THE ART OF SEO

Loving it so far! Back soon with a review…

In the meantime, read more about the book here

WE-THINK by Charles Leadbeater

We -Think has some good insights into how participation cultures form and how to harness their creative potential. The book itself was a kind of social experiment – prior to publishing, Charles Leadbeater posted draft chapters online for public comment.

We-Think is a term which describes the massive potential in the Internet to propagate democracy, but also to innovate and problem solve on a global scale. According to Leadbeater, this is achieved through the mass collaboration of pro-ams (professional amateurs) alongside the professionally qualified.

Leadbeater claims that innovative we-think projects always begin with a single idea or core (like the Linux Kernel), which is donated by someone with expertise: “the kernel has to be solid but unfinished, so open for improvement”. The creativity emerges when many people with different skills come together and are able to organise themselves around this core. Ideally this will occur in peer to peer communities which rely on the trading of talent for talent, rather than talent for money and the participation of these contributors is achieved through tools which make it easy for someone to contribute.

The largest pitfalls of these kinds of communities are found in management and ownership – too many people to keep track of, and property which belongs to everyone and yet nobody. Often described as the tragedy of the commons, wherever the responsibility for public property is left to the good will of many, its been found that usually no one bothers. Leadbeater says you can avoid these problems by encouraging a community to become self-governing, by ensuring that sanctions for breaking rules are effective and by breaking down communities into manageable platoons/guilds.

Here’s one particular quote from the book which sums up the process of We-Think nicely: “Usually, a small group creates a kernel which invites further contributions. Its project must be regarded as exciting, intriguing and challenging by enough people with the time, means and motivation to contribute. Tools should be distributed, experimentation cheap and feedback fast, enabling a constant process of trialling, testing and refinement. The product should benefit from extensive peer review, to correct errors and ratify good ideas. Tasks should be broken down into modules around which small, close-knit teams can form, allowing a range of experiments to run in parallel. There should be clear rules for fitting the modules together and separating good ideas from bad. Ownership of the project must have a public component, otherwise the sharing of ideas will not make sense”

Leadbeater believes that we-think communities could form a new business model for the future; one in which workers become self-managing and customers participate in solutions. One which already understands that users, rather than producers, are in the best position to understand what users want. “If companies want to engage their consumers as innovators, they too will have to open up so their consumers can freely share ideas and modify their products” explains Leadbeater. In turn, these collaborative business models will succeed by rewarding people with recognition, satisfying their desires and by helping them to achieve personal objectives.

But for Leadbeater, the most exciting organisational model for the future will mix collaboration with commerce. The argument goes that We-Think allows for better testing/innovation since the more varied and diverse the group of people, the more cross pollination can occur. A fantastic example of this is the peer review system on Amazon – a way by which Amazon shares ideas (advertises), but also maintains quality and customer satisfaction at almost no cost.

Summary
It’s really good – worth a read. Just ignore the second to last chapter ‘for better or for worse?’

EVERYTHING IS MISCELLANEOUS by David Weinberger

Everything is Miscellaneous is a book about information organisation and meaning. In this book, Weinberger goes into great detail about the 3 ‘orders’ of organisation: 1, physical as you would see in a library, stationery shop or cutlery drawer. 2 is through reference, such as library systems and 3 is miscellaneous – the inherently messy order which somehow works – like the Internet.

While at times Weinberger does tend to drone on (and on) about the specifics of various systems, such as his 40 page biography on the inventor of the Dewey Decimal system, his insights into how meaning is created are fascinating to say the least. The most useful nuggets I took from this book were:

1) With an estimated 1 million pages being added to the web each day, the Internet is flowing river of information, rather than a static entity. Social tools which take advantage of this fact and assist the flow are the most likely to succeed.

2) The more messy information is, the more meaning it has i.e. the more links you can make from your site – the wider it’s context and therefore it’s meaning. Wikipedia is partly so successful from linking through to so many other pages via hyperlinks. Since space is not defined physically in the online space, it is defined by context and use.

3) Organising information obscures/detracts from it’s meaning (because to say something definitely IS x often means it is NOT Y).

4) Tags are the greatest invention since sliced bread because they let information be relevant in more than one context.

5) The age old question ‘where have all the 18-24 year old males gone’? is not the right way to be analysing audiences, precisely because 18-24 year old males do not define themselves this way – they prefer to belong to many categories and definitions at once.

6) Learning is far better accomplished socially. The fact that school kids instant message each other about homework (even if they are sharing answers) is a good thing as it opens up ideas for discussion. Discussion on topics, argument and debate is all about coming to a neutral and agreed meaning and according to sociologists, is an optimal way to learn.

I would rate this book 3 out of 5 stars. it contains some useful information but also a lot of drivel. The first 40 pages are really the best and the last 40 are surely the worst.

Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky

Clay Shirky is a Professor of telecommunications at NYU and a cutting edge commentator on the social and economic effects of internet technologies. For more about Clay, you can visit his website: www.shirky.com

Here Comes Everybody is an absolute must for anyone looking to understand the implications of the new ‘digital disorder’ and how to make use of social technologies.

According to Clay, “Here Comes Everybody is about what happens when people are given the tools to do things together, without needing traditional organizational structures.”

Clay Shirky has been referenced by Ewan McIntosh, Matt Locke (former C4 Commissioner for Education), Andy Bell (Creative Director @ Mint Digital) and many more professionals in the field.

Chef Wing- Parfait

Uniq Marketing Solutions Film

Day 1 – Eve of Tin Ho Dan

Day 1 – Night before Tin Ho Dan

Day 2 – Tin Ho Dan

Day 2 – Restaurant