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Aqui o vídeo do debate  revolução de sofá na Campus Party 2010. Lembro que eu demorei um pouco pra entrar no ritmo do debate. A coisa toda de "revolução  me pareceu muito hype e pouco compromisso, bem superficial e tal. Comecei questionando um pouco o próprio termo revolução, depois as coisas andaram e eu acho que peguei o ritmo no meio do caminho. No fim, acho até que fui bonzinho demais com os atwittervistinhas.

Conheci o trabalho dos Curadores da Terra ano passado, na programação paralela à COP-15 da Matilha Cultural, em sampa. Me impressionaram os tijolos feitos de materiais diversos. Há algumas semanas, recebi um informativo de uma rede de organizações de Ubatuba comentando que os Curadores da Terra estavam em tratativas com a prefeitura para implementar seu projeto de Lixo Zero. Troquei alguns emails com eles, e fui ontem conhecer Sérgio Prado e Márcia Macul, em sua bela casa na estrada pra praia da Almada. Conversamos por algumas horas, sobre vários projetos deles, mas também MetaReciclagem, lixo eletrônico, apropriação de tecnologias e projetos educacionais. Acho possível que se articule alguma ação metarecicleira na possível usina de tratamento de lixo. No mínimo, valeu a conversa.

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Também na segunda-feira fui conversar com o pessoal do coletivo Artaud nas Nuvens, que tá com o cineclube no Passeio Santa Fé. O espaço tá bem interessante, e eles estão começando a montar uma programação legal. Gostei da vibe do pessoal por ali, e propus uma conversa, ainda sem objetivo específico, sobre cultura digital e apropriação de tecnologias. A ver o que rola.

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Dia desses, inspirado pela ida da Ari pra Londres, fui reler o que escrevia nos meus primeiros meses de Alemanha. Uma certa nostalgia de outras épocas, mas também senti falta de alguns detalhes que até hoje, dois anos depois, ficaram na memória. Vou só listar aqui pra, quando for reler isso daqui a cinco anos ou mais, essas coisas não terem sumido.

• Caminhar pelo outro lado da Elba, perto da Universidade e dos prédios residenciais comunas, em busca de uma caneta de aerógrafo. Voltar pela beira do rio, aquele monte de capim alto, bicicletas, cachorros. Um encontro de escultores, todos com marretas e formões e blocos de pedra. Pedir cerveja  preta  e não ser entendido (o certo era  escura , apesar do menu atrás do balcão dizer  preta ). Em outra ocasião parecida, atravessar o rio de balsa por um euro.
• A lojinha de equipamentos esportivos na Königstr. Muitas coisas de acampamento e bicicleta. Barracas, botas, tapetes de piquenique.
• Na Alaunstr.: suco de maçã em garrafa de vidro retornável, coisas de casa na... esqueci o nome (máquina de cortar cabelo por EUR 5,99), cerveja no Spar do outro lado (Franziskaner Weiss, Beck's, Budvar ou Staropramen por 69 centavos). O chinês quitandeiro que tinha limões e cará. Virando à direita lá no meio do bairro, o curry & co. (salsicha, batata, etc.). Mais pra frente, bares de Shishas (narguilas) e no fim da rua, virando à esquerda, um boteco subterrâneo, bom.
• Fugir da aula de alemão pra correr de bicicleta pela beirada do rio. Um bar com cancha de vôlei de praia, com areia e tudo.
• Tombo de bicicleta no túnel em dia de chuva.
• Loja de bikes perto de Mitte.
• Na frente da estátua do Augustus a cavalo. Sorvete italiano, colorido. Mercado. Bicicleta, a milhão. A fonte no meio da rua, que saía direto do chão com pressão variável, sincronizada. Em dias quentes, as crianças brincando em cima dos jatos d'água.

Tem mais, vou editando enquanto lembro.

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Assim que terminar o verão, vou ali no tatuador marcar a MetaReciclagem na pele, como fez meu eterno irmão dpadua:

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Ontem fui conhecer a Sala Verde de Ubatuba (na Rua Acre, 404). O coordenador Beto Francine não está na cidade essa semana, mas conheci o Bruno, que toca um projeto por lá. As Salas Verdes são espaços socioambientais articulados pelo Ministério do Meio Ambiente. A Sala Verde de Ubatuba tem uma biblioteca temática, oferece cursos e tem alguns experimentos de permacultura e construção sustentável (aquecedor com garrafa PET, captação de água de chuva, filtro natural, aproveitamento de resíduos e poda, compostagem, construção com superadobe, etc.). Recebem visitações da rede escolar. Ano passado, com uma série de oficinas de construção sustentável, formaram 290 pessoas. O espaço é bem interessante - o restante do prédio era alguma secretaria da prefeitura, mas recentemente virou uma escola.

