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Category Archives: Personal

Going Feral

I go feral fast. That wouldn’t surprise anybody who really knows me, but the years I spent on the road in America in my twenties aren’t easy to see, here in the last year of my thirties. It’s 2011, and I’m sitting beside a cheap tent in a big, dark wood surrounded on all sides [...]

On growing up in a tribal society

I came of age in an internet tribe. It was the 1990s. Internet tribalism, loft living and a lot of long haul train travel connected me to an amazing network of some of the smartest, most vivid, most alive people I’d ever met. Creative magic happened, adventures were had, communities were built, lives were changed, [...]

Simple Subscriptions

Kai was bitching about paying for web sites earlier on today. Somewhere in my foggy brain a thought emerged: well, if it was a buck a year, would that be easier? Here’s sort of what I’m thinking. Let there be a site, SimpleSubscriptions. This site takes money in $20 lumps – nothing smaller – to [...]

The Flu Code

Flu Code 0.1Beta English – A Public Service from The Institute for Collapsonomics. 1) If I have any signs of possible flu infection I will stay at home. 2) I will stay away from crowds whenever possible and always wear a mask while in public places. 3) I will cleanse my hands at the doorway [...]

Pandemic Flu / Swine Flu Orientation and Action Guide

Swine Flu 2009 on Wikipedia. Here’s the skinny. 1> The Mexican Cluster has (as of Saturday April 25 AM) about 1000 cases and about 70 people have died so far. This gives us two pieces of data. It’s not likely to be more than about 7% fatal, which is bad, but basically within the planning [...]

How’s about a nice cup of tea?

There is little doubt that the occupational self-image of the police is that of “crime-fighters” and that this is not just a distortion of what they do, it is virtually a collective delusion. A mountain of research has indicated that police have little impact on crime rates, are responsible for discovering few crimes and detecting [...]

Breaking Conceptual Logjams

Two or three times this year I’ve stepped into situations where a team had hit an absolute brick wall at a policy, strategy or business level, and half a day or a day later the problem has been cured and the path forwards has been made clear. This is not a service that I’ve made [...]

Gupta’s Law of Network Politics

In a networked environment, the person who knows what to do next is in charge. Because, in a networked environment, everybody can propose action. Hierarchies using the network experience dissonance at the point where the feed coming off the network proposes a better plan than the feed coming off the hierarchy. There’s a counterlaw about [...]

A fascinating day

Three observations. 1> Collaboration is not about what you do when things go right. 2> Crowdsourcing isn’t about what you know you want in all cases. Sometimes it’s about people who have totally unexpected angles just appearing to help. 3> I’m done on marketing. I’ve got a serviceable understanding of the very elementary basics of [...]

Two talks in one day

Open Knowledge Foundation in London (UCL) in the morning. Oekonux in Manchester in the afternoon. A little insane in terms of timing. There will be audio and probably video up as soon as possible after each talk. One thing that I’m doing for a change is substantially talking without visual aids. I thought long and [...]