IdeaFestival

Governance through games?

At Terra Nova Thomas Malaby, an anthropologist by training, asks an interesting question: To what extent can good governance - which involves authority ceded willingly - flow from games?

The suggestion I would like to make is that, for institutions, games are in fact quite difficult to domesticate, precisely because they can generate outcomes that challenge or outright contradict any existing, more coherent, narratives. And I would add to this another issue, just as important, and that is how the legitimacy of a game's outcomes is directly related to the community of its players or the institution which controls it (as in the case of organized sports). When games are mobilized for purposes other than the playing in and of themselves, who gets to interpret the outcomes, and say what they mean? The sponsoring institution, or the participating players? To me, these are central questions as we see more and more institutions attempting to govern through games.

As more and more companies seek to integrate gaming with corporate and business communication, it will be interesting to what extent those "existing, more coherent, narratives" take pride of place. Authority is always up for negotiation.

I'd also point out that this tension between open-ended story that games bring to the discussion and pre-existing narrative is something that special effects filmmaker John Gaeta addressed at some length during a session at the 2006 IdeaFestival, saying that the first person who figured out how to incorporate both would achieve a breakthrough, financially and artistically, in filmmaking.

Lastly, if the discussion about how humans bend technology to our own purposes interests you, LIFT, a terrific conference about technology and society, is featuring a couple of anthropologists at its conference this week. I'd encourage you to look at the LIFT blog for directions to live write-ups of the sessions.

Wayne

Language, fellowship, altruism

At My Heart's In Accra, Ethan Zuckerman is busy blogging Big Ideas at Pop!Tech. Check out his posts on what language tells us about relationships and the problem of altruism if you get the chance. The former I find related the business principle of poetry, and the latter, to game theory, which has demonstrated that irrationality can sometimes be mighty reasonable.

This year Pop!Tech is also webcasting its conference live.

Wayne

Philanthropy in virtual worlds

Speaking of virtuality, The MacArthur Spotlight on Digital Learning and Media has posted a recap of the Second Life conversation between MacArthur Foundation President Jonathan Fanton and Linden Lab CEO Philip Rosedale on philanthropy in virtual worlds.

The blog entry links to participant analysis of the meeting, here, here and here.

The New York Times had this to say prior to the meeting.

The discussion kicked off a year long effort in support of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School to explore what philanthropy means in virtual worlds. From the press release:

During the coming 12 months, the Center on Public Diplomacy will support a series of discussions in virtual worlds about the concept of philanthropy, help us share what we and the organizations that we fund know and are doing in areas such as affordable housing preservation, community and economic development and urban policy, global conservation and human rights, and provide awards for in-world innovations.

Wayne

Calling all advertising creatives!

After reading a review in Creativity of the iPhone that Apple will introduce to the market later this summer, I realized that the ideaFestival needs to reach out to those same advertising creatives and invite them to review their experience at this year's ideaFestival.

So if you consider yourself an advertising creative, I'm personally inviting you to the festival this year. If you attended the successful Idea Conference, you will will be in for a similar treat by coming to Louisville KY, September 13-15.

Ad guys & gals, the festival needs you. And if you are lucky, you might just hear what Steve Wozniak thinks about the iPhone!

Brett

Update on "One Laptop" and TEDGlobal2007

Ethan Zuckerman offers an update on the One Laptop Per Child project direct from Nicholas Negroponte, who makes clear that it isn't a computing project, but an educational project. If you haven't seen video about the little machine, OLPC.tv features just that. Here is one from May 22:

Ethan is also currently blogging - I mean, seriously blogging - TEDGlobal, which is underway in Arusha, Tanzania as I write this. There are many, many posts, but I'd have to hand in my geek credentials if I didn't at least point out the entry on "ethnomathematician," Ron Eglash, titled African Fractals. As represented in African and Islamic architecture, fractals have some pretty interesting properties, the study of which I've elsewhere called Zenography.

See Ethan's TEDGlobal2007 category for a complete list of posts from Arusha. [Update] And don't forget to make the trip to TEDblog for a "best-of" round up of posts and quotes.

Wayne

Reboot

Nicolas Nova blogged the first day of the just concluded Danish conference Reboot9.0, offering what he calls a "doggy bag" from sessions such as "Mobile Social Play" and "Online Symbols in the Offline World."

He also presented a talk of his own on the hybridization of the digital and physical. Nicolas is the a writer behind pasta and vinegar, a blog exploring the ongoing physical and digital mash up in art, technology and communications.

And according to its site Reboot is the place for "practical visionaries working at the intersection of digital technology and the change all around us." It's a match.

Wayne

Illustrating the future

Guest blogging at Bruno Giussani's web log, Lunch over IP, futurist Michele Bowman briefly describes the FringeHog Tags the World project, an effort to illustrate the future with your images.

Set your sights on the people, places and activities that hint at what the future might look like in 10, 20 or even 50 years -- we're looking for images of objects, activities, media, and people that give you that "aha" feeling, like the future is whispering in your ear. Than snap a photo and email it, along with a title, brief description and the location the picture was taken to future@fringehog.com. Photos will be accepted now through June 15, 2007. Photographs will be geo-tagged, credited and displayed on the FringeHog Tags the World map; select photos and contributors will be featured in a book.

I'd be remiss if I didn't also point out that Bruno has written up a recent Zurich speech on innovation by Steve Wozniak, who will be appearing at the ideaFestival this September.

Wayne

Designing the "visual ecosystem"

At Functioning Form, Luke Wroblewski writes up a community design session he attended at the Web 2.0 Expo. There's some interesting information available on what cooperative design might mean.

He also, in a brief post on interaction design, supplies the slides from a talk he gave on the visual ecosystem. One of the slides describes how the eye takes in information v. the way most web sites are designed, which reminded me that artists just see more.

Wayne

Freeing ideas one video at a time

Just to follow up this morning's post, Bruno Giussani today makes mention of the streaming media that LIFT, Pop!Tech and, of course, TED, are making available for free. He believes All Things Digital might follow suit.

I continue to be astounded at the list of participants and the quality of some of this work. But the trend fits nicely with the purpose of these conferences, which is to make ideas work for everyone by making them available everywhere. And the price is certainly right.

Bruno, I'll just have to think about how the role of meta-curator might work.

Wayne

TED's excellent video adventure

TED has relaunched its site with a nice new interface that serves as a visual guide to the TEDtalks released in the past 12 months or so.

I've watched many of them, but I was reminded of one, Sir Ken Robinson's talk on schools and creativity as I sat down to write today (he's awfully funny by the way).

When I walked my son into his elementary school this morning, taped up in the windows and strung along the hallway like bunting were grade school drawings and watercolors of the Mona Lisa, smiling impishly. The drawings were everywhere, dozens and dozens of them, perhaps hundreds, many of them featuring an interesting and highly individual take on that wan, knowing smile.

The idea that schools often educate our children out of creativity is a valid point - as is the idea that we only teach our children from the neck up. But I think the lady is saying something, Sir Ken.

I was in the midst of an insurrection.

Wayne