Esqueci de tirar fotos por lá, mas devo voltar nas próximas semanas.

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Andrea DiMaio writes — Why Do Governments Separate Open Data and Social Media Strategies? — about the need to merge open data strategies and social media strategies. He there complains about open data and social media strategies being treated as independent ones, which he believes to be actually related one to the other one.

I not only believe they should go altogether and hand in hand, but that their interaction defines different ways of understanding government or education. It always helps me to draw things and see what see what comes out of it:

Traditional communication Social Media Closed data

4-year-term Democracy
Plutocracy
(I)

Populism, Suffragism
Oclocracy, 5th Estate
(II)

Open data Transparency, Accountability
4th Estate, Aristocracy, Goverati
(III) Participation, engagement
Collaboration, cooperation
(IV)

Case I is definitely what we do have nowadays in most modern democracies: a democracy based on 4- (or 5-) years time span between elections, increasingly ruled by plutocracies bound to the economic powers.

Case II is common in plutocracies willing to be seen as cool. They “engage in the conversation” but, without the required information to feed a true democracy, it finally becomes a dialogue of the deaf. The governments perform populist acts and the masses believe they will be heard by shouting out the louder.

Case III is a genuine approach to openness, transparency and accountability. Nevertheless, without the proper communication channels, data can only be used (then exploited) by the “best” (in an elitist sense of the word), hence the ones that can interpret them and make their feedback get to the governments, the Goverati in its worst meaning).

Last, Case IV, is what we should we be aiming to. I definitely avoided labelling it Government 2.0 because it is surely not the “2.0″ what matters, but its components: participation, engagement, collaboration, cooperation… all in all, democracy in its purest sense.

In fact, it is just another way to thoroughly look at e-Government, which means Government enhanced by means of Information and Communication Technologies. Or, if you prefer it, enhanced by means of Information (data, open data) and Communication (Social Media) Technologies.

Publicando aqui uns rabiscos sobre Ubatuba.

Ubatuba é um retrato em pequena escala do Brasil. Natureza exuberante, população jovem com uma herança cultural miscigenada, originalmente nativa, negra - ainda existem áreas indígenas e quilombolas na cidade - e portuguesa, à qual nas últimas décadas se agregaram também expatriados de todas as regiões do país e até do mundo. Até hoje a cidade paga por equívocos administrativos e de planejamento urbano, mas busca seu caminho para o futuro. Conta com grupos religiosos de denominações variadas, um setor cultural expressivo que luta contra a precariedade de condições e uma classe empreendedora bem-intencionada que vem substituindo gradualmente os antigos donos de tudo. Está localizada entre as capitais Rio de Janeiro e São Paulo, e acaba assumindo um pouco da natureza cultural dos dois estados - trabalhadora e criativa, festiva e dedicada. Tem uma também diversa população flutuante, com interesses variados - do mais simples turismo de fim de semana a particularidades como a observação de pássaros.

Em alguns assuntos Ubatuba é um exemplo: conta com uma boa rede de ciclofaixas, é uma referência esportiva internacional com o surfe. A Mata Atlântica, considerada reserva da Biosfera pela Unesco, e que no restante do Brasil já foi desmatada em mais de 93%, circunda toda a cidade. Mais de 70% (até mais, segundo alguns) do território da cidade é dedicado à preservação. Apesar disso, assuntos como a preservação ambiental muitas vezes chegam à cidade de forma impositiva e sem diálogo com as culturas populares, causando resistência em vez dos desejados diálogo e assimilação.

No que se refere a produção cultural, são desenvolvidas iniciativas ligadas à preservação cultural, no contexto do folclore e das artes tradicionais, mas - com notáveis exceções - ainda pouco espaço é dedicado à articulação de novas formas de produção cultural e à integração das culturas populares à era da informação e do agenciamento em rede. Jovens produtores culturais com potencial precisam migrar para cidades maiores em busca de espaço para crescer. Além disso, Ubatuba é uma cidade litorânea extensa, desenvolvida entre a serra e o mar, com bairros relativamente isolados. Um número razoável de artistas, escritores, músicos e produtores culturais chegam a frequentar a cidade ou mesmo utilizá-la como retiro criativo, mas são poucos os espaços ou eventos dedicados a promover a troca entre essas pessoas, e elas acabam nem tomando conhecimento umas das outras.

