Perhaps Vaidhyanathan and I just got off on the wrong foot.  I might have felt better about him if I read his post on the Chronicle of Higher Education Blog.  But, I read the Social Media Reader chapter first, so I didn’t think much of him.  We made up in the end though.

Open source is not the way we have always worked.  From Socrates complaint that writing would undermine his proprietary knowledge, through trade guilds of the Middle Ages, to the resistance of the Catholic church to printing the Bible in the vulgate, humans have sought to guard and horde knowledge.  Teaching slaves or wo

Open Source for Blacksmiths. Now it’s a Jack Hammer.

men to read was dangerous.  They might think for themselves or want to vote.  Knowledge, and more importantly, control of its dissemination has been a basis for power throughout human history.  So don’t give me any techno-hippie garbage about free love and source code being the natural state of man.

I absolutely agree that copyrights and proprietary restrictions squash creativity and potential.  On the other hand, they enable creativity and potential for others.  Overwhelmingly, most people who use computers today do not engage in basic programing.  They want a word processor with spell check, an easy way to post and view cat videos, and a simple and fairly reliable connection to other people and information.  Vaidhyanathan is correct when he distinguishes between software and music or literature; it is not an expression.  What he fails to see is that software is simply a tool for most of us.  It’s a way to do other things.  Like most of the tools in my blacksmith shop, I want them to work without thinking much about it.  There probably is a better design for a particular hammer or saw, and if someone wants to spend their time thinking about it, more power to them, but that’s not me.  The same is true for software.  People are willing to accept just pretty good programs if they have wide compatibility, ease of use, and dependable customer support.  Linux is a great operating system that you can adapt for various uses and you can depend on it to be stable, but you can’t run most programs on it and I couldn’t watch Netflix with it, so to Hell with it.  I will spend the money to get Windows 7, because I am not just paying for a program to run my computer, I am paying for familiarity with the product, compatibility with other computers and software, and a 24/7 hotline for customer service.  Sure with open source software, I could fix the clitches myself, provided I learn the programing language. Software is kind of like pharmaceuticals.  Lifting copyrights and proprietary restrictions would result in low cost production of medication that could save millions.  But then how would we pay for the years of development and clinical trials?  Without those copyrights, many drugs would never be developed.  Please don’t get me wrong.  Micro-Soft and big drug companies are creations of the Devil which are fueled as much by the souls of consumers as their dollars.  However, if left in hand of well-intentioned programmers and designers and without corporate investment of time and money, computers would still be as large as a house and run on punch cards, thus making this whole argument moot.It is with similar skepticism that I view MOOCs.  Here, Vaidhyanathan and I are in agreement.  I love the Khan Academy, but it is not the same as attending a class for a semester.  MOOCs will be a great tool for those who seek to learn new skills or acquire knowledge.  I also believe that access to learning should be as wide spread as practically possible.  But I have no fear that my years of study and dollars paid for a PhD will be wasted as millions of people steam forth waving online degrees.

When I think of collaboration, the first thing that comes to my mind is music. When I was in high school, *NSYNC (don’t forget the asterisk) was the bee’s knees. A few years later, they broke up and each member went his way. Justin Timberlake went on to be a Grammy-winning and billboard-topping solo artist, while JC Chasez went on to…you be the judge of his post-*NSYNC career. As a group, *NSYNC was powerful. Disbanded, minus Justin, they are nothing. This demonstrates the pros and cons of collaboration. For some people—Beyonce, Michael Jackson, Phil Collins—their solo careers are successful arguably because of the group that supported them, the group they first collaborated with. It could also be argued that the group carries a completely different identity to the person who would have been successful on his or her own (Chris Cornell, Jack White). However, other artists burn and peel after collaboration has ended. Billy Corgan (of Smashing Pumpkins), Scott Weiland (from Stone Temple Pilots), and Scott Stapp (from Creed) were much more successful with their group than their solo careers.

Does correlation help and hurt people, or is it an arbitrary argument? The question reflects other ideas about correlation, namely identity. Hyde et al discusses the nature of the “node” that produces something. What is the degree of someone’s control over how the negatively- or positively-generated benefits of a product affect that person as they collaborated with a group? Essentially, when someone collaborates, he or she adopts in part another identity. Could someone who was temporarily identified as a “group” end up competing against themselves as they assume their individual identity? The reason I pose this question is because I’ve been thinking about strategies in publishing. Would I as someone who wants to publish with professors be hurt in the future because I can’t produce anything at the level of the collaboration? Or would it propel me further than my own efforts? In other words, the immediate impulse grad students have is to jump on any publishing opportunity with a professor, an impulse that I would for sure respond to positively (*wink wink Dr. Markmann*). In fact, as students we are taught to take these kinds of opportunities. But could this backfire? Would you then be expected to publish at this level, or produce something better? Or what if what you were producing with a professor was based on precepts or research that you actually disagreed with?

