HUMN-306-SU90 #5 (open for editing)

For Whom It May Concern:

During this week, there have been a lot of similarities between the project that I am currently working on and what I have read in Shirky’s book about the concepts of “publish then filter,” “personal motivation meets collaboration production” and “failure for free.” The current project that I am undertaking is a collaboration with seven of my colleagues to create an art platform for any creative minds to share their ideas, useful tips and to buy or sell art products. We, the artists also need to make a living! We based our platform idea on the principle of Wikipedia, where we publish short thoughts and edit later, where the group of people come together and share the same division of labour and responsibilities.

This collaboration has produced a website, which is still in rough shape, but is being constantly improved, much like the case of Wikipedia. When Shirky talks about Wikipedia, he says that each “ article is a process, not a product, and as a result, it is never finished. Rather than filtering contributions before they appear in public,” it is assumed that “new errors will be introduced less frequently than existing ones will be corrected.” In the same way, this back and forth editing makes our platform, though not perfect, better and more polished each time. As Shirky explains, “The logic of publish- then- filter means that new social systems have to tolerate enormous amounts of failure. The only way to uncover and promote the rare success is to rely, yet again, on social structure supported by social tools.”

The above quote sums up the acknowledgment that as a group, when we collaborate, there is a possibility of failure. Every one of us has a clear understanding that this is not an easy process like sharing. We have to rely on each other and we have to trust each other when it comes to decision-making. The main question, however, is whether collaboration makes the product better or worse. Everyone has their own ideas, but if they have to compromise those ideas, is the end product worse? On the other hand, many minds working together should make the final product better. I would think that although collaboration makes it harder to produce an outcome, the result is more profound once it is complete. But that is not always the case.

HUMN-306-SU90 #4 (open for editing)

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Groups of people are complex, in ways that make those groups hard to form and hard to sustain; much of the shape of traditional institutions is a response to those difficulties.

Above is a paragraph extracted from Clay Shirky’s book Here Comes Everybody. This is what grabbed my attention for the week’s reading. People are naturally social animals, we behave differently when we find ourselves in groups. As Shirky mentions, “no one can be a social climber or a man of the people without reference to society.”

According to Shirky, there are several rungs on the “ladder of activities” that are enabled or improved by social tools. The rungs on the ladder, in order of difficulty, are: sharing, cooperation, and collective action. Shirky suggests that sharing is the easiest and least complicated group activity, because it functions in a “ take-it-or-leave-it fashion” where it leaves maximum freedom for users to participate or not participate. Flickr is one example of the free sharing platform that is offered to everyone.

Cooperation comes next. It is more complicated than sharing because it involves changing one’s behavior to accommodate others. There is also a sub division called collaborative production, which is a more involved form of cooperation. It creates much more tension between participants where each one needs to be involved in the project and no individuals can take credit for what gets created. Unlike sharing, in this form of group activity, decisions need to be made by participants. This kind of group activity exhibits a downside, where it takes more energy to get things right. For example, in Wikipedia, back and forth editing is needed before an actual final page of a subject is produced.

The last and most complex form of activity is collective action. It requires people to commit themselves to undertake a particular effort together. As mentioned in the beginning of the post, groups are complex, they create dilemmas. These dilemmas become a critical point for the group’s success. Collective actions create shared responsibilities. These responsibilities are often “meant to change something out in the world.” According to Shirky, collective action can easily become associated with “ the Tragedy of the Commons,” a phrase that describes situations in which individuals “have an incentive to damage the collective good.” In other words there will never be a group where all members are pleased with the decisions that are being made. Currently, according to Shirky, to have a successful collective action group “ is still relatively rare.”

I particularly have a close association with the collective action model. I think this is what our current Design Department faces. Instructors encourage us to work in a collective action manner. However, as the group grows, it becomes more difficult to sustain a conversation with the other group members. Furthermore, we, as individual designers, all have strong opinions and visions and we don’t want to give in. This then creates a dilemma, which becomes even bigger and worsens when it comes to decision-making. This in turn leads to more frustrations and disappointments. These difficulties are just the “responses to the grim logic of group complexity.”

Maybe if we were given a new form of group activities, these problems could be minimized. Or if we were taught skills such as communication, collaboration, problem solving, collective decision-making, and compromise, then the group activities could flow more smoothly. However, I do acknowledge that coming up with a new and improved system is easier said than done, but these are just some thoughts that I came up with while reading this book.

Ps: something I found that were not related to my post BUT related to r!p the video!
the search for a moose

HUMN-306-SU90 #3 (open for editing)

For Whom It May Concern:

One of the key points I have taken away from this week’s reading and lecture is the importance of freedom, of having some freedom to do what you like in the workplace. And I believe that this is when innovation and creativity come in. As an art student, I truly believe that freedom would foster more creativity than restriction; I think this is a basic reason for me enrolling in an art university. According to Tapscott and Williams, the real innovation occurs when companies allow their employees a certain amount of freedom. For example, Google allows all their employees to have 20 percent of free time to do whatever they want during their workday. It’s often during this free time that employees come up with innovative ideas, which can then be used to make Google a more effective search engine.

Furthermore, companies often try to introduce new ways of doing things from the management level. But if they took the time to observe how existing workplace culture operates in a “state of nature,” they would see that employees often come up with their own systems of doing things, if they are given the freedom to do so. Companies in today’s society should loosen up and give more freedom to the employees. This applies especially to modes of communication. For example, Robert Stephanes, the creator of Geek Squad was trying unite everyone in the company around the US and Canada by setting up a wiki, but he then realized that the employees already had their own ways of communication: Battlefield 2.