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 Instalamos semana passada o módulo notifications, e hoje estou terminando de traduzi-lo e disponibillizá-lo para usuárixs mais antigxs do site. Ele traz algumas funcionalidades que eu julgo essenciais para o objetivo de estender o site como espaço de interação e formação de subgrupos dentro do universo da InfraLogica da MetaReciclagem: cada usuárix pode escolher receber avisos sobre novo conteúdo.
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Infra Lógica

The International Telecommunication Union has issued their yearly report on the measurement of the Information Society, e-Readiness and/or the Digital Divide: Measuring the Information Society 2010.

The report provides new and up-to-date calculations of the ICT Development Index, which are then used to back the statement that The digital divide is shrinking slightly. The problem is that, in my opinion, the digital divide is widening. How is it so?

Four years ago I already had this same sort of reflection then concerning the World Telecommunication/ICT Development Report 2006. The ITU’s calculations were then technically right, and nevertheless my disagreement was twofold. On the one hand, I thought that not only euclidean distances but the absolute values themselves of telephone penetration should also to be taken into account; on the other hand, the ITU just did not took into account broadband to define the digital divide, an (in my opinion) unforgivable omission.

This year the problem comes over again. The report repeatedly states that the digital divide is shrinking. To be able to do so, the ITU creates four groups (high, upper, middle, low) in which economies are aggregated; averages are calculated et, voilà, the digital divide is shrinking. But we know the problem with averages: (1) I’ve got two apples, you’ve got none, on average we’ve got one each; (2) my left foot stands in frozen water, my right one in boiling water and, on average, I’m pretty comfortable, thank you very much.

Source: ITU (2010). Measuring the Information Society 2010, Executive Report, p.4.

Let us look instead at what has happened at the disaggregate level. And to do so, let us build a hypothetical model where, in the last year (from 2007 to 2008) every economy would have reduced by a half the distance they had in the previous year with the leader. That is:

IDIey = IDIey-1 + 1/2(IDIly-1 – IDIey-1)

Where e is a specific economy, l is the leading economy (the economy with a highest IDI value), and y is the year. If we plotted the IDI values for year 2007 against these hypothetical values for year 2008, the result is:

Source: ITU (2010). Measuring the Information Society 2010
for year 2007 values (year 2008 are made up).

If all blue dots stayed just on the red line, nothing would have happened. As the lesser digitally developed countries are far from it — while the higher digitally developed ones are closer to it — it means that their IDI values for this year are higher than in the previous one, and they are higher the more distant they initially were in relationship with the leader, whose IDI value has remained constant. This is what a shrinking digital divide would look like.

Let us look now at what has happened between 2002 and 2007 and 2007 and 2008, which is how data is provided in the two last Measuring the Information Society reports:

Source: ITU (2010). Measuring the Information Society 2010.

As can be easily seen, the evolution of the IDI during the 2002-2008 is just the opposite to what we should be expecting was the digital divide really shrinking. Instead, we see that the economies with higher IDI values (i.e. more digitally developed) increased their IDI values during that period much more than the countries with lower values. Yes, all economies achieved higher degrees of digital development as measured by the ICT Development Index, but the richer, the more development achieved, not the other way round, thus increasing the digital divide, not shrinking it.

My calculations could be wrong and my approach could be plain wrong, but aggregates usually are worst approaches than disaggregates. Besides, people wants to hear bad news (the digital divide is shrinking) rather than listening to wet blankets. The problem is that if we do believe the divide is shrinking then we can shift our attention and resources elsewhere, thus worsening a situation that was even worse than admitted.

Update 20100301

Giacomo Zanello suggests in the comments to analyze whether the distance of a specific country with the leader has either increased or decreased. That is, to calculate this (I slightly modify his proposal to adjust it to the nomenclature already used and to produce mostly positive values):

Δ IDI_distance_to_leaderey = |IDIly – IDIey| – |IDIly-1 – IDIey-1|

Source: ITU (2010). Measuring the Information Society 2010.

The results are even more clear than the ones I had already used. By using Zanello’s exercise, we do see that the distance to the leader in tems of IDI values increases the less digitally developed countries are. In other words: lesser digitally developed countries are increasingly far from higher digitally developed countries, hence the digital divide is increasing, and it increases more the worst you are.

Thank you so much for the tip, Giacomo!

More Information

• International Telecommunication Union (2010). Measuring the Information Society 2010. Geneva: ITU.
• International Telecommunication Union (2009). Measuring the Information Society – The ICT Development Index 2009.
• World Telecommunication/ICT Development Report 2006: digital divide narrowing?, another article in this blog
• A collection of works by the International Telecommunication Union related with e-Readiness and ICT4D

 Já tem um tempo que eu não blogo por aqui (com exceção dos meus posts no desvio e no blog da metareciclagem, agregados aqui automaticamente). Deu saudade do meu broguezim.

