blog de notas de juan freire

… El concepto de adhocracia fue creado en 1964 por los pensadores Warren G. Bennis y Philip E. Slater para intentar describir un nuevo modelo de organización flexible, intuitiva e innovadora. Incluso ya había existido durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial un prototipo de organización del futuro concepto de adhocracia: los equipos ad hoc (aquí y ahora) que los ejércitos montaban y disolvían después de terminar una misión específica y transitoria. Pero fue durante el poshippismo de los años setenta cuando el concepto de adhocracia maduró gracias a pensadores como Henry Mintzberg o Alvin Toffler. Ambos desconfiaban del mundo vertical. De las soluciones cuadradas. De los expertos endogámicos. Del farragoso aparato de las organizaciones grandes. De los gobiernos. De las burocracias. Y por eso se esforzaron en crear un imaginario de adhocracia, un cuerpo teórico de organización flexible, multidisciplinar y dinámica.

…

¿Qué conexión improbable necesita una organización para dejar de ser burocrática? ¿Encajan los nuevos modelos de organización surgidos en un mundo altamente digitalizado con las definiciones clásicas de adhocracia? ¿Qué organigrama tendría una adhocracia perfecta? Henry Jenkins, en su ya clásico libro Convergencia cultural (2006), calificaba la adhocracia de la siguiente manera: “Se caracteriza por la falta de jerarquía. Cada persona se enfrenta a un problema basado en sus propios conocimientos y habilidades, y el liderato cambia según va evolucionando el proyecto. Es una cultura que convierte el conocimiento en acción”. Lo estático, en palabras de Jenkins, pasa a ser una constante “tensión dinámica”…

Tools and methods for capturing Twitter data during natural disasters, by Axel Bruns and Yuxian Eugene Liang. First Monday, Volume 17, Number 4 - 2 April 2012

Abstract: During the course of several natural disasters in recent years, Twitter has been found to play an important role as an additional medium for many–to–many crisis communication. Emergency services are successfully using Twitter to inform the public about current developments, and are increasingly also attempting to source first–hand situational information from Twitter feeds (such as relevant hashtags). The further study of the uses of Twitter during natural disasters relies on the development of flexible and reliable research infrastructure for tracking and analysing Twitter feeds at scale and in close to real time, however. This article outlines two approaches to the development of such infrastructure: one which builds on the readily available open source platform yourTwapperkeeper to provide a low–cost, simple, and basic solution; and, one which establishes a more powerful and flexible framework by drawing on highly scaleable, state–of–the–art technology.

Uma revolução social e de costumes ganha território nos rincões do Nordeste do Brasil. O movimento saiu das lan houses das áreas pobres do interior e da capital, expandiu-se pelas zonas rurais, entrou nas casas e em comunidades. Promoveu grandes transformações coletivas, sociais e culturais. O cotidiano de famílias, associações e escolas foi alterado. Percorremos 11 mil quilômetros, nos nove estados da região, e constatamos que o Nordeste está atravessando uma nova fronteira - a fronteira digital.

O acesso a computadores, celulares e à web formou redes de comunicação no mundo real. São redes que têm a internet como ferramenta de apoio e que ligam cidadãos em torno de interesses comuns. É um fenômeno novo, estágio avançado da inclusão digital. Investigamos as mudanças provocadas em um lugar que teve quase o dobro do crescimento do número de internautas nos últimos cinco anos. O Nordeste aumentou 213%; o Brasil, 112%, diz o IBGE - embora muitos continuem excluídos. É o mesmo que desponta no topo do ranking de acessos a sites de relacionamentos virtuais (75%). Este especial multimídia mostra a inclusão para além da lan house e do Orkut, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube e outras redes sociais - algo que também já foi popularizado neste território. Gráficos e quadros ilustram o Brasil do qual estamos falando; entrevistas com especialistas e links para estudos fornecem informações extras para os interessados. Textos, vídeos e o mapa das cidades visitadas desvendam nomes e sobrenomes dos que desenham esta nova geografia sociodigital, a nova fronteira das expressivas mudanças que vêm ocorrendo no Nordeste.

A reportagem percorreu os nove estados do Nordeste. Ao todo foram 11 mil quilômetros. Entrevistamos mais de 50 pessoas …

Censorship and deletion practices in Chinese social media, by David Bamman, Brendan O’Connor, and Noah A. Smith. First Monday, Volume 17, Number 3 - 5 March 2012

Abstract: With Twitter and Facebook blocked in China, the stream of information from Chinese domestic social media provides a case study of social media behavior under the influence of active censorship. While much work has looked at efforts to prevent access to information in China (including IP blocking of foreign Web sites or search engine filtering), we present here the first large–scale analysis of political content censorship in social media, i.e., the active deletion of messages published by individuals.

In a statistical analysis of 56 million messages (212,583 of which have been deleted out of 1.3 million checked, more than 16 percent) from the domestic Chinese microblog site Sina Weibo, and 11 million Chinese–language messages from Twitter, we uncover a set a politically sensitive terms whose presence in a message leads to anomalously higher rates of deletion. We also note that the rate of message deletion is not uniform throughout the country, with messages originating in the outlying provinces of Tibet and Qinghai exhibiting much higher deletion rates than those from eastern areas like Beijing.

