....................Jay Cousins

In February we participated in a modest event at Betahaus sponsored by jovoto who kindly provided a budget of 500 Euros for some food and material costs. The event fostered a community, and a documentary, as well as numerous products

I just read another press article, and whilst it expresses coherently some of the great things explored and achieved at Palomar 5, it completely misses the point. It perpetuates the myth of the individual above collective output. What is it

The Enablers was one of the many projects explored by Palomar 5. The end goal being communities that would solve their own problems, and reward behaviors that benefitted the community.  It was primarily developed in collaboration with @magovsky, after a

Based on a previous conversation with Peter Bihr and being in a space for 6 weeks where I can do pretty much anything . I decided to play with some basic technology for a change. The supposition is simple. Express

Do too many laws, prevent us from actually doing anything good? George Monbiot highlights, present alarming police activity and our ever steady progress towards a police state in the name of freedom. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/jun/22/kingsnorth-fit-police-surveillance However this question isn’t just about the

Is it possible to create zones and areas in public, where we feel comfortable talking to strangers? Post BarCamp Sheffield 2.1 I was mulling over the impact of the event and some of the technologies we implemented. On analysis I

In response to Dougald Hines call for articles around the theme COMMONSense. and this has been bubbling under for some time now, so it’s time to splurge. Intellectual Property is theft Let us not decieve ourselves any longer, all forms

As part of my work for www.LocalEyes.org, I have identified that an issue faced collectively by Social Enterprises is reaching the “Community”. Many groups already exist that “engage with the community”, ie. they get together and they do stuff. The

This post stems from yet another great talk on Ted, which as well as using the phrase “technosis externality clusterfuck” with reference to urban archictecture, also leaves you with the fantastic “don’t refer to yourself as a consumer, you are

Whilst chaordinating (a word I keep slipping into sentences, and nobody even flinches, I hope they’re not hearing coordinating, or they’re missing the point) a truly epic event (which I really should write something about) with Gabriel Shalom (I should

A terrorist cell acts autonomously, with little communication. It acts according to a strong intrinsically motivated belief system, with a clearly defined objective – terror and disruption. It matters not how the objective is achieved, only that the objective is

Capitalism as a whole encourages psychopathic organisational behavior as illustrated very well in “The Business”. This is not conspiracy only logic. The economic system dictates behavior, our behavior (due to our understanding of this system) is often driven by money.

I’ve heard the phrase Human Resources a lot lately and I have to say it sticks in my throat. Why? Because it embodies the attitudes of corporations and all that is wrong with the system in the first place. To

A common enough question, but one I struggle to answer. When asked recently for a job title or description I flipantly wrote “google me”. Strangely I now have no title. I believe that I’m not alone in this loose definition

Etsy/Folksy/Dawanda meets Instructables Open and distributed models of product development create an environment in which products can evolve, advance, and be produced as needed, where needed. However designers and innovators attitudes repeatedly return to “yes very nice, how am I

I just watched http://www.ted.com/talks/blaise_aguera.html in a bid to get my latest Ted fix, and am very excited by the potential that this technology represents, especially when combined with crowdsourcing. What if people start offering their phones anonymously for specific requests?

What started as a laptop experiment, is proving to be a great technology for events. Please use the hashtag #lbubbles to add your own stories to the talk to me bubbles experiences. Talk to me bubbles have now been successfully

Based on a previous conversation with Peter Bihr and being in a space for 6 weeks where I can do pretty much anything . I decided to play with some basic technology for a change. The supposition is simple. Express

Is it possible to create zones and areas in public, where we feel comfortable talking to strangers? Post BarCamp Sheffield 2.1 I was mulling over the impact of the event and some of the technologies we implemented. On analysis I

Open calendar systems, seem to me to be a massively underexploited gap in the Web 2.0 marketplace. I have yet to find anything that is remotely good enough, and that fully exploits the opportunities that shared time presents. Sharing time

Photo Credit http://www.flickr.com/photos/iwaszewski/ Further to my previous post on Augmented Content, i’d like to follow with an example. The example in question, could remove some of the many issues of media rights that we presently face, if the right profits

There’s been a lot of talk of content, and user generated content, but strangely the phrase augmented content I find greatly overlooked. Especially as the process of content augmentation is one which we appear to be constantly engaged in, albiet

First off why am I writing this on my own blog rather than on the Guardians comment pages? Because they’ve closed comments. Why? I can only presume it’s because they had too many responses, or that they think that the

To start introducing social media into any large organisation, one must first recognise the obvious – Social media is social. It can only be as successfull as the number of people using in, and social forces will come into play.

