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.

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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.

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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.