Social Media for Social Change

TED talk: Turning Point for Social Media

Posted on Friday, January 30th, 2009 at 4:01 pm by Alie in research | 4 Comments

I am obsessed with TED talks, so this probably the first of many I will reference.

The opening is a bit jarring, but once I got over that I found Jason Surowiecki’s argument to be scarily relevant. He summarizes some of our hopes and fears about the literal web based component of our project (if there is one.) However, I was really intrigued by his first point: there are a large number of people who are willing to devote a lot of energy for sake of creating a fuller picture of the world (and, to a less noble extent, for the attention.) It just gives me hope and makes me feel like there is a place for our project.

Surowiecki also gets bonus points in my book for his ant reference. It’s a great analogy for what we are trying to avoid/remedy.

4 Responses to “TED talk: Turning Point for Social Media”

1. # On January 30th, 2009 at 6:39 pm Jethro wrote:

   That was very interesting, thanks for sharing it. And the ant, circular mill metaphor is giving me a lot to think about in regards to our project and the work of the Action Mill (given our name we should really consider what this means to us).

2. # On February 8th, 2009 at 11:12 pm Jeremy wrote:

   Interesting talk, Alie. Could you elaborate a bit on what you find particularly useful for our project? I appreciate his point about how we often make assumptions about the inherent value of networks, which verges on technological determinism maybe — that is, the network as a function of technological innovation is making us cumulatively better than we ever were before. In fact, the network is used against us, too: pervasive surveillance, loss of privacy, fragmented senses of identity and relationships. Surowiecki describes a group-think effect: once linked in the network, the network begins to shape the views and thoughts of the members of the network, and groups are only smart when the people within them remain as independent as possible. Which sounds a lot like the rationale for a thriving democratic and civil society.

3. # On February 8th, 2009 at 11:44 pm Ona wrote:

   Alie,
   You just introduced me to something pretty cool. I appreciate this man’s ability to report from the middle, straddling both the “light and the dark” as he put it. He drives a strong and almost fundamental issue home, the presentation of media-its causes and effects. Given that I am in back to back classes titled “Media Industries” and “Ethics in Media”, I feel over saturated with a concern of our current misrepresentation of media for a greater greedier outcome. Of course in saying “our” I mean corporations and those listening/buying. This has given me new food for thought. Maybe another issue SMSC could speak on is desensitization, Reality to Media to Virtual Media (internet) and the breakdown of that. How there is experience, Media commentary and now as this man has said a new Virtual logging of events that is challenging the flow of main stream Media. This idea that just because something sells, doesn’t make it news/truth/applicable to aiding society.
   SMSC already focusing on the need for creating connections through meaningful action, I think we should keep driving home the individuals entitlement to a free commons and its proper representation, which will most likely reflect democracy.
   I enjoyed this Ted talk: Turn-ing me on to Social Media.

4. # On February 9th, 2009 at 2:33 pm Alie wrote:

   Jeremy, my interest in the talk was what you just addressed, but I suppose in a more general way. This might be old news for you multimedia types, but I don’t have that much experience with blog culture. My personal sense of things was, as naive as it may be, that the ants running in circles was the norm. So the point you highlight about group-think is exactly what I found so interesting and inspirational about the talk. I suppose it is lying in the background of our discussions, but it wasn’t crystallized for me until now.
   Actually, now that I think about it, this is something that is a major component of more the progressive Industrial Design development process. Design firms like IDEO hire psychologists, anthropologists, engineers, and researches of various sorts as well as industrial designers to brainstorm and the project comes from the groups consensus. We try to bring the key parts of all these relevant but somewhat disparate fields together. Before this, and even now, the ideal for industrial designers was to have expertise in all of these fields and then talk to themselves, as they inevitable develop multiple personalities. I actually think that looking at the IDEO research cards might be a good idea for us.

   …

   I have more to say but I think I need to go take a hacksaw to my thoughts for a sec.