Começo do ano em ritmos malucos. Coisas aceleradas, paradas, lentas, tudo ao mesmo tempo. Trabalhando em um monte de frentes - lixo eletrônico, desvio, metareciclagem e outras correrias. Pesquisando e agitando projetos e ações com drupal, laboratórios de mídia, água, produção editorial, debates. Também elaborando perguntas sobre a situação da água e o que fazer, construção ecológica - devemos começar nosso quarto agora em março -, construção de barcos, redes sem fio. Tô planejando também montar um metamóvel em cima de uma Parati de 17 anos, mas ainda estou negociando isso.

Ontem passei lá na Praia Dura, onde rola o Ubatuba Brazil Camp. Conheci Hermeto Pascoal (que na noite anterior escreveu uma música na parede da pousada). Hoje à noite vamos ao espaço Artaud nas Nuvens pra ver a apresentação final do camp.

Passei uma semana em sampa - tive reuniões com Hd e Drica, tivemos um papo do lixoeletrônico com Ike e a Soninha, outro com o Glauco Paiva e o pessoal do Centro Cultural da Espanha, e ainda uma conversa articulada pelo consulado da Holanda sobre novos desdobramentos da articulação dos mapeamentos culturais do Brasil. Também nos despedimos do Marcão e da Ari, que saíram para uma temporada em Londres. Também estou resolvendo umas burocracias, abrindo empresa e essas coisas chatas.

Ubatuba está molhada e com temperatura amena.

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Mais algumas imagens de instalações de Glauco Paiva...
Painel sobre Lixo Eletrônico:


Videowall no SESC:

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Glauco Paiva encontrou fotos de algumas peças que fez ano passado no gamecultura, no SESC Pompeia. São remixes de brinquedos de 1,99:

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Como eu comentei antes, já estamos movendo os motores do desenvolvimento do site da MetaReciclagem. Ainda estamos na fase de criar uma base comum, planejando e arrumando alguns bugs do sistema. A Fernanda continua desenrolando uma proposta de interface, acho que na semana que vem a gente já pode apresentar pra rede e conversar a respeito.
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Infra Lógica

Yesterday I spoke at the Jornadas sobre redes y cultura compartida: De la cultura distribuida a la transformación del conocimiento (Conference on networks and shared culture: from distributed culture to the transformation of knowledge).

I had been asked to answer this question: could we, thanks to the Internet, forget about political parties and let people express their own opinions, debate and vote their representatives directly?

An initial answer to the question would be: well, yes, why not? But, should we?

Instead of providing such an answer — or any answer at all — I tried instead to:

1. explain that some dire (socioeconomic) changes were taking place,
2. focus on why these socioeconomic changes were taking place and
3. infer, from this, what conditions shall take place in the future for
4. another wave of changes to happen.

In other words:

1. we have shifted from an Industrial Society to an Information Society (and what each concept means),
2. that this has been because of digitization and Information and Communication Technologies (and other aspects, all of which led to second order factors, etc.) and
3. that we should really be aware of digital competences, the digital divide and the unbalances of power
4. for full e-Democracy to happen.

If your browser does not support iframes, please visit http://prezi.com/xa-hh3shhpzf/view

[click here to enlarge]

As can be seen in the presentation, I showed and explained almost 20 cases which I consider either successful or revolutionary or both, cases that have been replicated and will inspire many others.

But I also devoted plenty of time at showing, with real data, that these initiatives are mostly piloted by a tiny minority, my caveat being that we should try and bring more people in — by fighting the aforementioned barriers — instead of keeping on exploring new territories. The reason being that we could find ourselves having replaced a democracy by a digital aristocracy.

I admit that (One of) the bad point(s) in my approach is that it is very economy-focussed, instead of being politics/government based and thus leaving aside many aspects tied to the nature of the subject. On the other hand, I think that the good point is that it makes it easy to go back to the reasons, the whys, and not just the hows. Indeed, the approach is equally useful (as I did yesterday) to explain some changes in education or media.

During the questions & answers session, I really got clever feedback from the audience, while also giving me a second chance to clarify some aspects. Here they go:

• The main aspect to address to achieve good e-Democracy is not the “e-” part, but the “Democracy” part. Difference, for instance, in the USA and European e-politics are more related with the political system rather than the different rates of Internet adoption or digital literacy (which are not that significantly different, by the way)
• Information overload is a problem, which has to be addressed (among other things) with information literacy. Urgently.
• New media literacies will be required too as we learnt to tell true from false when watching TV or FX-intensive movies.
• Editors should be, in my opinion, a keystone in the new Information Society. The problem is that journalists/editors are more concerned about selling audiences to their advertisers or paper to their readers, rather than creating/editing good information and finding out how to get paid for it.

