TED requires that TEDx hosts file a fairly detailed report following the close of each event – and a good thing, too, since TEDx is a work in progress and everyone is learning from everyone else. Seeing as we have been asked by a lot of people for bits of practical advice here are some thoughts taken out of the longer report. Please bear with me re. the brevity of this – speed seems to be very much of the essence today…
Before I quote from the report, I must congratulate the team and crew on a job superbly done. The last six months, and especially the last few weeks, have been a period of growing intensity as the level of activity built up. We invented and designed everything from scratch since ours was the inaugural event in Poland and, of course, we wanted to learn the mechanics of running a successful TEDx “from the inside.”
The event would not have happened without the dedication of Adam Liwiński who carried the administrative load for months and performed under pressure better than most seasoned executives I have met. His friends (and now mine) Łukasz Alwast and Maciej Michalski both contributed very substantial time and energy. Julian Kozankiewicz found and sealed the deal with our major sponsor, Play Dla Firm. Julian’s team at EMLab, with Chris Szymczak and Zuza Rzeszutek at the head, worked tirelessly on the endless list of details a conference like this requires, Małgosia Minta wrangled the press almost single-handedly and our friends at Prezentio Peter Zvirinsky and Iza Wojtaszek helped out with speaker coaching. The full list of team and crew is here and includes some of the behind-the-scenes people who have also helped out. Well done, troops; thank you sponsors and supporters!
A big thank you to my good friend Janusz Kobylinski for shooting our official photographs – which are available for use under a Creative Commons license on Flickr.
Finally, thank you to my friend Colin Lewis for securing the license for the team, getting us started on this path, and then having the confidence to have the license transferred to yours truly. Colin is now off doing his own hugely exciting project – you can follow him @ColinLewis and learn more about what he’s doing here.
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We had a professionally set-up stage, large comfortable auditorium, speakers’ mikes were attached backstage, two hand-held radio mikes (one for me as the MC, one spare), two follow spots either side of the stage, one projector, live vision mixing for projection, separate registration area out in the foyer.
To search for pictures on Flicker go here:
Recorded talks were effective but most people responded to the live speakers since a lot of them are well known in various circles in this country.
We had two video cameras and one official stills photographer.
We ran it mostly in English. Two people questioned the wisdom of this. A quick explanation of how we are part of a global community settled that.
Technology worked as expected. All the systems we devised performed well. The team worked like a well oiled machine. Speakers went on cue and performed excellently well (we had coached about half of them prior to the event). All but two stuck to their assigned time. The music was incredible.
What worked not as well as I had hoped was the virtual jam – our connection to Chicago and Auckland started out well but then deteriorated to the point of me having to fade out the US and NZ musicians. But our man in Warsaw, the bass player, Krzysztof Scieranski, took over effortlessly with a solo and brought it all to a lovely close. Full report here.
We played a lot of TED talks, starting at the end of each live session and through the breaks – in the auditorium and on plasma screens in the foyer. Next time I think we will purposely OPEN each session with a TED talk as well as closing the sessions with them, that way we can potentially set the scene for each session.
What worked incredibly well was giving each session a ’subtitle’. We had :
Change the flight path
All is not as it seems
Surprises are good for the soul , and
One small step
This helped the audience get purchase on the disparate talks and find a ‘way in’
The live stream was rather popular. We had 712,000+ server hits from 57 countries, including Kazakhstan, Bangladesh, Maldives and China. The team from StreamOnLine, who handled the transmission, assure us that the only higher scoring Polish stream has been the prime minister with a million hits or so. Not bad, I say :)
Vegetarians appreciated having a separate table catering to their need at lunchtime
The event itself went as well as we expected but the response, feedback and “after-shocks” have been actually an order of magnitude greater than we expected. People have been blown away by the quality of the event, the venue, the speakers and what they had to say. The quality of our performers was not an inch short of awesome.