…

1. Obtain a basic understanding of network technology.

2. Craft your network identity.

3. Understand network intelligence. 

4. Understand network capabilities.

…

So are there limits to the network approach? The famous “Dunbar’s number” suggests that people have the cognitive capacity to keep about 150 relationships in their heads. Hoffman thinks that concept is outdated. “One hundred and fifty relationships might be the limit for our short-term memory — our RAM, if you will — but under that lies a hard drive that has much more capacity.”

… City users / city makers

Out of the agents that energise and produce the natural city, the post industrial artisan, the local contractor and the hardware dealer, are key characters. The local contractor is at once businessman, community player and a possible political figure. He knows the nuts and bolts of his constantly forming environment like no one else. We see him as part of the larger story of urban based class struggle that David Harvey talks about. According to Harvey, the city is no more the site where the factory exists but is – in lieu of the factory – itself the agency of production and also the product itself. It consists of the alienated worker in the planned discourse and the relatively less alienated figure – a bit like a post-industrial artisan – the contractor, his team of workers and network of collaborators. (We are aware this is a huge departure of the narrative presented but feel that this trajectory of thought is worth following as well.)

Three Finnish researchers have created an online service that could eventually replace or supplement the current way journals get scientists to peer review submitted manuscripts. Already partnered with the ecology journal Ecography, published by Wiley, Peerage of Scienceis an innovative social network of scientists to which researchers submit their manuscripts; other members with relevant expertise, alerted by keywords in the papers, will then provide reviews that scientific journals can use to decide whether to publish the work. University of Jyväskylä and the University of Eastern Finland, where the three creators of the service are based, have sponsored the company founded to further build up the service this year…

1. La música ahora es una industria basada en la suscripción
2. Los móviles han desbancado a las cámaras de fotos
3. La descarga y el streaming de videojuegos es tan simple como para las películas
4. Las tarjetas de crédito están al borde de la desaparición
5. Se acabó viajar en hoteles
6. Los productos de diseño ya son accesibles
7. Las clases online ya son una realidad
8. Las recaudaciones de fondos tradicionales están desapareciendo
9. El almacenamiento físico está muerto
10. Ya no tienes que ser un fotógrafo profesional para hacer buenas fotos
11. Las grandes compañías también están apostando por la colaboración social

Back to the “wall”: How to use Facebook in the college classroom, by Caroline Lego Muñoz and Terri Towner. First Monday, Volume 16, Number 12 - 5 December 2011

Abstract: The evolving world of the Internet — blogs, podcasts, wikis, social networks — offers instructors and students radically new ways to research, communicate, and learn. Integrating these Internet tools into the college classroom, however, is not an easy task. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to examine the role of social networking in education and demonstrate how social network sites (SNS) can be used in a college classroom setting. To do this, existing research relating to SNS and education is discussed, and the primary advantages and disadvantages of using SNS in the classroom are explored. Most importantly, specific instructions and guidelines to follow when implementing SNS (i.e., Facebook) within the college classroom are provided. Specifically, we show that multiple types of Facebook course integration options are available to instructors. It is concluded that SNS, such as Facebook, can be appropriately and effectively used in an academic setting if proper guidelines are established and implemented.

A critical part of any ethnographic/design research project is recruiting the right participants for the study – they are the foundation on which the research is built. The default way of recruiting in the commercial research space is to use recruiting agencies to help connect the researcher with relevant participants – generating a list that is often fleshed out by contacts from the team’s extended social network. The ideal recruiting agency list-of-potential-participants contains hundreds of millions of entries and document every aspect of potential participant’s lives – what they are doing, who they are doing it with, the causes they feel passionate about, the brands they connect with, the music they listen to, the places they go – and all updated in real time. Thanks to social networking sites like Weibo, Facebook, Orkut and Mixithis ‘ideal list’ already exists, and comes with a built in mechanism – their advertising platform to engage participants and proximate participants to opt into the study.

The ability to recruit through extended social networks has always been an important part of the researcher’s toolkit – with varying degrees of success depending on the focus of the participants’ profiles, the physical and spiritual distance between the study location and the team, and the breadth of the team’s extended network. The internet has made the planet smaller, social networks more apparent – making remote studies that much easier to run. Today the tools to rapidly and consistently reach and screen participants in any part of the globe are in the hands of every internet connected researcher. My estimate is that 80 to 90% of current recruiting for design research/ethnographic studies (excluding focus groups) that is currently placed through recruiting agencies could from a skill and work-flow perspective, be carried out in-house. This internalising of an otherwise outsourced practice has a couple of costs, which in most cases are easily outweighed by numerous benefits.

…

Five centuries before Facebook and the Arab spring, social media helped bring about the Reformation.

Mubarak and Leo X, the anciens régimes

IT IS a familiar-sounding tale: after decades of simmering discontent a new form of media gives opponents of an authoritarian regime a way to express their views, register their solidarity and co-ordinate their actions. The protesters’ message spreads virally through social networks, making it impossible to suppress and highlighting the extent of public support for revolution. The combination of improved publishing technology and social networks is a catalyst for social change where previous efforts had failed.