This weeks readings included chapters 3, 5, 14, and 18 from The Social Media Reader. A common theme among all of these chapters was a discussion of the differences between “open source” and the proprietary model. Chapter 3 claims that throughout most of our history, technologies have been open source. Individuals have been allowed to freely add on and change these technologies to use however they see fit. However, with recent copyright laws that protect intellectual property, individuals cannot just take emerging technologies and change them however they want. The proprietary model protects the developer of intellectual property from others who may take their ideas and potential profit. As stated, “according to the proprietary ideology, innovation would not occur without a strong incentive system for the innovator to exploit for commercial gain (pg. 25).” The chapter further goes on to make some points against strong intellectual property rights. For example, strong intellectual property rights does appear to limit the amount of individuals that can bring in their own knowledge to produce new information goods. Proponents would argue that strong intellectual property rights might limit the creativity of our citizens.

Coming from a business background, this idea of open source does seem somewhat dangerous to me. However, I did find the readings interesting and I was surprised to find out just how much stuff their already is posted online for free use. I look forward to hearing everyone’s views on the issue tonight in class!

Another thing that stood out to me in this week’s readings was just how complex copyright laws are. We have already heard in class what a headache they could be, but chapter 14 discussed how even a lawyer specializing in intellectual property could not give the assurance that no laws were being broken when Eyebeam wanted to give away its Bright Idea Shade design based on the work of several designers in the 60’s and 70’s. Though it appeared to be a good idea, and there appeared to be customers willing to purchase the item, corporations were not willing to pour resources into the idea for fear that they might later be sued.

Chapter 18 of The Social Media Reader was also very interesting in its discussion of journal publications. This chapter discussed the idea bypassing for profit printing houses and placing scholarly findings online. It seems to me, that a “digital revolution” in scholarly research may allow individuals an outlet for new and exciting ideas that may not be accepted in mainstream journals. However, this is also one of the problems associated with the “digital revolution.” Publications of scholarly articles rely on peer reviews, but the peer review process is one thing that is lacking when it comes to the digital context. Also, even if all of our scholarly knowledge is posted for free online, it does not mean that it will be read. As chapter 18 pointed out, the power law distribution in the blogosphere may be instructive in this situation. As stated, “power law distribution ensures that the more material is placed online, the greater the gap between material that gets huge amounts of attention and that which gets merely average attention (pg. 264).” It is clear that some academics may not be ready for a switch to this digital context.

Mandiberg, M. (Ed.) (2012). The Social Media Reader. New York: NYU Press.

The arguments regarding open-source as   culture were surely intriguing. While one side argues that innovation is hard to appear without strong incentives for the effort of creators, the other side of argument is that strong intellectual property right can potentially hinder the flow of information and prevent continuous group efforts of improving creations. By using the examples of software and other media contexts, the article somewhat lean onto the advantages of open-source.

While I strongly agree that better creations are always coming from collaborations of brilliant minds, proprietary knowledge should be protected for economic incentives and from the risk of being open to anyone.

As mentioned before, social media network is consisted of individual users and contents, and accumulation of such contents creates significant value for the network. While users’ content sharing and collaborated works are the primary mean for content creation, the definition of collaboration is rather complex and often the source of debate for content ownership. Hyde and colleagues explained that the act of content sharing alone cannot be constituted as collaboration while many online contents are shared, and the works often stand alone. Hence, ranging from weak to strong, collaboration can occur when the criteria for assessing the strength of a collaboration is met—intention, goals, self-governance, coordination mechanisms, property, knowledge transfer, identity, scale, network topology, accessibility, and equality. On the other hand, in reality, I think that as long as the collaborators’ contributions are acknowledged, it should be fine.

Who would think that giving away brilliant ideas for free was that hard? One may think that any business with a functioning brain will be profited from free idea, but apparently it can only work when there is no extensive infrastructural investment and minimal risk of facing armies of competitors who want to benefit from the first market mover’s hard work. In fact, the series of copyright laws and businesses’ action of protecting their proprietary knowledge can indeed hinder active improvement and flux of creativity. However, when there is no protection for business ideas and investment, it is extremely difficult for businesses to actively use any extraordinary, but free idea. In that sense, I have to say, an excellent business idea is the one that is profitable, marketable, sustainable, and protectable.

The implication of digital open-source in an academic field was particularly intriguing since I am a scholar wannabe. Given the declining funding for publications and library resources, scholarly publishing is becoming increasingly demanding and competitive. Hence, it is natural for scholars to lean toward open-access movement. However, the issue is that there is little or even no sense to give away hard-won research to publishers free of charge in an exchange for gaining glorified status of being a scholar. Proponents of open-access movement argue that, since scholars want publicity, open-source publications satisfy both publishers and scholars. I entirely agree with open-access movement, and I believe that ongoing collaboration in theoretical and empirical level among scholars can truly advance any academic discipline. Nevertheless,  the reality is that junior scholars are under tremendous pressure to publish quantitatively and qualitatively for their successful career paths. Besides, many scholarly publications are not considered equal because any academic discipline often has a ranking system for academic publications, and the quality of scholarly works are often evaluated based on the ranking of the journals that scholars’ works were published.

Overall, such movement of open-access will surely govern the future of information exchanges and education. Educators will be forced to revamp their mind set for academic advancement along with their career paths. The definition of academic institution will undergo certain changes because the establishment is no longer the sole source of knowledge. We may be in the turbulent transitional period where the clashes of values are yet to be settled down. One thing for sure is that I will certainly have a career path, which will be slightly different from my professors’.

