The following entry is an overview of a group essay on Social Media, Viral Marketing and Crowdsourcing.
About Social Media
by Norbert Kaareste
When trying to define what is social media, one would be greatly bedazzled as the term has gotten so wide-spread. Almost every bit of information published over the World Wide Web could be defined as social media nowadays.
But by the common understanding the term "social media" originated from the year 2004, when Chris Shipley (Co-founder and Global Research Director) coined the term on The BlogOn 2004 conference (July 22-23, 2004) where he focused on the "business of social media". "Shipley and Guidewire Group used the term "social media" in the months leading up to that event to discuss the coming together of blogging, wikis, social networks, and related technologies into a new form of participatory media." 1
So overall social media is everything that is produced/written by the consumers (of information) for the consumers. Modern web-based technologies (blog-platforms etc.) have greatly enhanced this tendency and most likely will continue to do so.
What defines today's social media
When one looks at the history that shaped today's social media, it is imminent, that ever since the beginning the common man (the consumer by the old system) is the media (http://socialmediarockstar.com/history-of-social-media). When trying to define, what is social media today, one thing is carved in stone: its a medium that is produced by peers for peers.
The second great factor shaping the social media is the internet. While it could be possible to implement social media peculiarities on the old medium (eg. magazines) (http://springwise.com/media_publishing/24hourmag/), it is imminent that without the internet the social media wouldn't exist, as the neccessity to share and publish rapidly and easily is only available through internet.
There are some other terms that have help to generate the idea behind social media:
Web 2.0
One of the most important factors influencing social media from its start are the principles that form web 2.0.
To better comprehend the term, it is important to see its origins. While there are many opinions about what is web 2.0, experts have agreed that web 1.0 was the readable web (Cormode & Krishnamurthy 2008) and 2.0 is the writeable web (O´Reilly Media 2005). Readable web in this context means that all of the content in the internet was one-way communicated: author published his or hers work on the internet and the readers could only consume. Web 2.0 brought the ability to alter that content, either by republishing it interactively (sharing), giving instant feedback to the author and/or making the author’s role universal – everybody is a content consumer and provider today.
User-generated content
A study conducted by eMarketer in early 2009 found that the number of Internet users who consume user generated content and who create it will shoot up significantly in the next four years:
* By 2013, nearly 155 million US Internet users will consume some type of content created by users, up almost 34% from 2008
* The number of content creators will grow to 114.5 million by 2013, an almost 39% increase from 2008
* By 2013, 51.8% of all US Internet users will be content creators, up from 42.8% in 2008
http://www.toprankblog.com/2009/10/user-generated-content/
User generated content can and should be seen as the backbone of social media, as stated before the peer to peer system supplementing the social media solely depends on user generated content.
Virtual community
The words "virtual community" and "online community" have been bandied about, hyped and interpreted in many ways. According to Boetcher et al "Online or virtual community is the gathering of people, in an online "space" where they come, communicate, connect, and get to know each other better over time." http://www.fullcirc.com/community/communitywhatwhy.htm
The reasons why people go through the effort to gather into communities comes from five factors (Boetcher et al):
* To socialize
* To work together (business)
* To work together (community - geographic)
* To work together (issues)
* To have topical conversations
Examples of social media
One of the most comprehensive classification of social media comes from CNET blog WebWare. WebWare generates every year a top 100 of web applications that feature web 2.0 principles. In the year 2009, the classification used by WebWare (being also a good classification of social media types) were:
Music & Video
This category of social media could also be described as the entertainment section, as music and video publishing and sharing on the internet is an evolution from traditional media to new media (from radio, TV to internet).
Browsers & Extensions
Although technical in its standard values, today a web browser could be seen as paper (or print-machinery) is to journalism. Interesting example of a browser and social media crossover is the web browser [Flock], that defines itself as a social web browser.
Commerce
Commerce as a type of social media has also developed a long way, with sites like Craigslist and Woot! being the most famous example. Craigslist started almost fifteen years ago as a one-man project and today it is one of the top 10 most visited websites in USA.
Communications
This segment mainly offers instant messaging platforms but nevertheless the developments in communication sector will greatly affect the social media sphere, as the Google Wave (new understanding of e-mailing) is thought to be the ultimate predecessor to today's social media (http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/mid-year-2009-predictions-social-media-facebook-kills-twitter-google-wave-launches/).
Storage
Although simplistic in their way of working, file-sharing sites like Skydrive or Dropbox are also benefiting to the widespread of information, examples being in the case of Skydrive massive user-generated file-collections of information on a certain subject.
Location Based Services
Location Based Services have developed greatly over the last few years and it is wise to believe that the highpoint of LBS is soon to be arrived, as almost every person in the world has a mobile and of these persons the share of those that own a smart-phone, is rising (http://www.mobile-weblog.com/50226711/smartphones_rising.php). LBS is more or less an extension of the media (social media) to a persons location, thus ultimately breaking the last physical barriers that have tormented media from the start (there has not been any services offered that are based on the clients location (more detailed than ~county level).
Productivity
Websites focusing on productivity (like Google Docs, Zoho) have long benefited to the growth of social media. One of the most common collaboration methods today are among others the joint editing of documents over Google Docs or services alike.
Search & Reference
This segment is a type of social media, that is truly innovative, as the times before social media a person, who had the ability to recommend something (journalist, editor etc.), was in a power stance. Today, using common sites like Answers.com anybody can recommend and reference on any subject to persons who are willing to listen. Another interesting site Scour.com defines itself a a social search engine, offering its users the ability to co-search and comment the results for others.
Social Networking & Publishing
Last but not least - the social networks (Facebook, Myspace) have long been the most outstanding examples of social media boom. Facebook, with its more than 350 million users worldwide is definitely a good example of a new media environment.
Alternative classifications
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media#Examples
* http://microgeist.com/2009/04/the-10-types-of-social-media-sites-you-need-to-be-on-and-why/
* http://kevinmcintosh.com/uncategorized/different-types-of-social-media
* http://www.hotelmarketingstrategies.com/six-basic-types-of-social-media-and-which-is-best-for-you/
* http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/080408-070000
Future of the scene
One of the most universal predictions to social media development is that its users / producers will be more universal by their profile. As today there are multitude of sites, that offer social media functions, the membership of those sites is dependant on pre-registration. Imagine what would happen to the userbase, if suddenly anybody with a OpenID, or Google ID or etc. could login and start using the service. The growth of usage wouldn't be tremendeos but it would still be significant. http://blogs.forrester.com/groundswell/2008/03/the-future-of-s.html
Another big change waiting the social media sphere is the "un-walling" of social media platforms. Today, if you post your valuable input to a number of sites that you are a member of, there is a multitude of steps to be taken by a friend of yours to "consume" that content (register a profile, add you as a friend, browse your profile). It is believed that eventually there can be only one system for social media (most commonly is Google Wave named) that offers the platform for easy consumption by any person interested (and accepted by the producer). http://www.wired.com/dualperspectives/article/news/2009/06/dp_social_media_ars
A more technical overview of possible ways the future might (or will) shape social media is given Mike Laurie http://mashable.com/2009/06/01/social-media-future-tech/, who sees the social media develop in ways, that could today be seen as too "futuristic" (RFID monitorin of your life-style, face-recognition software etc.).
About web 3.0 and social media
As stated before the social media (what it is and how we use it) was and is greatly defined by web 2.0 principles. Therefore it should be taken under consideration, what affects would web 3.0 (or some other abstract development of the current web) have on the social media sphere.
One could say that the main factors constituting the web 3.0 in the coming years are semantics, AI and mobility (http://computer.howstuffworks.com/web-302.htm). Web browsers (or PCs themselves, or technological mobile accessories) will turn out to be more and more the browsers who offer assistant-like work outcomes for users to consume. This will be done by using elaborate schemes of semantics and also some degree of AI by the “automated browser”. Also it is clear, that information (content) will forsake all kinds of limits to its spread, meaning that it will be accessible from any type of machine or from any place on earth. (http://norcatimke.blogspot.com/2009/10/what-will-constitute-web-30.html)
In conclusion
It is understood that social media can encompass a multitude of technologies available today on the internet. However the core subject of social media is and will be sharing. And sharing by peers to peers. This type of sharing doesn't have no limits, as today spheres like communication (blogs, social networks), collaboration (wikis, social bookmarking), multimedia (photo, video sharing), reviewing (product reviews, community Q&A), entertainment itself (virtual worlds) and other are defining social media.
But it will definitely not stop here, as there are tendencies that will reshape again our experience with social media. Of these tendencies the important ones to point out are universal accounts (http://www.slideshare.net/charleneli/the-future-of-social-networks?src=embed) - meaning that our profile on the internet will ultimately be singular - with bits of it publicesed to different social mediums. Another important notion is the shift of audience. As in the old days there were the audience and the stage (http://www.slideshare.net/irata/the-future-of-social-media-presentation-772765), now the audience has turned there eyes on each other, and the group sizes are decreasing. But this turns the audience instead of the stage to the mass medium. Time magazine understood it in 2006, when it chose YOU to be the next big thing (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html).
References
* http://www.wired.com/dualperspectives/article/news/2009/06/dp_social_media_ars
* http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/future-social-media/
* http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/5-trends-where-social-media-marketing-is-heading-in-2009-and-beyond/
* http://www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/65077
* http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/law_librarian_blog/2009/10/where-do-you-think-social-media-is-heading.html
Showing posts with label elnm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label elnm. Show all posts
Sunday, December 13
Tuesday, December 8
Free versus Open Source: any difference?
As I understood, free software means, that you'll get the package with no cost (Apple OS) but the only thing "free" about it is that you don't have to pay no entrance fee.
Open Source on the other hand means, that the source code is free for everybody to edit and view, which basically implements that the software itself is free also as nobody would pay for something that they can copy and develop themselves for free.
In a hacker way of thinking - of course Open Source software is a better option, as the idea goes further in terms of fighting IP.
I myself would agree with open source method also, as its final in its paradigm (free software). Also as I've used GPL licensed software (FileZilla) and other free (Mozilla), it seems that the business model (or development) model is more persistent to expand (and continue) than the simple free-software model.
Open Source on the other hand means, that the source code is free for everybody to edit and view, which basically implements that the software itself is free also as nobody would pay for something that they can copy and develop themselves for free.