What worked particularly well was having our very own “Speaker Angel” – complete with wings, yeah! You can find her in TEDxWarsaw photos if you do a search :) – assigned to looking after our speakers, herding them backstage when required and then keeping an eye on the clock. We had given her a dedicated cellphone, with the number available to the speakers and no-one else.
I honestly can say that due to the incredibly hard work by the team and crew the event has been a runaway success and we have accomplished what we set out to do, ie. establish an embryonic community of TEDsters in Poland. We are already thinking about the next one in Warsaw and there are events starting to happen in other cities.
The team are all hugely excited and new people are coming up every day to ask how they can get involved.
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Please add your URL to the GoogleDoc-based community photo and video bank here : and send around the URL http://bit.ly/tedxwarsawvisuals . Thank you!
(I’ll be adding photos etc. to this post as they become available.)
Last night’s Virtual Virtuosos online gig at TEDxWarsaw proved the concept that remote collaboration by musicians in more than two locations (two having been done before) is possible, even if the currently available technology is still leaving more questions than offering answers.
Some months ago when we first began considering the content for our first TEDxWarsaw, I had the somewhat crazy idea that, since we couldn’t afford to bring leading jazz musicians to Warsaw for the gig, we would take the gig to them. The idea grew out of a series of projection gigs my good friend Nigel Gavin and I had done in Auckland a few years back. Nigel’s music,improvised on the spot to the images, worked really well and seemed to take the audience into meditative spaces they enjoyed visiting. It was time to ratchet up the level of difficulty and a TED-like event seemed the logical venue for it. After all, it’s all about going out on the edge and trying out stuff which is very far from being mainstream.
Having got the idea, I needed to implement it so I began to look for the right musicians and the right technological solutions. Nigel would play in Auckland. Having been just introduced to the music of Krzysztof Scieranski, a genius of the bass and his own synth/loops setup, I knew I’d found the Warsaw musician who would play live on stage. I had talked to leading American drummer Paul Wertico who had worked with SBB, a well known Polish band, and had long standing connection with the country about somehow getting him involved in TEDx. Since we had zero budget it seemed logical that I should mention the virtual jam idea to him. After a long Skype call Paul came on board with considerable enthusiasm. Plus, what I hadn’t known, Paul had worked with Krzysztof in the quartet The Colors a couple of years prior, so that was a happy coincidence.
To my considerable delight, I very quickly happened on information about the Manchester Camerata collaborating on a trans-continental orchestral performance with the Venetian ensemble Ex Novo. I got in touch with the technology gurus at Manchester Digital (Paul Spensley, Paul Limbrick and Alan Holding) and they suggested that to circumvent the problem of latency we should consider “layering” the music, one instrument – and one location at a time. Brett Sutton, the technology director at Roosevelt University (where Paul holds his “day job” as professor of jazz (how cool is that??) joined us in trying to make this work.
With Nigel unavailable due to commitments which came up while we were planning the event, we called on Tom Ludvigson, New Zealand’s leading jazz multi-instrumentalist, with deep experience in experimental, on-the-edge music. (His current project, Trip, certainly walks down some marvellously untrodden paths.) Tom agreed to try out this crazy idea – particularly crazy since the music would be travelling in one direction only, with Paul composing it on the spot, Tom playing to what came through his connection and hearing only the drums, Krzysztof hearing both Tom and Paul and finding a space for his bass and synth, but with no closing of the circle, and Paul hearing neither Tom nor Krzysztof. Tom would do this at MAINZ, a music and audio engineering school in Auckland where he lectures.
With the trio put together and the technology roughly laid out, we proceeded to try it out in the course of the week prior to TEDxWarsaw. Using what we hoped would be a fast enough connection at Warsaw University’s Old Library Building, and a lot of trial and error we settled on a solution and managed to make it work, despite the network being down on the first evening we trialed it and slow on the second. A reasonably full trial run on the Thursday before TEDx confirmed that the setup would work in terms of the technology but we still had no idea as to whether it would make sense musically as Paul had a major gig on and was unable to join us. Nail biting time.