If you can’t see this video, please visit http://ictlogy.net/?p=3314

Credits: horitzoTV

More information

• Blocs&ClubsII: Conferencia de Ismael Peña, by Lize De Clercq
• See presentation online in English
• Download presentation in English ( 14.3 MB)
• See presentation online in Spanish
• Download presentation in Spanish ( 14.4 MB)
• Download video in Catalan ( 149.64 MB)

In a comment on an earlier post, Dmitry Epstein asked about the quality and impact of ICT4D research.  I’ve already blogged about what constitutes good quality ICT4D research, so here I will just add a few data snippets on these topics.

Quality of ICT4D Research

The good news is that there is good quality ICT4D research around:

- It makes its way into the top journals: there’s the 2007 special issue of MIS Quarterly (top info. systems journal) on IS in developing countries; and I count at least four articles on ICTs and developing countries in World Development (top dev. studies journal) during 2009.

- Inclusion in ISI’s Web of Knowledge is a rather rough quality benchmark but it’s a benchmark nonetheless and, as noted in a previous post, there are a few hundred papers per year within the boundaries of development informatics recorded on WoK.

- On the assumption that citation rates are linked to quality, some individual ICT4D items score well.  The article “Information Systems in Developing Countries: Failure, Success and Local Improvisations” gets 44 citations on WoK; 217 on Google Scholar.  (Modesty, be damned: if you don’t believe in the quality of your own work, you shouldn’t be writing.)

But then there’s the bad news about ICT4D research quality:

- Of the eleven specialist journals in the field only one, Information Development, is seen as worthy of inclusion in the WoK.

- My subjective but honest opinion based on reading all 250 papers submitted to the ICTD2009 conference: the general quality of the big, fat, long tail of work in our field is pretty poor.

And lastly, there’s the average news, as conveyed next, that citation evidence (if a proxy for quality) suggests ICT4D research is no better or worse than other sub-fields of research.

Impact of ICT4D Research

Citation evidence is only one part of the impact story but . . . I’ve already noted that some individual ICT4D papers get highly-cited.  And I should also note a bit of background on citation: work in early 2009 looked at citation rates for papers published during 1998-2008.

In computer sciences, the average number of citations per paper was 3.06, ranging from 7.06 for papers published in 1998 to 0.10 for papers published in 2008 (papers take time to pick up citations).  Equivalent figures are: economics and business – 5.02 average (from 10.19 to 0.13 for 1998 – 2008); and social sciences – 4.06 average (from 7.48 to 0.16).

Note these are narrow citation rates for WoK-type databases; Google Scholar citation rates are much higher because they record a much wider range of published material: a 1:4 ratio of WoK:Google Scholar citation numbers looks about standard.  Note also that even for papers in peer-reviewed articles, somewhere between 25% and 75% of articles – varying by discipline – are never cited in other peer-reviewed articles.

Some data bits:

- Comparing the total number of WoK citations for the four articles in MISQ’s special issue on IS in developing countries (vol.31, issue 2), with those for the first four articles in the next issue, shows no difference: both sets get 14 citations.

- Taking those (15) journal articles published in 2006 that come up on WoK using a search of ‘ict*’ and ‘developing countr*’ (and excluding out-of-topic items), they are cited 34 times: an average of 2.27 times.  Comparing figures with 2005 for the work reported above (which came out about one year ago, hence the need to move back one year for a comparison), that 2.27 figure is somewhat better than the average for computer science (1.85) but a bit worse than that for social sciences (2.99), and economics and business (3.08).  [For comparison, substituting 'agricultur*' for 'ict*' and taking those listed as being in the public administration subject area; the 15 on-topic articles were cited 25 times: 1.67 average.]

- Taking the same type of journal articles over the period 2004-2007, there are 46 in all of which 22 are uncited: 48%; average citation rate over all items is 1.67 cites per article.  [4 of 15 agriculture articles in 2006 were uncited compared to 3 of 15 ict4d.]

- Performance in open access journals outside WoK is lower.  Both EJISDC and ITID journals had four issues in 2007.  EJISDC has so far scored 11 citations in WoK from 26 papers (0.42 citations per paper average); 18 (69%) papers uncited.  ITID has so far scored 23 citations from 19 papers (1.21 average); 8 (42%) papers uncited.  [For comparison, I took four issues of EJEG from late 2006-2007: 20 citations from 32 papers (0.63 citations per paper average); 24 (75%) of papers uncited.]