In a hacker way of thinking - of course Open Source software is a better option, as the idea goes further in terms of fighting IP.
I myself would agree with open source method also, as its final in its paradigm (free software). Also as I've used GPL licensed software (FileZilla) and other free (Mozilla), it seems that the business model (or development) model is more persistent to expand (and continue) than the simple free-software model.
Sunday, November 29
About Restrictions to Copying: Useful or Bloat?
Copying restrictions is an interesting subject to focus on, as it is very easy to say to anyone, who disagrees with these principles, that he or she is a thief (communist, leech etc).
Restrictions in a modern world are reactions to problems. We have smoking restrictions because of health-problems, driving-restrictions to safen the driving experience etc. As in the western world, I believe copying restrictions are also solutions offered to problems. Problems like the loss of revenue, theft of intellectual property etc.
I know - information is not like metal or a television set - more than one person can consume it without consequences to other consumers experience. But the expectation put on software developers by themselves and owners are the same as in the business of metal-production or home electronics.
Investors demand their revenues, employees want their salaries and governments ask their taxes.
Copyright restrictions are the answer to the problem of software theft - a multitude of apparatuses lose their monetary out-take when a person pirates software. Why should we look at this situation any different than eg. a person stealing a sports-bag from a shopping centre.
I repeat -the expectations put on software production are the same as in the rest of the market and this wont change until the market changes.
If one cannot find means to use proprietary software, it should shift to software suitable for him or her in monetary terms.
But what about my CD-s, DVD-s or downloaded music? As stated before - it is the producers right (artists in this case) to choose how a person can handle its creation. As mentioned before - there is a ocean of free alternatives offered.
Restrictions in a modern world are reactions to problems. We have smoking restrictions because of health-problems, driving-restrictions to safen the driving experience etc. As in the western world, I believe copying restrictions are also solutions offered to problems. Problems like the loss of revenue, theft of intellectual property etc.
I know - information is not like metal or a television set - more than one person can consume it without consequences to other consumers experience. But the expectation put on software developers by themselves and owners are the same as in the business of metal-production or home electronics.
Investors demand their revenues, employees want their salaries and governments ask their taxes.
Copyright restrictions are the answer to the problem of software theft - a multitude of apparatuses lose their monetary out-take when a person pirates software. Why should we look at this situation any different than eg. a person stealing a sports-bag from a shopping centre.
I repeat -the expectations put on software production are the same as in the rest of the market and this wont change until the market changes.
If one cannot find means to use proprietary software, it should shift to software suitable for him or her in monetary terms.
But what about my CD-s, DVD-s or downloaded music? As stated before - it is the producers right (artists in this case) to choose how a person can handle its creation. As mentioned before - there is a ocean of free alternatives offered.
Software Licensing in 2015: a Prediction
I personally believe, that the upcoming years will sadly unify the whole personal computer market, meaning that the experience we have using different software products will be more native (boring in the sense of it-fanatics, but easy in the sense of common-user).
This unification at the moment will lead us to two types of software - web-based (producer owned) and pc-based but web-enhanced software. Perfect example of a web-based software is Google with its Services (Docs, Gmail, Calendar etc.). These application fulfil the common needs of a user and don't cost anything to him or her. But these solutions are easily manageable, meaning that the market will dumb-down (simple actions like "Go to Tools - Options and do that" will soon become too elaborate for the user). The other way is the Microsoft way - meaning people will still have a monetary entry-point to gain software and also they have to pay usage-fees to the company, when wanting support and updates to one's software.
We cannot say, which way is better, because to me (as a it-fanatic) it is overall anyway sad, that this unification (or standardisation) of the market is happening, because new innovative solutions are now harder to be made available because of the extensive standardisation. But as stated - the common user will greet the changes.
The changes are also greeted because the battle of paid software will soon end, as there are more and more solutions, which don't cost anything to the user and still look good and function as wished. However I don't believe that the free (usually web-based) software will rule the market by itself, as Microsoft model is more traditional and "safe" for the user and the money one has to spend to get software, will overall be in-significant to him or her (as Microsoft and alike will drop somewhat their prices, to better compete with Google and alike).
I don't have great faith in OpenOffice or smaller projects, which work as a Microsoft product but follow the Google paradigm. As the user-base will want more standardized products, OpenOffice (or other alternatives to Microsoft, whether paid or not) will seem either too difficult to use for the user or just a cheap copy, which is also avoided.
PS: Microsoft and Google in this article don't stand for the companies named, but rather symbolize the leaders of the sector (eg. in web production Dreamweaver vs. xxx; in photo editing PhotoShop vs. xxx etc.).
This unification at the moment will lead us to two types of software - web-based (producer owned) and pc-based but web-enhanced software. Perfect example of a web-based software is Google with its Services (Docs, Gmail, Calendar etc.). These application fulfil the common needs of a user and don't cost anything to him or her. But these solutions are easily manageable, meaning that the market will dumb-down (simple actions like "Go to Tools - Options and do that" will soon become too elaborate for the user). The other way is the Microsoft way - meaning people will still have a monetary entry-point to gain software and also they have to pay usage-fees to the company, when wanting support and updates to one's software.
We cannot say, which way is better, because to me (as a it-fanatic) it is overall anyway sad, that this unification (or standardisation) of the market is happening, because new innovative solutions are now harder to be made available because of the extensive standardisation. But as stated - the common user will greet the changes.
The changes are also greeted because the battle of paid software will soon end, as there are more and more solutions, which don't cost anything to the user and still look good and function as wished. However I don't believe that the free (usually web-based) software will rule the market by itself, as Microsoft model is more traditional and "safe" for the user and the money one has to spend to get software, will overall be in-significant to him or her (as Microsoft and alike will drop somewhat their prices, to better compete with Google and alike).
I don't have great faith in OpenOffice or smaller projects, which work as a Microsoft product but follow the Google paradigm. As the user-base will want more standardized products, OpenOffice (or other alternatives to Microsoft, whether paid or not) will seem either too difficult to use for the user or just a cheap copy, which is also avoided.
PS: Microsoft and Google in this article don't stand for the companies named, but rather symbolize the leaders of the sector (eg. in web production Dreamweaver vs. xxx; in photo editing PhotoShop vs. xxx etc.).
Monday, November 23
About GNU GPL
I will introduce a small SWOT analysis of the GPL system, looking at the situation from strictly my point of view:
S
- high usability rate (since its free, users and developers have higher access to it)
- high usability satisfaction (since the code is available, it offers clients the ability to modify the software to meet one's needs)
- simplicity (as the code and software is unprotected, it is
W
- unable to capitalize (if everybody can modify your work and redistribute, it is absurd to ask money for your creation)
- high cost of doing business in comparison with the copyright field (using GPL one will lose incomes familiar to copyright section, eg. licence fees or update fees)
- lack of investors (because the business model is common only in software engineering, investors are afraid to put large amount of money into the project (planes are built by patents, sneakers by trademarking, films by copyright) - GPL doesn't follow the trend of the marketplace, being an alternative therefore never receives a lot of investments
O
- spread of the principle (for GPL to really gain ground, it is important to force-spread the GPL paradigm to different sectors of business. Wikinomics by Tapscott*)
- decrease of digital divide (if GPL turns into the main force behind software engineering, business and science can gloom in states other than US or EU, thus decreasing the monetary and information gap for example between Africa and the rest of the world)
- lower costs of doing business (as GPL mainly offers freeware, it is logical to assume, that the cost of doing business will lower for participants)
T
- Although the decrease of profits when using GPL would be imminent (thus a threat), I would assume the turnover would quite rise instead because of the new market-enterers, who gained opportunity thanks to GPL licenses.
- Rise of competition (although in economics, competition is greeted, it is still a false-greeting to me, as we see the majority of successful businesses in the world being monopolistic). GPL will definitely raise the competitive level, as new enterers are sure to access the market.
- Fragmentation of the market (as more and more new-comers enter the market, it would be impossible for the common-man to work with the computer. We all (in every age) can create documents using wordpad or Office - imagine now this sector being popular by 20 different software solutions. Some sort of it-speciality is needed then. Although PHP is a "free language", not much of the people know how to create it. First steps in that field by common people are made using Word (sic!), Dreamweaver of simply WYSIWYG methods offered by the platform (Google Docs).
In conclusion GPL is and was a very promising way of thinking about IP in the field of information technology. But if this perception doesn't spread, it will forever (or for a long period) be stuck in this field, always having to empower its existence and fight the ongoing waves of copyright in software engineering.
S
- high usability rate (since its free, users and developers have higher access to it)
- high usability satisfaction (since the code is available, it offers clients the ability to modify the software to meet one's needs)
- simplicity (as the code and software is unprotected, it is
W
- unable to capitalize (if everybody can modify your work and redistribute, it is absurd to ask money for your creation)
- high cost of doing business in comparison with the copyright field (using GPL one will lose incomes familiar to copyright section, eg. licence fees or update fees)
- lack of investors (because the business model is common only in software engineering, investors are afraid to put large amount of money into the project (planes are built by patents, sneakers by trademarking, films by copyright) - GPL doesn't follow the trend of the marketplace, being an alternative therefore never receives a lot of investments
O
- spread of the principle (for GPL to really gain ground, it is important to force-spread the GPL paradigm to different sectors of business. Wikinomics by Tapscott*)
- decrease of digital divide (if GPL turns into the main force behind software engineering, business and science can gloom in states other than US or EU, thus decreasing the monetary and information gap for example between Africa and the rest of the world)
- lower costs of doing business (as GPL mainly offers freeware, it is logical to assume, that the cost of doing business will lower for participants)
T
- Although the decrease of profits when using GPL would be imminent (thus a threat), I would assume the turnover would quite rise instead because of the new market-enterers, who gained opportunity thanks to GPL licenses.
- Rise of competition (although in economics, competition is greeted, it is still a false-greeting to me, as we see the majority of successful businesses in the world being monopolistic). GPL will definitely raise the competitive level, as new enterers are sure to access the market.
- Fragmentation of the market (as more and more new-comers enter the market, it would be impossible for the common-man to work with the computer. We all (in every age) can create documents using wordpad or Office - imagine now this sector being popular by 20 different software solutions. Some sort of it-speciality is needed then. Although PHP is a "free language", not much of the people know how to create it. First steps in that field by common people are made using Word (sic!), Dreamweaver of simply WYSIWYG methods offered by the platform (Google Docs).
