Yes, this blogpost is longer than normal but I wanted to create one holistic view. If you are not a big reader just scan the nice bits or go to the end

The Lift

The past week I was in Geneva, the city where HTTP/HTML or in other words the internet was invented. I visited Lift 08, a three day event to explore the social impact of new technologies. Together with Martin Kuipers I just let everything around me flood into my brain.

Lift 07 was a special event for us. Although I was not there, Martin’s enthusiasm triggered a whole process towards Lable. The ideas he brought back gave us the tools to finally knit together some thoughts of the past years. I had to go and see this Lift where foresighters came together.

Lift 08

This year was a 3 day event with 700 visitors from all over the world. The first day was full of community driven workshops at Geneva University with a Venture Night at the end. The second two days where full with talks on different subjects. Both days had also nice closures in the form of a cheese fondue and a nice party in the center of town.

There were many interesting people and I felt great having met some. Although looking around the conference room I felt many were addicted to being connected.

I chose to only open a dummy book and set myself in information absorb mode and tried to see a larger pattern. With everything around me you could smell the future, you just needed to look below the surface.

Online Environments

A big topic which was present in almost all talks where the online environments that are part of the latest technological hype. What are the implications of these environments and how could you make them succeed? How you could use them to teach people, and how to use them to change them?

We got for example an insight into the South Korean world of Cyworld. On how Koreans organized themselves online and how they depend on their mobile phone. Attention was the main currency and self branding the key. How almost-sync was the latest development towards real time intimacy. How Twitter was the western equivalent. South Korea is just miles ahead of these social communities. 98% of the 20s are on CyWorld.

The most interesting talk on this subject was by Pierre Belanger, owner of SkyRock. Although SkyRock is just another social network he described a future of social messengers. Where the social network became the new digital id of the future. He described a netamorphosis towards a net not centered around bandwidth but around code. A net that is not centered around one site but a multiform platform that could run on phones, instant messengers etc. E-mail is dead.

I immediately connected it to some other movements of people talking about Jabber as the next http. And he basically described the new backbone of the internet as a Social Operating System. Everything will center on chat. Two-way instead of one-way communication.

Connecting tech with people

There were also great talks about open social by Kevin Marks of Google and Grid Computing by François Grey of CERN. They both have methods of connecting the people and computers with information.

Open social is the glue for anything social centering around people/friends, activities and events and seems to also be the glue for the next generation of people.

The grid computing talk had some great insights on how to use people and their computers for science. How normal people became an important part by letting them be involved. This by being transparant and fun. A whole @home platform was born out of it that has much bigger cimputing power than any supercomputer in the world.

In everything you could feel online environments are on the verge of change. The current form is just a carriage without horses and we still need to evolve to the definite form.

Mobile phones

Most people in developing countries don’t have computers but they do have mobile phones. They share them, they connect with them. In China for example there are 4 people born per second, but 20 new subscribers of mobile providers per second.

The mobile is the most important connected device and it was interesting how Younghee Jung went out to those countries to let the people design the best mobile phone for themselves. It was very interesting to see the specific specific solutions for problems they live with. Like multi-simcard support, multiple address books, heart shaped phones, ultimate everything phone etc.

We also heard some insights on the future of the phone. How it would evolve to a simpler gateway to the world and that the phone contained the answer to future payment. How the iphone revolutionizes and by someone of Nokia how the iPhone is not the ultimate answer.

User Experience & Stories

A lot of talk was also about what story the technology is telling and the user relates towards it. The perception of a user completely relies on the story as they create context.

The most interesting was by Rafi Haladjian, one of the inventors of the wifi Rabbit Nabaztag. He told about setting up a platform called Violet built with ambient technology. A plarform with which you are informed non intrusively.

Why the rabbit:

If you can connect a rabbit you can connect anything.

He showed some great stuff like a future product of RFID stamps that a rabbit(or some other object) can sniff and after the object will react with something relevant. He saw only 2 or 3 objects connected to the rest of the world and saw a future we will connect the rest of the stuff in our homes.

It was also nice to have visited the discussion on the failures of ubiquitous computing the previous day. It seems that we are on the verge of creating smart houses, we only should make them start out dumb and grow their smartness for a more satisfying experience. It is all about making a growing emotional connection by growing an evolving story.

New ways of working

The Zentrale Intelligenze Agentur was a wow presentation for me and Martin. They described the way of working we as Lable were philosophizing about for the last year. I really feel that we are on the beginning of a new hierarchy less way of working. That people begin to see that hierarchy kills passion and creative/innovation efficiency. And now we were confirmed it is a global feeling.