I just read another press article, and whilst it expresses coherently some of the great things explored and achieved at Palomar 5, it completely misses the point. It perpetuates the myth of the individual above collective output. What is it

Based on a previous conversation with Peter Bihr and being in a space for 6 weeks where I can do pretty much anything . I decided to play with some basic technology for a change. The supposition is simple. Express

Etsy/Folksy/Dawanda meets Instructables Open and distributed models of product development create an environment in which products can evolve, advance, and be produced as needed, where needed. However designers and innovators attitudes repeatedly return to “yes very nice, how am I

Helping you network, by making you look ridiculous. Last year at Barcamp Sheffield 2.1, I undertook an experiment in icebreaking. The idea was inspired by tag stickers I saw at an SI camp meetup in London. Essentially the idea was

Is it possible to create zones and areas in public, where we feel comfortable talking to strangers? Post BarCamp Sheffield 2.1 I was mulling over the impact of the event and some of the technologies we implemented. On analysis I

Open calendar systems, seem to me to be a massively underexploited gap in the Web 2.0 marketplace. I have yet to find anything that is remotely good enough, and that fully exploits the opportunities that shared time presents. Sharing time

I’ve been pondering twitter for a while and how i’d like to use it better (probably like a number of users), being the permanent heretic that I am, never satisfied with the world around me or the tools provided. I’d

Since we’re now all major shareholders in UK banks, can we hold a shareholders meeting? Thing’s I’d like to put to the table chiefly surround the banks investment strategy. I have but 2 requests, one do and one don’t. Do.

Get younguns to film old uns talking about what life was like growing up in a particular geographic location. Will serve to include the old in the digital media revolution and hopefully break down a few of the perceptions that

Do too many laws, prevent us from actually doing anything good? George Monbiot highlights, present alarming police activity and our ever steady progress towards a police state in the name of freedom. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/jun/22/kingsnorth-fit-police-surveillance However this question isn’t just about the

As a society is it not time we began to re-evaluate our treatment of those who perpetrate crimes within the context of the effect upon society. Whilst the notion of punishment serves as a deterent, the actual act of punishment

An obvious statement perhaps, given the opposing views of capitalism and socialism. But we must keep this in mind when assessing the present state of society and how we can affect social change. eg. What good are laws and campaigns

This post stems from yet another great talk on Ted, which as well as using the phrase “technosis externality clusterfuck” with reference to urban archictecture, also leaves you with the fantastic “don’t refer to yourself as a consumer, you are

Ever since Thatcher denied it’s existence society has been in decline, like a Discworld god that no longer has a following. I found this great quote in the Private Eye this morning… “The government was concerned about ANTI SOCIAL BEHAVIOR

Everything is a tool of everything else. We are the tools of Wheat and Grass – http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/214, yet they are also the tools of us. The same applys to religion, our bodies, our minds, rocks, everything. Everything uses everything else.

Imagine walking into a shop, and instead of browsing the goods at leisure you are greeted instead with a request to fill in you address, telephone number, name and date of birth before you could even look at the goods.

I just watched http://www.ted.com/talks/blaise_aguera.html in a bid to get my latest Ted fix, and am very excited by the potential that this technology represents, especially when combined with crowdsourcing. What if people start offering their phones anonymously for specific requests?

A client recently asked me to help them understand “Multichannel Communications” – you can also insert “360 degree campaigns” or various other buzzwords of choice here. Below is my response. Much of it has been delivered before, but the message

It starts with a bold premise. All change does. Bold, unreasonable, uncompromising. Information is a human right I can vouch for that, i’ve been without a laptop for 4 weeks, and I feel intellectually and conversationally crippled. Like someone took

There’s been a lot of talk of content, and user generated content, but strangely the phrase augmented content I find greatly overlooked. Especially as the process of content augmentation is one which we appear to be constantly engaged in, albiet

Pondering the world of web improvements, one of the joys is that if you can think of it it already exists. Fantastic as it means I don’t have to wait for the functionality, or if I do I don’t have

To start introducing social media into any large organisation, one must first recognise the obvious – Social media is social. It can only be as successfull as the number of people using in, and social forces will come into play.

At the Catalyst awards Dan Mcquillan asked “what next?” for the Catalyst Awards and Social Enterprises. He suggested a mash up of all the events together to bring them all under one roof. I suggest taking it a stage further.

It’s half twelve now, so I’ll be brief – Plugin for word that links to a wiki spell tool that allows users to upload new word uses and lingo. Like wiki and plugin for example.

In February we participated in a modest event at Betahaus sponsored by jovoto who kindly provided a budget of 500 Euros for some food and material costs. The event fostered a community, and a documentary, as well as numerous products

What started as a laptop experiment, is proving to be a great technology for events. Please use the hashtag #lbubbles to add your own stories to the talk to me bubbles experiences. Talk to me bubbles have now been successfully

I’m really excited about the atoms&bits festival. I’ve volunteered to help with it, having got the taste for Barcamp/Unconference organising with Barcamp Sheffield 2.1 and Unsheffield. atoms&bits is an un-event, where barcamp and unconference principles are extrapolated across Berlin and

Helping you network, by making you look ridiculous. Last year at Barcamp Sheffield 2.1, I undertook an experiment in icebreaking. The idea was inspired by tag stickers I saw at an SI camp meetup in London. Essentially the idea was

Last year Christophe Valliant and I, had the pleasure of working with students from HFG Karlsruhe developing concepts building on our research project with Fraunhofer ISI, the initial trend outcomes of which can be found here. For this project students

Why do we place so much value on reading, writing and arithmetic? We have created a cultural imperialism through our schooling systems that applies focusses our skills and abilities on 2 forms of communication – that which is described in