In conclusion GPL is and was a very promising way of thinking about IP in the field of information technology. But if this perception doesn't spread, it will forever (or for a long period) be stuck in this field, always having to empower its existence and fight the ongoing waves of copyright in software engineering.
Science Business
The problem that Soros and the Open Access movement focused on (lack of free or cheap scientific journals) was unknown to me for apparent reasons until last year when I started writing my bachelor thesis.
First - I'd like to state out the more "extreme" problems with scientific journals today - students lack the ability to browse them, as the principles of searching (and outcomes) in systems like EBSCO etc are not similar to what we (or they) are used to use. For example - my 16 year old brother doesn't know how to search Google with aids (using *, ?. + etc) and rather just inputs the word and hopes on the search aid (Google recommendations). Imagine what will happen, if he enters the college (which I hope he does) and tries to use this decades-old system to search for knowledge left by us or persons before us.
The other problem is that there is no universal platform for searching these articles. Imagine, if with have to search the internet from 3 or 4 engines to get a good overview of the subject. Sure it can be done today, but who really uses anything else but Google? (ok, Bing?). And because of the lack of the platform we are left in the situation, where the search results in different databases offer plentiful of results (a great amount of results aka. articles) but just a small fraction of them is eventually fount out by me to be useful to me. Unfortunately.
And only now do i reach to the third problem which is of course the the cost of these journals. Science business at the root of itself is ill to me, as I despise the concept that one should pay money for scientific knowledge. Why? I guess the critique would be the cost of production and reviewing (both academic and linguistic).
I agree with the cost but they can be minimized. The cost of publishing for example can be null - we have options of free-ware software that can be used to publicize the knowledge over internet. If one would like to own a hard copy (for reasons unknown to me forever), then he or she should pay for it (by a price higher than expected). I'd like to point out here the article by Umberto Eco where the gentlemen bashes my dislike of materialized knowledge, but for many reasons I still dislike the idea of printed word.
The cost of linguistic reviewing should be left to the author to carry (with different software and personal linguistic reviewers).
The cost of reviewing the article should be null. Why would a scientist or a researcher take money to review an article? I see the review process being part of what defines a scientist. After all - he or she was on the same position when starting their scientific career. I know that we all are busy - let's execute the laws of economy here then - the options being that there should be then more scientist (reviewers) or the publications should decline (greater time-frame for publicizing). Although here my idea gets its greatest error - we like that the scientific articles get published so rapidly - this gives us more knowledge on fresher subjects.
So I guess to only reason why scientific journals should and would take money, is because of the pressure from the scientific society to get fresher and greater amount of information. Who pays for it, is left to decide by the society, but eventually we all pay for it anyway though taxes so it is here unimportant.
Is this a Digital Divide-causing factor? Of course it is. Martin Hallik from the University of Tartu Library has written many articles on the subject, basically stating that Estonian scientist would get dumber and e-Estonia would further decrease in its innovation because of the lack of funding in scientific journals database subscription.
Imagine what is the situation in Armenia? Tunisia? Zimbabwe?
The divide is and unfortunately will continue to grow.
First - I'd like to state out the more "extreme" problems with scientific journals today - students lack the ability to browse them, as the principles of searching (and outcomes) in systems like EBSCO etc are not similar to what we (or they) are used to use. For example - my 16 year old brother doesn't know how to search Google with aids (using *, ?. + etc) and rather just inputs the word and hopes on the search aid (Google recommendations). Imagine what will happen, if he enters the college (which I hope he does) and tries to use this decades-old system to search for knowledge left by us or persons before us.
The other problem is that there is no universal platform for searching these articles. Imagine, if with have to search the internet from 3 or 4 engines to get a good overview of the subject. Sure it can be done today, but who really uses anything else but Google? (ok, Bing?). And because of the lack of the platform we are left in the situation, where the search results in different databases offer plentiful of results (a great amount of results aka. articles) but just a small fraction of them is eventually fount out by me to be useful to me. Unfortunately.
And only now do i reach to the third problem which is of course the the cost of these journals. Science business at the root of itself is ill to me, as I despise the concept that one should pay money for scientific knowledge. Why? I guess the critique would be the cost of production and reviewing (both academic and linguistic).
I agree with the cost but they can be minimized. The cost of publishing for example can be null - we have options of free-ware software that can be used to publicize the knowledge over internet. If one would like to own a hard copy (for reasons unknown to me forever), then he or she should pay for it (by a price higher than expected). I'd like to point out here the article by Umberto Eco where the gentlemen bashes my dislike of materialized knowledge, but for many reasons I still dislike the idea of printed word.
The cost of linguistic reviewing should be left to the author to carry (with different software and personal linguistic reviewers).
The cost of reviewing the article should be null. Why would a scientist or a researcher take money to review an article? I see the review process being part of what defines a scientist. After all - he or she was on the same position when starting their scientific career. I know that we all are busy - let's execute the laws of economy here then - the options being that there should be then more scientist (reviewers) or the publications should decline (greater time-frame for publicizing). Although here my idea gets its greatest error - we like that the scientific articles get published so rapidly - this gives us more knowledge on fresher subjects.
So I guess to only reason why scientific journals should and would take money, is because of the pressure from the scientific society to get fresher and greater amount of information. Who pays for it, is left to decide by the society, but eventually we all pay for it anyway though taxes so it is here unimportant.
Is this a Digital Divide-causing factor? Of course it is. Martin Hallik from the University of Tartu Library has written many articles on the subject, basically stating that Estonian scientist would get dumber and e-Estonia would further decrease in its innovation because of the lack of funding in scientific journals database subscription.
Imagine what is the situation in Armenia? Tunisia? Zimbabwe?
The divide is and unfortunately will continue to grow.
Anglo-American vs. Continental European: Understanding of IP
When one thinks about the different perceptions of IP (eg. copyright) in the two continents, it is indeed different in many ways. US (UK less) has always had the representation of a Warner-Universal playground, where they state the rules and follow the consumers, while EU has been more of a liberal and consumer-protective state.
This stance derives from the two different judicial systems that rule the EU and US/UK courts. As the model in the US and UK (what is lawful and what is a crime/unlawful) depends on the persons ability to represent itself (lawyers) and the judges/juries perception of the situation (settlements of previous cases), it is rather easy to understand, why the consumers in US are in the losing position. One would imagine that it is quite hard for a person or a group of persons to fight against the conglomerates, when wanting to get their perception legitimized in a courtroom. The army of lawyers standing against them simply disallows it.
The judicial system of continental EU on the other hand is different, having more Deutsche influences. That meaning, that the law has to be written and universally accepted by every member of society. The mark-up of the laws has and will offer citizens the same rights in every situation with similar lines (but different backgrounds). This universality/equality denies media-conglomerates the ability to easily fight against the minorities (anti-current-IP etc.), because the majority usually doesn't like seeing acts criminalized by the courts - therefore the politics (and other persons affecting the courtrooms) don't have the will to support conglomerates that much in their fight.
So in conclusion, the main difference between the two system comes out of different judicial systems - the persons or perceptions under them don't differ as much to me. But if I'd have to choose which one to support, I'm more pro-EU model as I like the concept of laws being universal to everybody, evading then the need to see and organize big-scale courtroom-theatricals.
This stance derives from the two different judicial systems that rule the EU and US/UK courts. As the model in the US and UK (what is lawful and what is a crime/unlawful) depends on the persons ability to represent itself (lawyers) and the judges/juries perception of the situation (settlements of previous cases), it is rather easy to understand, why the consumers in US are in the losing position. One would imagine that it is quite hard for a person or a group of persons to fight against the conglomerates, when wanting to get their perception legitimized in a courtroom. The army of lawyers standing against them simply disallows it.
The judicial system of continental EU on the other hand is different, having more Deutsche influences. That meaning, that the law has to be written and universally accepted by every member of society. The mark-up of the laws has and will offer citizens the same rights in every situation with similar lines (but different backgrounds). This universality/equality denies media-conglomerates the ability to easily fight against the minorities (anti-current-IP etc.), because the majority usually doesn't like seeing acts criminalized by the courts - therefore the politics (and other persons affecting the courtrooms) don't have the will to support conglomerates that much in their fight.
So in conclusion, the main difference between the two system comes out of different judicial systems - the persons or perceptions under them don't differ as much to me. But if I'd have to choose which one to support, I'm more pro-EU model as I like the concept of laws being universal to everybody, evading then the need to see and organize big-scale courtroom-theatricals.
Monday, November 9
Against Intellectual Property
Martin's chapter about the stagnating stance of IP today was interesting to read. The main idea, which was new to me, was his saying, that IP is a theft from the society, as one cannot produce any IP without the work of others before him.
I certainly agree with that position.
But some critique to that point of view still - all men are not created equal. It is fascinating and humane to say that every child has equal capabilities. This is however not the case, as there has been only 1 Einstein, 1 Gates and 1 Kennedy etc. This is a longer discussion so I will not open it now, but I wanted to point out some especially noticeable chapters from the text, so here it goes:
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This to me is the most important outtake of the text. Agreed 100%.
A rather socialist way of perception, but I can understand the origin of that thought, as it would be catastrophic, if people would gain benefits on the basis of their genetics etc. (which play more and more vital role in the success of one).
This is of-course an absurdity that needs to be dealt with. 10 years at max is the normal "durance" of a copyright protection I think.
Exciting, but I disagree. The masses are stupid and I fear that bad ideas have such a great marketing behind them, that nowadays they always pass through.
EXACTLY! Right now everybody in Estonia is bashing the workers - under-qualified and overpaid. But the failure of our business model in companies has been neglected. I understand that doing business in Estonia by Estonians is hard, as we are bitter and jealous of co-citizens success, but one still has to admit, that (party because of the fact before-mentioned) our quality of business-management was and is low.
What? Definitely part worth going into.
Newton and Patents, no way, right!?
How can this be? Educational spending has risen world-wide to my understanding (OECD reports). If that is not the case, then it is truly troubling.
GREAT! I have always thought of this, when listening or reading Ansip's speeches / Savisaar's blogs.
I need to read this! (Alfie Kohn, Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and other Bribes (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993))
This is of-course true and the most recent example of it was the news where Estonia's Academic Libraries revealed, how much do they spent on e-library's (scientific article bases) - the amounts were mind-blowing.