At the close of TEDxWarsaw – with Krzysztof having already played an astonishing solo set earlier on in the day – it was showtime. We were running late, one computer managed to catch a cold, there was no time to do a proper sound check, and my slideshow which was meant to accompany and cue the music got screwed up. Ah well, c’est la guerre. I feverishly typed “We’re up. Start the music.” into the chat window and, like magic, Paul’s cymbals came through crystal clear, followed by Tom’s Fender Rhodes. Krzysztof hit the strings.
What followed was indeed an excellent proof of concept. A free-flowing free jazz aura filled the auditorium – decidedly not for everyone but those with trained ears certainly tuned in (I was watching the audience intently.) This was followed by a minute or two of a groove, with Paul laying down a steady rhythm. Unfortunately, just as the guys were getting into it and it seemed to start happening, the connection deteriorated, the tempo sped up then slowed down, the sound became garbled… I decided to slowly fade out the drums and keyboard and Krzysztof took off into a delicious ambient solo to take us out. Finally, Krzysztof said a few apt words about the World still being a little too big for us, despite our best attempts at making it ever smaller. We had hoped for a three-way conversation to discuss the project with the musicians but with the connection having deteriorated and the day essentially run out of time, Krzysztof’s comments had to suffice.
Only the bravest and most adventurous musicians would ever attempt anything of this kind… As far as we know this is the first time was tried out. As a musical experience it was somewhat frustrating and limiting for the musicians and surprising for the audience. As a technology experiment – attempting to use garden variety tools over a fast but not industrial strength broadband line – it worked. It’s my intention to try this out again, with better technology and a budget this time. Yes, did I mention nobody got paid for any of this? That’s commitment to the art. Thank you Paul, Tom and Krzysztof! We’ll do it again, just as soon as technology catches up with ideas.
(Very soon I will publish the slideshow which accompanied the music on the day. Enjoy it alone or with appropriate musical accompaniment.)
Screenshot of TEDxWarsaw.com as at the end of February 2010
Over at TEDx Warsaw we have closed the speaker roster and are busily working on schedules and such things. In the meantime we have been asked to provide some brief background to TED and the incredible global TEDx phenomenon and this is what went up on the site last night, thanks to Adam Liwiński’s incredibly hard web work:
You asked, so here it is: TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design and these were the original “subjects” for what twenty five years ago began as a conference which looked at the impending confluence in these three areas. This confluence is now a fact of life and the original organiser of the conference, American architect and designer Richard Saul Wurman has moved on to other projects. Several incarnations later, TED is a global community, still centered around conferences which take place in the US, UK and, recently, in India but which now includes hundreds of thousands of people who are excited about ideas worth spreading. The foundation which runs the conferences and curates the main website, ted.com, has released what is both an incredibly clever way of broadening the reach of the TED brand and a method of liberating latent creative energy of the intelligent masses. They call it TEDx, a series of TED-like events around the world, independently organised by teams of passionates in each location. The locations so far have been as diverse as the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam, Kibera – the largest urban slum in Africa, in Nairobi, and Shekhawati, a rural area in Rajasthan (where they had to find and bring in hundreds of extra chairs since the crowd just kept getting bigger.)
Banjamin Zander, an orchestra director who spoke at TED recently, has said that TED is about releasing power. We have already witnessed this in the course of organising our event – bright people naturally gravitate towards other bright people, fueled by the excitement of finding new possibilities and opening doors to rich personal connections with people one would not usually meet.
Other than the high quality, concentrated talks given by people accomplished in a whole range of disciplines, the most exciting thing about these gatherings are the compelling conversations they engender – indeed, one of the guiding principles of the TED community is that it should be a space where spontaneous conversations can take place, inspired by the content of the talks. At TEDxWarsaw we are very much following this ethos of allowing a wave of excitement to build and carry the participants into places where they may not have ordinarily gone.
