Technology+Aphorisms

=From me (though the distilled wisdom of many)= "Simple" gets used.

"Simpleness" (or good usability) is not a “nice to have.”

"Difficult" gets used too if the problems people are trying to solve with it are pressing enough.

Software that addresses problems from the perspective of the motivation of the individual (instead of the "corporation" or "organization") is far more likely to succeed and be used

People will use technology in ways that were never intended by its designer. People will also use DATA in ways that it's original owner could never have foreseen.

People like to play. People like to connect with each other, talk and socialize. People will find a way to do this with the technology whether you like it or not.

Networked based computing allows us to work, to document our work, and to share both the work and its documentation AT THE SAME TIME.

People own their data, their personal profile and their relationship with others. Their "identity" online is of no less worth than their physical identity.

"Damage" gets routed around. That said, "damage" is still damage and should not be passed off as a "feature" when it isn't.

Free (even when there are hidden costs) wins every time.

Network software that depends on "network effects" for its success cannot start in a silo'd way for that will fail; enable the conditions of viral growth from the get-go even if you are targeting a small pilot to begin with.

"Good" tools bend to our use. They are simple, speak to our motivations, yet also have a flexibility to them which facilitates people finding new ways to use them. Good tools allow people to share without having to do extra work.

=From Others=

McLuhan's 4 questions


 * 1) What does it extend?
 * 2) What does it make obsolete?
 * 3) What is retrieved?
 * 4) What does it reverse into, if it’s over-extended?

//"We shape our tools...and then our tools shape us"// Marshall McLuhan (1965)

"Now I was in lifeboat designed for ten and ten and only, / Anything that systematic would get you hated." - Tragically Hip

"To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail." - Unknown

8 characteristics of effective networks (cf. [|http://www.kolabora.com/news/2006/10/20/learning_networks_knowledge_exchange.htm)]
 * 1) **Effective networks are decentralized.**
 * 2) **Effective networks are distributed.**
 * 3) **Effective networks disintermediated.**
 * 4) **In effective networks, content and services are disaggregated.**
 * 5) **In an effective network, content and services are dis-integrated.**
 * 6) **An effective network is democratic.**
 * 7) **An effective network is dynamic.**
 * 8) **An effective network is desegregated.**

from "Designing Open Educational Technology," David Kahle, in "Opening Up Education" http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/chapters/0262033712chap2.pdf on the design of "open educational technologies" 5 guiding principles "1. Design for access. 2. Design for agency. 3. Design for ownership. 4. Design for participation. 5. Design for experience."

from "Pirates and Samaritans: a Decade of Measurements on Peer Production and their Implications for Net Neutrality and Copyright" http://www.tribler.org/trac/attachment/wiki/PiratesSamaritans/pirates_and_samaritans.pdf "Careful study of such numbers and technology developments leads us to believe that the cardinal features for effective platforms for peer production (P2P platforms) are:
 * 1) separation of good and bad contributions,
 * 2) regulation of computer resources,
 * 3) group communication, and
 * 4) community building."

Andy's easy test of a "2.0 System" asks 3 simple questions:

"Is it //freeform//? How //frictionless// is contribution? And is it //emergent//?"

http://elearndev.blogspot.com/2009/02/andrew-mcafee-enterprise20-don-forget.html

Neil Postman, from "Five Things We Need to Know About Technological Change" - http://www.mat.upm.es/~jcm/neil-postman--five-things.html
 * 1) Idea Number One, then, is that culture always pays a price for technology.
 * 2) that there are always winners and losers in technological change is the second idea. (Who specifically benefits from the development of a new technology? Which groups, what type of person, what kind of industry will be favored? And, of course, which groups of people will thereby be harmed?)
 * 3) The third idea, then, is that every technology has a philosophy which is given expression in how the technology makes people use their minds, in what it makes us do with our bodies, in how it codifies the world, in which of our senses it amplifies, in which of our emotional and intellectual tendencies it disregards
 * 4) Technological change is not additive; it is ecological (A new medium does not add something; it changes everything.)
 * 5) media tend to become mythic.

and from the same essay "That is also why we must be suspicious of capitalists. Capitalists are by definition not only personal risk takers but, more to the point, cultural risk takers. The most creative and daring of them hope to exploit new technologies to the fullest, and do not much care what traditions are overthrown in the process or whether or not a culture is prepared to function without such traditions."

Kevin Kelley, "Better Than Free" - []

**Eight** **Generative****s Better Than Free**
 * I****mmediacy**
 * Personalization**
 * Interpretation**
 * Authenticity**
 * Accessibility**
 * Embodiment**
 * Patronage**
 * Findability**