As I wrote in an earlier article, I was recently at the SIGCHI conference. Adriaan was so kind to film my talk, and now it’s online:
If for some reason the YouTube video is slow or not working, I’ve also put it online at Google Videos.
There is also a promo movie of the EMMA group project Block Blazers online.
Video of interview with Kapenda Thomas, founder of Jookster. It’s a search engine based on social networks. As you probably know, Helpalot is about making you find your charities and it’s also a social network site. I haven’t tried Jookster myself, but I probably will.
A nice article to read: Digital Maoism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism, By Jaron Lanier..
Some quotes:
“The beauty of the Internet is that it connects people. The value is in the other people. If we start to believe the Internet itself is an entity that has something to say, we’re devaluing those people and making ourselves into idiots.”
“But it is not infinitely useful. The collective can be stupid, too. Witness tulip crazes and stock bubbles. Hysteria over fictitious satanic cult child abductions. Y2K mania. The reason the collective can be valuable is precisely that its peaks of intelligence and stupidity are not the same as the ones usually displayed by individuals. Both kinds of intelligence are essential.”
“The illusion that what we already have is close to good enough, or that it is alive and will fix itself, is the most dangerous illusion of all. By avoiding that nonsense, it ought to be possible to find a humanistic and practical way to maximize value of the collective on the Web without turning ourselves into idiots. The best guiding principle is to always cherish individuals first.”
I tend to agree with most points Jaron is making. I disagree with this piece:
“Collectives can be just as stupid as any individual, and in important cases, stupider. The interesting question is whether it’s possible to map out where the one is smarter than the many.”
Personally I think there is always more knowledge available in a group than in an individual, it’s the process of processing this knowledge (aggregate) that can lead to more, or less useful information. The one is not smarter than the many, but for some problems you’ll need one person to make coherent choices. This person could aggregate the knowledge of the larger group. As I try to do for building Helpalot.
As for Helpalot itself; the goal for Helpalot is to tap into the great pool of knowledge we collectively have in our social system. I think using the social network as a basis is the best way, because it keeps people in the spotlight. Making it clear we are dealing with subjective matters. Context is king and I believe that’s the point Joran is making when he has doubts with internet collectivism.
At his moment I’m locally building a test version in Drupal. I’m no expert and I need to learn a lot to do the things I want to do. But I think I’m slowly making progress.
I’ve posted on the Drupal blog some questions:
Drupal Forum - How hard is it to build/edit a module?
Drupal Forum - Building a (test version) charity social network site with evaluations
I’m beginning to get a feel for what’s possible with Drupal. The problem is that I think it is reasonable to assume a test version with Drupal could be made, but I also know I need more knowledge of Drupal to make it happen. What I don’t know is how much time it will take me to learn this.
Plan B is Joomla, my uncle knows how to work with Joomla and will be able to help me out, but probably hasn’t got the time to build the whole thing.
Brandon, I contacted using Code for a Cause, is scouting for me to see how hard it would be to build something using Ning (thanks!).
Setting up local server for testing, little problems
I have some problems with putting my local test version online. I’m using a Apache2Triad install on win XP and can use Drupal on localhost, but can’t figure out how to reach it from the outside (using IP doesn’t do the trick). Also I’m not able to send myself emails using this. Any experts able to help me out with this?
My plan B for putting it online is using my webspace at helpalot.hku.nl, but Drupal gives a nice error message over there. I’m working to fix that problem too.
I’ve read this book:
Hidden order
In this book a model is worked out on how to simulate complex adaptive systems. I kind of see how Pythagoras and his friends got so excited of mathematics, you can make really neat clean algorithms. I wouldn’t go so far as stating that real life can be described using math, but with models like John Holland describes in his book you can mimic processes that are otherwise really hard to comprehend. You have to be a little bit of a network/genes/math-nerd to enjoy this one.
The wisdom of crowds
At the moment I’m reading The wisdom of crowds by James Surowiecki. I’m at page 80 out of 274, and so far it seems extremely relevant for my project and thesis. It’s also easier to read than Hidden order. I’d say it’s also a good read for the not-so-nerds with nice examples and with little expected forehand knowledge.