“The future cannot be
predicted, but futures
can be invented”
- Dennis Gabor

Serendipity 2.0
Missing Third Places of Learning
Teemu Arina
CEO, Dicole Ltd.
2007-06-14
EDEN Conference

Discover, Collaborate, Learn

Today each of us lives several
hundred years in a decade
Marshall McLuhan
(1911-1980)
Photo: Lakerae

Problem
Changes in society
Ability of education to adapt
Time

Third Places of Learning

  
First Third Second
“3rd place hosts the regular, voluntary, informal,
and happily anticipated gatherings of individuals
beyond the realms of home and work”
― Ray Oldenburg

Artist: Lotta Viitaniemi, Story: Kim Forsman & Teemu Arina Dicole Ltd.

Serendipic Learning
Serendip - old name of Sri Lanka
“Serendipity is the art of making an unsought finding”
- Pek van Andel
The Three Princes of Serendip: “They were always
making discoveries, by accident and sagacity, of
things they were not in quest of”
- Horace Walpole, 1754
Photo: Cocca

Finnish Sauna ;)
Löyly - Spirit or life
Photo: Jezz

Zemblanity of Education
“So what is the opposite of Serendip, a southern
land of spice and warmth, lush greenery and
hummingbirds, seawashed, sunbasted? Think of
another world in the far north, barren, icebound,
cold, a world of flint and stone. Call it Zembla.
Ergo: zemblanity, the opposite of serendipity, the
faculty of making unhappy, unlucky and expected
discoveries by design.” William Boyd

Artist: Lotta Viitaniemi, Story: Kim Forsman & Teemu Arina Dicole Ltd.

Artist: Lotta Viitaniemi, Story: Kim Forsman & Teemu Arina Dicole Ltd.

The mark of our time is its revulsion
against imposed patterns
Marshall McLuhan
(1911-1980)
Photo: Lalallallala

Pattern Recognition
“Information overload is an opportunity for
pattern recognition” – Marshall McLuhan Image: jbum

Artist: Lotta Viitaniemi, Story: Kim Forsman & Teemu Arina Dicole Ltd.

Technology as an extension of the body
Marshall McLuhan
(1911-1980)
Photo: Don J. McCrady

Human Evolution
Homo Habilis Homo Erectus Homo Sapiens
2.5m - 1.8m years ago 1.8m - 70k years ago 250k years ago
Brain: 500 - 800 cc Brain: 950 - 1100 cc Brain: 1000-1850 cc
Tools Advanced tools Art, writing, speech
“Man the Wise” - Carl Linneaus

We shape our tools and afterwards
our tools shape us
Marshall McLuhan
(1911-1980)
Photo: JJay

Symbolic linking (Symballein: draw together)
Icon (resemblance) A = B
Index (causal relations) A → B
Sign
Symbol (abstract concepts) A ~ B, ✝
Charles Sanders Pierce
(1894)
Photo: Hauntedpalace

The spoken word was the first
technology by which man was able
to let go of his environment in order
to grasp it in a new way
Marshall McLuhan
(1911-1980)
Photo: Don J. McCrady

We Extend our Bodies
Belief systems Clothes
Advanced technology Sense-enhancements
Controlled energy Advanced social organization
Environmental adaptivity Advanced language
Trade networks, exploration Innovative abstract thinking?

Spirit of the Age (Zeitgeist)
Homo ludens (man the player) -Johan Huizinga
Homo creativus (creative human) -Sam Inkinen
Homo aestheticus-informaticus (knowledge-intensive human) -Aki Järvinen
Homo cyber sapiens (technologically improved man) -Luc Steels
Homo electricus (man implanted with microchips) -Michael & Michael

Social Web = Noosphere?
• Planetary thinking network
• Interlinked system of consciousness and information
• Global net of self-awareness, instantaneous feedback,
and planetary communication
Teilhard de Chardin
(1881 - 1955) Photo: Don J. McCrady

Distributed cognition
Physical
Social
Virtual
Mental Inspired by: Kai Hakkarainen

Homo Contextus
Contextus = connected or weaved together
Context = Circumstances in which an event occurs
Homo habilis → Homo sapiens: Brain size increases physically
Homo sapiens → Homo contextus: Brain size increases virtually
Connected human escaping the physical limitations of connectivity
with modern network technologies
Photo: Uli Schneider

Homo Contextus
Electricity and light: mechanical age extended our bodies.
Eletronic age will extend our nervous system
Connectivity focus: focusing on diversity of connections to
people who use tools to extend their mind and bodies
High media production skills: for object centered sociality
Prosthesis of thinking: extending cognitive capabilities
Photo: Don J. McCrady

Parasitic Learning
Learner using someone as a
teacher through virtual means
without the knowledge or
consensus of the host
Photo: Spike55151

Deschooling Society
A good educational system should have three purposes:
1. Provide all who want to learn with access to available
resources at any time in their lives
2. Empower all who want to share what they know to
find those who want to learn it from them
3. Furnish all who want to present an issue to the public
with the opportunity to make their challenge known
Ivan Illich
(1971)
Photo: .AMagill

Case: Network Oasis
Collaborative working, learning and
development environment
Space designed to inspire spontaneous and
guided encounters of different individuals
Glow: interface between physical and virtual
Virtual mobility, Hybrid space, Serendipity
Ref: Ilkka Kakko

Case: Dicole Knowledge
Work Environment
Areas Blogs Wikis Feeds

Artist: Lotta Viitaniemi, Story: Kim Forsman & Teemu Arina Dicole Ltd.

Four questions:
1. What does it extend?
2. What does it make obsolete?
3. What is retrieved?
4. What does it reverse into, if it’s over-extended?
Marshall McLuhan
(1911-1980)
Photo: Don J. McCrady

Contact:
CEO Teemu Arina

 Dicole Ltd.
 +358 - 50 – 555 7636
 teemu@dicole.com
 Blog: tarina.blogging.fi
 www.dicole.com