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Clay Shirky: How cognitive surplus will change the world

  • Ushahidi was created by two blog readers who had time (72 hours) to create a platform on which a person can congregate information - aggregates it and make it public, people loved it, so they turned it into an open source platform.
  • The ability of the world population to collaborate on free projects
  • A trillion hours a year exist for free projects
  • When a new technology steps in people always ALSO use it for throwaway stuff (e.g. LOLcats)
  • It's tempting to want the abundance without the LOLcats, but it doesn't work that way
  • Freedom to experiment means freedom to experiment with anything.
  • Even with the printing press we got porn before journals
  • 'Design for generosity' our intrinsic motivations are more powerful than our bosses telling us to do something
  • Deterrence theory - add a punishment, people will do less of that thing
  • Study - when you add a punishment, people do MORE of that thing - if you pay the fine you pay it and you feel nothing, it's more powerful preventer of bad behaviour to feel bad or to feel good about exercising social constraints, AND after the fine is removed the behaviour still doesn't change.
  • Communal value - where LOLcats works, we share, we commune, civic value satisfies the whole community, all the people on the planet
  • "Free cultures get what they celebrate" (Dean Kamen) - reward the people that give civic value and you can change society

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