This is to every extent true. A study called "Framing the War" (of Iraq in US Daily Newspapers) showed perfectly how the public opinion was manipulated by major dailies around US.
So why the proposition to justify piracy? I still think that piracy is stealing and it is criminal activity. One has to respect the authors wish to gain money from his or her's work. As there are plenty of free alternatives, piracy to me seems more and more absurd and obnoxious.
Interesting. Again a socialist way of thinking to me but I guess if I focus on the thought more (read more), I would eventually agree with the notion.
And the perfect ending statement:
Review of Chapter 3 "Against Intellectual Property" of the Brian Martin's book.
I certainly agree with that position.
But some critique to that point of view still - all men are not created equal. It is fascinating and humane to say that every child has equal capabilities. This is however not the case, as there has been only 1 Einstein, 1 Gates and 1 Kennedy etc. This is a longer discussion so I will not open it now, but I wanted to point out some especially noticeable chapters from the text, so here it goes:
---
Suppose you have written an essay or made an invention. Your intellectual work does not exist in a social vacuum. It would not have been possible without lots of earlier work -- both intellectual and nonintellectual -- by many other people. This includes your teachers and parents. It includes the earlier authors and inventors who provided the foundation for your contribution. It also includes the many people who discussed and used ideas and techniques, at both theoretical and practical levels, and provided a cultural foundation for your contribution. It includes the people who built printing presses, laid telephone cables, built roads and buildings and in many other ways contributed to the "construction" of society. Many other people could be mentioned. The point is that any piece of intellectual work is always built on and is inconceivable without the prior work of numerous people.
This to me is the most important outtake of the text. Agreed 100%.
A person who is born with extraordinary natural talents, or who is extremely lucky, deserves nothing on the basis of these characteristics.
A rather socialist way of perception, but I can understand the origin of that thought, as it would be catastrophic, if people would gain benefits on the basis of their genetics etc. (which play more and more vital role in the success of one).
Where once copyrights were only for a period of a few decades, they now may be for the life of the author plus 70 years.
This is of-course an absurdity that needs to be dealt with. 10 years at max is the normal "durance" of a copyright protection I think.
As long as the competition is fair -- which means that all ideas and contributors are permitted access to the marketplace -- then good ideas will win out over bad ones. Why? Because people will recognize the truth and value of good ideas.
Exciting, but I disagree. The masses are stupid and I fear that bad ideas have such a great marketing behind them, that nowadays they always pass through.
One result is that quite a few ideas that happen to serve the interests of employers at the expense of workers -- such as that the reason people don't have jobs is because they aren't trying hard enough to find them -- are widely accepted although they are rejected by virtually all informed analysts.
EXACTLY! Right now everybody in Estonia is bashing the workers - under-qualified and overpaid. But the failure of our business model in companies has been neglected. I understand that doing business in Estonia by Estonians is hard, as we are bitter and jealous of co-citizens success, but one still has to admit, that (party because of the fact before-mentioned) our quality of business-management was and is low.
Others are challenging to much of the population, such as that imprisonment does not reduce the crime rate or that financial rewards for good work on the job or grades for good schoolwork are counterproductive.
What? Definitely part worth going into.
But speech without action is pointless. True liberty requires freedom to promote one's views in practice.Amen!
It is usually argued that the most dynamic parts of science are those with the least secrecy.
Newton and Patents, no way, right!?
However, as governments reduce their funding of universities, scientists and university administrations increasingly turn to patents as a source of income.
How can this be? Educational spending has risen world-wide to my understanding (OECD reports). If that is not the case, then it is truly troubling.
The most common sort of plagiarism is built into social hierarchies. Government and corporate reports are released under the names of top bureaucrats who did not write them; politicians and corporate executives give speeches written by underlings.
GREAT! I have always thought of this, when listening or reading Ansip's speeches / Savisaar's blogs.
There is a large body of evidence showing, contrary to popular opinion, that rewards actually reduce the quality of work.
I need to read this! (Alfie Kohn, Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and other Bribes (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993))
Intellectuals are enormous consumers as well as producers of intellectual work.
This is of-course true and the most recent example of it was the news where Estonia's Academic Libraries revealed, how much do they spent on e-library's (scientific article bases) - the amounts were mind-blowing.
The way that an issue is framed makes an enormous difference to the legitimacy of different positions. Once intellectual property is undermined in the minds of many citizens, it will become far easier to topple its institutional supports.
This is to every extent true. A study called "Framing the War" (of Iraq in US Daily Newspapers) showed perfectly how the public opinion was manipulated by major dailies around US.
Unfortunately, illegal copying is not a very good strategy against intellectual property, any more than stealing goods is a way to challenge ownership of physical property. Theft of any sort implicitly accepts the existing system of ownership.
So why the proposition to justify piracy? I still think that piracy is stealing and it is criminal activity. One has to respect the authors wish to gain money from his or her's work. As there are plenty of free alternatives, piracy to me seems more and more absurd and obnoxious.
More fundamentally, it needs to be recognized that intellectual work is inevitably a collective process. No one has totally original ideas: ideas are always built on the earlier contributions of others.
Interesting. Again a socialist way of thinking to me but I guess if I focus on the thought more (read more), I would eventually agree with the notion.
And the perfect ending statement:
Intellectual property is theft, sometimes in part from an individual creator but always from society as a whole.
Review of Chapter 3 "Against Intellectual Property" of the Brian Martin's book.
Sunday, November 1
Social Engineering
Good case of social engineering
As Mitnick states the following:
, then it is very hard for me to find a good case. Manipulating or fooling people is commonly a bad thing. I would imagine, that a good case of social engineering is very hard to find. But possible.
For example defence war - there would be no greater good for example, when Russia invaded Georgia (or when Georgia killed innocent Russian citizens), when the nation under attack would have used social engineering to gain necessary information about the enemy's systems. Social engineering is closely tied to spying, and spying is a good cause, because it enables a country to achieve goals with lesser casualties to both sides at war.
And who hates Bond anyway?
Measures against social engineering attempts
#1 Known sites
Use well known sites when in the internet. Twitter in twitter, social-network in Facebook, e-mail in Google etc. Although the sites are huge and therefore lack of personal touch, they have a greater responsibility towrds their user-base, because of the high public attention on the owners. And credential thefts are unlikelier to appear in these sites (administrators are faster to help). Of course I haven't used any alternatives for the before-mentioned sites, so I don't KNOW how things are there, but I assume it.
#2 Passwords
Change your password every two month. Use 2 or 3 password types for websites (classify the passwords into categories - eg. e-mails, random sites and essential sites (banking)).
#3 Notice
Notice everything. The website's address. Uncommon changes in the content. News about sites that you use. Random browsing is convenient but dangerous to your privacy.
#4 Internet is not superior
When your friend sends you a love-letter or hate-mail, don't believe it at once. There is an opportunity that his or hers account has been compromised. When everything else fails, count on the traditional communication - meeting a person face to face.
#5 Use of biometric securities
Install a finger-print reader to your laptop and use it. That hardens the task for the social engineer to steal your identity.
As Mitnick states the following:
"Social Engineering uses influence and persuasion to deceive people by convincing them that the social engineer is someone he is not, or by manipulation."
, then it is very hard for me to find a good case. Manipulating or fooling people is commonly a bad thing. I would imagine, that a good case of social engineering is very hard to find. But possible.
For example defence war - there would be no greater good for example, when Russia invaded Georgia (or when Georgia killed innocent Russian citizens), when the nation under attack would have used social engineering to gain necessary information about the enemy's systems. Social engineering is closely tied to spying, and spying is a good cause, because it enables a country to achieve goals with lesser casualties to both sides at war.
And who hates Bond anyway?
Measures against social engineering attempts
#1 Known sites
Use well known sites when in the internet. Twitter in twitter, social-network in Facebook, e-mail in Google etc. Although the sites are huge and therefore lack of personal touch, they have a greater responsibility towrds their user-base, because of the high public attention on the owners. And credential thefts are unlikelier to appear in these sites (administrators are faster to help). Of course I haven't used any alternatives for the before-mentioned sites, so I don't KNOW how things are there, but I assume it.
#2 Passwords
Change your password every two month. Use 2 or 3 password types for websites (classify the passwords into categories - eg. e-mails, random sites and essential sites (banking)).
#3 Notice
Notice everything. The website's address. Uncommon changes in the content. News about sites that you use. Random browsing is convenient but dangerous to your privacy.
#4 Internet is not superior
When your friend sends you a love-letter or hate-mail, don't believe it at once. There is an opportunity that his or hers account has been compromised. When everything else fails, count on the traditional communication - meeting a person face to face.
#5 Use of biometric securities
Install a finger-print reader to your laptop and use it. That hardens the task for the social engineer to steal your identity.
Hactivism
To me, the recent and most astounding case of hactivism comes from Sweden, where in the year 2006, Pirate Party was formed.
I remember visiting the site myself, when first news about the possible shutdown of Pirate Bay started to appear. At that time the project seemed to be a geek-thing and I didn't take it seriously. Then again - the tought of a torrent-search site out of Western Europe (and US) being taken down was at that time ludacris to me (so-called law-brakers were the sharers not the platfrom).
Apparently this ludacris-to-realisation has greatly affected Pirate Party which now is the third biggest party in Sweden. Also they have a member in the European Parliament and basically all of the politics in Sweden now understand for the need to change the copyright laws (some of them even support Pirate Party principles).
Another interesting affect from the creation of Pirate Party is the idea-spread - you can see from this map that almost every significant developed country in the world has now a Pirate Party or at least an initiative.
To me, that is a great example of "clean" hactivism.
I remember visiting the site myself, when first news about the possible shutdown of Pirate Bay started to appear. At that time the project seemed to be a geek-thing and I didn't take it seriously. Then again - the tought of a torrent-search site out of Western Europe (and US) being taken down was at that time ludacris to me (so-called law-brakers were the sharers not the platfrom).
Apparently this ludacris-to-realisation has greatly affected Pirate Party which now is the third biggest party in Sweden. Also they have a member in the European Parliament and basically all of the politics in Sweden now understand for the need to change the copyright laws (some of them even support Pirate Party principles).
Another interesting affect from the creation of Pirate Party is the idea-spread - you can see from this map that almost every significant developed country in the world has now a Pirate Party or at least an initiative.