Games are fun.

The game track was really fun. You should just see the entertaining Paul Barnett video if you have the time. He describes we shouldn’t build games anymore Vegas style by reproducing successes bigger, better, faster & stronger. Online games are just beginning and we don’t know yet what the rules are for them. We learn along the way and creating experience on how to set out a great story.

There was also a lot of talk about casual and more accessible games. People want more and more micro-sized content for quick experiences. How Facebook is also a game as it has a repeat until reward structure. Games should be a balance of Mechanics (rules of play), Dynamics (human interaction with rules) en Aesthetics (feel, design, emotion). Those last three just connected too good with our Lable vision of creating balance between Technology (structure), Human and Feeling. Those should be the main design rules of the future!

New view on location

Paul Dourish had some nice insights from aboriginals. How they looked very different to locations, territory, objects. Everything was defined by stories and their influence zones. This kind of thinking could make us very differently to navigation and location based information. He wanted to propose a new vocabulary for this tech: Nomad, pilgrimage, home, colony, asylum, diaspora, migrator etc.

Clash of Nature and Technology

Kevin Warwick, the human cyborg, was a show stealer. He described how he connected a ultra sound sensor to his arm neural system and how he gained a 6th sense of distance. That a human could just learn a sensor so fast. He also connected his neural system to his wive to create the first two brains in one neural system. How they shared the sense of moving hands. His brain was even connected to the internet to control a simple robotic arm thousands of miles away… Cyborgs are getting real… And it sounded like a real enhancement that did not sound scary anymore… But what about the spam you will get

We heard from Mieke Gerritzen how we should accept tech and how we should make it a part of nature. How everything is set to intertwine. How manipulating nature will become the next nature. I did not entirely agree because I think there is still lots to learn from current nature before we declare a next one. We should accept the golden ratio as the main ratio for growth and design.

Sustainability

We can’t continue to consume the way we are. A whole separate track was focused on the environment with key speaker Nobel Prize winner Andy Reisinger. The most head shifting tech featured was a space based solar array with power beaming to the earth as a way to solve future power problems. Also features were technologies to convert people to more sustainable ways of working by peer pressured social networks.

Foresight

We ended with some views on how to see the road ahead but where also warned to look at a higher level to see what other roads will cross this road. William Cockayne and Scott Smith took us on a ride on what a foresighter, like the main audience of Lift, should do to make good foresights.

A foresighter:

• Should be aware
• Scan Collect and Organize Patterns and deep currents and roles
  • Get out on the street
• Have a view but not ideologize
• Stay Grounded
  • Leave behind artefacts

These talks made me aware I am such foresighter. Not focusing on the now but the future by talking around and collecting information and feelings.

The Future

Scott left us with a quote of William Gibson:

The future has already arrived. It’s just not evenly distributed yet.

I think Lift changed that and created a place of were foresights are made visible. Foresights of a future where humans will live in balance with technology and feelings. A future where they would connect with each other and everything around them to create a more sustainable and efficient balance. We just need to digest everything around us to see how it should be done.

I recognized many pieces of my past journey and was confirmed I am on the right road. It is just about meeting the right people and making it possible.

Yes, it is all just about people.

Visit Lift site for more information. All talks can be viewed on tsr site.

Photo by mrtnk who was sitting besides me while taking photo. It shows the shoes of Lift organizer Laurent Haug opening Lift 08.

In 1989 the internet was invented by Tim Berners-Lee. He created it as a place for data, information and knowledge exchange.

The main method was hypertext. This is not text that stands on itself but links to many other texts containing its context. All links together define a web of information. The connections lifts the separate text to form a more holistic whole: A web of knowledge that transcends the information.

Semantic Web

But an internet that only consists of text is only easily readable by people. People have to follow the links and scavenge the text for information. For computers it is not as easy. For this mr Berners-Lee came with a vision of a Semantic Web.

“I have a dream for the Web [in which computers] become capable of analyzing all the data on the Web – the content, links, and transactions between people and computers. A ‘Semantic Web’, which should make this possible, has yet to emerge, but when it does, the day-to-day mechanisms of trade, bureaucracy and our daily lives will be handled by machines talking to machines. The ‘intelligent agents’ people have touted for ages will finally materialize.”

He described it as a system in which all words are provided with meaning: semantics. So computers can easily read what the letters/words are and find out what it all means. This so computers can scavenge text easier to find new meanings, to find new connections, to find new links.

