Interesting details in this must-see interview of David Marty, conducted on June 16 by Chris Spannos, giving an inside view of the Spanish events and mobilizations: (if the video does not show up, as something seems wrong with the embed code, click here) You need to install or upgrade Flash Player to view this content,… Continue reading
Catalan Police Sabotage Peaceful Protesting
June 15th saw a demonstration in front of Barcelona’s regional Parliament as politicians took to their jobs which, apparently, turned violent. Events have been broadly used to discredit the #15M Spanish protest movement by politicians and media channels. Most aware of the movement have felt frustrated and outraged, adding to the general indignation, first because… Continue reading
We Volume 5: special issue on ‘flat’ leadership
Here’s the editorial introduction to the special issue: “In this issue we turn to the question of how the WE correlates with leadership in a networked world. At first sight the dynamic, self-organizing amorphous “WE” might seem a strange bedfellow to the strict, unbending, authoritarian ideas of “leadership” mainly found in business. But in a… Continue reading
An Analysis of Social Media’s Power for Social Change
There is a lot of discussion around trying to understand the power (or not) of social media to achieve social change. This article looks to link to tweet density with on-the-ground social protests in Europe. Its an interesting idea, but without the data behind it, it is hard to say if this is a pattern… Continue reading
The state of the art for Widely-Distributed Batteries for Renewable Energy
As grid parity looms, the new “holy grail” is the discovery of ways to store millions of watts of excess green electricity for times when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine. The day when such large-scale energy storage becomes practical and cost-effective now too seems within reach The status so far, excerpted… Continue reading
The Philosophy of Peer Learning: Educational Philosophy and Theory
Editors: DANIEL ARAYA, MICHEL BAUWENS & FRANCO IACOMELLA Description Peer production has become an important organizing logic for a network-driven era. Social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, Ning, flickr, YouTube and Wikipedia, are facilitating social connectivity on a massive scale. Developments in ICT networks now define and shape information production and potentially transform the organization of… Continue reading
The emergence of a ‘nuclear knowledge movement’ in Japan
1. The Japanese political scene is being drastically shaken up by the massive demonstrations and meetings that took place on June 11th throughout Japan; and also by the Italian people’s victory at referendum the following day. The day Italy made a decision against nuclear power, a Japanese poll finally reached 70% for “abolishing nuclear power… Continue reading
Spanish Citizens Reject Pact of the Euro
A very convinced Spanish citizen explains why the Pact of the Euro must be rejected. Yesterday, Sunday 19th saw massively attended demonstrations in all major cities against the Pact of the Euro among the rest of grievances being protested in the country since #15M. #19J felt especially important as the Pact of the Euro is… Continue reading
Debunking Gladwell’s ‘The Tipping Point’
This is an interesting article that looks at counter-views to Malcolm Gladwell’s best-seller, The Tipping Point, which argues ‘The Law of the Few’ where a select group of ‘influencers’ have a key influence over the trends of society at large. Herb Schaffner’s article argues that Gladwell kind of missed the point – in that yes… Continue reading
Activism Without Leadership: the Invisible Network of Britain’s Eco-Activist Subculture
If every protestor is as valuable as another, then oppressors must eliminate every single one in order to quell the movement. * Article: Creating the Impossible. The Invisible Network of Britain’s Activist Subculture. by Avery Oslo. Civil Society Zine. Excerpts from Avery Oslo: “In this essay I will explain how the invisible network of environmental… Continue reading
Towards Decentralized Renewable Energy: policy lessons from California and the U.S.
Community Power makes a powerful case for decentralized renewable energy generation. After reading this report, it’s hard to imagine that policy makers would be content to allow renewable energy development to continue under the conventional central-station model. * Report: Community Power: Decentralized Renewable Energy in California. By Al Weinrub. Excerpted from John Farrell: “Reaching our… Continue reading
Short history of the recent events in Greece, and what they portend
The people in the squares have started, again, to believe that they have the freedom and the responsibility to act; they are urging radical change through the creation of different personal and social relations. (for updates, see this daily blog attempting to neutralize the blackout here) Excerpted from a longer review of recent mobilizations, by… Continue reading
Transitioning towards an economy of meaning
Written by Safa Alai: “An economy based on creation and exchange of meaning is rushing to dominate what most of us do for a living. Here we discuss the reasons. Human economy has evolved from hunter-gatherer, to agricultural, to industrial and now to knowledge-based. Each transition has been faster than the transition before it, the… Continue reading
Shanzai!! How China’s Cell Phone Pirates Brought Down Middle Eastern Governments
Excerpted via Solidarity Economy, originally in Fast Company. Part 1: Background and origins in Taiwan and China “In 2004, a Taiwanese electronics firm named MediaTek unveiled its latest product–a cell-phone-in-a-box aimed at manufacturers, equipped with everything they needed to make the guts of a working phone on one chipset. Write some software, add features, and… Continue reading
What crowdsourcing really means and why we shouldn’t like it
Excerpted from Tiberius Brastaviceanu : “To put it bluntly, to my ear “crowdsourcing” sounds like “flock milking”. I don’t like the term and I don’t even like the concept it stands for. But there’s more than what I personally like or dislike. I believe that this concept is not going to survive. It simply doesn’t… Continue reading
Call for papers: Expanding the frontiers of hacking
A call for papers on “Expanding the frontiers of hacking. Bio-punks, open hardware, and hackerspaces” has been issued by Critical Studies in Peer Production (CSPP), a new open access, online journal that focuses on the implications of peer production for social change.. The papers collected will be published in a future special issue of CSPP…. Continue reading