To me, that is a great example of "clean" hactivism.
Sunday, October 25
Jargon & Hacker Ethic
Jargon File
I browsed the Jargon File for a specific entry, as I always have known that there is a distinct difference between hackers and crackers. In Estonian language, people still use "häkker" as a negative word (web-based criminal, "breaking-and-entering), although it's incorrect. As Jargon File explains, cracker is the correct word for describing these kind of pc-users, therefore I would hope, that someday, when journalists or the common man speaks about cybercriminals, they would refer to them not as hackers, but as crackers ("kräkker").
Hacker Ethic
When searching for examples of Himanen's new "seven", that'll shape the Information Age, I see resemblances in many fields.
Passion as a thriving force at work is now not only for the hackers - more and more personnel-trainees stress the importance of one's passion towards his or hers job.When discussing of tendencies in the field of freedom, there are many opinions but we can at-least agree, that freedom in workplace has grown (work-hours, superior-related communication). Work-Ethic and the "battle" between monastery and academy is an ongoing battle, and I would say, that the hacker-preferred academy system is universally better. In this era of information-flood we sometimes must respect the knowledge "carved in stone". When talking about Money Ethic, I disagree with the tendencies pointed out in the study text, as I feel, that everything web-related is more and more coming to under influence of profiteering. Tendencies to earn more and more money are sadly not slowing down in the world also. Also views on nethics are going "against the stream" as centralization is not only gaining ground in the internet (major search-engine, operation-system, social-community etc.) but in the world too (media conglomerates, car-producers). I don't have any specific view on how the society feels or is about the caring factor, so I'm just going to skip to the creative part of hacker ethic. Creativity today has been turned to a necessity - not only in terms of work, but in relations-ships, consumerism and so on. As the information and visual flow of bits is forever increasing, people feel the urge to be more special. Sadly this battle cannot be won and I expect that any time soon we shall fall back a great deal in terms of expectancy on creativity.
I browsed the Jargon File for a specific entry, as I always have known that there is a distinct difference between hackers and crackers. In Estonian language, people still use "häkker" as a negative word (web-based criminal, "breaking-and-entering), although it's incorrect. As Jargon File explains, cracker is the correct word for describing these kind of pc-users, therefore I would hope, that someday, when journalists or the common man speaks about cybercriminals, they would refer to them not as hackers, but as crackers ("kräkker").
Hacker Ethic
When searching for examples of Himanen's new "seven", that'll shape the Information Age, I see resemblances in many fields.
Passion as a thriving force at work is now not only for the hackers - more and more personnel-trainees stress the importance of one's passion towards his or hers job.When discussing of tendencies in the field of freedom, there are many opinions but we can at-least agree, that freedom in workplace has grown (work-hours, superior-related communication). Work-Ethic and the "battle" between monastery and academy is an ongoing battle, and I would say, that the hacker-preferred academy system is universally better. In this era of information-flood we sometimes must respect the knowledge "carved in stone". When talking about Money Ethic, I disagree with the tendencies pointed out in the study text, as I feel, that everything web-related is more and more coming to under influence of profiteering. Tendencies to earn more and more money are sadly not slowing down in the world also. Also views on nethics are going "against the stream" as centralization is not only gaining ground in the internet (major search-engine, operation-system, social-community etc.) but in the world too (media conglomerates, car-producers). I don't have any specific view on how the society feels or is about the caring factor, so I'm just going to skip to the creative part of hacker ethic. Creativity today has been turned to a necessity - not only in terms of work, but in relations-ships, consumerism and so on. As the information and visual flow of bits is forever increasing, people feel the urge to be more special. Sadly this battle cannot be won and I expect that any time soon we shall fall back a great deal in terms of expectancy on creativity.
Estonia's Russians Making a Difference
Speaking of Russians living in Estonia we sometimes cannot describe them as minorities (they are a majority in places like Ida-Virumaa and Tallinn), but I still wanted to describe an idea, where this minority would publish opinions, news and statements on different subjects currently under public discussion in Estonia.
Currently there appears to be no neutral platform for that minority to express their ideas and problems concerning the life in Estonia. Here's how I see one option of dissolving that gap:
This portal would reduce the information and understanding gap between the two nations or at least help towards that goal.
Written on the task "Choose a minority group and describe how they can make use of Internet to reduce alienation and prejudice."
Currently there appears to be no neutral platform for that minority to express their ideas and problems concerning the life in Estonia. Here's how I see one option of dissolving that gap:
Academic (non-political) alliance of Russian-speaking people would create their own interactive web-portal, which is updated in three languages and has modern graphical interface. At that portal Estonian people could read of different opinions by Russian readers and also there could be a platform for polite discussion.
This portal would reduce the information and understanding gap between the two nations or at least help towards that goal.
Written on the task "Choose a minority group and describe how they can make use of Internet to reduce alienation and prejudice."
Wednesday, October 21
Digital Divide in Estonia
Example of a digital divide
The best example of a Digital Divide in Estonia is between our parents and children. The situation is more astonishing as you think of all the painstaking changes the parents have had to live through already, and the government (society, etc.) forcing yet again this new - all-whelming digital world acceptance.
I'm not saying, that the gap is wide. Mostly all of the parents know how to use the internet, how to work there and how to apply the net as an entertainment source. But knowledge on scams, phishing, on-line-threats etc. is not equal between the two age-groups.
Availability of internet
This summer I had a huge fight with some of my girlfriends, whether or not internet is as common as air by it's availability. I was then convinced that there isn't a cottage in this country, where you would not at-least get GPRS service. Apparently I was wrong. My friends violently argued that in some villages in Estonia there is not even mobile service, more less internet. I still do believe though, that there is some sort of internet capability - whether KÕU, or WiMax or Elion-related services, but it is true, that in case the connection haven't been brought to the village by the provider, the cost to do that for the people living there is too expansive. This situation however widens the digital cap between our citizens.
The spread of internet in Estonia is good compared to countries in western Europe. But we can't compare us with them, because we a smaller country (easier to cover with net) and we have a different view on e-services (everything must be dealt with in the internet). Therefore I would say, the spread of internet over Estonia is not as good, as it should be, taking to account, what do we expect to be in terms of e-Estonia.
The solution? Government-subsidised country-wide wireless fidelity, with download capabilities as far as 0.5 Mbps (for now).
The best example of a Digital Divide in Estonia is between our parents and children. The situation is more astonishing as you think of all the painstaking changes the parents have had to live through already, and the government (society, etc.) forcing yet again this new - all-whelming digital world acceptance.
I'm not saying, that the gap is wide. Mostly all of the parents know how to use the internet, how to work there and how to apply the net as an entertainment source. But knowledge on scams, phishing, on-line-threats etc. is not equal between the two age-groups.
Availability of internet
This summer I had a huge fight with some of my girlfriends, whether or not internet is as common as air by it's availability. I was then convinced that there isn't a cottage in this country, where you would not at-least get GPRS service. Apparently I was wrong. My friends violently argued that in some villages in Estonia there is not even mobile service, more less internet. I still do believe though, that there is some sort of internet capability - whether KÕU, or WiMax or Elion-related services, but it is true, that in case the connection haven't been brought to the village by the provider, the cost to do that for the people living there is too expansive. This situation however widens the digital cap between our citizens.
The spread of internet in Estonia is good compared to countries in western Europe. But we can't compare us with them, because we a smaller country (easier to cover with net) and we have a different view on e-services (everything must be dealt with in the internet). Therefore I would say, the spread of internet over Estonia is not as good, as it should be, taking to account, what do we expect to be in terms of e-Estonia.
The solution? Government-subsidised country-wide wireless fidelity, with download capabilities as far as 0.5 Mbps (for now).
Monday, October 19
Comparing Current to Estonia 2010
Grand Slam
IN my point of view, Estonia is moving towards the "Grand Slam" scenario (the best realisation of both geographical location (transit) and innovative and educational potential.). I´m saying that despite the fact, that current economical situation in our country isn´t worth praising. But From the four scenarios described, I can see only this one truly having examples from different fields to support it. We haven´t really adopted anything Finnish like in our ways of dealing with the economy or society (social equality, higher taxation, stronger well-fare system), so I would argue with the South-Finland scenario. Also little angry country isn´t quite our way (no extensive militarism in here) and we can´t talk about Ferryman situation, while Ust-Luga port is being built behind Narva in Russia.
The main factors supporting Grand Slam choices right now are the E-Government system (when you think about it, one has to be proud of e-voting, e-health etc. systems that work/start to work here), the goal to built EU IT-Agency to Estonia (http://www.e24.ee/?id=176891) etc. We also have not abandoned our capabilies as a transit country - ports in Paldiski, Tallinn and Sillamäe are constantly expanding and with the cooperation from Estonian Railway the search for alternative transit-partners (China) is constantly ongoing.
Sure things are not perfect. But Estonian people really never want to be happy with everything. It is true, that too much self-admiration is despicable, but one needs to occasionally slow down and "smell the roses".
Importance of caring in reaching ubicomp in Estonia
It is important to stress out that ideologies are not limited to real life. One can have a conservative government, a conservative budget and why not - a conservative web-policies. So the question, whether or not the importance of caring in the internet (more precisely when reaching the information-based(-dependent) society) is important, comes down to one question: what do the majority of citizens (netizens) feel on the subject. Does helping the ones in need surpass the personal liberty of not caring of anyone but yourself? I, as a convinced socialist, do feel, that we cannot talk about a country-wide ubicomp, when not taking to account the differences between netizens. One cannot think that ubicomp can be reached simply by stating it as a goal. People need to be connected - Finland has made the right to access internet a human right, meaning if not able by himself, it is the governments duty to provide web access to the citizen. Caring although should not stop at that point. We then have to speak about training, hardware-providing, protection of fraud and internet-crime etc..
When a country reaches ubicomp, it simply addresses the fact, that their society now lies more on the web, when discussed about it´s functions and roles. So we cannot exclude caring as necessary factor from that system, because there has always been aid to the lesser ones. The tendency should continue, even when the system is binary.