We have curated a very diverse group of speakers for this inaugural event, some of them well known nationally and beyond the borders of this country, others known only within their disciplines. All of them share a passion for their work and are given to exploring paths which can serve as inspiration to others. From scientists to social entrepreneurs and from accomplished musicians to business leaders, we have over twenty passionate, deep, human beings ready to share their stories and their ideas. This is not going to be like any other conference you have been to. Most conferences are vertical, concentrating on a tightly defined professional interest, business discipline, academic subject, etc. The very nature of TED, and by extension of TEDx, is horizontal. So instead of seeing one biologist talking to five hundred other biologists, you are likely to enter a circle where a biologist will be talking to an internet entrepreneur, a marketing expert and a tribal storyteller, and exactly where their ideas and their conversation will take them is anyone’s guess. What’s certain is they all will be passionate about what they’re doing and will be happy to share their specific knowledge with a hope of finding general inspiration.
There are moments when we’re all set on one particular course of action but instead take the other fork in the road when an opportunity presents itself, circumstances change, landscape shifts under our feet…
Given my current involvement with TEDxWarsaw, I’m lucky to be travelling in the company of people who have done one or two interesting things with their lives. This, as they say in America, got me to thinkin’ about exactly how they have got to do those particular things, instead of something else – which in the case of pretty much all of those people would have been equally as interesting and worthwhile so the relative merits of their current vs. possible other occupations are not under discussion here.
Since it’s usually the easiest – or at least quickest – way to start with oneself, I did a rapid audit of the major turning points in my life. This is actually an exercise I have done a few times so it was not as much of a major undertaking as it may seem :) Details, as they say, are not important. The main ‘take-away’ is that, while in journalism school, I was all set to start a news photography cadetship with a major newspaper (not many of those around these days – cadetships, I mean, though the same goes for newspapers) but instead decided to join a rather large community documentary project I read about in my local paper. The project lasted over a year and started to teach me how to work in a team, produce large projects and generally use photography in a range of ways. It also gave me a few life-long friends and resulted in my living in a different country. The path has been somehow parallel to what it would have been had I not followed the “but instead…”, but altogether different.
Today I’m wondering what may have been the “but instead…” point for others and since TEDx is a gathering of some rather brilliant creatures, I’m going to chat to a few of them and get their insights on these turning points and how they have impacted their lives, careers and contribution to this thing we call humanity. The results will be posted here in whatever form they happen to be captured.
Politics and business : it’s a marriage as old as humans’ attempts at social organisation. In the US that marriage has just gone into an even tighter embrace, with the US Supreme Court opening the door to unlimited campaign contributions by corporate interests. Putting aside discussion about the perceived “rightness” of the decision or even any basic common sense in the justices’ declaring corporate entities citizens of the nation, the decision naturally paves the way for a buildup in special interest manouvering, ranging from blunt instrument bludgeoning to razor sharp surgical intervention and from corporate heavy petting in the corridors of power to a full-on orgy of spending within the Beltway and throughout seats of authority big and small.
That much is clear. What I’m more interested in is how this potential blow to US democracy might actually turn out to be good for the planet. Yes, that thought surprised me, too. But consider for a moment some of the ideas put forward by “business greens.” Consultants and a small but growing number of executives are looking at ecology through the lens of hard-headed business and coming up with surprising yet pertinently common sense suggestions : go green not because you like trees and polar bears but because your bottom line needs help. Getting out of the red and into the green might be an appropriate metaphor.
Consider this scenario: companies en-masse wake up to the fact that saving energy and limiting waste equals saving money, which – lo and behold – enhances shareholder value. Shareholders (from the institutions to individuals) press company executives to use their newly gained ability to legally buy, I’m sorry, contribute to the campaign funds of politicians who then push through legislation requiring corporations to, say, save energy or maybe look for alternatives to the increasingly expensive fossil fuels – not in some nebulous “national interest” but because it’s damn expensive not to. Or how about investing in wind farms (campaign contributions from “windy” states), solar energy (that would be, for argument’s sake, Texas and Nevada), wave energy (last time I visited the Pacific North-West there was plenty of it about)… You get the point. Special interest is a double edged sword in the hands of fallible individuals. All that’s required is an adjustment of focus and a clear understanding of how energy innovation can become an economic driver for the entire century.