Locked in paths

But where is it? A nice dream which is still not here… Why not? It is too difficult to create. Why write a text and provide all kinds of words with subtext? Why create separate layers of text for people and computers? Why lock it in into the same limitations as human text: linearity…

Linearity makes a text a one dimensional string. By scanning the string you can with Berner-Lees invention of hypertext choose a new path defined by the creator of the previous string. We are still locked into the document, the path delved out by the writer… It is an evolutionary step but not the endgoal for a true knowledge web.

Semantic Web evolved

To really set free a semantic web it should be free of the limitations of words. Maybe a node inside such web can link to a word, and the connections between nodes can be translated with grammar rules to text, so the knowledge can be formed on the spot in the form which is needed.

Our brain works the same. We don’t save knowledge in our heads in strings of words. We don’t walk the whole textual story of acquiring the knowledge to get to the element we seek. We create and follow direct connections to it. And by following the connections from that connection we create context, story. A story that is right for the moment.

The internet should be the same: free of text but full of links to create a real boom of knowledge. Then we can finally connect everything we know and create the rebirth of our collective intelligence.

Related

• End of Text: Locked in knowledge
• End of Text: knowledge = connections!

Image by Robert Hodgin, visit his webpage flight 404 for more supergreat work!

And we keep saving all our knowledge in text… But are we? In our brains there is no text. We save everything into neurons. No not even inside those neurons but in the connections between those neurons. We make associations based on logic. Cat is an animal, just like a dog. Our input travels through the paths of our brain to produce the right output. Highways are formed by making a connection stronger.

A lot is lost

We translate the knowledge to linear text to transfer it. We customize the linearity of the formed story when we speak to a person. We can adapt to his/her context. But when we save the knowledge inside text for general consumption a lot is lost. To consume the text we need to translate it back to ourselves. To our own knowledge and connections.

Connections!

But what if we save all our knowledge into connections, into webs, into networks? Into connections with faceless neurons without words, without language, without any symbol? We could always connect those connections with words and their synonyms. So those words are the knowledge blocks, the references. References to real world meaning. References to other references.

Surfing references

What if we could surf those references connecting them by logic. By logic that saves what the relation of those two words are. But we already do that by connecting words by grammar. Grammar = logic. Grammar linking the words makes the context.

Scavanging knowledge

By interpreting existing words, to seek their references, by using grammar to find their relation you can build connections and surf them. A question is just asking for a connection one has and the other does not. We already have the basics! Wikipedia is the first collection of knowledge. Tags like in del.icio.us are our methods of connecting knowledge. But both still locked in text.

Entering the Brain age

What if we drop text for saving knowledge? We are just locking the information in now. We need open standards! Standards that are free of a proprietary language. Like english has the current monopoly… We need to build an open network, an open connection, an open brain. The beginnings are already here! Who wants to join?

Related

• End of Text: Locked in knowledge

Circular Reasoning t-shirt by Jeff Sheldon, I own one

We save all our knowledge in text. We already have millions of books and trillions of webpages full of letters. We are a text based society. And transfer everything we know by language in the form of voice or text.

The strict path of a story

Knowledge appears in books, wiki’s, blogs, mails and in many other outings in the form of linear stories. Such a story takes you from a to z through a path chosen by the author.

The story is written for a certain generic reader with building blocks which such reader should understand. If you don’t have the right advance knowledge such a story will be difficult to read. In this way the knowledge is produced for a certain target group and is thus generalized. More is explained than needed to make the contents easy to grasp for as many people as possible.

The scavenger

As a good reader we learn to skip through texts and only read the essential parts to grow our knowledge. We only pick up the building blocks we need. In these times of information overloads it is necessary to filter. Any text containing information and not a linear experience can be scavenged for the blocks for new knowledge.

Problems with linear forms

In bringing all our knowledge in linear locked in forms it is not easy to search this information. It is not easy for computers to interpret and process the knowledge inside the text. We can now only filter on the combinations of words. But what if a synonym is used for a word you are searching…

Another problem is with language. We learn to interpret text in our early ages, we learn to understand it’s grammar and logical rules and we learn it in our mother language. There are differences in how text is written all over the world but there are also many commonalities in those texts. But it is so difficult to compare them. It is strange to see the English wikipedia full of knowledge and the Dutch wikipedia is only a fraction of that. These things made English my main information scavenge language… But what if we could combine all those locked knowledge…

Context matters

Text is always written from a certain context of the writer and towards a context of a reader. But what if the knowledge could adapt to the reader. What if the knowledge transfered was not locked into a linear form but in the dynamic way it is saved in our heads. What if the knowledge could adapt to our own context when received. It would save us so much time if we don’t have to filter knowledge out of text.