IN my point of view, Estonia is moving towards the "Grand Slam" scenario (the best realisation of both geographical location (transit) and innovative and educational potential.). I´m saying that despite the fact, that current economical situation in our country isn´t worth praising. But From the four scenarios described, I can see only this one truly having examples from different fields to support it. We haven´t really adopted anything Finnish like in our ways of dealing with the economy or society (social equality, higher taxation, stronger well-fare system), so I would argue with the South-Finland scenario. Also little angry country isn´t quite our way (no extensive militarism in here) and we can´t talk about Ferryman situation, while Ust-Luga port is being built behind Narva in Russia.
The main factors supporting Grand Slam choices right now are the E-Government system (when you think about it, one has to be proud of e-voting, e-health etc. systems that work/start to work here), the goal to built EU IT-Agency to Estonia (http://www.e24.ee/?id=176891) etc. We also have not abandoned our capabilies as a transit country - ports in Paldiski, Tallinn and Sillamäe are constantly expanding and with the cooperation from Estonian Railway the search for alternative transit-partners (China) is constantly ongoing.
Sure things are not perfect. But Estonian people really never want to be happy with everything. It is true, that too much self-admiration is despicable, but one needs to occasionally slow down and "smell the roses".
Importance of caring in reaching ubicomp in Estonia
It is important to stress out that ideologies are not limited to real life. One can have a conservative government, a conservative budget and why not - a conservative web-policies. So the question, whether or not the importance of caring in the internet (more precisely when reaching the information-based(-dependent) society) is important, comes down to one question: what do the majority of citizens (netizens) feel on the subject. Does helping the ones in need surpass the personal liberty of not caring of anyone but yourself? I, as a convinced socialist, do feel, that we cannot talk about a country-wide ubicomp, when not taking to account the differences between netizens. One cannot think that ubicomp can be reached simply by stating it as a goal. People need to be connected - Finland has made the right to access internet a human right, meaning if not able by himself, it is the governments duty to provide web access to the citizen. Caring although should not stop at that point. We then have to speak about training, hardware-providing, protection of fraud and internet-crime etc..
When a country reaches ubicomp, it simply addresses the fact, that their society now lies more on the web, when discussed about it´s functions and roles. So we cannot exclude caring as necessary factor from that system, because there has always been aid to the lesser ones. The tendency should continue, even when the system is binary.
Thursday, October 15
Possibilities of nonmarket production in PR - Estonia
While not currently working, I still do consider myself a possible future representative of the field of public relations aka communication in Estonia's business environment. Basically, when asked, I would say I'm a pr-man.
So what could (or should) be the projects or worktasks produced by nonmarket methods or strategies in my field of work?
The main way work is being done in Estonia's pr-field is quite parallel to software engineering. Firstly - you have a company, who needs to succeed some goals. The one of the important ways to achieve that goal is to gain public interest, trust and support etc. To do that, we - the pr-persons gather to a workteam (or do it ourselves in case of low investment by the client) and create a project, which consists of description of the "current situation", where we want to be and how would we get there from "current situation" (steps of actions are described).
My first idea is that nonmarket strategies could be applied in two steps in the process. At first - the company could avoid hiring pr-agency, and simply post their goal/problem to some sort of pr-related online community and there specialists in that field take action, offering steps or even strategies to get there.
Another possibility is for the pr-agency, once hired, to use the same community for gathering alternative ideas on the subject how to get to the goal, thus giving the opportunity to do the some work with lesser people and therefore more effectively/profitably.
In theory - this could (and also sounds) nicely. If a community can produce a operation system like Linux, then surely a pr-oriented community can offer helpful solutions for let's say a project like "Teeme Ära" to achieve them higher level of public knowledge, -participation etc.
But there are 2 main problems which come to my mind now. Firstly - we don't have this pr-oriented community in Estonia. We don't even have a pr-related publication in Estonia. We do have a alliance of people involved in pr (EPRA.ee) but this is not a very active one and it is inward-oriented.
There also cannot be an alternative to such a community, because communities outside Estonia do not comprehend our society's peculiarities therefore suggestions offered there can't be as successful as solutions offered by Estonians.
Secondly - main revenue (therefore clients) in pr In Estonia come from business-sector. Therefore the secrecy and the need for innovative (new, copyright) solutions is very high. I have great doubt that any specialist in Estonia would reveal his or hers innovative thoughts on a subject for no monetary reward. And also - we cannot talk about secrecy in terms of business-sphere consisting roughly about 700000 workers (people with money).
In conclusion - nonmarket solutions in the field of PR could definitely work on terms regarding public or third sector, where persons responsible for communication-related work would post their problem/request on a some-sort of pr-related online community (logically it would be owned by eg EPRA) where they could receive ideas on how to succeed achieving set goals.
Until we live in a closed society (in terms of language and movement of real-estate) nevertheless I see no possibility to use nonmarket strategies when dealing with enterprise sectors PR.
So what could (or should) be the projects or worktasks produced by nonmarket methods or strategies in my field of work?
The main way work is being done in Estonia's pr-field is quite parallel to software engineering. Firstly - you have a company, who needs to succeed some goals. The one of the important ways to achieve that goal is to gain public interest, trust and support etc. To do that, we - the pr-persons gather to a workteam (or do it ourselves in case of low investment by the client) and create a project, which consists of description of the "current situation", where we want to be and how would we get there from "current situation" (steps of actions are described).
My first idea is that nonmarket strategies could be applied in two steps in the process. At first - the company could avoid hiring pr-agency, and simply post their goal/problem to some sort of pr-related online community and there specialists in that field take action, offering steps or even strategies to get there.
Another possibility is for the pr-agency, once hired, to use the same community for gathering alternative ideas on the subject how to get to the goal, thus giving the opportunity to do the some work with lesser people and therefore more effectively/profitably.
In theory - this could (and also sounds) nicely. If a community can produce a operation system like Linux, then surely a pr-oriented community can offer helpful solutions for let's say a project like "Teeme Ära" to achieve them higher level of public knowledge, -participation etc.
But there are 2 main problems which come to my mind now. Firstly - we don't have this pr-oriented community in Estonia. We don't even have a pr-related publication in Estonia. We do have a alliance of people involved in pr (EPRA.ee) but this is not a very active one and it is inward-oriented.
There also cannot be an alternative to such a community, because communities outside Estonia do not comprehend our society's peculiarities therefore suggestions offered there can't be as successful as solutions offered by Estonians.
Secondly - main revenue (therefore clients) in pr In Estonia come from business-sector. Therefore the secrecy and the need for innovative (new, copyright) solutions is very high. I have great doubt that any specialist in Estonia would reveal his or hers innovative thoughts on a subject for no monetary reward. And also - we cannot talk about secrecy in terms of business-sphere consisting roughly about 700000 workers (people with money).
In conclusion - nonmarket solutions in the field of PR could definitely work on terms regarding public or third sector, where persons responsible for communication-related work would post their problem/request on a some-sort of pr-related online community (logically it would be owned by eg EPRA) where they could receive ideas on how to succeed achieving set goals.
Until we live in a closed society (in terms of language and movement of real-estate) nevertheless I see no possibility to use nonmarket strategies when dealing with enterprise sectors PR.
Bills need paying and like a known artist Chalice raps in his song - "got to be invited to a charity concert, which later on turned out to be a business summer days (ettevõtte suvepäevad)" (Superv6imed, Mis toimub kaenla all mul"
Monday, October 12
Experiences with Blocking Software
For this assignment I picked NetNanny from the list. Probably because it was most familiar to me.
Before heading on to the task results, I want to state out that I basically hate these kind of software as their ethos sucks: why should I filter the internet? Let the government filter the internet based on what the public decides (aka Reformparty promises that porn will go under .xxx or dissappear at all, when one would vote for them).
Filtering the internet personally just wastes my time and usually brings errors, which I have to deal with.
But on to the results. As expected, NetNanny was fierce with porn. Google porn results were all blocked. And some "not-so-legal" cracking sites banners (filled with porn too) or the sites themselves were blocked also.
While the blocking part was as expected, what disturbed me was the spy-functions (logs about IM use, website traffic etc.). It is truly fascist of a parent to get this kind of information (demand it) from anybody, specially one's children.
With that revelation, I un-installed the whole thing and hopefully I will never have to deal with net-spying again.
Before heading on to the task results, I want to state out that I basically hate these kind of software as their ethos sucks: why should I filter the internet? Let the government filter the internet based on what the public decides (aka Reformparty promises that porn will go under .xxx or dissappear at all, when one would vote for them).
Filtering the internet personally just wastes my time and usually brings errors, which I have to deal with.
But on to the results. As expected, NetNanny was fierce with porn. Google porn results were all blocked. And some "not-so-legal" cracking sites banners (filled with porn too) or the sites themselves were blocked also.
While the blocking part was as expected, what disturbed me was the spy-functions (logs about IM use, website traffic etc.). It is truly fascist of a parent to get this kind of information (demand it) from anybody, specially one's children.
With that revelation, I un-installed the whole thing and hopefully I will never have to deal with net-spying again.
Sunday, October 11
About Internet Scams
Internet fraud (scam) scheme
The most typical scam scheme I could think of are the one's already many times practised in Estonia. Sites like Hinnavaatlus, Kuldne Börs etc offer it's customers to exchange used goods for money. I have witnessed users, who did the following:
It's hard to describe a perfect scam, because the easy (and first to come to mind) focus on the stupidity of a person - eg send me money so I could send you back some more. Or they stress out a person in need (help us help a child in Valgamaa, who can't walk).
Probably it would be dumb to describe a perfect scam, because then it would be put to use (if I would be interested, I would do it myself).
In conclusion, the most effective scams will always be the one's hoping for a ill-IT-literate (n00b) user to send the scammer voluntarily some money.
There is one exception - phishing sites. With the ease of reproduction almost no website in the world is piracy proof and I do fear that some day, when typing in eg. emay.com I would get the exact-looking website, buy my product there and find out, that thanks to one spell error I know am 100 dollars poorer.
Of course HTTPS etc helps, but nothing is unbreakable. Except diamonds? But you don't put times and PC together.
Review of Scam o Rama & What's the bloody points
I read couple of scam introductions in both sites. Since they are VERY long, I took the liberty not to read the majority of them. My first question was - how do they have time to re-scam the scammers? The discussions were very long and as I could understand the Nigerians (who live in Africa, where life is gloomy), I still have great trouble understanding how a person (EU, US) can have such time to deal with them.