What’s required is business leadership of the sort of calibre we have not seen for a while, perhaps ever.
Naturally, the door has just been opened just as wide to special interests in the oil and gas business or even marginal farmland owners desperate to paint their trucks greener than green as they drive their genetically modified soya beans to the ethanol depot but that’s the fascinating nature of democracy. It has always been the case of squeaky wheels getting the grease. Except now it seems the greasing of wheels has become a whole lot easier. Maybe it’s an opportunity to do some good. Or maybe the tragedy of the commons is about to ensue. In any event, it’s not going to be a boring year.
It’s that time of the year again. Gingerbread and single malt cookies. Things are looking good. This is a recipe for really rather yummy gingerbread cookies for grown-ups. Meaning not too sweet. Lovely and gingery on the tongue. With a lingering single-malty after taste.
The first step in the preparation of Mrs T’s Gingerbread Cookies is the purchase of right kind of single malt. Laphroaig is our favourite but I understand Balvenie has been known to render pleasant results.
You will need the following ingredients (to end up with enough to fill a generous six-inch cookie jar):
400g of spelt flour – worth the extra search
100g of butter – use the good stuff, really, it’s worth it – and unsalted!
two tablespoons of honey
110g of dark muscovado cane sugar (oh, yeah!)
half a (flat) teaspoon of baking powder
100ml of maple syrup
two small eggs – if you have large ones, improvise
two teaspoons of nutmeg and clove powder (proportions to suit)
half a teaspoon of cinnamon powder – flat or not, as you like it
three cardamom pods – just the seeds, Martha, just the seeds… (crush ‘em, too, of course)
Naturally, you will also require ginger, in powdered form. The exact amount is a matter of personal taste. Three teaspoons seem to do it for us. Now you’re ready to start.
Pour half a whisky tumbler of single malt. Add a few drops of water. Toast the year which has been and the one which is coming soon.
Mix all of the dry ingredients in an over-sized bowl. Melt the butter in a thick-bottomed pan, add honey, syrup and sugar. Slowly melt it all, bring to a simmer and leave aside for 20 minutes or so. Pick up the single malt bottle and read the label. It’s quite educational what information may be gleaned from these scant pieces of paper. Toast Christmas and goodwill to all mankind.
If you know what you’re doing with a whisk, use one on the bowl and its contents. For the rest of us it’s time to put everything into a cake mixer or kitchen whiz. It’s also time to review the content of the tumbler and toast our surroundings and one’s better half.
Mix the dry and wet ingredients on a slow cycle, add the eggs and mix till it all resembles a fairly dry play dough. Take it out and work into a ball with your hands. Don’t forget to disinfect them internally with the single malt first. If the dough sticks to your hands then add a little flour. Only a bit at a time to make it dry.
Wrap the ball of dough in food wrap and put in the fridge for a minimum of an hour and a half. More if you want to enjoy another glass of single malt and some civilised conversation with your other half for a bit.
Now comes the fun bit. Take out your cookie cutters. Of course you need the right ones – bunnies and egg-shapes are generally used at another time of the year. We’re talkin’ wee fir trees, stars, tiny bells and such things. We found our set after weeks of searching at a supermarket in town. The effort one puts into these things… Anyway, now’s the time to put on the Garbarek CD and get rollin’. The quality of your rolling pin will govern the fineness of the cookies so if you’re getting one especially then be sure to get something that is fit for the purpose. Marble’s good, professional quality steel’s nice too. If it’s a plastic job then it needs to be heavy and generally decent-feeling. Cheap rolling pins do not render results which score highly on the “mmmm” scale. Wood, just as a personal note, is best used inside the fireplace.
