IdeaFestival

Conference blogging 101

In what must be the first ever comparison between the two, Ethan Zuckerman likens conference blogging to scoring a baseball game. A certain amount of attention and willingness to be in the moment is required.

Having watched Ethan live-blog IF last October - and looking forward to seeing him at the ideaFestival again in September, where he is slated to speak - I'd have to agree with others who have watched him at work: his power to blog on the spot is mighty impressive. I've wondered in the past how he did it.

Now I know.

His list of tips and tricks reads like conference blogging 101 and will be pinned inside my pack along with my Macbook and blogging supplies. If you've got your own ideas for what makes a successful conference blogging experience, why don't you leave him a comment? The comment thread below his post is interesting as well.

Wayne

Are mice empathetic?

Do animals feel empathy?

In the Scientific American Mind Matters series, Dr. Frans B.M. de Waal, Emory University, describes some recent work that suggests that mice, indeed, are capable of empathy, and that it has a very real purpose - to modulate the social effect of pain. He concludes:

While it doesn't prove that the mice feel vicarious emotions, it demonstrates they experience a vicarious intensification of their own experience.

This demonstration justifies speaking of "empathy" -- at least for some. Here we find an interesting division between psychologists, who tend to think top-down, and biologists, who tend to think bottom-up. The top-down view considers the most advanced forms of empathy, such as putting yourself into another's "shoes" and imagining her situation, and wonders how this ability arises; the inevitable answer is advanced cognition, perhaps even language. Yet merely imagining someone else's situation is not empathy. Such imagination can be a cold affair, not unlike understanding how airplanes fly. Empathy requires emotional involvement.

Here the bottom-up view offers a better perspective. When we react to seeing someone display emotion and construct an advanced understanding of the other's situation, this process indeed involves -- in humans and some other large-brained animals -- a great deal of cognition. But the emotional connection comes first; understanding and imagination follow. This mouse experiment suggests that the emotional component of this process is at least as old as the mammals and runs deep within us.

No feeling? No thought.

Wayne

Email is for old people

Bruno Giussani recently linked to a C|NET news piece on teenage views of email, which reminded me of one puckish quote I remember from a 2005 Pew study on teens and technology:

Email is for old people.

You know, that's just not nice.

Wayne

Galaxy classification, crowdsourced

Could the Web change how galaxies are classified?

Galaxy Zoo has crowdsourced the job of classifying millions of galaxies. The Carnival of Space points to several articles about the new site, including one by Oxford scientist Chris Lintott, who worked to get the site up and to keep it up during the first few hectic days when it turned out that the crazy idea just might work.

From the front page of Galaxy Zoo:

Any computer program we write to sort our galaxies into categories would do a reasonable job, but it would also inevitably throw out the unusual, the weird and the wonderful. To rescue these interesting systems which have a story to tell, we need you. 

Can you recognize shapes? Go check it out. It's a great way to participate in science with very little or no knowledge of astronomy.

Hat tip: Centauri Dreams

Wayne

Shirin Ebadi recommends

Asked to recommend a book to IF attendees and readers of this blog, Shirin Ebadi suggested Lipstick Jihad by Azadeh Moaveni.

An Iranian lawyer and human rights activist, Shirin Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her significant and pioneering efforts in democracy and human rights, especially for the rights of women and children. She is the first Iranian and the first Muslim woman to receive the prize.

She will be at the ideaFestival on September 13 addressing the vital subject of peace.

Wayne

Barrington Irving to be at IF

Rounding out the list of people who will be speaking at the ideaFestival, September 13-15 in Louisville, is Barrington Irving, who is the first person of African descent and the youngest person ever to fly solo around the globe.

Find out more about his passion for flight at Experience Aviation.

More information on Barrington and all the ideaFestival presenters, including such individuals as Shirin Ebadi, Steve Wozniak, Ray Bradbury, Homaro Cantu, and many, many others, may be found here.

Event passes, which are required for all events - free and paid - may be reserved online.

Wayne

"Convergence" drives IF

In the past I have offered some thoughts on the idea of convergence, an important concept that drives the ideaFestival. Convergence in this context involves the effective integration of knowledge, ideas and insights into a coherent pattern of thought.

An article in the July 21, 2007 issue of the New York Times, "C.E.O. Libraries Reveal Keys to Success," explores the reading and thinking habits of successful business people and demonstrates nicely several aspects of convergence. A common theme that runs through successful innovators regardless of their field is this relentless and unconstrained search for knowledge, coupled with the unique ability to combine and recombine ideas to produce new (and sometimes breakthrough) products, creative endeavors and ways of thinking.

Kris

If You're So Smart, You Fix It!

The Geeks at Geek Squad are working with IdeaFestival to help find people whose ideas could help save the planet!

So, if you ever had an idea that you thought could change the world - the Geeks are looking for your help.

Beginning Monday July 25th, for only a limited time, Geek Squad is launching an online consumer challenge to solicit real solutions, ideas and designs on the following three topics:

• e-Waste Solutions • Power Conservation Ideas • Ways of Maximizing Untapped Resources

This interactive website will allow you to scribble, insert drawings etc. to help explain why a panel of IF speakers and others should choose your idea. If your idea is selected, you will be brought to IF 2007 in Louisville KY, this Sept 13-15 to have your idea worked on. And if you need some help - don't worry, various IF speakers and attendees will be there to help you!

To learn more and submit your great ideas, go to www.geeksquad.com/ideafestival.

May the best geeks win!

Brett

Simplicity+Emotion=Success

Check out this National Public Radio "Science Friday" interview with MIT professor John Maeda about ease of use and functional design. In it, Maeda and the host discuss several "laws of simplicity" (see also the book by the same name).

The first law is "reduce," which, paradoxically, might mean taking choices away in order to get to an object or technology's essence - a process of abstraction.

Naturally the iPhone briefly enters the dialog - an example of the seventh law, emotion. Diego Rodriguez at metacool aptly summarizes the physics of emotional design like this: "wanting something makes it easier to use."

Works for me.

Hat tip: Putting People First.

Wayne

Second Law

Business Communicators of Second Life has published a lengthy in-world discussion of legal issues hosted by the blogger behind Virtually Blind - a blog on law and virtual worlds - and the founder of the Second Life Bar association, Benjamin Duranske. It will probably come as no surprise that there are a lot more questions than answers, but the issues involved have begun to attract the attention of legal professionals.

Questions posed: are avatars people? What are the intellectual property rights associated with images in Second Life, which are simply (or not) pictures of pictures?

In what sense is Second Life real?

There's much more there if you're inclined.

Wayne