This idea of freedom doesn’t just apply to the business world, it can also apply to the art world. We could think of each artist as his or her our own company. We need to then observe ourselves in the state of having freedom to do what we love, and that is when our creativity comes in. Having the freedom to pursue one’s own interest not only benefits one’s desire to be creative but also, according to Tapscott and Williams, what “can surface [are] unplanned innovations that may one day evolve into successful … ventures.” In my case, as an industrial designer, if I leave myself 20 percent of the day to work on my own designs, outside of the work I might be doing for clients, this is probably when I would come up with the most innovative ideas.

Hierarchical top-to-bottom business systems have long gone from today’s working society. Today, workplaces are becoming less formal and more creative, socially connective, fun, free, and diverse, where employees have more choices and alternatives of picking what they want to work on and how they want to work. This new bottom-up approach has now become the mainstream for many companies and social media, and we can’t take this lightly.

HUMN-306-SU90 #2 (open for editing)

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Peer production has now become the key element in today’s new technology making. Thinking that it would destroy companies from making a profit and erode the economy is a mistake. Taking Wikipedia as an example, it is a social medium that is operated by everyone; readers contribute to the post and edit as they want to. This entirely open source project has now become the largest and most recognized free encyclopedia. There is no ABSOLUTE hierarchy involved. Those managing Wikipedia rely on themselves and on the meritocratic principle – the most skilled and experienced ones take the lead. Though people join these communities entirely out of their own interest and passion about creating something new and better, this does not mean that they don’t benefit from being involved in these communities. This is where the profit making issue comes in. People who are good earn status and prove to be valuable in their field; they also get experience, exposure, and make connections that could lead to paid work. Others even get paid for joining these communities. Another important factor that keeps these communities strong and alive is that they keep the overall production cost low or even free, where everyone can have access to making the final product happen. After all, these are nonmonetary communities we are talking about here.

Peer-production communities are formed not only in the business world. We, the artists, animators, media professionals and designers, could also take this idea and bring it into our work practice. For me, as a design student, there are many design communities that I could get involved with, such as IDSA. IDSA allows us to share ideas, explore possibilities and solve existing problems. Very much like other online communities, we work in a meritocratic environment where we learn from one another. According to Tapscott & Williams: “peer production works because it can.” Furthermore, IDSA makes it possible to potentially collaborate on projects with other artists.

However, collaborating on an artwork creates potential copyright issues. This is where Creative Commons is very useful. CC is a powerful tool for anyone to easily apply for a copyright license, so that everyone’s work is protected and gets credited. There are different types of licenses, and some of them allow for modification or remixing of the artwork. However, this raises another question for me: would the work then lose its authenticity if people are able to remix the original piece? Would people from later generations know what is an original artwork and what’s not? How would CC distribute copyright when a whole group of people worked on one project, or one artwork? I am still working on finding answers to these issues that I have raised. My ECI community could probably help clear this up for me.

PS: I put a link about the IDSA that I talked about, feel free to check it out!
IDSA

HUMN-306-SU90 #1 (open for editing)

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Thanks to Web 2.0[1], the people who live in the 21st century now have access to the internet not only to surf and shop, but also to share, network, collaborate, and build trust. This applies to websites such as YouTube, Wikipedia, Facebook, and Myspace. This revolutionary change opens up opportunities for everyone to remix, and collaborate on their artworks with anyone in the world.

Undoubtedly, this brings up the issue of intellectual property and copyright. As quoted from my instructor’s Podcast, “Cory Doctorow [2] claimed that the enemy of cultural producers is not digital theft, the enemy of cultural producers is obscurity.” Doctorow’s success is built on the fact that he gives his books away for free. Now for people to copy materials from the web is an inevitably easy action. It is impossible to protect one’s work fully in a digitally-based world. We live in a culture where information is meant to be shared, edited and remixed by the public. Since this has become the major stream of communication in cyber space, we should take advantage of it. After all, we are all involved in Web 2.0 user-created content. According to Doctorow: “ Copyright shouldn’t come between an end-user of a creative work and her property.” (18)  

However, I am still skeptical when it comes to trusting the sources that are behind peer collaboration, as in the case of Wikipedia entries. I take these websites as just one reference rather than taking them as a fully accurate source of information. 

There was this news that was posted by the Globe and Mail that happen to touch on the subject that this course is talking about. I have attached the link.

The Globe and Mail Saturday May,16th 2009

 

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[1] “Web 2.0” refers to a perceived second generation of web development and design, that facilitates communication, secure information sharing, interoperability, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. More information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0

 

[2] Cory Doctorow (born July 17, 1971) is a Canadian blogger, journalist and science fiction author who serves as co-editor of the blog Boing Boing. He is an activist in favor of liberalizing copyright laws and a proponent of the Creative Commons organization, using some of their licenses for his books. More information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Doctorow

Hello world!

This blog is specifically dedicated to a a humanity course (HUMN- 306- SU90) that I am currently taking in Emily Carr University.

This course specifically talks about the implications of the new possibilities of digital culture and web 2.0. How collaboration and sharing also challenge the way we think about artists and authorship, design, production and consumption.

Never had a blog before, so I can’t really think of anything to say at this moment. However, it seems like it’s going to be an interesting course to look forward to !

Cheers,

Judy