Related

• End of Text: knowledge = connections!

Image by Gìpics, creative commons image

A passion seems to grow stronger in me the last few months. 2007 was a year of finding purpose and combining all the puzzle pieces. Most while sharing thoughts with people and doing so I learned to appreciate a lot of valuable things more and more. Things that did not even seem to be new but most of the time old and forgotten.

It is all about People

Yeah really! We almost forget that everything we do is because of people. That everything is about meeting and connecting to those people. The real good connections are the ones who are loved.

Passion

The real engine for everything is passion. Without passion you need hierarchy or money to force actions. How to trigger the passion is the real question.

There are all kinds of means to get quick satisfaction but not for passion. We have studied satisfaction enough. What about real studies to what creates real passion?

The coach is too undervalued these days where knowledge, money, property, value are often regarded above passion.

Values

Passion can be misused and misinterpreted. People are able to have passion for the wrong values. But what are the right values?

I really believe in the holistic approach: the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts. All values that contribute to a bigger whole are the right values and any value that creates separate wholes are wrong.

Balance

We need to be able to sustain what we are doing indefinitely and get more out of ourselves along the road. The only way to do this is to create balance. This means we have to do everything in proportion to the rest and it is critical to look at everything: environment, money, people, goods, eating, loving, communication etc. If one thing is totally over/under-powered/used/connected/valued/flavored/loved something is lost.
That what is lost will be forever lost for the bigger holistic whole.

So we don’t need more of what we do not have. We need to get more out of what we do have. We even need to try to have less so the remains can contribute to other parts.
The more you give away to have less, the more you gain. But only if you give it away wisely. So it is still a growth economy of everything, but by spending less in it’s total. Efficiency by sharing.

Imbalance

For a real good balance, imbalance is always needed. We need chaos to find new better balances. We need storms to see if we are built on the right foundations. We can’t stand still, a balance is a time to find a new better holistic approach. To have a bigger more robust whole with less parts.

Open

Passion needs a safe and open environment totally driven by passion. If one person is powered by hierarchy (s)he can grind the whole process down. Passion needs to be able to make errors, passion cannot be broken by safe consensuses. Passion needs trust, and if you look around trust is the main thing that is missing. Because there is no trust there are hierarchies and little passion.

Leaders

People need leaders. Leaders who have the vision. Who see the whole. Leaders who are not above the ones they lead. Leaders that are also followers, because no one can see the whole whole. We need to look at leadership in a more dynamic approach. Trust leadership to the whole of the community. Like in swarms of birds.

Information

All the above depends on information. You can only create a larger whole if all the parts are aware of the whole. Reliable and honest information gets much more important.
The better the information flows,
the better we find optimal balances,
the less we need structured channels like hierarchies,
the more we are aware of each other,
the less we need to depend on one.

Connect

My mission is to connect. To connect ideas, inspiration, information and people to grow passion to grow a larger whole.
Whoever wants to join on this quest is welcome. 2008 is only the beginning of the real ride now the pieces fit. And many seem to even have found these roads earlier.
Ah well, it is all about people and thus connecting them to one us

Beautifull Passion flower by Davideg, Creative Commons.

What I wrote earlier on these subjects:

• Us religion

3 slideshows of 20 slides of 3 recent presentations. Translated into English.

The End of hierarchy

Pecha Kucha for an event by Nieuwe Garde Leeuwarden

| View | Upload your own

CMD in 2013

Pecha Kucha for internal idea sharing about the future of CMD

| View | Upload your own

CMD freshman introduction

20 slides to create more passion and insight into freshman CMD students

| View | Upload your own

Apple is full of innovation and their innovation inspires people, me included, to look into the future of hardware and software. They have a unique way to look at what the people want and are famous for their simplicity in look and feel. The innovations mentioned could not only about Apple but could also be implemented by other brands. But Apple seems the most interesting because they seem to have the most integrated platform. What will the future bring?

Mediacenter

Source: Nano 3G review appleinsider

At the beginning this year Apple launched the Apple TV. They later described it as a hobby project. But their goals with it are serious. With the macs, iTunes and iPods they want to conquer the media space. But the latest generation of iPods makes something clear: The iPod itself is the media center that connects to any TV. Okay, HD output is not yet possible but while connected it displays a nice TV menu and easy navigation even on older TVs. With the dock and Remote you can control your library from your couch.

But what about the wifi in the recent iPod Touch and iPhone? It should be possible to stream video to and from the iPod. You should be able to bring video to friends and connect with bonjour technology to share your personal media like photos and movies which is already possible with macs/pcs with iTunes and apple TV.

