Little Green People; Collaborative Design; Product Design Software

BOOK RECOMMENDATION:

The Laws of the Web: Patterns in the Ecology of Information
Bernardo A. Huberman
ISBN:0262582252
In the past decade, the realm of the internet has grown exponentially. Analysts predict that it will continue to expand, adding new members to the online community from every corner of the globe. While China’s internet penetration rate is around 20% and the U.S. is somewhere around 80% in 2008, online users in China numbered in the 250 million range, surpassing the number of users in the United States, which is around 225 million people currently online. Each year, the reach of the internet as a whole broadens to include more people from more countries. This expansion of the internet has allowed physicists and statisticians to begin drawing an initial framework for a broader social theory of humanity. With the aid of computers, human social and information networks are beginning to be mapped, and the picture coming into focus looks a bit like the physical structure of the known universe. Huberman’s book attempts to show that some of the behavior exhibited by humans in their social and informational networks is predictable and follows prescribed natural laws, much like those that govern the birth and death of the universe. Some of the findings in this book can lead toward more efficient online communities, as well as, on a higher plane of thought, help to explain other collections of matter and energy while our conception of time and space evolves from our known universe to the reality of a multiverse made up of billions of universes just like our own.

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The computer is becoming a mainstream tool that is being used by more and more people around the world for business, research, and social connections. The thing that makes the computer so useful is the fact that as more people come online, the more useful the machines become at gathering, sorting, and sharing information. This increase in information that is collected helps in drawing larger patterns about human behavior in general.

The information that is being collected ranges in application and format. We are all familiar by now with Google’s data collection software that monitors our every move in the digital world; this kind of information is used predominantly for advertising purposes (or so we are told). The information that is collected in vast data storage centers is constantly expanding. These centers house billions of strands of bits that make up our digital selves. Where is this collection of information taking us? What patterns are emerging? What will the powers of authority do with the information? In a way this new world that is being created before our eyes is scary and can be quite troubling when contemplated on a philosophical level, but the potential to use the data to improve our collective society exists.

What we do today with the information that the computer is telling us will define the direction that humanity takes over the course of the next one-hundred years. We will either use these stacks of information as a form of population control or to sell more widgets, or we will use them to find more efficient ways of conducting business and sharing information. As computers and the internet spread from industrialized societies to developing nations, we have a unique opportunity to make capitalism and democratic societies more efficient and more representative. We will either use the internet to enhance the principles of freedom or we will use it to give birth to a sort of socialist societal structure that will keep secret files in an attempt to protect the lives of the privileged.

The computer is quite possibly the tool that will be used to spread the next great evolution in humanity. The industrial revolution that drove most of Europe and United States to the forefront of global dominance was centered around the production of materials through indiscriminate harvesting of resources. This initial sequence of events that encapsulated a period in world history put the planet as whole on a trajectory on which we are still traveling today. We are at the point of near total resource depletion because of the principles enacted during the industrial revolution; and that is with less than a third of the world’s populations living a life that we here in the United States call ‘middle class’. We are in desperate need of reforming the economic and political worlds that we live in.

Before the advent of the computer and ushering in of the Internet Age, ideas spread slowly around the globe. The transference of technology and knowledge in general moved slowly through written documents or oral communication. Now, however, any individual with internet access has the opportunity to influence governmental policy or economic strategy. This structure of information transference has given us each the ability to share our ideas in ways that has the potential to improve the collective society.

This concept of massively distributed communications, websites that ‘go viral’, pages of information and links that almost instantaneously can include millions of stakeholders in decisions that, before now, only governments and businesses made is an all together new step along the human evolutionary chain. No longer can decisions with huge societal implications be made behind closed doors in secret. The information almost always will leak out and then be broadcast to millions of people over the internet, who through the power of a collective voice, will make their interests heard. The internet fosters democracy and freedom of expression.

These online communities that are dedicated to the free sharing of information are beginning to evolve. Social networks allow highlighted information to spread across the internet like a virus. While many people choose to simply view information on the internet and not take action based upon it, more and more people are beginning to find ways to be included in defining the overall structures of government and business dealings. The computer, in comparison to the television, is an interactive device that creates the potential to include millions of stakeholders in important societal decisions.

Central to the idea of an inclusive democracy with equal representation is the concept of a forum large enough to house and organize all of the disparate information that comes in from interested stakeholders. Computers and the internet act as this medium. People are represented by bits of information flashed digitally across wires over great distances that record and catalog their interests. There is no more need for physical spaces big enough to house millions or billions of people. These digital data collection centers can influence governmental policies and the executive board decisions of successful businesses.

While the concept of collective development is easy to imagine on a governmental level, it is harder to see how businesses would benefit from having millions of users direct the development of a singular product. For starters, many businesses have separate design and production facilities. Take the automobile industry as an example. Cars are designed, and then once a design is decided upon, the concept is brought into production. Many times, problems are found during production or even post-production and usually result in lost revenue for the company, or worse yet, wasted resources. A community of collaborators, design and production staffs all working together simultaneously hooked together through the internet, has the potential to create a vastly more efficient production process than one department could have produced on their own. Now, add the consumer into the internet loop, and what you have is a streamlined production process of a product that uses the least amount of resources, and one that is highly desirable to the general public. What more could a company want?

The idea that collaboration can increase not only efficiency, but also sales is an idea that is ultimately going to end up fundamentally transforming the way that businesses manufacture resources into consumable goods.

Lifecycle assessment software, or LCA software, is the name of an emerging field in computer science. LCA software brings together all of the people affected by a product as it moves through its lifecycle curve. For example, let’s look at the lifecycle of the computer. Now that we know about the dangerous levels of toxins that are being put into our computers, we have a choice. We know that most of our computers, once their technology becomes obsolete, are being shipped to developing nations as e-waste because industrialized nations forbid the dumping of toxic metals and chemicals into landfills; so, we are faced with another choice. We also know that this e-waste is responsible for depositing toxic metals and chemicals in the soil and water halfway around the globe; another choice. This series of choices we are making is a direct result of our lifestyle we choose to live in industrialized nations!

Well, for the first time in capitalism’s history, thanks in part rapid spread of information over the internet, manufacturers can make choices, knowing the full consequences of their decisions, and consumers have the power, tools, and methods to force manufacturers to consider sustainable methods, and factor the demands of all stakeholders into the decision making process.

Industry moguls are beginning to realize the amount of money that can be saved by cleaning up their acts, that is, they are beginning to use computer software that can not only tell manufacturers the most cost efficient material to use in the production of some particular consumable, but it also can inform these manufacturers of the ecological footprint that individual materials make. Business executives can now begin to make decisions that weigh costs, not only in relation to finance, but ones that also consider any environmental or social costs that, up until now, got distributed haphazardly in the form of unwanted waste to the least represented populations of the world.

LCA software, by definition, is “a computer program that can be used to calculate the potential environmental impacts of a product or a service throughout its lifecycle, from being manufactured to its ultimate end-use destination”. The software helps product and service designers estimate social, environmental, and financial costs associated with extracting resources, manufacturing products, recycling programs, and end-use disposal of the waste created by manufacturing and consuming their product. This is truly revolutionary.

The idea that businesses are figuring triple-bottom line (environmental, social, and financial) costs into the their production processes is trickling into many of today’s biggest industries. For example, many of the largest industrial companies are pursuing closed-loop refineries; the most advanced of these, in the near-future, will capture their own CO2 from the smokestacks, pipes it to algae ponds that use the CO2 for photosynthesis, which then are harvested for energy. A former waste product, CO2, is now an input asset into another system that uses it as a feedstock to grow hyperactive algae. This closed-loop thinking is generating excitement around its potential to solve some of the society’s most dramatic climate issues regarding pollution.

Collaborative software, social software, and massively distributed collaborative projects will only maintain value as long as computers remain an active and sustainable extension of daily interactions. For now, though, there are many exciting developments in this field. The computer programs that are being developed allow their users to interact and share information among all of the other users. Of course, YouTube, eBay, Napster, Wikipedia all have their roots in these types of programs, but it’s the next generation of collaborative software that has entered the industrial side of society.

More specifically, lifecycle assessment software is essentially a form of cooperation among interested parties where information-sharing systems are the centerpiece of the organization. Calculating the recycling costs of a particular material that goes into making a shoe, as well as which glues are the least toxic to use to hold it together is a refinement of the trade of production in general. It is the evolution of business. Capitalism is evolving to come more in line with the laws of the universe. Creation is a natural process; there is no waste in the act of creation. In nature, every waste product is used as an input for another creative system.

Almost every current industrial process that we use to manufacture products or services has a negative impact on the environment. For the first time in capitalism’s short history, natural resources have found their limit. Conservation, as well as recycling waste streams, is a promising way forward for the future populations of humankind. Lifecycle assessment software like SimaPro and Eco-it are only ahead of their time by less than a decade. By 2022, the business world will have evolved to incorporate these kinds of environmental assessment tools into the mainstream.

The original aim of LCA software was to offer product and service designers the opportunity to compare a range of environmental damages based on their input. It is evolving into an industry that will streamline the production process as a whole in a way that is not only good for the triple-bottom line but also good for the planet. Once, as a collective society, we put a real value on clean air, water, and soil, LCA software will be the standard in all new product development.