- And finally some Alexa comparisons of traffic and links for the two main online ICT4D journals and those in other information systems sub-areas (note ITID has only very recently gone online):

Journal Alexa Traffic Rank Sites Linking In Online Since Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries 1,422,355 120 2001 Information Technologies and International Development 4,527,166 35 2009         Electronic Journal of e-Government 1,785,669 72 2002 Electronic Journal of e-Learning 2,092,075 126 2002 Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management 2,286,374 96 2002 Journal of Community Informatics 4,535,331 129 2004

My conclusion from all this: in terms of impact, ICT4D looks like a pretty standard research sub-field.  We’re not punching above our weight but neither are we left out in the cold.

Overall Conclusion

The sample sizes here are small, so conclusions are indicative rather than definitive:-

- Where ICT4D research is good enough to get into peer-reviewed WoK-covered journals it is of similar quality and with similar impact to other sub-fields.  Where it is good enough to get into peer-reviewed open access journals, the same is true.  And where it’s not good enough for that, it’s probably pretty bad but, again, the same is no doubt true of other sub-fields.

- If you want your work to have maximum impact then, on average, your best bet is to publish in a traditional journal.  But open access, non-WoK-listed journals should not be regarded as “no go” areas: they are read and used.

- The average (modal) ICT4D article is never formally cited, but that’s true of many research fields.

- If you want to feel better about the citation impact of your work, stick to Google Scholar.

- Finally, what about conferences?  Of about 120 papers on ICT4D published during 2003-2008 and covered by WoK and listed as having come from conferences, six are cited having been published in journals; three are cited from their proceedings.  The remaining 90%+ whether in journals or proceedings are uncited.  Conclusion: conferences may be good for networking, learning, and scenery; they are not good if you want your work to have a citation impact.

Notes from the second Tech Talks series of lectures held at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC), Barcelona (Spain), on February 22ndth, 2009.

Online strategies and New Business Models: the Wikimedia phenomenon
Kul Wadhwa, Managing Director, Wikimedia Foundation Wikimedia

Wikimedia is about the community, about volunteering. Since the project kicked off in 2001, there have been created 13 million articles in 271 languagesw, 17 million pages, 325 million edits, 330 million visits monthly, 100,000 active contributors (edit 5 times a month at least), over 50 books published on the Wikimedia phenomena, etc. All coordinated by the 27 world chapters of the Wikimedia Foundation, though with only 35 employees.

If we look not at what’s in there, but what people is looking for (visits to the website), some Wikipedias may already be shifting from encyclopedic core to more topical and current events content. On the contrary, though, 1/3 of the hits of the Spanish Wikipedia deals with science and technology content.

Besides current events or news, local content is increasingly searched for. There is also an increase of geotagged content on Wikipedia, thus the interest in local content. As anecdote, it can be said that the second Wikipedia ever created was the Catalan Viquipèdia.

Management model

• Provide physical home (servers)
• Basic rules
• Leave the community work and grow on its own

Power shift to the citizen

• Technology: insfrastructure, tools, open source
• Cultural Movement: free culture (Linux, Apache), free knowledge
• License structure: GNU FDL, Creative Commons (CC-BY-SA)

All in all, the question was that anyone could contribute and the result would be open to everyone.

How do we take care of the community: transparency, trust, thankfulness, respect, responsiveness.

Business Model

Servant-leaders achieve results for their organizations by giving priority attention to the needs of their colleagues and those they serve. Collaboration, communication, culture.

Create a platform, let other people build (i.e. Mediawiki). It happens everywhere: Google, Apple, Amazon, FaceBook, etc. This also applies to Education, as everyone has something to bring on the table. You have to figure out how to make people that know be involved in the process.

Small “workforce” that can adapt to market changes very quickly, plus a virtual larger “workforce”, using the community as research and development.

You have to figure out what you’re good at, and forget about controlling the whole value change. Do not try and do everything. Networks form to address needs: you have to figure out where you fill into that.

Discussion

Ismael Peña-López: would your model be different were the Wikimedia Foundation be Wikimedia “for profit” Corporation? It depends on your project, as everyone is different and there is not a unique model, but leveraging the community might still apply. You definitely have to focus in your goal and where you can contribute best to achieve it. If you’re running a talent based project, you definitely have to share some of the wealth in it. Talent goes where it is appreciated most.

Q: Is it a must to have a professional core? A: It really depends on what you want to achieve. There is definitely not “a” model.

Silvia Bravo: where do we start from? A: Figure out what your goals are and find who’s your champion. Once the project is started, things become easier, but the difficult thing is to start up the project, and the role of the champion is crucial here. Then, you need to create something that people can build things on top of. Make sure you have a clear goal, find out what tools will you be needing and get a champion to promote the project.

Q: how do you deal with security hazards/attacks? A: It is very important to have a clear and shared framework (linked to your goals) that everybody can relate to. And the system works the same way.

