaranteed internet access as a huge opportunity for homeless individuals to be entrepreneurial in the most efficient manner. The internet currently is a divider of classes. It provides endless information, a means to connect to people who can help us, and a way to send and receive money. Not having a meal or a home certain ranks high on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, but ultimately every human wants to fight for “self actualization” no matter how rich or poor. The internet is a bridge that helps us reach that state an by giving homeless individuals the internet, we are giving them a reason and a better chance to pull themselves out of the challenging spot they are in.

3. We at WWTID applaud the Homeless Hotspot efforts, but realize it needs a bit of work. How can the program be improved and evolved?

Gunther: I’m a huge fan of Homeless Hotspots; I think as an innovation initiative, its value is far less about how it was executed at SXSW and far more about the possibilities of how it can scale as an emerging model. Let’s be honest with ourselves: Homelessness is a very uncomfortable topic that elicits very uncomfortable ideas for how it should be dealt with, including the use of marketing tactics. But here’s the thing — if viable models can be developed to the extent that brands and major organizations can be involved, this is a win-win. I grew up and live on the westside of Los Angeles (Venice/Santa Monica), where the homeless population has reached unprecedented levels, amplified by the post-Reagan era. I would love to take the Homeless Hotspots idea and test it in these local areas, and experiment with different technology uses — mobile applications, mesh networks, ultraportable laptops, etc. — and see what kind of scenarios come to light. I think the most critical piece in this is the gathering of metadata — understanding how the homeless think and feel when enlisted in these new roles, and how their contributions can inform better, more effective programs going forward.

Len: After talking to one of the participants of Homeless Hotspots myself, there’s no question in my mind that the program was a great opportunity. It created an entrepreneurial fire in some of Austin’s homeless population and set a very important precedent and example for others: The internet can help you survive. Homeless individuals are often inhibited by infrastructure and social norms, not by lack of intelligence or willingness to work hard. A connection to the web can overcome many obstacles for the homeless, so what I would like to see the homeless hotspot program evolve to is a toolkit, not a single program. HH was merely the catalyst, but ultimately this can be so much more. Whether it’s Etsy, Dabble, Ebay, Kickstarter, Dwolla, Zaarly, Kiva, or Memberly, the internet clearly has no problem creating economies. While the aforementioned list caters to a more “economically comfortable” part of society, there’s no reason that a more basic bracket of markets can’t emerge. One that the homeless can freely participate in, train each other in, and scale geographically and economically.

As most have seen in the past day or so many key figures within the groups Anonymous and LulzSec have been arrested and face multiple decades of incarceration. This critical blow to the Internet-based vigilante group devastates the very infrastructure of activity that has, to date, kept a critical check on secrecy, exploitation and manipulation by real global agents. While we hesitate to acknowledge it these two groups, as well as WikiLeaks, have played an important role in defending the very fabric of an ill-defined Internet culture. And their takedown threatens the very fabric of what an open Internet society means.

Make no mistake that Anonymous and LulzSec, along with AntiSec, were fighting for the very values that a lot of people hold dear on the Internet. Common themes of openness, freedom of information, privacy and anonymity all emerged out of their activities and while their methods were often seen as ignorant and mischievous their effects were divisive. On one hand the attacks shed light on the questionable activities of companies like HBGary and Stratfor. On the other it may have forced the secret and censored further below ground. Regardless, the actions of Anonymous et al served as the first outbound attack by Internet culture on the real world and their effects have forced many agencies think twice about their behaviours. That being said the ‘blowback’ we saw yesterday from the real world was fierce and indicative of a system that will not tolerate being attacked.

So why does this matter? What are the implications of these arrests? The reality is that we do not really know however this organized encroachment into the Internet underworld by multiple global agencies demarks a major event in the series of systemic value clashes we’ve seen. While ACTA and SOPA have shown the people of the Internet will not stand for an encompassing enveloping of their ideological values into a capitalistic system, this recent response shows that old world values will not tolerate an unchecked agency that threatens its system. The people who value an emergent ideology that is embodied by the fabric of the Internet should take note that today our values were attacked.

From a Hegelian perspective any system’s totality will always try and incorporate its antithesis as a part of its normal function. Capitalism as a dominant ideological system has been especially apt at doing so as can be seen by how financial derivatives have been able to deal with principal economic volatilities like the housing crisis. For those that choose to take up the cause to champion Internet culture as an ideological alternative need to learn from what Anonymous has uncovered. The true weakness in a system lies in ambiguity and incongruity. The less they understand in how to account for it in their model the harder it is for them to respond. Anonymous et al exploited this very weakness with their ambiguous methods and while their targets were perhaps a tad too high profile we, as people of the Internet, need to learn from their ways if we want to see our values continue to flourish.

Image courtesy: http://techfibe.com/2011/06/23/hackers-join-forces-in-operation-antisec-what-comes-next-w-video/