For the first time, businesses are considering such concepts as global warming and greenhouse gasses, acid rain, soil degradation, depletion of fossil fuel deposits, deforestation, spreading of deserts, air pollution and smog, food toxins, death rates, water sources drying up or being poisoned, and animal extinctions as important considerations in their business decisions. More importantly, this way of thinking is what the business world is evolving into. These considerations will become the standard over the course of the next one-hundred years.


__________web recommendation
Earth Shift
www.earthshift.com
Many new environmental assessment consultancy firms are springing up. EarthShift is an example of the type of consultation today’s most innovative businesses are seeking. This firm uses LCA software to help businesses figure the total cost assessment, or TCA, of their product line. Companies like this one are part of a larger movement, which is taking place among people on the earth; that is, a redefinition of what resources have real value. For instance, what is more valuable, petroleum or water? Did you answer water? So many fresh water sources are ruined in our exploration for more fossil fuels, so it would seem from looking at our business models that we value fossil fuels more than we value clean water, air, and soil. The idea that we allow business to pursue fossil fuels at the expense of humanity’s needs is not an accurate picture of what people want out of life on earth. Petroleum has many substitutes; water has none. There is a larger shift coming to the business world, and lifecycle assessment software is contributing the initial steps on the road to placing real value on the resources we value most.

Little Green People; Collaborative Design; The Power of Many Voices

BOOK RECOMMENDATION:

Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution
by Howard Reingold
ISBN: 9780738208619
This book is an attempt to show the power of the collective consciousness in the digital age. What is happening now that communication technologies are increasing human opportunities for collaboration? Are we getting smarter collectively? All of the instant information sharing that the internet has offered its users is beginning to give us a glimpse of what the human species may look like from above as viewed from an omnipotent perspective; we appear to simply be a mob. Reingold’s book takes this concept of ‘smart mob’ and defines it as what happens when the ideas of many people are organized and then shared; patterns emerge and an overall intelligence begins to emanate from the collective whole that is 'smarter' than the individual parts. There have been many innovations in the way smart mob systems are structured and used, but the model is not fully developed yet. We have used the power of smart mobs to coordinate acts that cover both ends of the spectrum, from terrorist attacks to the ultimate form of representation in democracy and capitalism. The ideas presented here in Reingold’s book seek to redefine the consumer as a product designer, that is, the consumer has evolved to the level of having influence over the manufacturing process. Using the example of file-sharing copyright protected material in the music and movie industry, Reingold shows that file-sharing was a brilliant spontaneous industry that was created by blending together several software and hardware technologies with collective ingenuity. Peer-to-peer sytems completely revolutionized the way people looked at different media forms in general and the control they could exercise over the content. While the legality of file-sharing in certain industries is still being worked out, the concept has inspired a fresh look at the way we share information. From a theoretical standpoint, this new generation of internet users will have to try to align the concepts of smart mobs, marketing theory, and democratic politics with technology innovations in order to bring intelligence to the next level in the human race.

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In nature, the idea of collective intelligence is called swarm intelligence. National Geographic recently did a piece on swarm intelligence after looking at colonies of bees and ants. This concept of swarm intelligence applies not only to insects, but also to fish, birds, and mammals; in concept, all living creatures exhibit some form of swarm intelligence.

According to the National Geographic article, after careful study of ant and bee colonies, scientists were able to declare that no single bee or ant was intelligent (not in any measurable form), but as a collective whole, bee and ant colonies seemed to act intelligently. They offered us humans information that we could apply to our own systems of operations; they shared knowledge with another species. The phrase that sticks out in the article the most regarding ant and bee colonies relates to the idea that individual ants and bees are ‘tiny little dummies’; but even though they are 'dumb' on an individual level, their colonies have learned how to respond quickly and effectively to environmental stimuli and to quickly share new knowledge with other members of the colony.

Could it be that human beings, if viewed through the same degree of perspective of us looking down upon ant or bee colonies, that our own species is one that is just made up of ‘tiny little dummies’ also? When we are viewed as individuals, our intelligence is not readily visible, but collectively we are able to design what has come to be defined as the modern world with efficient transportation routes, effective methods of gathering food, complex social networks to share information, etc... Could it be that, much like a school of fish or a herd of antelope, human beings as individuals are not equipped with enough intelligence to survive?

The fundamental proposition that human beings thrive under conditions of colony creation and continued communication has been raised in earnest by the creation of massive file-sharing and instant communication networks on the internet. These relatively recent developments using the computer have catapulted the human consciousness to a new larger view of themselves; it is one much like the Buddhist state of enlightenment, a view of the collective nature of the human species and the individual's place within that collective whole. On the other hand, it has also numbed our emotions (to a degree) to the suffering and struggle that go on at the level of the individual (suffering that is unseen as part of the collective but essential to the overall progression of the colony). In a digital world, where we are all now connected digitally and reams of information are being collected in gargantuan databases relating to human behavior, this collective whole vision is beginning to take shape.

So, what do we do now that we are all connected? What do we do with the reams of information being collected about human nature? Does the internet really have the capacity to make the human species smarter. It is completely logical to assume that a multitude of human behaviors can now begin to be analyzed, anything from shopping habits to internet searches to traffic patterns to media preferences to voting results to credit card purchases; really all of the actions that we take during any given day can be grouped organized and analyzed and streamlined for efficiency using computers.

Sound like a Brave New World? Well, it’s here and whether or not you participate in it, you will be affected by it on the macrocosmic scale. Already, companies and governments have tapped into swarm intelligence and how it applies to the human species as a way of moderating the complex interactions that take place when considering hundreds of millions of citizens or consumers all moving about according to their own choices and desires. By understanding how large groups operate in terms of establishing a collective intelligence is something that most humans are not comfortable with.

This concept gathering information for the collective as an idea has a history of being grouped together with the terms socialism or communism; but, would you say that an ant colony or a school of fish or a herd of antelope is necessarily socialist or communist by nature? You would be acting from an anthropocentric frame of reference if you said this because socialism and communism are human inventions. Swarm intelligence tries to describe an invention that is beyond the control of any one human; heck, even beyond the control of ALL humans.

To understand what we are supposed to do with this newfound super-power of seeing the human race collectively, we need to go back and look at the reasons why the internet was brought to the foreground of technology revolution. If we agree that the answer was and still is ‘to access information more easily and communicate instantaneously with each other’ then we will be well on our way to understanding the human swarm that is gathering as digital bits in broadband cables and then zipped across the globe, and we just might realize the power of action that these bits can create. It is as though, with the invention of the internet, the human species became one body and the cables and satellites that enable the internet to exist are the nervous system; the bits of information are electrical impulses that tell parts of the body when and how to respond to certain stimuli. Unlike an individual body, though, the internet does not have a central processor (brain) to interpret all of the signals and coordinate the movements of the body. This is what is currently being developed in many digital communities on the internet, but without much success because collaborative systems work best without a centralized control structure.

To understand how all of this information that is being shared through the internet (email, blogs, webpages) and cell phones (texting), we should probably go back and look a little more closely at how an ant colony functions. Most people become insulted when they are told that the answer to some of their most complex societal problems can be found by looking to a seemingly unintelligent source. However, the study of swarm intelligence shows that communities of living creatures are anything but unintelligent.

By definition, swarm intelligence is what comes out of an operating system of behavior, ‘whereby the collective behaviors of unsophisticated agents interacting locally with their environment cause coherent functional global patterns to emerge.’ In other words, each ant/human is only following the rules that pertain to their own choices of behavior, but all of the ants’/humans’ choices put together result in an objective intelligence that can be seen by an observer (the guru on the hill).

Much like projects of mass-collaboration on the internet, there are no centralized control structures dictating how individual ants should behave in their colonies. Instead, interactions in a colony seem to be driven by a force that cannot be comprehended on the local level by the individual ant/human. These local interactions can only be collected together to reveal much larger, global behavior patterns. Once established, though, then it becomes possible (at least for humans) to view our place in the system of operation and to do our part to increase levels of efficiency.

According to the National Geographic article, the military and transportation industry have already started using management techniques inspired by swarm intelligence. In the trucking industry, believe it or not, computer programs are directing truckers on routes based upon ant foraging principles. These ant foraging principles are simple rules that, in most cases, are counter-intuitive to the human mind, but companies are starting to realize noticeable savings by mimicking our tiny cousins. In many industries, the concept of swarm intelligence is gaining momentum; even airlines have even begun mimicking ant behavior in airplane terminal selection and departure schedules, as well as in overall terminal design.

Through initial studies, the internet is beginning to reveal that human social patterns look strikingly similar to swarm behavior. All of the FaceBook, Frienster, Flixster, and other social networking sites have helped reveal the true nature of the human being, and it is very similar to that of the bee.

A bee colony looks as follows: First collect an array of possible choices, then allow for free competition to develop among the different choices where open communication is encouraged, and finally narrow choices using some kind of filtering technique with a proven effectiveness. This method of how bees choose their hives also describes how internet social networks function. Perhaps the internet will reveal to the human race what has seemed to escape them for millennia, and that is, there is intelligence behind the actions of everything that is alive or was at one time living (including rocks, plants, animals, and humans).