So, to work. After a celebratory swig of the single malt, after all we’re nearly at the end of the journey here, take the ball of dough out of the fridge and make sure it’s a good regular shape. (The amounts above give you a ball about the size of two fists.) Cut off slabs that are roughly 1.5 cm or somewhere in the vicinity of a half inch in thickness and roll ‘em, roll ‘em, roll ‘em. The trick to rolling dough is not to use too much force, especially at the beginning and definitely not at the end. Nor, particularly, in the middle of the rolling process. Think purposeful caressing rather than heavy-handed intimidation by a Central-Asian regime. It needs to take a bit of time or else the slabs will crumble and you’ll have to start over. For courage, use liberal dashes of single malt. The general idea is to end up with large petals of dough, a couple of millimetres in thickness. No more or the little blighters won’t bake evenly. And be sure to use a sprinkling of flour on the board.
Now you get to use the cookie cutters. Safety Notice: make sure the blades are sterile. I’m sure you can figure out what you have to use for that purpose. Practical Notice: every time you finish cutting a sheet of dough you will end up with some excess bits. Roll them up and work them into a ball before you work them over with the rolling pin again. It’s worth the extra effort.
Bake the trees, stars, etc. on a tray lined with baking paper, in an oven pre-heated to 175 degrees Celsius. If you have fan-forced baking function, use it. (Use Wikipedia or, better yet, Wolfram Alpha to convert to Fahrenheit.) Bake the cookies till the edges begin to darken – which will only take a few minutes. Do not wait till you’ve cut up all the dough but bake in batches. Trust me on this one. Take out and cool before you put them in the cookie jar or else they’ll sweat and you’ll end up with “cookies and no cream” version, which is not what you want.
Once cooled, grab a handful (you ought to have plenty, from the proportions above), pick up the tumbler and single malt bottle – assuming there’s any left – and head for the room with a fireplace or, if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere (lucky sods), the deck. Sample at will.
There you have it. Ginger and single malt cookies. Great any time of year. Particularly agreeable at Christmas. Have a Merry one. And a good year in 2010.
Generations of Varsovians have taken their children to see the “szopka” (Christmas display) at the Capuchin Minor Friars’ monastery in Miodowa Street but unless you happen to go past the place during any other time of year, and at the right time of day, you wouldn’t know that for most of the year the friars provide an important social service, dispensing free food to those who need it. The rules are simple: anyone can show up if they need a free meal. No drunkenness or brawling are tolerated by the brothers – who have seen a lot over the years – but other than a little bit of discipline there are no other requirements.
My friend Marek Seretny, an experienced marketing strategist, has recently taken on the job of co-ordinating a new fundraising effort, aimed at building a larger kitchen and eating hall, and has asked for help in bringing this effort to the attention of the public. Last Friday I attended the lunch (tomato soup was really good!) and shot some photographs of the volunteers at work. These are going to be displayed to the visitors at Christmas szopka-time, perhaps as a reminder that the line between the haves and the have-nots really is not that thick. With luck people will reach into their pockets and the city fathers might also come in with some extra funding.
This post marks a departure from the “creative” direction taken by this blog until now, into the uncharted territory of “new economy”. Life follows art and art is taking this author on a trip beyond the boundaries of what most creative professionals tend to concentrate their efforts on. Hang on tight, this is likely to be a bumpy ride.
The text below is based on a PechaKucha talk I gave last week, two weeks after the idea of “participatory free markets” first crystallised in my head. If you don’t know PechaKucha, it’s an evening of lightning fast presentations by members of “the creative professions.” Mine was something of a departure from the norm on the night :) The slides (an abridged version from the mandatory 20 on the night) are embedded below. If for some reason you can’t see the embed, they are on SlideShare.
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My entire professional life has been spent, some would say mis-spent, on photography and publishing. I’ve done a bunch of books, taken one or two decent pictures and worked with some cool people, so naturally tonight I’d like to talk about … the fundamentals of economics.