That’s what happened in the Arab spring. It’s also what happened during the Reformation, nearly 500 years ago, when Martin Luther and his allies took the new media of their day—pamphlets, ballads and woodcuts—and circulated them through social networks to promote their message of religious reform.

Scholars have long debated the relative importance of printed media, oral transmission and images in rallying popular support for the Reformation. Some have championed the central role of printing, a relatively new technology at the time. Opponents of this view emphasise the importance of preaching and other forms of oral transmission. More recently historians have highlighted the role of media as a means of social signalling and co-ordinating public opinion in the Reformation.

Now the internet offers a new perspective on this long-running debate, namely that the important factor was not the printing press itself (which had been around since the 1450s), but the wider system of media sharing along social networks—what is called “social media” today. Luther, like the Arab revolutionaries, grasped the dynamics of this new media environment very quickly, and saw how it could spread his message.

…

Algunos ejemplos:

Colaboraciones científicas

Altura de las olas durante el tsunami en Japón (NOAA)

Proyecciones de mapas (xkcd)

… Este movimiento en continua metamorfosis no puede ser encasillado política o ideológicamente. La inmensa mayoría son gente de todas edades y opiniones que se indignan por diversos motivos y coinciden en que no tienen confianza en los actuales canales de representación política. De ahí que intelectuales y dirigentes políticos vaticinan día tras día su disgregación mientras sigue subiendo como la espuma. O bien, tras reconocer su fuerza a regañadientes, acaban desdeñándolo por no tener resultados concretos, por no organizarse en un proyecto político. Tales actitudes revelan un desconocimiento de la práctica de los movimientos sociales en la historia. Los movimientos sociales tienen efectos políticos, frecuentemente fundamentales, pero no son políticos en el sentido tradicional del término, no se refieren a la ocupación del Estado. Los movimientos cambian la mentalidad de las personas y, por tanto, los valores de la sociedad, son fuente de creación y cambio social. Los partidos políticos trabajan sobre lo que ocurre en la sociedad para gestionar las instituciones que rigen la vida social. Cuando las instituciones pueden escabullirse del control ciudadano, parece que el poder es de los partidos y todo depende de resultados electorales. Pero cuando surge una distancia creciente entre representantes y representados, cuando el modelo económico, ecológico, de protección social o de modo de vida entra en crisis o es cuestionado, entonces los movimientos sociales son la fuente de renovación de la sociedad, el único antídoto contra la esclerosis de una política sometida a las fuerzas irracionales del mercado y a las racionales de la codicia …

La única opción no es votar por uno u otro. Puede ser también elaborar e imponer reformas políticas que aseguren la participación ciudadana en decisiones concretas, mande quien mande. Cuanto más funcione la democracia participativa más efectiva será la democracia representativa. Otra política es posible. Pero sólo tomará forma tras un periodo de indignación y acción. La vida no termina el 20-N. De hecho acaba de empezar.

A cidade tem a capacidade de permitir que os sem poder façam História porque em primeiro lugar há uma enorme diversidade de pessoas – 500 pessoas numa cidade não é o mesmo que 500 pessoas numa plantação, onde são iguais - e essa diversidade pode-se cruzar. Isso é muito importante. Mas quando falo da possibilidade dos sem poder fazerem História isso não significa que se tornem poderosos - mas podem fazer História na mesma. 

Sim, já estão a fazer História. As pessoas em Telavive que demonstraram pela primeira vez as suas reivindicações sociais fizeram História. Nos Estados Unidos há um enorme grupo de pessoas que não sabia o que pensar sobre o actual sistema económico e que agora está a criar uma narrativa com a qual outros se podem identificar. Há todo o tipo de pessoas que agora sente que não está sozinha na sua luta pela sobrevivência, na sua raiva, e no seu sentimento de injustiça social e económica. Isto é imensamente importante. 

Mesmo sabendo que não vão conseguir que a sua agenda seja reconhecida pelo sistema financeiro eles terão criado uma narrativa e uma explicação das coisas que permite o desenvolvimento de uma tomada de posição de princípios – agora há esta narrativa alternativa …

O que se pode fazer é reorganizar a produção. Porque é que temos que importar mobílias baratas da China? Vamos fazê-las nas regiões à volta das grandes cidades, vamos tornar a produção local - todos os países o têm. Devíamos também re-localizar os créditos, criar pequenas associações de crédito, pequenos bancos: porque é que os bancos de retalho têm que estar nas mãos dos grandes bancos? Há muito que se pode fazer, inclusivamente dentro do próprio sistema actual. Isso vai alterar o poder do mercado financeiro? Não. Mas pode ser um passo no espaço económico em que os locais têm mais controlo e haverá maior resposta às necessidades locais. Para os projectos locais é preciso bancos locais que os financiem. Os bancos locais dependem das pessoas locais, mas devolvem o dinheiro à produtividade local. Seria um pequeno passo para criar um outro espaço económico. Mas isto não é apenas uma questão económica, depende da política económica.