The patterns of internet behavior are a brand new field of study with enormous potential to revolutionize the way human beings do virtually just about everything. Right now, we can organize the internet into three distinct types of users. People that connect to the internet generally fall into three categories, tier #1, tier #2, or tier #3 users. Tier #1 users simply go online to get information about a particular topic; they might also check up on email and send digital communication back and forth on an occasional basis. Tier #2 users not only search for information, but they are also prone to joining multiple social groups, as well as posting on different message boards on various topics. Tier #3 users rely upon the internet for sustenance; it is essential to maintaining their businesses and livlihoods. People in this tier believe that the online community is better with more people in it, so they are always actively trying to encourage more participation on a local and global level.

Let's look at Wikipedia as our first example here. People who use Wikipedia solely to figure out the definition of something are tier #1 users. People who use Wikipedia as a reference in their online postings are tier #2 users. The people who created, organized, and currently manage the Wikipedia site are tier #3 users. This online encyclopedia, created by its own readers, is considered by experts to be the largest, fastest-growing reference work available for free. The site is translated into 253 languages, and it has over two million articles. Why Wikipedia is special, besides that it is offered to users for free, is that it is put together in a collaborative fashion by volunteers around the world. Anyone, anywhere with a computer can contribute. It helps make us collectively smarter. The same can be said of Google.

Another example of a collaborative project that was developed to bring the power of many to help solve a global problem and make us collectively smarter is called climateprediction.net. This project came out of a recommendation from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as a first step in drawing logical conclusions relating to global warming. The idea was based upon the simple fact that one computer would take enormous amounts of time to calculate all of the possible scenarios for climate change based upon the variable data involved in predicting future weather patterns (especially in terms of decades and centuries); but, many computers running the same model can accomplish the task much more quickly and provide patterns of possibilities that yield suggestive curves rather than definitive results (much the same as in quantum physics where models predict the general vicinity of particles and not their exact location).

It is both interesting and insulting at the same time to have the claim thrust upon us that human beings are no more intelligent than ants or bees or antelopes when it comes to collective smarts. In fact, it seems as thought natural colonies have long known what human beings are beginning to explore through the advent of the computer. These natural colonies seem to be able to put aside any sense of individuality and act simply for the benefit of the colony.

As the human population continues to grow worldwide, swarm intelligence just may provide the type of systems thinking that will help us manage the slew of problems on humanity’s horizon. The increase of resource depletion that comes with the inefficiencies associated with systems involving large groups just may be able to be mitigated by following the example of some of nature’s most efficient creatures.

All is not lost; we have come this far. It is now possible for us to see the effectiveness of the simplicity of natural systems and the complexity of the human condition within those natural systems. Our consciousness has brought us to the brink of discovery; we can now see ourselves as a collective colony functioning in predictable patterns. What we do with this information, whether it be to convince the collective to consume more or to persuade the collective to want only what we need, this decision will determine our collective future.

____________________________________Web Recommendation
Center for Collective Intelligence; MIT
cci.mit.edu
The Center for Collective Intelligence at MIT asks one fundamental question, that is, “How can computers and people be connected so that collectively they act more intelligently than individuals, groups, or computers have ever done before?” MIT recognizes the advent of the age of the internet as monumental; we live in an age that connects more people in more geographical regions of the world than at any other time in human history. This unique opportunity for the human species has already yielded such collective projects aimed at advancing humanity as Google and Wikipedia; what new collective projects are on the drawing boards? Professors and students at MIT involved in this project believe that now is the time for more of these types of projects aimed at advancing the human race collectively, and this site describes some of them.

Little Green People; Collaborative Design; Virtual Communities

BOOK RECOMMENDATION:

Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier
Howard Rheingold
ISBN-13: 9780262681216
This book, as the title suggests, offers its readers a tour of the virtual world; a world where digital bits of information are instantaneously zipped/zapped across the globe. Countless online communities have sprung up since this book was originally published in 1993, and some of the phrasing used can date author, but the overall ideas brought out by this book are still as relevant today as they were in a pre-Google internet. Through his own personal experience in online communities, the author mixes together factual information and personal stories to bring these virtual worlds to life. He offers his readers the idea that virtual reality is a world much like reality; it is a world where people can talk and argue about topics, they can seek out information on their interests, romantics can fall in love, organizations can generate interest in their causes, and yes, you can even get swindled online. The book has been updated recently to include additional information relating to the logarithmic growth of the online community. This book will give its reader a good picture of what was happening online around the turn of the century and points to some trends that may have already begun and even some that may be extended out over the course of the next one.

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The internet seems to be exactly what any user dreams it to be; that is, the internet is turning into all things to all people. We had better make sure that we are using this most powerful tool correctly for the betterment of humanity and the improvement of our local communities.

When it comes to communicating with friends and family, the internet is better than the telephone in that it can carry multiple conversations simultaneously and keep a record of them for future reference. When it comes to buying things online, nothing beats the convenience of looking for the perfect product at the perfect price from the comfort of your own living room. When it comes to writing a research report for school or work, nothing beats the power of having every book in every library, as well as commentary on those books, all in a small little laptop that you can carry around with you. While the examples just cited may be ‘popular’ uses of the internet, another less popular use of the computer is gaining ground. There is developing a use for the computer that makes the way we have been manufacturing and producing goods up until now obsolete. This new method of developing consumer goods guarantees satisfaction while increasing the efficient use of materials. By streamlining the design and development phase with consumer input, not only can society cut down on waste, but businesses can also boost their sales.

Of course, I am talking about open-source collaboration. What exactly is open-source collaboration, you say? Another name for it is mass collaboration; does this ring any bells yet? Well, of course, Wikipedia is probably the most famous mass collaboration project to date. If you don’t hop on to the Wikipedia website at least once per day, you are probably not gaining as many insights into culture, history, economics, or even philosophy and psychology as the next person who does.

The Wikipedia resource is a compilation that is constructed by regular online users. The fundamental precept for Wikipedia’s development is that we are all a specialist in one or another topic. Even if I do not know every detail on a specified topic, someone else can come along and fill in the blanks. The idea that we can all compile our collective knowledge into a central source that we can then all benefit from was the catalyst for Wikipedia’s development. The service is completely free because it is created by the very people that use it.

Collaboration is a very different concept that cooperation. Collaboration entails that each participant is intimately involved in the project; this means that each contributor has a full understanding of the project’s goals and objectives and the ability to monitor the project as it is being developed. Unlike cooperation, where the goal is to simply work together, collaboration entails that working together is the process that allows the project to include more people’s ideas and, therefore, become better.

The idea that if more people contribute to the development of an idea or a product then the product or idea will become better is a new one. Before the internet, most ideas were kept secret so that their ‘owners’ could claim some kind of proprietary rights or copyright or patent information. This age of owning information is beginning to show its weaknesses, and a new generation of thinkers are coming of age who do not necessarily need to possess knowledge in order to own it.

This is truly a new idea is the evolution of modern society. For the first time, governments and businesses can tap into the regular citizenry to find out what would work best in terms of policy or products.

How do governments and businesses and, hence, customers and the environment benefit from mass collaboration? Take for example climate policy. By opening up a public comment page that is organized into varying subtopics and degrees of interest, an overall structural web can be created. Professionals from the scientific and business community can then develop implementation plans that are then recycled back through the public domain where they are once again fleshed out for environmental, social, and economic impact in local communities. The central concept in mass collaboration is that all stakeholders receive an opportunity to have their concerns voiced.

Gone are the days where businesses make secret backroom deals that negatively affect the larger community. Gone are the days where powerful lobby groups receive special treatment in the form of government subsidies for their industries’ pollution and inefficient production methods. Gone are the days where the 'Corporate Bill of Rights' trumps the U.S. Bill of Rights and The Constitution.

The internet has opened up a window of opportunity for the modern world in order to assist us in cleaning up the mess created during the Industrial Age. In order to make use of this opportunity, it is necessary to put aside traditional notions of economic competition; do Coke and Pepsi really need to compete, or can they work on streamlining their manufacturing processes to use less energy, as well as a method to recycle their cans and bottles, and even a formula to produce a healthier product? What about oil companies; do they really need to work in direct opposition to renewable energy, or can they begin collaborating on how to bring abundant, free, clean energy to market? This 'Corporate Reformation' period that we need to go through as a society will have a never-ending supply of industries, companies, and processes to work through.

Essential to our survival, as the earth becomes more crowded and more flat (as Friedman points out in his book) we have to remember that whatever is produced today will still be around tomorrow. Will what we produce become a feedstock for another of society’s essential processes, or will it produce more toxins that will ultimately poison our water supply and atmosphere.

Mass collaboration helps us understand the full impact of our actions on every stakeholder. The concept that multiple perspectives of an idea yield a smarter product, and that smarter products consume less resources and dissipate back into the consume cycle or the environment more easily is something that the internet has brought to the foreground of global consciousness. Currently, the world is ripe for change; it is ready to begin a new era where secrecy is shunned and openness yields new perspectives and the possibility that there are enough resources to go around. Mass collaboration requires that all stakeholders share the allotted resources equally. Gone are the days of hoarding more for ‘me and my own’.