This is not as stupid as it sounds since the ideas are actually very much related to my current project, Pixengo.com. This is an internet startup, a media community for travellers which we are building according to the ideas I’ll be talking about.
Capitalism in the modern form has been with us since the time of the Renaissance and its basic principles have been around since the 18th century when Adam Smith wrote his “Wealth of Nations”, but we could say, it’s been a work in progress all along. Marx, the bearded guy on the left, thought he could improve it and we know how that ended up. The next guy along, Rockefeller, perfected it and was the richest man on Earth for a while. The lady here, Carly Fiorina (an accomplished business leader – check out her career if you don’t know who she is) is one of many women who’ve shown that girls can play too, and win. As for the guy on the right, (Madoff) well he just made off with a lot of peoples’ money and is now behind bars.
So you could say we are now at a cross-roads as to how capitalism can develop next. In fact we are living at an evolutionary moment or at least a moment which could have a chance to be evolutionary, given enough persistent work by visionary individuals, not unlike Brother Martin here, (Luther) who nailed 95 theses to a famous cathedral door, starting a process of change. Well, ten years ago four people wrote another 95 theses, accelerating a process of change which was already underway (“Cluetrain Manifesto”.) The key here is thesis #2 : “markets consist of human beings”. What McLuhan foresaw (“The Medium is the Message”, “Understanding Media”) has now come to pass, of course, and over the last ten or fifteen years a number of bright people have looked into the subject of technology freeing up economic potential, starting with Yochai Benkler – we’ll meet him again in a moment. (“Wikinomics”, “Remix”, “Tribes”, “The Long Tail”, We Think”, “Free”, Here Comes Everybody”, “New Rules for the New Economy”.)
Well thanks Mr McLuhan. We now not only can but often have to do jobs which were generally not just unavailable to us – we may not have known they existed. We are competing against everybody else in this global village and everyone now has the potential to become a publisher. But at least we now have the tools, and of course I don’t mean e-commerce, which in itself is somewhat old now.
We are witnessing the birth pangs of an altogether new e-conomy, enabled by technology and populated by visionary companies such as these (Fon, Threadless, SNDA, eBay, Second Life). These are not commerce websites, these are enablers of parallel economic systems. How big is this creation of parallel economic systems? It’s big already but it’s actually still just the beginning. If eBay were a country it would be in the top ten economies of the world, and we have barely begun.
Yochai Benkler puts it very elegantly – this is in fact my email signature now (“Technology creates feasibility spaces for social practice.”) Instead of the social fabric being torn apart by progress, we can actually coalesce around common interests and ideas, thanks to the available technology. This is as much an economic process as a social one. In fact this other bearded guy (Marx) had some of the words almost right but it is only now that we are at the dawn of an era of great individual opportunity – combined with equally great individual responsibility. So we’re talking libertarianism rather than communism.
It’s already been amply demonstrated that everyone can be a producer of goods or services as well as a consumer within the context of the network but we do have to deal with the 80/20 rule, the Pareto distribution (another bearded guy.) A minority of people will always contribute the most, own the most and earn the most but it also means that a lot of people CAN participate down here, along the long tail, and this area right here, at the curve, is where the participatory free market will work.
People are people and Pareto is not going to change his ideas any time soon but with the emerging opportunities we can try to at least flatten the curve here. And this is the new idea. I think we’re actually headed for the emergence of something best described as participatory free market or markets, plural. These are plateaux of aggregated, vertical market-specific economic activity by individuals, enabled by technology and run in ways that are just beginning to be invented.
I googled this term when it first occurred to me. Imagine my astonishment at the google whack – which actually had nothing to do with the phrase I was looking for. The other column is from a week later when I’d tweeted the question of what people thought the term might mean and began to get replies.
So we can see that we are in fact drawing new maps of the world which are actually maps of our social and economic interactions and not maps of topography. We can change the status quo, and I don’t mean the 70’s rock band. In fact these maps are numerous, they overlap and many of the places they represent have the potential to become discrete but related participatory free markets which are not based around geography but around ideas and social interactions. Of course, there are going to be bumps in the road ahead but these are pretty much all related to human nature rather than technology. Technology is easy by comparison. Not least of these is EBI: extreme bureaucratic idiocy – also enabled by technology, which is actually neutral.