Q: what’s the physical structure like? A: only 20 servers [guess I got that right], as most information is only text. But the challenge is how to keep up with changes and still being able to bring the relevant information, which increasingly comes in rich media (photo, sound, video, etc.). That’s why Wikimedia Foundation engages in partnerships with the corporate sector to be ahead of the future.

Llorenç Valverde: how do we engage the community, and invite everyone to add value? A: Culture is the biggest problem. The way collaboration and sharing ideas happens varies a lot depending on the culture, understanding culture not only at the country level, but also at the company level. E.g. if you’re a newcomer to a firm, you might have brilliant ideas but you might not be (self)legitimate to share them openly. Culture is doubtless the toughest part of all.

Llorenç Valverde: so the starting point is to share information within the organization? A: Certainly. Add everybody in the process.

Two years ago, in the US (which can probably be extrapolated in most higher income countries) the reasons for not subscribing to the Internet where many, but an important one was refusal to, that is, people that just did not want to connect to the Internet.

Three years later we do not speak anymore of Internet access, but of broadband access, as we believe that what increasingly matters is the broadband divide rather a “simple” access to the Internet divide.

And the composition of the digital divide related to access has slightly changed:

Source: Digital Nation: 21st Century America’s Progress Towards Universal Broadband Internet Access.

 

• 44.6% do not have broadband access because of cost (we can assume that not having a computer or an inadequate one is also because of its cost)
• 37.8% state they do not need or are not interested in the Internet

It looks like skills are becoming less important and that economic reasons become more important. Though slightly decreasing, it is still astonishing that, of those who do not have broadband access, more than a third do not find any utility in going online.

There is something really wrong in here. On the one hand, as the crisis strikes with more virulence, more people is left behind in our Information Society because of lack of access. On the other hand, we are definitely failing in raising awareness that the Information Society is a train that you’ll either take or it’ll run over you: no “leave it pass besides you” option.

ICTs won’t necessarily bring better health, higher quality education, a more transparent and participative democracy, more wealth and jobs for all. But lack of ICTs will most likely em>decrease the probability to access health services, education, democracy, economic development and jobs at all. The more time I devote to studying the Information Society the lest optimistic I am that ICTs will change the main structures of the world, but I also am the more pessimistic that lack of them will end up with entire societies and ways of living.

When chances are uncertainty of improvement or almost certainty of perishing, we should definitely:

• Enable physical access for those that are not online, maybe through public access points embedded in their communities
• Raise awareness on the impact of ICTs in our society, so that those who could be online but just don’t want are (sorry to be patronizing here) better informed to take their decisions.

More information National Telecommunications and Information Administration (2010). Digital Nation: 21st Century America’s Progress Towards Universal Broadband Internet Access. Washington, DC: National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

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Nesse ano de 2010 que agora começa (afinal o carnaval acabou de passar) estamos com algumas ações bem interessantes por aqui.
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Infra Lógica

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Aproveitei o carnaval para terminar de ler Makers, que eu já tinha mencionado no post do debate sobre Gambiologia. Eu fiquei sabendo do livro via twitter (mas não lembro através de quem), em novembro: alguém comentou que o próximo livro de Cory Doctorow sairia também em episódios semanais no Tor.com. A única coisa que eu tinha lido dele até então eram alguns posts no Boingboing e o Scroogled (em português aqui). O primeiro episódio, que já começa dedicado a "quem toma riscos, xs fazedorxs de coisas". Li no site até o terceiro e gostei. Fui lá na amazon e encomendei o livro antes mesmo de ser lançado. Ele chegou aqui em Ubatuba no começo de dezembro. Resolvi deixá-lo de lado para ler no meu recesso de fim de ano, mas o reveillon molhado não me deixou muito tempo pra isso. Acabei pegando pra ler mesmo só nas últimas semanas.
Apesar de situado em um contexto bem diferente - Estados Unidos, empreendedorismo capitalista, toda aquela coisa - eu me vi bastante (e à MetaReciclagem) em várias partes da história. Desde o começo, o lance de começar uma coisa despretensiosa, de amigxs compartilhando uma vontade simples - fazer coisas, construir estruturas sem pensar muito em resultados efetivos, descobrir. Depois, a busca de estrutura sem sucumbir à corporificação, à maneira mais aceita de viabilizar as coisas, refletida na tensão entre os fazedores e os executivos. Também o lance da rede, da replicação autônoma, dos esporos comunicantes mas auto-organizados surgindo, e a surpresa que eles causam. A crítica ao consumismo e à indústria da obsolescência. O ativismo pelo uso pleno das tecnologias, o desvio do uso, a apropriação total. E claro, todo o lance de propriedade intelectual vs. cultura livre.
Logo no começo, as esculturas de Perry e Lester me fizeram pensar nos monstros de 1,99 do Glauco Paiva. E, por mais que o final tenha ficado meio solto, o último capítulo tem até uma partida de calvinbol, que simboliza ali a única coisa permanente na história - a sensibilidade do fazer, que tem muito a ver com o que aqui a gente tem chamado de gambiologia. Também fiquei pensando na tradição brico/fazedora/hacker que é tão presente nas culturas norte-americanas, mas à qual eu nunca dei muita atenção. Mas ainda assim, descontadas todas as diferenças culturais e todos os nortamericanismos do lance, foi uma leitura agradável e que mexeu bastante comigo - muita nostalgia dos tempos do galpão da MetaReciclagem no Agente Cidadão, e uma sensação de que algumas coisas nunca vão mudar, e de que fazer pouco também é fazer muito.
Ler sobre o cotidiano de Perry e Lester, suas sincronicidades e conquistas, seu afastamento e reencontro, sua amizade e complementaridade, também me fez pensar bastante no Dalton. Saudades do tempo em que as coisas eram mais simples - ou era a gente que se preocupava menos?
À história então... (pulando o parágrafo para quem quer evitar spoilers)...