This is the fundamental thinking behind many of today’s open-source collaborative communities that are beginning to spring up. These online spaces create domains around specific topics where users can gather to collect and share information. Individuals can contribute their own information that will be reviewed by their peers and learn from the most current discussion going on around real world problems and issues. These kind of systems do not have a centralized governance structure; rather, they are a collection of mostly self-organized communities, monitored by the very people that use the services. There are no lobby groups acting on behalf of the more powerful members trying to create favorable policy in order to obtain more of the resources within the system for themselves.

An organization created by MIT students has set up a mass collaboration community. Thinkcycle is a non-profit online community. It is essentially a collection of ideas from students, professionals, citizens, and organizations worldwide connected through a collaborative communication structure. Thinkcycle acts as the hub around which topical communities are linked. The communities allow users to access current information and not only become more aware and interactive in their ideas regarding solutions to some of today’s most critical problems by continuing ongoing dialogue with people who have similar interests, but also creates a catalogue of ideas for others to reference in the future. Of course, the nature of the topics changes over time as society continues to evolve, but this is the beauty of mass collaboration; it is fluid and ever-changing, just like the human condition.

These types of communities on the internet are changing the way companies do business. Thinkcycle and other groups like them are proving that collaborative design methods far outweigh the secrecy inherent in capitalistic competition in terms of social, environmental, and financial benefits. Thinkcycle is proving that collaborative design is producing a win-win-win-win outcome; business cut down on costs, the consumer gets a product they want, resources are preserved, and waste is minimized.

If capitalism is going to be respected in its current form, then there are bound to be products whose development is not suitable for open source collaboration. If this is the case, then companies will always reserve the right to gain a competitive edge through secrecy, but this open-source collaborative approach will always be more appropriate in larger, more community-based initiatives like healthcare, utilities, transportation, and disaster recovery. When it is critical to facilitate the organization of large amounts of information from multiple sources, collaborative models are the most effective choice. As for Coke and Pepsi (and The Colonel), we will let them keep their secrets for a few more years.

There are many reasons why the business world will evolve, slowly at first, but into its more sustainable collaborative form in the near future. First, the growing human population on the planet is depleting resources at a rate that cannot support our own future development, so companies will have to manage a limited feedstock and innovation that can stretch supply will evolve from fashionable to necessary to mandatory. Second, growing poverty and an increase in natural disasters, combined with modern media devices, is causing companies to become more aware of the repercussions of their business decisions. By the end of this century, companies that collaborate with stakeholders in the development of their products will far outnumber those companies that do not. The companies that employ secretive measures to hide unethical behavior are soon to become criminal, archaic, then extinct.

The idea of using the concept employed at MIT in other areas of learning did not require a far stretch of the imagination. ePals has created a social network that allows participants from anywhere in the world to share information and work together to solve problems. Right now, students in over 200 countries participate. When students are able to connect ideas in their books with people and places, an excitement for learning is developed. This new opportunity that ePals affords its users is unique to the degree that the communication is instantaneous. To be able to work together with people in other countries rather than in competition with them is creating a new breed of human being along our evolutionary trend.

In2Books is another learning community geared toward students. The concept of changing competition into collaboration is a generational project because of the nature of the beast. Almost the entire evolutionary spread of human development has been centered around competition. To undo all of the physiological as well as psychological impulses and aspects involved in retraining the mind is an arduous task; to do this overnight is not realistic.

In schools across the country, emphasis is being placed more on collaborative learning methods instead of the traditional competitive nature of tests and grades. The social/emotional development of students is something that is considered on students; report cards in more and more schools. The process of collaboration is trickling into teaching theory and is being taught to new teachers in more and more teacher training programs across the country.

The trend of mass collaboration will continue because a multi-dimensional future is the direction that our business, social, environmental, and local communities are headed. Ever since schools became responsible for shaping the societies of the future, they have had a responsibility to uphold our most idealistic visions.

___________________web recommendation
Dassault Systems
www.3ds.com
This is a company (business enterprise) that is focused on lifecycle assessment (LCA) and collaborative product development (CPD) and fuses them together into a concept they call PLM or product lifecycle management. They make computer software that allows product manufacturers to be able to view their ideas in a simulated reality. This ability to try things out and extrapolate trends and issues when processes are broadened out into economies of scale is an invaluable tool. This software not only allows all members along the chain of production, from conception to production to maintenance to recycling, the ability to communicate freely and visually in a 3-dimensional format through the use of the computer and collaborative formats, but it also incorporates input from the consumer into the design. This ability to visualize reality before acting in it saves companies untold sums of money in failed ideas, and society untold sums in removing or storing waste; for this reason, this type of software will be the way business ideas are brought to fruition in the future.

Little Green People; The Spread of Information; Nanotechnology and the Next Level

BOOK RECOMMENDATION:

Unbounding the Future: the Nanotechnology Revolution.
Eric Drexler and Chris Peterson.
ISBN 0688125735
Ever since the dawn of civilization, technology has advanced society's evolution. Through the Industrial Revolution, technology was used to streamline the mechanized process. Currently, nanotechnology is being used to streamline design, enabling us to build smaller and more efficient products. Many of the products we use are beginning to be redesigned on a molecular level; this includes everything from medicine to automobiles. The research that is going on in this emerging field is global in nature, and the picture that scientists are beginning to put together is an exciting one. Of course, this is only the first step in a process that will unfold and be perfected over the course of the next century, but some revolutionary products of the future are already here; from batteries to cell phones to solar panels to food to cosmetics to paint to even hypoallergenic pets, these have all been re-engineered on the nano-level. In fact, there are thousands of products in the nano-showcase. The smart investors are finding out how to invest in nanotechnology today with the hopes of building a fortune over the coming decades. What is most exciting about the field of nanotechnology is that its development trend is caught up in the science/computer loop, that is, better computers yield faster developments in science and faster developments in science make better computers. What a smart investor has to realize is that the wholesale replacement of twentieth-century technologies and products will surely take place over the course of the next one-hundred years.

Science and technology have blended together at the beginning of the twenty-first century in a streamline fashion that is sure to yield a future that is awe-inspiring to consumers. Products over the course of the twentieth century were engineered to be mass produced without much thought to waste or limited resources. They were also produced in such a way that many discoveries were kept secret in order to obtain a market advantage. This was the way that business used to be done.

We are now in an age where advancements in science are beginning to revolutionize entire industries. There still exists copyrighted information or trademarks or patents, but because the computer allows for information to be shared instantaneously globally, any advancement made in any area is spread across the world in the blink of an eye. This is a profound change, speeding up the evolution of business and society. The information that is being shared surrounding nanotechnology encompasses several industries including health, agriculture, renewable energy, automotive, and many more.

As of 2003, the human genome has been mapped; this means that the 25,000 genes that make up the DNA sequence in humans is ‘on the books’. From here forward, scientists will be able to determine which genes cause which diseases and work with human health on a nano-scale working on a molecular level to 'fix' rogue cells that spiral out of control to cause disease. Although the dream of completely mechanizing biology where tiny ‘robots’ go in and operate on the human on a cellular level is decades away, many aspects of the biological science have entered the nano-level through the use of medicine and micro-surgery.

Now that scientists are able to tweak the fundamental building blocks of the human body and then put them back together to work better, we are on the cusp of a new era in biological medicine. Of course, there are many ethical issues that arise in this type of science. When we begin to consider ideas like cloning or stem cell research, there is often a visceral reaction from some segments of the public in terms of their religious beliefs and whether humans ought to be tinkering with the world and its living components on a nano-level when it comes to the human body. Cloning and stem cell research seem to be stuck on the back burner, at least in America, while the general public comes to grips with their new found powers.

Nanotechnology is currently being used to manufacture drugs that treat diseases more effectively with fewer side effects. While the pharmaceutical industry has had its fair share of ‘guinea pig’ mentality over the past century, new developments in nanotechnology will allow patients to receive better treatment specifically when it comes to drug delivery and release systems.

When it comes to genetically engineered food, America has jumped whole-heartedly into this area. One of the first applications of genetically modified food back in the 1990's was to change the DNA structure of produce to be frost-resistant. In order to do this, scientists took the DNA from a frost resistant cell and transferred it into the cell of a food that was prone to frost, say strawberries. Since then, other applications for genetically modified food developed; one was to engineer crops to contain pesticides within the cell structure of the food to make them resistant to pests, guaranteeing high yields at harvest with minimal cost of maintenance during the growing period.

The days of unexpected harvest yields are over, but other problems are beginning to surface with GMO's including (according to Wikipedia) long-term health effects for anyone eating genetically modified food, labeling and consumer choice, intellectual property rights/ownership of the seeds themselves, and the potential disruption or even possible destruction of the food chain. Oftentimes, when the nutritional composition of the genetically modified food is considered or the long term health effects are studied, the information is not readily given to the public. We have used nano-technology to alter our food, but we do not yet know how this experiment will play out in nature; it could all turn out very bad through the pollination sequence of insects, but, nonetheless, the industry is already thriving and shows no sign of going away any time soon.

While food that has been genetically altered may not be best for human consumption, it might make for an excellent feedstock for alternative fuels. As a feedstock for the ethanol industry, the grains can be engineered to produce the highest energy yield with the smallest use of land. In terms of using the genetically modified food for fuel, the overall excitement in this new industry is well-founded, but the experiment must proceed with caution until the natural side-effects have time to be fleshed out and studied.