This week’s readings deliver a solid kick to the old-school ego, expanding from the idea of “networks,” and integrating the notion of creativity and productiveness within such a system. Vaidhyanathan offers a nice introduction to “open source” culture, but things don’t start to simmer until chapter 5 of The Social Media Reader  in,  “What is Collaboration Anyway.” It is an essay with (fittingly) many authors, in which the new ground of digital collaboration is depicted as ignoring unique snowflakes while enthusiastically crystallizing and expanding upon pre-existing patterns and thoughts, creating an ultra-snowflake, made up of many contributors. Wikipedia is referenced as a system that builds upon itself by way of an originating idea/record, an operating strategy that is reminiscent of a virus. The operational pattern is dependent on the encouragement of community through shared ideas and strategies of production. Kutiman’s bricolage of other users’ Youtube videos stands in contrast to Vimeo, a video sharing site known for its community assistance through well-defined individual expressions within the audio/visual medium. Joseph Gordon Levitt has trumped both of these websites in the collaborative sphere with his hitRecord (http://www.hitrecord.org/), a site dedicated to contributing your personal material (video, music, scripts) to share (in the true sense of the word) for purposes of combination works with other users in a fashion similar to Kutiman’s technique, except done with full awareness and permission.

In his essay “Giving Things Away is Hard Work,” Michael Mandiberg discusses examples from his own creative endeavors and how they fared in the eagerly co-opting business world.  From his lampshade idea to a reflective bicycle wrap, Mandiberg encounters obstacles as he tries to encourage translation from intangible idea to physical manifestation. Clearly there is still a divide between the two as they relate to the notion of what a “free” idea really means. I was rather fascinated with Mandiberg’s entrepreneurial abilities and found myself wondering how he would actually respond if his reflective bicycle wrap were taken over by a corporation and generated a large profit. And what ever happened with the lighting in the Eyebeam offices?

Finally, there is Ashely Dawson and her essay “DIY Academy? Cognitive Capitalism, Humanist Scholarship, and the Digital Transformation,” as well the articles Dr. Markman linked us to regarding MOOCs, all of which I found rather depressing when considering a career in academia. In a rapidly changing environment of free literature and learning, what is the point of getting official accreditation when anyone can produce work of value, or contribute to work of value? What even classifies as valuable academic research and work if anyone can do it?

I am posting this in response to a question I received in the comments section earlier about posting pictures.  Unfortunately, the comments box does not allow me to demonstrate what I am trying to explain.

When you create a new post, there is an icon at the top of the dialog box that is the insert media tool (in red).   I hope this is helpful.

Clicking the Add media button opens a new window what you can images. Below the “drop files” box, is a set of formatting options. Captions (like this) are entered in the “caption” box.

In many ways, what Marshall describes is similar to state of Empire depicted by Hardt and Negri, where politics and culture serve the economic interest of global corporations rather than individual nation states.  However, what Hardt & Negri, and to a degree, Marshall seem to overlook is that this is not a new trend or phenomena but rather a continuation of what is afforded by technology.  The invention of writing afforded greater expansion and progression of cultures through commerce, learning, and consistency of message.  The invention of the printing press was significant to the Protestant Reformation because it afforded access to the word of God without the gatekeepers of the church.

In light of Barabasi’s example, I thought I would share this. This is a bacon press I made for the National Ornamental Metal Museum. 6 degrees of Kevin’s Bacon.

The basic structure of any network is the connection between nodes.  Humans, like most animals are social creatures and are driven by a basic, hard-wired need to connect to others.  Maslow’s ranking to the contrary, social connection may be the most basic need we have.  It is our desire to connect that pushes us to mate.  Our connection to the offspring of that mating drives us to feed and nurture infants when they can provide for themselves.  Social connection makes fulfilling all the other needs, food, shelter, love, safety and so on much easier to acquire.  That we would exploit every means of connecting afforded to us by technology or circumstance seems to surprise some theorists, when in fact it is the most fundamental urge we have as living creatures.

My views on the nature of humans, expressed above, colors how I processed boyd’s discussion of networked publics.  To me, they are nothing new.  The expression, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know, precedes new media by a century or more.  All cultures, communities, and societies are networked publics in essence where people have public and semi-public profiles, a list of “friends” (in-group and out-group members), and a means to observe the connections between other members of that network.  Gossip has been around much longer than the internet.

What I did appreciate about the boyd chapter was the discussion of context.  One of the most profound changes in our networking has been the change in context of our connections.  We are no longer bound by special and temporal constraints to the degree we were just a few years ago.

I will end my rant, not by telling Castells to get off my lawn, but rather that it’s the same grass its always been, only the seasons have changed.  It is significant that we are looking not simply at objects and nodes but also the connection and context in which they exist.  The major shift is not the emergence of networks but rather the number of nodes connected to each other and perhaps more importantly, the number of connections between nodes.  More frequently people are not connected to each other in a single context such as work, church, or family, but may have many lines of connection.  These increased connections alters the relationship between the nodes.