How Do We Harness the Innovation Potential of our Networks?

13 Friday Jan 2012

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Only in the past few months have I heard this term “asset mapping” as a needed tool to surface hidden but available value, bootstrap communities, and get shit done.

As I’ve gone back through my own blog and thinking/writing, I see that i also have been talking about this since 2009, though I was calling it “Human Capital Metrics.”

I found this post in my backlog – The Future of Collaboration Begins with Visualizing Human Capital, and had made a simple mockup of how Facebook profiles could be expanded to actually show information that was useful for people trying to collaborate or get involved in a creative enterprise together.

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Future of Facebook Project: Society Video

11 Wednesday Jan 2012

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Hot off the presses!

Here’s our latest installment of the Future of Facebook Project, with collaborators Alvis Brigis, Shane Valcich, and the Open Foresight FOFB team.

Facebook is a social phenomenon that’s sweeping the globe, enabling people to connect across geographic and cultural boundaries, share information, and build meaning and value together in new ways.

What are the implications of a technology relentessly embedding itself into our everyday social fabric?

Contributors include Kevin Kelly (What Technology Wants, founder Wired), David Kirkpatrick (author The Facebook Effect), Howard Rheingold (author Smart Mobs), Nova Spivack (web innovator, co-founder Bottlenose), futurist Jamais Cascio, Doug Rushkoff (author Program or Be Programmed), Doc Searls (Berkman Center, author The Cluetrain Manifesto), social network research pioneer Valdis Krebs, cyborg anthropologist Amber Case, web anthropologist Stowe Boyd, innovation strategist Chris Arkenberg, Suzanne Fischer (curator Henry Ford Museum).

Watch! Share! Check out interview clips on the Future of Facebook youtube channel, Contribute at futureoffacebook.com or Future of This Social Network on Facebook!

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Big thanks for support from our Corporate Patron, Innotribe, Zev at Averbach Transcription, Executive Producer Sean Park, and Producers Dr. William J. Ward, Debra Farber, Bill Lefurgy, Guido Stevens, and Nicky Smyth. Image design by the fabulous Erica Glasier.


Core Principles for the New Economy: Human Agency & Enlightened Self-Interest

10 Tuesday Jan 2012

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Yesterday Stowe Boyd wrote a commentary (Getting to Trust: Better Swift than Deep) in response to my post about trust and collaboration, saying that the way of the future is connectives, not collectives; cooperation, not collaboration.

He goes on to recommend assembling ourselves with swift trust, align professionally around a common goal/vision/alignment, get short-term projects done, and then disband and move on, verse trying to establish deep trust, which is a much stickier, longer and more political process.

I just want to clarify what it is we’re experimenting with, as Stowe hasn’t been the only person lately who misinterpreted it as attempting to form some kind of unified hivemind. Continue reading →

How Will We Collaborate if We Can’t Trust Each Other?

08 Sunday Jan 2012

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A few years ago, I had a big snowcrash moment about the power of networks and the web, envisioning the amazing potential that could be unleashed if we could just build our networks and weave them all together.

Fast forward 18 months or so, and I find myself embedded within overlapping networks of networks…. and yet I still don’t see the magic happening that had appeared so clearly in my mind.

What’s the deal?

I chuckle now looking back at my own starry-eyed naivete, as if it were enough to just be connected. I’m reminded of something Stowe Boyd said when I interviewed him for the Future of Facebook Project:

There’s no natural reason that we’re all gonna come together and sing kumbaya just because we’re using the same social tools.

So, yeah. It’s not the technology, it’s about us. Continue reading →

93+ Superhero Schools, Collaboratories, Incubators, Accelerators & Hubs for Social & Tech Innovation

08 Sunday Jan 2012

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A few weeks back I put my intention out to open a Beacon Collaboratory, or what I called in the blog post a “Superhero School.” As I look around me, I’m seeing a pattern of convergence towards these kinds of live/work/play spaces. As “living labs,” these spaces bring together elements of a tech incubator, an R&D facility, a hackerspace/fablab, a sustainability demonstration site, and it’s all tied to place – with the projects / prototypes / experiments being done there carried out and implemented in the local area, stimulating the economy, creating jobs, and building resilient communities throughout the area and the region.

I’ve been over to the dream property four times now, and each time I go it seems I have a clearer sense of how the whole thing could work.
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I can see it as being an innovation hub and retreat center, wrapped in a creative learning culture. Just 90 minutes by train from NYC, a welcome change of scenery for Silicon Alley. Continue reading →

2011 Year in Review & 2012 Intentions & Aspirations

02 Monday Jan 2012

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i didn’t want this day to end without having taken a serious look at where i have been in the past year and when i want to go next. i criticize myself horribly and never feel like i’m doing enough, so i decided to do a review of the past 12 months and show myself a bit of kindness and gratitude for what i *did* manage to accomplish. i feel insanely optimistic about 2012 being the year i finally align my energy and passion and go supernova.

so, here’s where i’ve been so far in 2011, and the experiences i plan to share with you this epic year of 2012. 🙂

Continue reading →

Lifehack: Morning Junto: [Daily Activity Tracker + Scoreboard]

21 Wednesday Dec 2011

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I’ve decided to add a new theme to the blog – lifehacks.

My attention of late has been focused on how to be more action-oriented, and I realized I’ve been poorly equipped with tools (techniques, processes, frameworks, and technologies) for Getting Shit Done [GSD].

So I have been experimenting with different ways of holding myself accountable and moving towards more integrity in thought :: word :: action.

I’m having success with a Morning Junto model, so I’d like to share how it’s working: Continue reading →

Facilitating Trust & Capacity-Building in 21st Century Organizations

19 Monday Dec 2011

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I just got back from co-facilitating my first Fusion, an amazing two day event in Mill Valley, California! (We modeled it after the Fusion retreat I attended a few weeks ago.)

The framing was intended to address the question many of us are asking at both personal and organizational levels today –

How do we shed old frameworks and practices (both cognitive and emotional) that are not serving us anymore, increase our ability to communicate, build our capacities, form dynamic and high-performance teams, and become more collectively intelligent?

So to answer that question, we gathered almost 20 high integrity futurists and systems innovators from our network to do a deep dive in trust, and actually start DOING IT in order to discover how. This was about kickstarting the process of going from a community of talk to a community of practice and action. Continue reading →

Essential Skills for 21st Century Survival: Part 6: Storytelling

10 Saturday Dec 2011

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This is part 6 in a 12 part series. The first five skills were Pattern Recognition, Environmental Scanning, Network Weaving, Foresight, and Conscious Awareness.

:: storytelling ::

The following video by Jonah Sachs, creative director at Free Range Studios has prompted me to get back to completing the next installment in this Essential Skills series. He does a beautiful job revealing the secrets of effective and high-impact storytelling.

Jonah Sachs at Compostmodern ’11 from AIGA San Francisco on Vimeo. Continue reading →