Besides food, nanotechnology is also being used today to engineer more efficient technologies. For example, one of the problems with solar technology to date has been the levels of efficiency that have been able to be obtained from direct sunlight. Only certain wavelengths at certain angles could be transformed into electrical energy that then could be used to power our society. Scientists have recently engineered a coating using nano-science that can be applied to virtually any existing solar panel and raise the efficiency rates by capturing all of the wavelengths of sunlight at virtually any angle. This breakthrough will substantially improve efficiency rates and allow the cost of solar power to become cost competitive with the power generated from fossil fuels.

Realistically, nanotechnology can help provide our society with clean, secure, and affordable energy. In terms of improving the power discharge and recharging time in batteries, electrodes are coated with nanoparticles. Batteries are a necessary step in the renewable energy transmission system. Wind and solar are intermittent by nature and, therefore, transformer stations have to be equipped with batteries in order to be able to manage peak loads without blackouts. Currently, nano-technology is being used in order to bring the cost, the recharging time, the lifecycle, and size of batteries for a multitude of applications.

Nanotechnology is also responsible for the creation of stronger, lighter, and more durable materials. For example, carbon nanotubes are now used to create lightweight material that is as hard as a diamond, and they are made from run-of-the-mill raw materials. This kind of product has numerous applications. Besides lighter aircraft and better body armor, cars can now become significantly lighter than they currently are while still maintaining their structural integrity in terms of be able to absorb the physical force of a collision. Lighter cars equals better gas mileage.

Developments in nanotechnology will also allow for low-cost filters to clean the water and air. Microfilters already allow us to reuse water that otherwise would go to waste. These kinds of filters are also already used to clean contaminants out of the air in our homes and in the places where we work.

Nanotechnology also has the potential of being able to develop techniques that reuse some of the waste thrown into landfills. Whether it be by speeding up the decomposition process in order to capture the methane gas that is released and then transforming it into the higher grade natural gas that we cook and heat our homes with, or it be through developing new enzymes that can break down organic matter more easily into sugars that can then be fermented into ethanol, or it is used to simply break down waste into its chemical components where it is collected in a sort of periodic table warehouse and elements can be accessed by companies to create wholly new products, the applications of nanotechnology in combination with garbage are endless. Regardless of the how, nanotechnology will fundamentally change the way humans interact with trash in their world in the future.

Since nanotechnology promises to improve the overall general quality of life while lessening our impact on the environment, it is drawing the attention of wealthy entrepreneurs and investors. Some of the nano-products that have been launched recently are demonstrating nanotechnology’s potential, including faster computers, smaller memory devices, stronger materials, better production processes, and superior medical treatment.

Even the United States government is getting in on the action. The National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) is a federal program established in 2001. It was established to encourage research and to develop some of the opportunities and benefits of nanotechnology. The NNI uses collaborative communication to share goals, priorities, and strategies between various organizations. It says it does not fund research (but it actually does); instead, it tries to ‘foster the transfer of new technologies into products for commercial and public benefit and develop and sustain educational resources, a skilled workforce, and the supporting infrastructure and tools necessary to advance nanotechnology’. For fiscal year 2009, NNI was given $1.5 billion to spend on its members’ research and development and the deployment of products to the marketplace. (NNI)

There are many nanotech-products being developed today across virtually every sector of the global economy. Check them out at NANOSHOP.com. There are also numerous scientists providing research for governments and corporations working on the next nano-breakthrough that will catapult their country or business to the forefront of this developing industry. This future development of unknown origin or magnitude will only be one of a thousand such developments as the world moves forward into a world that is nano-engineered. Our most innovative inventions here at the beginning of the twenty-first century (iPhone, hypoallergenic pets) will pale in comparison when human society gets to the year 2100 and looks back over the technology arc that nanotech conquered. By 2100, nanotech will be the brains of virtually every industry.

The ability to see, measure, model, and manipulate matter on the nano-scale has its environmental advantages also. Designing products on a nano-level requires fewer resources and produces less waste. The benefit to the environment is twofold, because (as noted before) in addition to producing less waste, working with the building blocks of matter will also allow our society in the future to use our vast stockpiles of trash that is stored in our landfills as a potential windfall of recycled resources.

How big nanotech is these days is not really a relevant question considering how broad its base is and how fast it is expanding. As far as rough estimations go, today, revenues are estimated in the billions; by 2020 they are expected to be in the trillions. The simple fact of the matter is that nanotechnology will continue to grow because the innovations made available from the science span virtually every industry and ultimately help cut down on businesses’ overall operating costs while providing superior products to the consumer.

Nanotechnology will be the backbone of our future energy industry. Advances in solar technology and in hydrogen development, not to mention energy transmission through superconducting wire and battery power storage and delivery, will all rely upon advances in nanotechnology. Nanotech will bring about the innovations necessary to finally relieve the world’s dependence upon fossil fuels and will help to start recycling our vast piles of waste. There are numerous avenues to invest in nanotechnology, and that number will only continue to grow.

Nanotechnology: The Power of Small
www.powerofsmall.org
How big is a nanometer? A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter; a human hair on average is 100,000 nanometers wide. As the microindustry of nanotechnology grows, people are beginning to wonder how it works and what some of its consequences are, if there are any. This three part series, featured on PBS, tries to answer some of the toughest and most complicated questions posed by nanotech. The show gathers together policymakers, scientists, journalists, and community leaders to talk about naotech issues.

Little Green People; The Spread of Information; A Digital World with One Computer Platform for All

BOOK RECOMMENDATION:

Being Digital
Nicholas Negroponte
ISBN: 0340649305
There has been a revolution going on in information technology for more than a decade. Science fiction has often imagined a future where virtually every aspect of life is digitalized, that is, many products are changed from atoms to bits. For a realistic example of this concept, think about the music industry; in the past, music was recorded on tapes, records, and then as digital strands of information on compact discs. In all of these cases, a product had to be made from atoms. These atoms were then shipped to stores where consumers purchased them. Today, music is sent to customers not as atoms but as bits of information; the same is true of many books and especially of newspaper and media in general. One can theorize pretty easily the trend that will continue over the course of the twenty-first century; will we get to the Jetson's-type food dispensers? The book by Negroponte postulates that information that is transmitted electronically does not need resources to exist; but this simply is not true. Huge amounts of energy are needed to cool servers and power the internet in order to be able to ‘ship’ digital data. The bit, though, can be transmitted virtually instantly across the planet at a cost of only what it takes to power a computer; time and resources are conserved in a system that does not rely on an actual, physical world based upon the structure of the atom. The manufacturing-transportation-consumption loop is in the process of being transformed. With more and more people entering this digital world, though, a larger problem is emerging, and it is with the portal itself.

____________________________

We are currently caught in a digital consumption cycle that is choking the planet in e-waste. E-waste stands for electronic waste and is also referred to as waste electrical and electronic equipment or WEEE in Europe. While some e-waste is considered a commodity, most of it exists in a sort of garbage limbo-land. The unwanted electrical equipment is too costly to break down into its original material, and it is too toxic to be buried in most domestic landfills.

Most computers are engineered to operate optimally for only a few years. New technology usually replaces the old before it has a chance to even gather dust. In the case of the new iPhone, the product upgrade time frame was more like six months. This innovation loop provides an excellent source of continuous revenue for companies, but the practice of releasing a new product every few years is causing an environmental catastrophe on the other side of the world.

In addition to shortsighted innovation lifecycles, poor product integration design is compounding the problem of e-waste. Apple, Dell, IBM, Compaq, Microsoft, (the list goes on and on) all have their own operating systems with components and peripherals that are unique only to their own brand. In order to get one piece of equipment to work with the hard drive or monitor, countless cords, jacks, ribbons, cards, etc… have to be bought by the customer. When the customer buys a different brand in an upgrade, all of the peripheral material needs to be replaced also. Most people have a drawer or box in their house filled to the brim with electrical components for a computer that is no longer being used. More and more these days, people are beginning to clean out those drawers and boxes, and the e-waste is being disposed of in some pretty irresponsible ways.

A significant amount of that e-waste is being shipped from America to parts of rural Asia. Many of the computer components that are manufactured in Asia are shipped to America across the ocean in cargo ships, the components are assembled and used here for a few years before new technology renders them inefficient, then they are shipped back across the ocean on cargo ships where they sit in huge piles on rural farmers’ land and are mined for metals and poison the earth.

Wealthier nations like the U.S. tend to have more strict environmental regulations than do poorer ones. Computers tend to have many toxic chemicals designed into them, so deconstructing the humongous mounds of e-waste ultimately releases dangerous levels of lead, mercury, and cadmium into the ground and ultimately into the rivers and streams. American landfills will not accept e-waste because of the potential hazards, but a poor Indian or Chinese farmer will take it at $60 per ton and just stockpile it on their land.

In 1994 at the United Nations, a multilateral treaty called the Basel Convention was agreed upon in order to ‘lay down obligations with regard to ensuring that the transboundary movement of waste’ and ‘to control at the international level the transboundary movement and disposal of wastes that are hazardous for human health and the environment.’ (UN) Why then is e-waste with hazardous material being shipped from a more developed nation like America to less developed ones like India and China? The problem will only worsen with every new innovation that Apple, Dell, or Intel makes. It seems as though American businesses are in the habit of ignoring international treaties.

