Tuesday, November 25, 2003

Familiar Strangers - Another Milgram Idea Reminds me mostly of people I passed daily on the way to classes in College.  Later it's people in office elevators.  Still not connected by commonalities - just proximities.  Commonalities are possible, just unknown. Liz: familiar stranger. Liz Lawley: The Familiar Stranger is a social phenomenon first addressed by the psychologist Stanley Milgram in his 1972 essay on the subject. Familiar Strangers are individuals that we regularly observe but do not interact with. By definition a Familiar Stranger (1) must be observed, (2) repeatedly, and (3) without any interaction. [...] In presentations at conferences (and to students) lately, I've been talking about the importance of technologies like zero-conf networking, particularly as evidenced in OS X Rendezvous-enabled tools like iChat, iTunes, and SubEthaEdit (formerly Hydra). [...] When I open iTunes these days, I often see shared music libraries from people I don't know;mostly students, some colleagues from other departments. The same people often show up in my Rendezvous iChat window. I don't know them, I don't interact with them, but I see them regularly, recognize their virtual presence. Virtual shared public spaces need to get fairly large for this to happen, but it is happening. As fewer people travel by public transport or congregate in public spaces, these can perhaps re-kindle a sense of others around. [Epeus' epigone] 2:45:46 PM

A third morality?. crw from #joiito pointed me to Chris Phoenix's extension to three of Jane Jacob's two moralities: According to Jane Jacobs, the Commercial and Guardian systems each have developed a distinct and identifiable set of ethics. You will be able to identify these ethics in governments, police departments, and a variety of commercial organizations. The Information ethics, and this table, are a synthesis of the work of several authors. If you are not familiar with any organizations that operate by creating information and then giving it away, think of your friends who are avid hobbyists - chances are that they have written articles or put up web sites without being paid. Information - Spread Innovation Commercial - Improve the Status Quo Guardian - Maintain the Status Quo Imagine a programmer working at 2 AM to add a feature to an Open Source program he didn't write. The programmer is not paid for this work; he does it because he wants the program to be more usable and more popular; he has been working for ten hours without a break.  At 2:30 AM he adds his name to the list of authors, uploads the improved program to a web site for free distribution, then spends the next hour reading free articles on-line. Imagine a small neighborhood shop. The employees should be ready to do business with anyone who walks in, and must maintain a reputation of honesty with both suppliers and customers. The store must continually improve, or the other stores will lure away its customers. A small business owner does not have a lot of free time and must work efficiently. Imagine a fortress guarding a frontier. The soldiers must always be prepared to fight, but most of the time they are training or relaxing. Strict discipline is necessary to make them a unified fighting force. One traitor, or paid spy, can get them all killed. Visiting merchants are a distraction and a security problem; too much money floating around can weaken their dedication to the task. Shun force Shun force [Rely on force] Shun trading [Rely on trading] Shun trading Use intelligence  Use initiative and enterprise Exert prowess Publish all information Be honest Deceive for the sake of the task  Be idealistic Be optimistic Be fatalistic Ignore comfort Promote comfort and convenience Make rich use of leisure Respect authorship; Ignore ownership Respect contracts [Defend your territory] Demonstrate the superiority of your own ideal Dissent for the sake of the task Be obedient and disciplined Invent and create Be open to inventiveness and novelty Adhere to tradition Shun authority [Adapt to the system] Respect hierarchy Collaborate easily with strangers and aliens Collaborate easily with strangers and aliens Be exclusive Accept largesse Be thrifty Dispense largesse Be unique; Develop a reputation Be industrious Be ostentatious Be productive Invest for productive purposes Take vengeance Cooperate Compete [Fight, when necessary] Be skillful Be efficient Be loyal Gain mindshare Come to voluntary agreements  Show fortitude Treasure reputation [Treasure financial success]  Treasure honor [Epeus' epigone] 2:42:07 PM

Geographic Network Effects. Sunday's Washington Post has a fascinating story about the battle between brain-drain and brain-gain cities [via Interesting People]. In essence, smart entrepreneurial people like to hang out with other smart entrepreneurial people. And whereas Cleveland was the center of cutting edge technology at the turn of the 20th century, these days it's Seattle, Austin and Silicon Valley. While the article never uses the words "network effect," it clearly describes an increasing return to the value of moving to where the other smart people are. And given that this movement results not from business capital efficiency (which has typically driven such geographic shifts) but instead from individual quality of life decisions, the trend is uncharacteristic of recent times: The winner-take-all pattern of the past decade differs substantially from the Rust Belt decline and Sun Belt growth of the 1970s and '80s. Then, manufacturing companies moved south in search of a low-wage, nonunion workforce. Now, talented individuals are voting with their feet to live in cities where the work is smart, the culture is cool and the environment is clean. Migrants on the move to winner-take-all-cities are most accurately identified by education and ambition, rather than by skin color or country of birth. They are part of a striving class of young Americans for whom race, ethnicity and geographic origin tend to be less meaningful than professional achievement, business connections and income. One of the more enjoyable fads to watch in the 90's was every city's desire to create a silicon-based moniker... Silicon Alley and Silicon Hills were probably the two best remembered (New York and Austin, respectively) but every city from Baltimore to Bombay came up with something. As has become tremendously evident to those cities, you can't just build a Silicon Valley overnight. Besides building the culture of entrepreneurialism (i.e., failure-friendly), it's about creating a steady flow of new talent and youth as well as a mix of new cultures and ideas. It's never been a secret that major hotbeds of entrepreneurial activity are centered around major universities. But now it is clear that cities can establish "lock-in" as long as they continue to let that culture grow. [VentureBlog] 2:35:58 PM

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