From the ethical side of view I see no troubles. As the main idea is to let the Nigerians "have a taste of their own medicine" and no real harm (nobody has sent the rescammers money) is being done, then it is a form of people's project (Teeme Ära etc). Although the goal is questionable since there would be no greater outcome of the project.
Well - actually there is one outcome. The sites provide an exxeceltn study material on scams and hopefully will teach future maybe-victims what to expect from a scammer.
I myself just never read e-mail not sent from my contacts.
The most typical scam scheme I could think of are the one's already many times practised in Estonia. Sites like Hinnavaatlus, Kuldne Börs etc offer it's customers to exchange used goods for money. I have witnessed users, who did the following:
Found a product with a good price. By the idea proposed by the seller (to avoid competition) the potential buyer wired a small amount of money to the sellers account. Later they did not receive the product or it was damaged. // This type of fraud has greatly reduced over the years because of the high cooperation by site-owners to catch the scammers in cooperation with the police.
It's hard to describe a perfect scam, because the easy (and first to come to mind) focus on the stupidity of a person - eg send me money so I could send you back some more. Or they stress out a person in need (help us help a child in Valgamaa, who can't walk).
Probably it would be dumb to describe a perfect scam, because then it would be put to use (if I would be interested, I would do it myself).
In conclusion, the most effective scams will always be the one's hoping for a ill-IT-literate (n00b) user to send the scammer voluntarily some money.
There is one exception - phishing sites. With the ease of reproduction almost no website in the world is piracy proof and I do fear that some day, when typing in eg. emay.com I would get the exact-looking website, buy my product there and find out, that thanks to one spell error I know am 100 dollars poorer.
Of course HTTPS etc helps, but nothing is unbreakable. Except diamonds? But you don't put times and PC together.
Review of Scam o Rama & What's the bloody points
I read couple of scam introductions in both sites. Since they are VERY long, I took the liberty not to read the majority of them. My first question was - how do they have time to re-scam the scammers? The discussions were very long and as I could understand the Nigerians (who live in Africa, where life is gloomy), I still have great trouble understanding how a person (EU, US) can have such time to deal with them.
From the ethical side of view I see no troubles. As the main idea is to let the Nigerians "have a taste of their own medicine" and no real harm (nobody has sent the rescammers money) is being done, then it is a form of people's project (Teeme Ära etc). Although the goal is questionable since there would be no greater outcome of the project.
Well - actually there is one outcome. The sites provide an exxeceltn study material on scams and hopefully will teach future maybe-victims what to expect from a scammer.
I myself just never read e-mail not sent from my contacts.
Thoughts after Inside Echelon
Review of the article "Inside Echelon" by Duncan Campbell
The idea (or fact) that we are being watched more and more by governments, is not new. Since the Cold War (maybe even before), people have constantly felt the Big Brother looking over their shoulder.
Campbell's article reviewed the system, that is one of the greatest examples of machinery committed to the creation of that feeling. Ehcelon has greatly expanded during the last decades, which is somewhat phenomenal, because there seems to be now no apparent threat to the countries involved. I believe it is happening because of the constant technological development and the cost-reduction of a surveillance system like that.
To other countries disadvantage - the system is owned mainly by US and secondly it's allies UK and other English speaking western countries. From gathering military information during the Soviet Union existing times, the Echelon has shifted to economic information gathering from western countries and somewhat lesser military information gathering from developing countries (North-Korea, China).
Since the surveillance system is being more and more automated, it is apparent, that from any day now, nothing will be private, since now the chance of you "missing the bot or the listener" will soon be eliminated.
Thoughts on the situation? I follow a somewhat simple code in my life. "Have no privacy". That means, that no one could shock me with their knowledge about my thoughts on some subject or events happened to me. Thus I am never worried, when hearing again ideas about governmental conspiracy. So I will not be stressing typical worries about individual right to privacy, because that's vanity. Thinking that you, a 75 year old incident to happen in this planet, are worth longtime tracing, is in my opinion short-sighted.
The problem however is big in the industrial spying between (or toward) different countries. How could we, Estonians, expect to really invent something world-beneficiary (Nokia), if big countries have surveillance systems like these. From the moment, some talented student or programmer in Tallinn writes down in digital form his or her great idea and shares it, basically it would be possible that the next day a group of IBM scientist are working on it, thanks to the information discovered and then shared by NSA, that for the greater glory of their country.
The way I see it, there is no point seeing us being anything greater than a country with nice islands to visit in summers, because never will we have such military potential to defent our economy (defending our country is somewhat questionable by certain people in Estonia) from systems like Echelon. That is of course saddening.
The idea (or fact) that we are being watched more and more by governments, is not new. Since the Cold War (maybe even before), people have constantly felt the Big Brother looking over their shoulder.
Campbell's article reviewed the system, that is one of the greatest examples of machinery committed to the creation of that feeling. Ehcelon has greatly expanded during the last decades, which is somewhat phenomenal, because there seems to be now no apparent threat to the countries involved. I believe it is happening because of the constant technological development and the cost-reduction of a surveillance system like that.
To other countries disadvantage - the system is owned mainly by US and secondly it's allies UK and other English speaking western countries. From gathering military information during the Soviet Union existing times, the Echelon has shifted to economic information gathering from western countries and somewhat lesser military information gathering from developing countries (North-Korea, China).
Since the surveillance system is being more and more automated, it is apparent, that from any day now, nothing will be private, since now the chance of you "missing the bot or the listener" will soon be eliminated.
Thoughts on the situation? I follow a somewhat simple code in my life. "Have no privacy". That means, that no one could shock me with their knowledge about my thoughts on some subject or events happened to me. Thus I am never worried, when hearing again ideas about governmental conspiracy. So I will not be stressing typical worries about individual right to privacy, because that's vanity. Thinking that you, a 75 year old incident to happen in this planet, are worth longtime tracing, is in my opinion short-sighted.
The problem however is big in the industrial spying between (or toward) different countries. How could we, Estonians, expect to really invent something world-beneficiary (Nokia), if big countries have surveillance systems like these. From the moment, some talented student or programmer in Tallinn writes down in digital form his or her great idea and shares it, basically it would be possible that the next day a group of IBM scientist are working on it, thanks to the information discovered and then shared by NSA, that for the greater glory of their country.
The way I see it, there is no point seeing us being anything greater than a country with nice islands to visit in summers, because never will we have such military potential to defent our economy (defending our country is somewhat questionable by certain people in Estonia) from systems like Echelon. That is of course saddening.
Towards the Information Society
3 assignments on the study material Towards the Information Society
Mind-quake - Change of the role of USSR in WWII
When dealing with my father and his view on the events regarding the role of Soviet Union, that is the most ideal example of Theobald's 'mind-quake' and the difficulties related to the need of change to it. Of course there are different, more IT-related mind-quakes (from hacker to cracker; linear-wars to cyberwars), but the "pain" and also the disturbance of changing your views on a subject that's for half a century was perceived 180 degrees differently, is in my opinion a very good example of a mind-quake (mind-ruptures?!).
All beliefs are constructed for us. Countless semioticians etc. have concluded that everything we perceive, are perceived in that way because of our education, society, parents or other alike features of humanity. In the case described before, the belief of USSR troops being only liberators and not occupiers/terrorizers , was implemented on my father during his studies in high school, service in the military and by his parents, who had been through the same in their work-time etc.
From Theobald's view of mind-quakes, the situation is as follows - everything my father knows about WWII history, is wrong, since the model (history) has been retold by Eastern-European politicians and historians, who in some fields rule his social environment (him being a citizen and a media-consumer). Now should come the "constructing a new image of the past", that being achieved bit by bit. I could say, that this has happened. Thanks to documentaries shown on ETV, a lot of historical events have gotten sidelines for my father. What then was race to Berlin, in the goal of freeing the world from fascism, is now also series of raping, terrorizing and hooliganism towards the local people.
Of course it is always questionable, if the new model is the correct or more honest/true model. That makes it extra difficult for the older generation to live through the mind-quake fast, because they have greater life-experience and more developed sense of ignoring bullocks than the young generation. But as always, the society forces or lures us to accept the same beliefs as the majority, as the fear of rejection is strong within us.
Paradox of time - Intensification of our work-time
For me, the Handy's paradox of time is the perfect and at the same time a horrible case of a situation, where the innovation of technology has got me working on projects longer and more stressed.
I am a e-mail-a-holic. When not on a vacation outside Tallinn, I basically read my e-mail twice an hour. Even spam! (well, I don't read it, I delete it, but it's still a waste of my time). Since I am currently not working, the workload on my inbox is not so harsh, but remembering one of my last jobs, I dealed with my work-tasks far more often than only 9 to 5, 5 days a week. This lead to situations, where I had too few sleeping hours, had to say no to sports and a lot of my friends were left to be web-based buddies, not real-time mates for life etc.
I want to stress out, that my employer didn't force me work on my spear time (there were some tough dates on some certain projects, but that is common in our country), I rather got addicted to it. Himanen spoke about the race of work, that is more and more hitting our work-force all over Europe and I have to admit, it is quite bad.
I think the basis of the paradox lies in technology - exchanging letters, organizing conferences or leading a project - ALL now being web-based, have become so fast, that we can do more in lesser time. But when we do something fast, we always doubt in it's quality. I personally then try to compensate the feeling by doing more.
Why the feeling? I guess it comes from comparison - comparing my work to forerunners, colleagues from different fields of work etc. Of course this is not a truly correct thing to do, because the development of instruments supporting my work a optimized every year, thus giving me more means to work faster, more effectively than my predecessors.
Now, I control this over-working habit by not using mobile-phones and I read (theoretically, since I am currently not working) my work-related e-mails only on site (behind my office desk). Of course this leads to my employer thinking, that I'm not working as hard as my rivals would work, so the situation has a chance to become a loop.
Network society: information based economy
How to analyse something, that is apparent?
The transition to hard-core information-consuming/creating/depending economy took it's form in my belief just lately. Idea behind this is, that you will not succeed by having state-of-the-art capital, qualified labor and a good monetary health, instead you (your company) has to have the advantage of "knowing". Whether the knowing consists of policies soon to be adapted by the government or multinational organisations; knowing what your competition is doing or knowing what the market wants tomorrow - these are the aspects that will bring success to one's company today.