The European Union had already shipped six million metric tons of e-waste to West Africa before the twenty-first century even started; this was in the midst of the Basel Convention being passed in 1992. It too them ten years to pass the Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment, or WEEE, agreement that was finally put in place in Europe in 2002. It required computer manufacturers in Europe to take back their machines for free and recycle 65% of all of the materials. America does not do this yet.

In America, the public has always believed that industries need to be regulated so that the whole of society benefits equally. The recent financial crisis has shown us that without regulation oversight, free market systems can run amok and create havoc for the common ‘Joe’ on Main Street. Capitalism has a tendency to let greed go too far until it plays itself out as irresponsibility on the world’s stages.

It is only recently that Americans have begun to see that, even with many different businesses in the industry, the oil industry as a whole operates monopoly-like because of the high demand for petroleum-based products. The supply chain for virtually every product that is produced is inherently connected to accessing their resource. When so many parts of the free market system depend upon one source, even though there are many suppliers of that source, it becomes necessary for the government to step in and regulate prices and de-leverage influence because powerful industries tend to think that they can ignore international law if it is bad for business.

What we are starting to see now in the computer industry are some of the same bad habits and principles being acted out. The oil and coal industries were not in any hurry to clean up their respective acts until the public began demanding that the government hold them accountable. Even then, lobbyists were able to delay the clean-up and the enactment of health precautions taken on behalf of the general public’s safety. In fact, even today, pollution from burning fossil fuels is subsidized because if it weren't, the whole 'system' would come to a sreeching stop (this includes the digital world too!).

Without regulation, computer manufacturers are unwilling to accept the costs of either making less toxic computers or of recycling them in an environmentally friendly manner. Without regulation, hundreds of millions of obsolete computers from America will make their way to undeveloped nations to be ‘recycled’. Rules need to be created, free market systems need to be enacted to ensure that as innovation allows wealthier nations to upgrade their technology, less developed countries do not have to pay the price of giant mounds of e-waste leaking toxic chemicals poisoning their groundwater systems. This is what the Basel Convention set out to prevent.

Many computer companies advertise their recycling programs, but their ‘recycling program’ simply collects computers here in America and then ships them to rural India and China where what occurs is more like scavenging. Consumers are more than willing to drop off their e-waste product where they think they are doing the responsible thing. Once the product is taken ‘away’, the consumer forgets about it and goes on to upgrade to a newer computer that will become obsolete in another 2 years; the process has been an endless cycle for two decades now. The toxic material is beginning to pile up.

When a computer is scavenged, an average computer will yield only about $2 worth of materials such as shredded plastic, copper, or aluminum. In many undeveloped parts of the world computers and all of their peripherals are beginning to line the streets, awaiting deconstruction, or 'recycling'. In workshops, employees break apart the computers and either shred or grind large plastic pieces into smaller parts (in some places it is just burned). They snip and pry apart all of the pieces and collect the materials that will then be resold. Since computers were not manufactured to be taken apart easily, the process of 'recycling' a computer is laborious and hazardous to the health of the people doing it. It is also very costly; this is why wealthier nations are shipping their e-waste to less developed countries.

Part of the process of disassembling the computers is to pass the circuit boards through red-hot kilns or acid baths in order to dissolve the lead, silver, and other metals. The metals are harvested, but the process is not a without its side-effects. A lot of the chemicals used in the circuitry of the computer end up being rinsed away with water used in cleaning the parts, and the water ends up in the river and entering the food chain. Greenpeace recently conducted their own experiments that sampled the dust, soil, river sediment, and groundwater in some of the areas in India where e-waste recycling is currently going on, and what they found was that toxic concentrations of computer-based heavy metals were present. If the trend continues, those concentrations will only get worse.

In the United States, people simply do not know what to do with outdated computers. It is estimated, in this country, that nearly a half billion obsolete computers and their accessories all sit idle, waiting for the end of their lifecycle. While the Basel Convention at the United Nations sets the framework for how hazardous materials should be handled, we are still waiting for its enforcement. Most large computer manufacturers are struggling with the definition of responsible computer recycling. They are currently using their legal funds to argue the definition of hazardous material, so that they continue going along with the 'status quo'. Big Computer is acting like Big Oil and Big Coal, that is, they are trying to find a way around the regulations that were set up to protect the public. Is it responsible to ship toxic material in any quantity to less developed nations?

Since the U.S. government turns a blind eye to the computer industry and doesn't ban or even monitor their e-waste exports, individual states are beginning to pass their own laws separate from the federal government that create e-waste recycling regulations in line with the UN Basel Convention. These new laws hope to cut down on the corruption and smuggling of e-waste that is currently guiding the industry’s recycling program.

The problem is that people who design computers do not figure the end-use of the lifecycle of their technology into their manufacturing process. Many of these factories that assemble computers have one-way tickets for their products. Their products are like most everything else that is manufactured on the market; they are designed to be used once and then thrown away. This might work for, say, paper towels or toilet paper, but computers have toxic materials in them and do not decompose in ways that do not harm the environment around them.

A more responsible approach to electronic equipment in general in needed to ensure the safety of the groundwater supply worldwide. This is particularly true with computers because of the innovation curve associated with new technology. For only a few dollars more, computer companies can design computers that are disassembled quite easily. They can save money by developing a recycling program that reuses components, be it plastics, metals, or chemicals, but first the U.S. government needs to enforce the international regulations that are already in place.

Computer manufacturers like Dell or Apple have the potential to save money in the long run by changing the design of their computers. Of course, this kind of financial incentive is ineffective if computer manufacturers can skirt international treaties and run their recycling programs through the use of corrupt smuggling practices.

E-waste really is not an insurmountable problem, but it will become one if we don't start tackling the problem now. Computers have only been mass-produced for about two decades. If computer manufacturers simply change the design of their product to make recycling unwanted computer parts easier, then the industry will seemingly have an endless supply of material from which to build new innovations upon. The fact that many computer brands are not interchangeable is an issue that will need to be addressed in the future sometime.

While there are many businesses in the oil industry, they all make one type of gasoline that runs all cars. In the same way, computer companies need to start designing products so that software and hardware from different manufacturers work together; one computer platform for all should be the slogan. Mac and PC should be friends; they should move beyond whatever makes them think that they are not both one and the same thing...a computer.

In the future, Apple, Dell, Microsoft, IBM, Compaq…all of their products will have to function interchangeably if the world is going to be able to sustain the next one billion users that come online in the next decade. Industries have always needed to be regulated for the betterment of society, and in this case, it is becoming imperative that we do something soon regarding e-waste before we embark on the mission of connecting the whole planet in a digitalized world.

_________web recommendation
Earth 911
www.earth911.com
This website is a giant portal of information relating to everything to do with recycling. Do you have a refrigerator? A computer? Used motor oil? Not only will this site help you find a location near to where you live to recycle virtually anything, but the site also has articles and opinions on things that you don't usually think about. Going green is really the practice of going conscious. No longer can we look at 'away' as somewhere else; there are just too many of us on this planet for any 'away' place not to be someone else's home.

Little Green People; The Spread of Information; Beyond Competition and Collaboration

BOOK RECOMMENDATION:

Transcompetition—Moving Beyond Competition and Collaboration
by Harvey Robbins and Michael Finley
ISBN: 0070530823
For years, the common held belief system of most economic schools of thought was that competition made participating members stronger by bringing out their best; then, along came the collaborative approach. This new approach formed teams and partnerships in an effort to create a uniformity of purpose in an effort to build success for multiple people at the same time. The problem with the competition model is that it seeks to destroy opponents in order to capture more of the market share. The problem with the different collaborative models is that, oftentimes, performance is traded in for some form of social/emotional equillibrium. Since the introduction of the internet and widespread use of computers into the economic arena, the business environment has been going through some fundamental major changes, seemingly at breakneck speed. Transcompetition is the term that is used to describe a fusion of the best aspects of competition and the best aspects of collaboration. The authors of this book drew upon the fields of anthropology, psychology, history, biology, as well as economics to propose a new business management model back in 1998. The model basically states that the best managed businesses do not necessarily prescribe to one system of thought over the other. Any organization that uses a hybrid of these two popular approaches, competition and collaboration, is poised to seize a clear advantage throughout the twenty-first century.

_______________________________

A competitive, ‘serve yourself first’ mentality is what the ‘American Dream’ was built upon. Competition, the act of beating a rival in order to achieve supremacy in a given field, creates winners and losers. Without losers, there can not be winners; and without winners there cannot be an accumulation of wealth in order to grow ‘me and my own’. This is what the natural world is built upon, 'survival of the fittest', right?

On the other end of the spectrum is collaboration, the squishy, ‘feel good’ mentality where things like emotion and self worth oftentimes get in the way of succeeding. While many elementary schools tout their experiential learning or inclusive classrooms or their collaborative communication or their social/emotional curricula, we should be asking ourselves whether or not we are preparing the students of today to be productive members of the business world tomorrow.

The simple fact of the matter is that the entire business community, for the most part, is built upon the competitive model. Most high schools and colleges, as well as all graduate school programs are highly competitive. Students take tests and are graded and ranked and denied opportunities based upon their performance in school. In the business world, companies go out of business, professionals are fired, and whole industries dry up based upon performance and competition with one’s peers. Life may not have been fair back then, but up until the spread of information began being sent out freely across the internet, ‘life wasn’t fair’.

