lifekludger

Connection, participation and real innovation to solve big problems

I’ve had a hard time getting motivation to get stuff out on Lifekludger of late. I seem to have an unplugged energy drain somewhere. 

However recently the following produced a spark in the Lifekludger engine room….not sure there’s fuel to make it combust, but it’s more than I’ve experienced recently so I’m sharing it.

I have had Deborah Schultz in my feed reader for some time, mulling over some of the snippets she posts, seeing what it is that gels with me and my thinking.

The other day she posted these points. I’ve highlighted the salient bits:

1. The social web and web2.0 - c’mon, this is so much more than throwing sheep and twittering that we are stuck in airports. As I have ranted on this before, in various ways, if you *only* look at these tools as a bigger megaphone for communication you are not looking hard enough! Think real innovation, business and cultural transformation!
2. Back in September, I was sitting with a friend at a conference and he said it best: “never before have so many done so little with so much” [I will provide attribution once/if I get approval from him]
3. The power of tech to bring people together is REAL and VITAL [my trip to Israel reminded me of this]
4. This is only the beginning of some really cool stuff - the beginning. Per Clay’s point yesterday: “the size of our collective cognitive surplus is so large that just 1% participation can bring about HUGE change.
5. How do we encourage and nurture greater participation and develop an “architecture of participation” [nice turn of phrase clay - more on this to come] that benefits business, cultural and political innovation.
6. O’reilly yesterday finally discussed using this stuff to solve big problems - as the pied piper for many developers - I thank you for leading them to a higher cause - hope they hear you.

The highlight points are exactly why I think Lifekludger is needed.

The way that the disenfranchised are treated and empowered needs real innovation to change the current culture in that area. 

The real power lies in the people networks and technology needs to be pressed into play with much greater force and urgency to bring people together in a focused participatory framework and harness this cognitive surplus for the good of a people group which faces some big problems.

Lifekludger may focus on a people group that makes up the community of world citizens - those who are disenfranchised, living with disability or other physical obstacle in their life.

However while this is only one sub-culture that needs transforming - the principals remain the same - get serious about what technology can do to sustain and enhance the lives of real people with real need - NOW! 

Dave

[Flickr photo by cirox]

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Lifekludger Research Lab

Seeing this site and video made me think that a Lifekludger Research Lab would be a good idea. Someone getting behind outfitting Lifekludger endeavours.

Te GRL’s slogan is “Dedicated to outfitting graffiti artists with open source technologies for urban communication”.

How cool would it be to have support for Lifekludging with the motto “Dedicated to outfitting makers with open source technologies for livers through Lifekludging”.

A lab doesn’t have to be geographic. In reality all of Lifekludging is syncronous R&D in the lab of life.

http://graffitiresearchlab.com/?page_id=57#video

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People don’t scale, People Networks do.

I read with interest my good mate, Hugo Ortega’s UberTablet blog. Hugo was the very first guest on our Extraordinary Everyday Lives podcast and, outside of my regular colleagues, has been the single biggest supporter of my Lifekludger endeavours, and indeed myself, in a substantial way - providing equipment to try with my mouthstick especially.
So as I read in his latest blog post about how he’s been snowed under with the things he’s been doing to promote all things Tablet in Australia I’m reminded of what Mike keeps telling me and what we’ve been trying to avoid with Lifekludger.

People Don’t Scale - Networks Do.

But it pays to remember I’m talking about people here when I refer to Networks. Maybe it’s better stated:

People Don’t Scale - People Networks Do.

Hugo has found that he’s become a bottle neck - we each only have 24 hours in our day. It’s a lesson we need to heed in this age of exponential growth in available information and rapidly advancing technological growth, if we are to somehow turn it into knowledge and practical outcomes that can benefit and grow us as people enriched by the age we live in rather than enslaved by it.

Just how we grow a network that can scale and how we can do that while keeping the true to the spirit of why the network exists is another matter. It’s an issue that seems to be evolving at the same time as the rest of the technical issues are that are underpinning it. Maybe why we are seeing such attention paid to social networks.

The answer though cannot lie back in the centralised past as centralisation creates bottlenecks. It can’t rest on one point of contact, a single node. The end goal might be node focused but that doesn’t have to mean node centred.
Maybe, like so many other things, the answer lays buried somewhere in the natural world, the small pieces [people] loosely joined [network], the strength of the geo-desic dome, in the triangle of abundant, heterogeneous, creative people - the ecosystem of humanity.

Connection and Openness.

An human ecosystem based on connection and openness [sharing], focused on a node. That’s the Lifekludger vision.

Dave

Reference (from Mike coming out of discussion with JP) :

ABUNDANCE: speaks to the post scarcity world of the internet - where the cost of storage and distribution approach zero, some very different rules kick in. Kinda crucial to the longtail and the jewels therein.

CREATIVITY: coming up with new ways of doing stuff - sometimes just for the pure fun of it. Whether solving a problem or scratching an itch. Either way, leave your past solutions and old habits at the door. You are not a mindless, replaceable unit of production here!

Technorati Tags: creativity, ecosystem, heterogeneous, hugo ortega, jp rangaswami, mike seyfang, network, puppy

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Alarm backup power from phone lines?

I came across this site called 5min.com. It’s a how-to style video sharing site with heaps of neat tricks and tips.

This video below got me thinking about emergency backup sources for such things as alarms etc. Watch it to the end.

http://www.5min.com/Video/How-to-Get-Free-Electricity-12198

Near the end where the tested light goes on when phone rings is an obvious kludge for those with hearing impairment. However to me it goes beyond the ‘free electricity from phone line’ and the kicker is that this power source could be used as backup for emergency call alarms, door openers etc.

Many years ago I used to sleep on an air mattress for pressure management (since replaced by the magic of a waterbed). The thing with that powered air mattress was if the mains power went off at night and stayed off while everyone was sleeping the bed would go flat and you’d have potential pressure area issues. I often thought of making a battery backed device tat sounded an alarm with power failure. The power source identified in the above video would have been the ideal thing for that application.
Maybe I should make one still, so if the power goes off I’ll be warned that my waterbed could go cold!

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Dave the Lifekludger for Rudd’s 1000 at Australia 2020 Summit

UPDATE: Mark Pesce writes an excellent article on how and why the Summit needs to be and extended conversation:

Laurel talks here about Kevin Rudd’s call for an Australia 2020 Summit [video] to gather ideas from 1000 Australians on 10 issues:

• Future directions for the economy, including education, skills, training, science and innovation
• Economic infrastructure, the digital economy and the future of Australia’s cities
• Population, sustainability, climate change, water
• Rural industries and communities
• National health strategy
• Families, communities and social inclusion
• Indigenous Australia
• The future of Australia’s arts, film and design
• Democracy, open government, the role of the media, the structure of federation, citizens’ rights and responsibilities
• Future security and prosperity Source: Prime Minister’s office

Over at bloggerati.com.au there’s a user generated poll going on for including who we, the people of the web, think should be in the 1000.

I’ve been nominated….so go vote if you think I have anything valuable to add. You just never know.

Vote here for Dave in Rudd’s 1000.

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