... o livro abre numa época quase-agora, em uma coletiva de imprensa anunciando a fusão de Kodak e Duracell. O novo CEO, Landon Kettlewell, anuncia que toda a operação da nova empresa será substituída por times pequenos e inovadores. Após a coletiva, ele convida Suzanne Church, uma das jornalistas presentes, a acompanhar o trabalho de uma das equipes, que ocupa um Wal-Mart desativado na Florida. Essa equipe é formada por Lester e Perry, dois fuçadores / fazedores / hackers que reusam brinquedos, eletrônicos e aparelhos para montar novos produtos: fazem esculturas para colecionadores, montam um carro operado por bonecos do Elmo (Sesame Street) e por aí vai. Em pouco tempo, junta-se a eles Tjan, um administrador que vai ser responsável por transformar a criatividade deles em produtos vendáveis. Eles patinam um pouco, até que criam um sistema pra organizar as coisas em casa baseado em RFID, que vende milhões. Eles brincam também com impressoras 3D. Em algum tempo, Tjan vai para a concorrência. Todo um mercado - chamado "New Work" - é criado. No meio-tempo, mais algumas coisas aconteceram - eles ajudaram a desenvolver uma favela para os sem-teto do outro lado da estrada que tinham sido desalojados, o que vira um laboratório vivo. Eles envolvem o pessoal da favela em algumas coisas. Até que a bolha estoura e todo mundo cai.
Passam-se alguns anos. Lester e Perry montaram um "ride", que não sei bem como traduzir - como as atrações dos parques da Disney - onde estão expostos pedaços de seus antigos projetos. Os visitantes podem votar nas peças que gostam ou não, e o parque se rearruma sozinho. Kettlewell e Tjan estão aposentados, Suzanne viveu esse tempo na Rússia. Em determinado momento eles se reunem. Tjan decide replicar o ride em Boston. Outros rides começam a surgir, de forma emergente, em outras partes do país. Perry e Lester construíram um protocolo pelo qual os diferentes rides podem modificar a composição uns dos outros. Em meio a tudo isso, aparece Sammy, um executivo da Disney que, enciumado pelo sucesso dos hackers, passa a tentar sabotá-los, de forma cada vez mais grave. Ele processa os rides com base em direito autoral, o que dá base para a polícia destruir alguns deles. Kettlewell e Tjan bolam uma estratégia para se contrapor ao tamanho da Disney - criando um mercado que especula contra ações na justiça. Até um toque tupiniquim aparece - da noite para o dia surgem 50 rides no Brasil, sem ter contato com ninguém. Enquanto isso, Sammy faz coisas terríveis até que tem uma ideia que salva sua carreira - transformar impressoras 3D em produtos domésticos, imprimindo peças da Disney. Em pouco tempo Lester invade o firmware das impressoras para imprimir o que quiser. A Disney fica a um passo de um ataque ainda mais forte, quando aparece uma solução que acaba com toda a tensão entre a empresa e as pessoas - e também faz todo mundo ficar amigo de novo, etc.
Mais quinze anos se passam, os amigos se reencontram e - como mencionei lá em cima - o livro termina com uma partida de Calvinbol!
O fim do livro deixa algumas pontas soltas: não me convenceu de estar resolvida a situação com Death Waits, e acho que Doctorow passou a gostar de Sammy e foi amansando ele. Mas enfim, valeu por vários outros motivos. Recomendo a leitura.