Things have changed in the past decade in terms of looking at the effectiveness of competition. Problems have started to develop with the competitive business model. As global population figures continue to rise alongside resource consumption, and more and more people achieve a middle class lifestyle, we are starting to realize that there are limits to the natural world. What happens if China, India, the whole Middle East and much of southeast Asia all come of age at the same time and begin competing for the same resources that are already in short supply when only America and Europe are demanding for them? What do we do about South America and much of Africa; do we ignore their cries for some semblance of economic equality or do we search for a better economic model that can accommodate more of the people who live on this planet and want the same for themselves and their children as we currently have in the U.S.? Sticking to the competitive model of doing business will invariably lead to more wars.

Collaborative communities on the other hand, have entered the mainstream mostly through the introduction of the internet. The world wide web is more of an information portal than it is an arena for competition. In the past decade competition has been slowly being replaced by collaboration-the act of working together with adversaries in an attempt to define and then achieve a common end. We are beginning to change our very definition of inclusion to be everyone, even our 'enemies' and those who are not part of ‘the game’ yet.

With the internet, obscurity can find a partner; in fact, sometimes it can find millions of partners. Groups can form around ideas in virtual worlds using no more energy to develop their ideas than it takes to turn on the computer (which can be quite consumptive collectively). A group used to be only as good as its weakest member or strongest member, but now, it is only as good as the collection and organization of ideas among all of its members. Computer analytics are starting to show that the more people that are included in the formation of an idea, the cheaper and more efficient the deployment of a system that manufactures that idea in the long run will become.

The number of people joining the online community globally is expanding every year. Currently, there are over one billion internet users out there, a number that will continue to rise as more and more countries achieve higher standards of living. This increase of digital traffic is a good sign that the amount of information available to anyone with a computer and a broadband cable or satellite connection will continue to increase. There is so much data developed that the sheer volume of information from individuals logging on and sharing their experiences, expertise, and knowledge is beginning to tax the underlying structure of the world-wide-web. The servers will continue to expand and people will continue to share information across the globe in an effort to make money, share a solution, or any of the multitude of reasons that people log into the digital world.

People are exchanging ideas across oceans at speeds unparalleled in human history and this instantaneous transmission of information is changing our very notion of fundamental business principles. The digital world seems to have different rules than the old school business world.

For starters, it used to be thought that businesses gained advantages by remaining secretive, but actually the opposite is true. Those organizations that support a more open style of communication in their product development end up with a more efficiently manufactured product. Companies that disclose their human rights records and materials used in making products succeed on a different level than those that remain more secretive. Look out Colonel Sanders and CocaCola.

The companies that source collaborative communities for ideas and input end up producing products that are exactly what a customer is demanding. It just happens to turn out right now that more and more customers are interested in their health and their environment. That translates into organic food and products that can either biodegrade or be recycled.

The computer, though, is not all collaboration and no competition. Of course, there is a place for competition in the digital age. The two models work side by side; one sets the stage for the other. While the internet fosters collaboration, computerized manufacturing facilities and automated commercial buildings streamline costs so that businesses can remain competitive or achieve a financial advantage. Let's look at two examples to see how collaboration and competition can be interwoven together.

First, let's look at the creation of electric vehicles. Currently, there are many different ideas circulating around about which battery type to use. Collaboration is a functional way to share information and come up with the best idea and highest performing product. Will it be nickel metal hydride, or will it be lithium ion, or will it be some form of ultracapacitor? Assuming ethical boundaries are maintained throughout the process, one form will rise to the top. Once a battery technology is established as the dominant form, then competitive market principles can take over and be used to mass produce it. Using this type of model, global resources are preserved and waste is kept to a minimum.

Using this same sort of an example to show how competition can run amok without any collaboration in the development phase, take the automobile industry of the 1920’s when cars were still just a concept. Ethical boundaries were neglected, the oil and steel industry lobbies won influence and collaboration with alternate automobile technology companies was formally abandoned. The automobile was mass-produced without any proper vetting as to future repercussions. Pollution, traffic congestion, shortage of natural resources…these were all foreseeable outcomes that could have been avoided if a collaborative model of production was employed. Competition of brand, Ford/Chevy/GM took the place of competition of technology, steam/ethanol/electric and is what has left us in the predicament we face today.

What will this fusion of competition and collaboration evolve into? What will all of these new internet users do over the course of the next decade as they mature into adults? Will they have a fundamentally different way of viewing themselves and the world around them? Will everybody just learn how to get along?

One thing is certain; currently, more and more people are suffering at the hands of pollutive business practices than are benefiting from them, so logic would render that a simple venue like the internet, which encourages maximum participation, would allow for the democratization of the business world. The more voices that can be heard, the more accurate picture of a true majority will unfold.

The majority of the world is voicing their opinion currently in favor of incorporating environmental and social considerations into business practices. This is what the great experiment that is the internet, and I guess America too, has come up with so far. The question left for us to figure out is how to use competition to achieve that goal. These trends meshing reality together with idealism will only amplify throughout the next several decades.

As internet usage spreads into all of the regions of the world, technology and collaboration are already being shared in an effort to cut down on global waste streams. These new online communities, through a collaboration of ideas, have designed software to help manufacturers assess the complete lifecycle of a product through its design or streamline the manufacturing process at their plant to use less energy, or figure out a way to produce less waste or incorporate it back into the production stream somehow.

The creation of thinking communities, where participants seldom, if ever, meet in real life is an exciting development in business strategy. Who knows what would have happened to Henry Ford’s automobile if he posted it on an internet message board and invited public comment. Who know, upon analysis, if the verdict in the twenties would then have rendered the fuel source for his model finite, set to run out in less than one-hundred years and cause growing global conflicts and catastrophic environmental effects. Would we still have pursued the same path the we are currently still on?

The internet acts as a giant filtration system where ideas are fleshed out and some of the initial problems are identified before production. This kind of process cuts down on overall resources consumed when the idea is brought into the production phase. It also allows other users to adopt the idea and tweak it slightly to meet their individual need. Ownership becomes collective, but still in a capitalistic way.

Whether it is in the political arena or the business world, problem solving that considers multiple solutions oftentimes produces more optimal results. The idea that human social networks and cosmological principles such as the formation of the universe both follow similar evolutionary chains is an interesting comparison. The whole universe dances together as the individual components compete for the finite resources within it. Their is a balance to the consumptive principles of the universe.

It is our current business cycles that are out of sync with the larger physical properties driving all matter in the universe. Perhaps, it will take a black hole on earth to ultimately recycle all of our terrestrial material and gadgets, but it would be nice to see a conscious decision on the part of the human species to begin doing this on their own.

Technology is not the enemy; it can help us see those dimensions that, for now, lie outside our current capacity to comprehend them. Visionaries, sometimes, have no idea what it is that they are seeing (the same goes for a computer); they simply are trying to capture an image that keeps repeating in their minds (CPU). Perhaps, some artists (or computers) accidentally stumble upon some of the larger principles that govern our whole universe. The internet gives us all an opportunity to share our vision with others; competition can help us use that vision to streamline our economic system to support a sustainable way of doing business in an overpopulated world.

___________________________web recommendation
NOVA; The Elegant Universe
www.pbs.org
This page will give you an opportunity to familiarize yourself with some more modern theories of the formation of the universe and how it functions. The page has links to other webpages on string theory, multiple dimensions, and elementary particles. If the information on this page proves not to be modern enough for you or satisfactorily establish the link between economic principles and the formation of the universe, then start HERE and continue on at your own risk.

Little Green People; The Spread of Information; Personalized Digital Information

BOOK RECOMMENDATION:

Children in the Digital Age, The Role of Entertainment Technology in Children's Development.
by Sandra L. Calvert, Amy B. Jordan, Rodney R. Cocking.
ISBN: 978-0275976521
Folk singers and novelists have spent thousands of hours in the past writing or singing about the concept of change. Buddhist teachings highlight those aspects of present moments that are transient, part of a continuum of impermanence. The world of economics and business falls within this realm of the present moment, and with the advent of digital technology late in the twentieth century, has allowed for a complete change in the way we think about and interact with each other. For the culmination project of the digital age, the television and the computer have begun their fusion into a single entity; the world of on demand, interactive programming, as well as computers that record, broadcast, or play movies or personalized videos are already upon us. The dawn of the digital age has allowed children access to information like no other generation before them. Pause, rewind, or slow down live television, c’mon, what could be cooler than that? …but do these technological innovations come without a price? The book that is being recommended here attempts to answer some of the questions regarding the psychological evolution of the development of children as the changing media frames or packages up the world that surrounds them. Of course, this book will become outdated as human life becomes more digitally enhanced, but the social, cognitive, familial, and consumerist conclusions that the scholars who have compiled this book, document a changing world like the one those folk singers, novelists, and Buddhists describe. The ideas presented in this book will continue to evolve through further discussion as technological innovations continue to shape the generations of the world in the future.