This is a work in progress and I look forward to your comments. I’m not an economist and I certainly don’t play one on the wireless so, I’d really like your thoughts on where capitalism is going next and how we can create new spaces for economic and social interaction. Here are some of the conditions that need to be satisfied (“privately owned, technology enabled, individual opportunity, individual responsibility, fair and simple rules, long tail”.) I’m sure there are more, we need visionaries and explorers in this new space, and I look forward to your comments. Thanks and have a great day.
Head to tedxwarsaw.com. We'll be posting information as it comes to hand and registrations for the event will open later this year.
If you’re a TED fan you will know how much raw excitement is packed into those three letters. If you’re not a TED fan, you will become one once you have done a bit of lurking around their website. If you can find a more impressive gathering of brilliant creatures on the face of this planet, I’d like to hear about it!
So it was with considerable delight that I, very quickly, yelled out “definitely” when my friend and business confidante Colin Ude Lewis asked me some months back if I’d like to be involved in putting together a TEDx – independently organised TED event in Warsaw. Now, thanks to the efforts of incredible self-starters Adam Liwinski, Maciej Michalski and Lukasz Alwast, we are underway and TEDx Warsaw is set for March 5 next year. Check it out. And if you’ve got a little spare time on your hands, we’d love help with making it a memorable event, so do get in touch.
Keep an eye on the website – registrations will be open later this year. For now make a date in your diary. Warsaw University, March 5 next year.
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Update : October ‘09
Professional event organiser and TEDster in the making Julian Kozankiewicz has now joined our small team, bringing with him a lot of energy and experience – fuelled by a visit to TED India in November2009. A recent project of Julian’s was an international business and technology conference in Warsaw with The Woz as the keynote speaker – attendance exceeded expectations by a factor of 2x. Not a bad effort!
Some good things take time. OK, most good things take time and often that time is measured in years. Over two years ago I shot some new photographs for my good mate Nigel Gavin’s and Richard Adams’ then up-coming “Recent Works” CD. Time passed which we understand is its job and it does it with admirable patience. A few months back it was all on again, with the exec producer, New Zealand music supremo Roger Marbeck in the driver’s seat, in his recently re-defined role as a recording label boss. (Long may it continue!)
I was given the most enjoyable job of art directing the package which, given we had shot the photographs specifically with the CD in mind, was a most satisfying project. This was the third CD project I’d done with Nigel but only the first one with Richard (who is also a much in-demand abstract painter and whose work was used on the front cover of the package.) In fact, Nige’s amazing, improvised brain-space music is the aural half of the audiovisual Urban Symphony project but that is another story. I understand the CD has quickly gone into its second pressing, which is testament to the wonderful interplay of Nigel’s guitar and Richard’s fiddle, or perhaps more to the point the interplay of their skillful, playful selves. Thanks for the opportunity to contribute to a supreme piece of music-making, guys.
The reviewers seem to like it, and even mention the artwork a few times. Cool!
PS You can find Nigel’s “Thrum” (solo seven string guitar) on iTunes here. (Yup, the cover photo’s mine.) As soon as I have links to other works by Richard or Nigel, I’ll get them up here, too.
Caught 5 minutes of #Legion at a friend's place. Enough not to want to watch the other 95. Dennis Quaid seems to be picking stinkers lately 20 hours ago
Some good things take time. OK, most good things take time and often that time is measured in years. Over two years ago I shot some new photographs for my good mate Nigel Gavin’s and Richard Adams’ then up-coming “Recent Works” CD. Time passed which we understand is its job and it does it with admirable patience. A few months back it was all on again, with the exec producer, New Zealand music supremo Roger Marbeck in the driver’s seat, in his recently re-defined role as a recording label boss. (Long may it continue!)