101 Culture

This is a blog about the emergence of a digital culture. What might it look like? What can we see already?

And all my other details are kept at benmason.org.


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Wifi now capable of adopting a loose structure

One of the tenets of digital culture that I think about the most is loose structure, like this post about The Pirate Bay court case.

Many internet-born organisations like The Pirate Bay or like Wikipedia show organisational structures that are self-regulating and organic as opposed to the rigid, hierarchical corporate structures we tend to work and learn in now.

And I was reminded of this today when the new Wifi standard was announced., This allows wireless devices to connect to each other to form networks rather than just to a central hub. Your phone will get an internet connection via your laptop rather than a central router, for instance. It makes much more sense. And it ois reminiscent the decentralised and loose structures mentioned above.

Not a major point but one worth noting, nonetheless.

BBC article here:

How social media can make history

If you work in marketing it's easy to be blinded by the hype in the phrase 'social media'. In this TED talk, internet sage Clay Shirky simply explains why it's important and why it's a huge societal change that we're living through.
http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_cellphones_twitter_facebook_can_make...

The man with the mic no longer holds the power

There's a nice insight and some sound advice for public speakers over at Jeremiah Owyang's blog. He talks about the power a public speaker has held since the microphone was invented.

Now Twitter unites people around a topic so quickly, the audience can be more amplified than the speaker. They can easily commune around negative feeling to the speaker as he's speaking. And the nature of Twitter amplifies it so fast. The backchannel has apprehended the power.

I wonder if we'll see this shift in other areas. The house of commons perhaps?!