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Personalizing your living space is something that former generations are familiar with, but younger generations have found themselves operating not only in a physical world, but also in a digital one as well. The revolution that began with how we watch television is just the beginning of a larger pattern of a change in thinking that is beginning to make its way into many people’s lives. MySpace, iGoogle, iPhone, TiVo, these are but a taste of the larger sea that makes up the digital world.

The dream of meshing the television and the computer together into one single information portal complete with its own marketing and advertising schedule is virtually upon us. Right now, there are several ways that we gather information, all of them about equally environmentally impactful. For example, magazines and newspapers require feedstocks of wood pulp to make into paper, while television and computers require copious amounts of fossil fuels to be burned in order to power and cool their data centers. Some time in the near future, though, the television and the computer will join together seamlessly to create the virtual, digital world that we are seeing glimpses of today.

Once data became digitalized at the turn of the century, people and businesses began realizing the enormous opportunities involved in combining the two most powerful technologies into one data source. The power of the television to influence behavior was obvious back in the 1950's when television was first introduced to the American public. The computer shows signs of surpassing television's influence after advent of internet, and companies like Google are already cashing in on the economic possibilities.

How to combine the television and the computer is still something that is being worked out, though. I’m sure you can go out and purchase a television that will run HDTV as well as the internet; I’m quite sure that you can even get it so that the television has the picture-in-picture feature so that you can watch MLB or NFL in high definition while you search the web in a small box in the upper left corner and get some ‘work’ done. I am also sure that you can purchase a laser pointer remote control so that you can do all of this from the living room couch.

Putting the television onto the internet is a bit more complicated than the other way around simply due to the physical laws associated with mobility. Generally, televisions are stationary while laptops are carried around. The wireless circuitry that is needed to transmit live streaming data, at present, can become overloaded with high volume and make the transmission choppy and render the technology useless. Therefore, it only makes sense that the internet will be coming to a television near you sometime in the near future.

This will open up a whole new set of possibilities for children to learn before, during, and after school. After-school programming will take on a whole new meaning. To make the internet and all of its contents as easy as Saturday morning cartoons to access will undeniably create a shift in the way young people learn to think about the availability of information.

The whole concept of the internet as we know it is really only less than ten years old right now. It is based upon an open collaborative model. This guiding philosophy is well suited to allow for exponential growth, so it is understandable that people generally overestimate the age of the internet or the sheer volume of its content.

Still, in less than a decade, after experiencing the volumes of information and the ease of social networking on the information highway, more and more people make accommodations to join the internet community every day. Until recently, these new internet citizens have been mostly from developed nations, but international education and economic programs are beginning to see the potential of adding the knowledge bases of the cultures in the physical world to the data resources that make up the virtual world.

Hopefully, the initial child psychology models are correct in pointing out that the computer and cognitive development go hand-in-hand because these educational and economic programs are starting to give children access to information like they have never experienced before.

One particular organization is making the effort to put a laptop computer in the hand of every child in the world. They are starting by reaching out to the younger generations in underprivileged countries in an effort to shed light on some of the injustices going on there, and hopefully, the increased voice and attention will bring some alleviation to the suffering there. By offering people a portal to global information, we are giving them an opportunity to be included in the effort to help improve the overall quality of life for the entire human species. In America, this kind of technology is reaching its maturity through its fusion with the television. In other, less technologically advanced regions of the world, people are being offered the internet in all of its simplicity for the first time.

There is no doubt that access to information improves people’s lives, but sociologists are just beginning to figure out how all of these different forms of media affect a child’s social development. Some side-effects of technology include obesity, short attention spans, hyperactivity, apathy, anti-social behavior…just to name a few. Of course, the list of positive effects from access to information far outweighs the negativity. There is an important question, though, that is beginning to be asked about the spread of technology across the planet, and that is, what are the consequences? ...but can we obtain the answer to this question without first spreading technology across the planet to collect the information?

A computer offers a child an opportunity to learn and puts them in a collaborative community that willingly shares all information free of charge (minus the initial sign-up fee). Communicating information indirectly, that is, where children have the opportunity to sway horizontally through a topic is a method that is received better than when information is passed along using the direct approach. Direct instruction definitely has its place, but generally, not on the internet, which offers its viewers a more passive learning system that avails itself to passing thoughts and inquiries quite freely and easily.

When children are able to create multiple learning experiences around a topic, it is said, they will master the information in such a way that they will be able to teach it to others. By allowing children the opportunity to pursue topics that capture their interest, they will be able to see patterns in their learning, and ultimately, they will learn the process of learning. Once this happens, children can grow up into independent adults capable of relying upon their own learning skills to solve problems.

Following this logic then, the computer and internet television are gateways to world peace; funny, but true. Of course, as television stands now, the model doesn't work; television is still too direct, but free-flowing, passive information streams are the portal to peace. Rather than having to resort to physical violence, citizens can become informed through communication channels on various topics presented through a multitude of formats, and methods of collaboration will have already been opened and established in an attempt to vocalize the desires and demands of the opposing parties. We will be living in a more sane world because of the internet and a computer; who would have ever thought it possible?

This is the potential of technology, but, of course, the danger on the internet for children lurks around every corner. Unsupervised internet sessions for children have the potential to turn out to be traumatic experiences that point to leading lives of reckless abandon. Do the benefits of the technology outweigh the costs?

One thing for certain is that the answer to that question does not matter much in the business models of the world’s most powerful economists. The worlds of business and economics are moving full-steam into a future that is powered by technology and where data is digitalized and transmitted virtually instantaneously across the planet. Whether or not putting a computer in the hands of every person on the planet is actually good for the planet, the simple fact of the matter is that we are doing it.

One organization on the forefront of this movement is called the One Laptop per Child program. This program offers affordable laptops to children in developing nations. The idea behind the concept of giving one laptop to every child is that information in some of the more underdeveloped regions of the world will be able to be shared more freely between local and global citizens alike. This not only creates a learning opportunity for the children, but also allows people of privilege an opportunity to get involved in some of the regions of the world where economic advancement is not an option.

The XO laptop was created to be mass distributed under the principle that children have an innate capacity to learn and solve problems, if and only if, they are given enough information to make measured decisions with real consequences. Without adequate information, children learn to withdraw from decisive moments and pursue lives of apathy. The theory states that when given adequate learning opportunities, children will share and create solutions to problems together. The XO laptop seems to have been created to help facilitate this goal.

Experts are beginning to agree that the answers to some of today’s toughest problems will be developed in this new kind of collaborative environment that establishes itself in online communities. With all of the momentum that collaborative communities have already created, it is hard to believe that the idea of collaboration won’t become the wave of the future. By not only globalizing the marketplace, but also the stream of information, it is only a matter of time before more collaborative software is designed into the computer, and many of our aggressive borders are drawn down.

The XO laptop tries to approach this pure collaborative model. It is not a commercial product in the traditional sense of the word; it costs $100 and is often gifted to poorer nations from people who are living lives of privilege in more developed nations. The design of the XO was built around some of the more pressing concerns with computers these days, the major ones being the ones that are showing up in India and China in the phenomenon that is coming to be known as the 'eWaste Crisis'.

The XO tries to address some of these issues by offering a longer battery life and a product that is half the size and weight of a regular laptop computer. Each computer automatically picks up other XOs within range and automatically sets up a network. All computers hook into the internet through satellite connection and have no harmful chemicals hidden in their components. The XO is powered by solar and a manual wind-up crank. When a user is finished with the XO, the program has factored the costs of a recycling take back program into the design so that resources are recycled back into new products.

As more children begin using the internet as their window into the world, more and more creative problem-solving will begin to manifest itself…this is the plan. One thing for certain is that there are no longer children ‘in remote regions of the globe’ or people ‘on the other side of the world’, rather, we will begin to see ourselves as individuals with equal potential, who, when exposed to a world of ideas will contribute more to their local communities through collaboration and information sharing than they will through competition and intellectual property rights.

The XO laptop program is, of course, more that just an idealized view of the digital age; it is a training tool to another whole new generation of thinkers. The philosophy of competition and unregulated markets has been entrenched into the American psyche for the past century. The twenty-first century is being billed as the information age, and collaboration is turning out to be a much more efficient and profitable method of communication than economic competition ever dreamed of becomming.

Whether the future of international economic relations is guided fundamentally by a competition model or a collaborative model does not necessarily matter because the spread of the internet has shown the human species a tool that is more powerful than the marketplace…that is, the free, uncensored spread of ideas. Even if all of the markets of the world disappeared, humans would find a way to communicate freely with each other. Technology is affording us this opportunity in our evolutionary history to communicate freely with virtually every citizen of the globe with the strike of a mouse.

The current collaborative models highlighted by the XO laptop model give an interesting glimpse of the future global trend in relation to overall computer use. As more and more countries go online, some estimate it to be over one billion new users in the next decade, innovations will travel around the world at the speed of light. As more and more innovative solutions are shared, the change in the way people think becomes more a part of the mainstream.. Over time, this change over to collaborative principles will enter the business arena, and the days of competition, inefficiency, overuse, and wastefulness will be studied for what they are...mistakes of the past!

_____________________web recommendation
One Laptop per Child
www.laptop.org
The mission statement of the One Laptop per Child program is "to create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning". The project's origins go back more than four decades, taking so long to go from radical theory to reality because it first had to prove the immense power of the personal computer as a learning tool for children before it was allowed to mass market its product to children around the globe.