Screensharing

Screensharing could become the new norm for anything screenbased. Why not send a video/photo slideshow/keynote/powerpoint/videochat to any screen? Why not an Apple TV light that can connect to any TV/beamer and use wifi technology so you can connect with it wirelessly. Just like the Apple TV now can stream video off your mac/pc. Suddenly beamer troubles are a thing of the past and anything can connect. This could be the next HDMI cable. You could use your iPod touch as mediasource and maybe even use its screen and accelerometer as gaming device. All the groundwork is already there.

Universal Remote

With the wifi technology and bonjour auto discovery and the just announced location aware technology Apple could create a universal remote application. Why not control your airport express audio in your home or control the mood in the room with new color led lights? Or schedule a series downloads on you mac? Or control a keynote/powerpoint presentations on multiple screens?

.Mac enables you in Leopard to connect to computers and spotlight search through them. So why not control your home computer away from your home on your iPhone/iPod. Maybe with an iPhone adapted interface for finder/spotlight to transfer/show files.

The iPod Touch/iPhone could become your personal assistant that can control multiple appliances. But I think for this the touch based devices need an open SKU so anyone can built on it. It is inevitable Apple will release one when it is mature.

Multitouch

iMovie 08 created big controversies because the total rebuild. I see it as preparations for a multitouch mac. A bigger screen for easy content creation. The skimming feature in both iMovie and iPhoto and the easier drag and drop interface make multitouch easier. Also new applications like mainstage seem to hint to multitouch thinking.

Ofcourse you should also look out for any full screen interface like front row, coverflow, time machine and new apple apps like MainStage. They certainly look as prime candidates for multitouch navigation. I think multitouch is one of the reasons why Apple is so obsessed about coverflow.

If Apple releases a multitouch mac the iLife suite will be their first app to run on it. So any interface change will be a hint if multitouch is coming or not.

More integrated OS

Time machine

Preparations for better interfaces have been made in Leopard with Core Animation. New systemwide to-dos, iCal calendar, file previews (quicklook), already systemwide music, photos, video, search, passwords, email should make a new graphical interface possible that uses all the existing content. Apple experiments lightly with frontrow, dashboard, coverflow and time machine and in smaller degrees with fullscreen view in garageband and iPhoto.

We can only wait for a new integrated interface that can be summoned just like frontrow. But the question on which concept they will base the interface. Personal life, planning & GTD, contacts, entertainment? A single focus does not seem to be possible. Maybe different contexts can be switched, like frontrow is for passive entertainment and maybe iLife fullscreen interface for media creation.

More quick thoughts soon about the iPhone, location awareness (starbucks/GPS), tablet mac, iTunes store, servers etc.

Image source: apple.com (except when mentioned)

This week I was a member of a jury of an international contest named Frisian Design about innovation and sustainability. It was a contest organized by the Cartesius Institute and had entries from Portugal, Latvia, UK, Australia, Turkey, Italy, the Netherlands etc.

The quality of the entries struck me. I saw a complete sustainable Island for in the Frisian lakes. A durable World Sustainability Expo that travels the Frisian cities. A project for igniting new young entrepreneurs as firestarters. A project about recycling furniture and other stuff in a design and social way. The magical nano bubbles that would enrich Ameland. The sustainable Escher House etc.

Sustain

Two years ago I would have thought sustainability is all about the environment but these days I know it is more about a kind of mindset and most about people. It is about connecting, about keeping it to proportions. Ones waste is one others gold. The network is the main principle today in sustainability. To create something sustainable you need 3 things: People, Planet and Profit all 3 balanced in proportions. And the best project is combining all 3 of them.

And the winner is

We almost all immediately loved Cocoon Village by Margarida de Barros from Loughborough University Portugal. She created a project that aimed to get back to basics with a low tech approach with the cosy cocoons. With cocoons that would travel through the frisian land with a mobile unit built from recycled sea containers that would contain all the facilities. It travels to new areas where an underground system and sustainable tech would take care of water and energy.

I loved the idea of getting back to basics and travel through the Frisian country and setting up a mini community. This back to basics approach is a big contrast to the tourism focussed on the masses. It is getting back to realistic scales. And the cocoons are also a nice visual contrast to the vast and rough Frisian Country.

This project reminds the people they are humble small beings in a vast landscape. It would create awareness of what makes Fryslân great and that is why I think she is the deserved winner! I hope I can take a sleep in a cocoon in the near future.

Photos are from jury dossier, sorry for the bad quality…