Example - Lenovo, freshly started laptop-producer (not so fresh though, as they took over IBM's section) versus Apple (no introduction needed). Although Lenovo - being more successful in industrial means (cheap labor, massive production availability, even a wide line of products (Apple has basically only 3 laptop-products), but still the more successful economically and socially (customer satisfaction, market awareabouts) is Apple. Why? Because of their great design and marketing efforts, which are generated by INFORMATION gathered from customers, competition etc.
This is not a rock-solid example but it gives the general idea of how a firm's success depends now firstly on the sphere of info where it lies. The bigger, diverse and exact it is, the more greater starting point the company has. Only then will the industrial-age benefits (labor, machinery) take account.
Mind-quake - Change of the role of USSR in WWII
When dealing with my father and his view on the events regarding the role of Soviet Union, that is the most ideal example of Theobald's 'mind-quake' and the difficulties related to the need of change to it. Of course there are different, more IT-related mind-quakes (from hacker to cracker; linear-wars to cyberwars), but the "pain" and also the disturbance of changing your views on a subject that's for half a century was perceived 180 degrees differently, is in my opinion a very good example of a mind-quake (mind-ruptures?!).
All beliefs are constructed for us. Countless semioticians etc. have concluded that everything we perceive, are perceived in that way because of our education, society, parents or other alike features of humanity. In the case described before, the belief of USSR troops being only liberators and not occupiers/terrorizers , was implemented on my father during his studies in high school, service in the military and by his parents, who had been through the same in their work-time etc.
From Theobald's view of mind-quakes, the situation is as follows - everything my father knows about WWII history, is wrong, since the model (history) has been retold by Eastern-European politicians and historians, who in some fields rule his social environment (him being a citizen and a media-consumer). Now should come the "constructing a new image of the past", that being achieved bit by bit. I could say, that this has happened. Thanks to documentaries shown on ETV, a lot of historical events have gotten sidelines for my father. What then was race to Berlin, in the goal of freeing the world from fascism, is now also series of raping, terrorizing and hooliganism towards the local people.
Of course it is always questionable, if the new model is the correct or more honest/true model. That makes it extra difficult for the older generation to live through the mind-quake fast, because they have greater life-experience and more developed sense of ignoring bullocks than the young generation. But as always, the society forces or lures us to accept the same beliefs as the majority, as the fear of rejection is strong within us.
Paradox of time - Intensification of our work-time
For me, the Handy's paradox of time is the perfect and at the same time a horrible case of a situation, where the innovation of technology has got me working on projects longer and more stressed.
I am a e-mail-a-holic. When not on a vacation outside Tallinn, I basically read my e-mail twice an hour. Even spam! (well, I don't read it, I delete it, but it's still a waste of my time). Since I am currently not working, the workload on my inbox is not so harsh, but remembering one of my last jobs, I dealed with my work-tasks far more often than only 9 to 5, 5 days a week. This lead to situations, where I had too few sleeping hours, had to say no to sports and a lot of my friends were left to be web-based buddies, not real-time mates for life etc.
I want to stress out, that my employer didn't force me work on my spear time (there were some tough dates on some certain projects, but that is common in our country), I rather got addicted to it. Himanen spoke about the race of work, that is more and more hitting our work-force all over Europe and I have to admit, it is quite bad.
I think the basis of the paradox lies in technology - exchanging letters, organizing conferences or leading a project - ALL now being web-based, have become so fast, that we can do more in lesser time. But when we do something fast, we always doubt in it's quality. I personally then try to compensate the feeling by doing more.
Why the feeling? I guess it comes from comparison - comparing my work to forerunners, colleagues from different fields of work etc. Of course this is not a truly correct thing to do, because the development of instruments supporting my work a optimized every year, thus giving me more means to work faster, more effectively than my predecessors.
Now, I control this over-working habit by not using mobile-phones and I read (theoretically, since I am currently not working) my work-related e-mails only on site (behind my office desk). Of course this leads to my employer thinking, that I'm not working as hard as my rivals would work, so the situation has a chance to become a loop.
Network society: information based economy
How to analyse something, that is apparent?
The transition to hard-core information-consuming/creating/depending economy took it's form in my belief just lately. Idea behind this is, that you will not succeed by having state-of-the-art capital, qualified labor and a good monetary health, instead you (your company) has to have the advantage of "knowing". Whether the knowing consists of policies soon to be adapted by the government or multinational organisations; knowing what your competition is doing or knowing what the market wants tomorrow - these are the aspects that will bring success to one's company today.
Example - Lenovo, freshly started laptop-producer (not so fresh though, as they took over IBM's section) versus Apple (no introduction needed). Although Lenovo - being more successful in industrial means (cheap labor, massive production availability, even a wide line of products (Apple has basically only 3 laptop-products), but still the more successful economically and socially (customer satisfaction, market awareabouts) is Apple. Why? Because of their great design and marketing efforts, which are generated by INFORMATION gathered from customers, competition etc.
This is not a rock-solid example but it gives the general idea of how a firm's success depends now firstly on the sphere of info where it lies. The bigger, diverse and exact it is, the more greater starting point the company has. Only then will the industrial-age benefits (labor, machinery) take account.
Review of Himanen's paper
Review of the article by Pekka Himanen's "Challenges to the Global Information Society"
First of all, the text was very Finland-oriented, which at some point turned a little bit annoying. You can´t write a paper recommending Finland´s economic etc model, being Finnish. That´s not being objective.
The mayor mistake the study makes, is that the society would accept "gerontosociety" (majority of elderly people). I have a great doubt in the statement, that the youth of a nation simply accepts the pensioners dictation and pays taxes happily ever after.
In my opinion the welfare society model is silly - author suggested, that developed nations should mainly focus on products made for the public sector and/or the elderly. This leads to a following situation - workforce produces products for the elderly, they in turn pay from the support from the government and the government gains it´s money from the workforce. Why this over-simplified and ineffective circle?
There were some interesting points made, when introducing the transformation from welfare state to welfare society. "... the most successful innovations are made when the users of the services or products in question are able to participate in the innovation process" - I´m sorry that the author did not give no clues of what exactly he was talking about. I do believe the statement, but I would have liked to get to know some cases exactly.
I also agree on the fact, that schools are coming more and more solely responsible for the development of a nation. "learn to learn" etc suggestions made by Himanen are all in their places, but the model in my opinion is being negatively affected by the unstandardization of school-systems. This leaves us to greater communication-errors, once the future-workforce is out of the school-benches.
Ideas about the promotion of health, runned by government, are also interesting. Again I wonder, if that is a realistic goal in western societies. Being obese nowadays seems to be turning into a choice - like as being gay, vegetarian etc. If unlucky, someone would maybe even get sued by the "Americans With Food-Disorder" etc organization.
Thoughts about "international exercise campaign" led me to think, that it is mighty weird - you work to later on exercise/relax from work. Again - not very bright system.
The affection against immigrants was also quite surprising, because no nation has yet been successful in integration - thus leaving the nation to future conflicts regarding nationalism vs. cultural freedom for the immigrants. When we think about immigration, the first pictures typically people visualize for themselves, are some Africans taking sunbathes in the middle of the workday at the city mall. I just came from Cyprus, not being racist here.
But I do agree, that the immigration is the only way to sustain western living standards. Also - why should we keep our land for ourselves, if we wont give birth and don´t want to work. Effective in this situation is to let the land be used by people who need and want to use it. Outcome of this would be ideally positive, but it will certainly destroy nationalism as a main thing to hold a country together. But nationalism is a last-century figure anyway.
Lastly, I would like to refer to "Wikinomics" - skilled labor does not have to be hired by a company - modern communicative solutions and open source support communities could give the company the ability to harness workforces all over the world, paying them project-based fees, thus eliminating the need to bring them to the headquarters. But this is a hole new story, which I would continue in my review of "Wikinomics" later on in here.
First of all, the text was very Finland-oriented, which at some point turned a little bit annoying. You can´t write a paper recommending Finland´s economic etc model, being Finnish. That´s not being objective.
The mayor mistake the study makes, is that the society would accept "gerontosociety" (majority of elderly people). I have a great doubt in the statement, that the youth of a nation simply accepts the pensioners dictation and pays taxes happily ever after.
In my opinion the welfare society model is silly - author suggested, that developed nations should mainly focus on products made for the public sector and/or the elderly. This leads to a following situation - workforce produces products for the elderly, they in turn pay from the support from the government and the government gains it´s money from the workforce. Why this over-simplified and ineffective circle?
There were some interesting points made, when introducing the transformation from welfare state to welfare society. "... the most successful innovations are made when the users of the services or products in question are able to participate in the innovation process" - I´m sorry that the author did not give no clues of what exactly he was talking about. I do believe the statement, but I would have liked to get to know some cases exactly.
I also agree on the fact, that schools are coming more and more solely responsible for the development of a nation. "learn to learn" etc suggestions made by Himanen are all in their places, but the model in my opinion is being negatively affected by the unstandardization of school-systems. This leaves us to greater communication-errors, once the future-workforce is out of the school-benches.
Ideas about the promotion of health, runned by government, are also interesting. Again I wonder, if that is a realistic goal in western societies. Being obese nowadays seems to be turning into a choice - like as being gay, vegetarian etc. If unlucky, someone would maybe even get sued by the "Americans With Food-Disorder" etc organization.
Thoughts about "international exercise campaign" led me to think, that it is mighty weird - you work to later on exercise/relax from work. Again - not very bright system.
The affection against immigrants was also quite surprising, because no nation has yet been successful in integration - thus leaving the nation to future conflicts regarding nationalism vs. cultural freedom for the immigrants. When we think about immigration, the first pictures typically people visualize for themselves, are some Africans taking sunbathes in the middle of the workday at the city mall. I just came from Cyprus, not being racist here.
But I do agree, that the immigration is the only way to sustain western living standards. Also - why should we keep our land for ourselves, if we wont give birth and don´t want to work. Effective in this situation is to let the land be used by people who need and want to use it. Outcome of this would be ideally positive, but it will certainly destroy nationalism as a main thing to hold a country together. But nationalism is a last-century figure anyway.
Lastly, I would like to refer to "Wikinomics" - skilled labor does not have to be hired by a company - modern communicative solutions and open source support communities could give the company the ability to harness workforces all over the world, paying them project-based fees, thus eliminating the need to bring them to the headquarters. But this is a hole new story, which I would continue in my review of "Wikinomics" later on in here.
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