1. By: Clay shirky Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations2007 PowerPoint Presentation by: Micaela Carter PRCA 3030 03/10/2010
7. People can publish whatever they want! Publishing is effortless “Unimportant” events become much more “important” “Radical spread of expressive capabilities”
Clay Shirky was born in 1964; he is writer and teacher and specializes in the social and economic effects of Internet technologies. He has been writing and has been interviewed about the Internet since 1996. Clay has had columns appear in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Business 2.0 and Wired. He enjoys writing about social networking and new technologies.
In the first chapter, Ivanna who lives in New York left her cell phone (Sidekick) in a taxi cab, the phone contained a lot of information about her upcoming wedding. Her friend Evan created a site in order to help Ivanna locate her phone. Just by all of the traffic he received through his website they were able to find information about the girl who took the phone, where she lived along with photos and videos of her home, her MySpace page and her boyfriend, were all discovered, in addition a police officer even posted on the website how to file a stolen report for a phone. If it was not for Evan to have created the site, then most likely Ivanna’s phone would have never been located.
-quote from pg. 25Shirky continues to talk about group undertaking which he portrays as a 3 rung ladder that includes sharing, cooperation, and collective action. Group undertaking is like a ladder of activities, which are improved by social tools such as Flickr (sharing), conversation (cooperation) and a government (collective action). Forming groups was once a tough mission for people to do, but now with the Internet, cell phones and new ways of communication have been created through technology, it has been made easier for us. It is hard for everyone in a group to interact with each other as the groups grow larger; the nature of the group becomes too complex. This is where organization comes in to solve the vast problem of complexity within groups.“These changes will transform the world everywhere groups of people come together to accomplish something, which is to say everywhere.”
With the development of the internet and more companies now relying on it, it makes communication and work tasks easier and quicker. Depending on the software or the job needed to be done sometimes relying on the internet is simple because of all the free applications it offers. With that being said, this is creating a smaller job market for everyday office/clerical jobs because production and distribution have now been made easier.
A story that the press might feel is unimportant can be found important by someone else and gets posted on the web. As a result of this posting, blogs get started and this “unimportant” event becomes much publicized on the web. Everyone out there is essentially an outlet of media, whether it is through websites or blogging. The simplicity of publishing provides us with much more media outlets and ways to get our news, this changes news from an “institutional prerogative to news as part of a communications ecosystem.”- pg. 66. The “radical spread of expressive capabilities” has resulted from mass amateurization.
People can publish whatever they want, which undoes the limitations that the press imposes. But it is best to keep all information published accurate, understandable, and accessible to the public.
Shirky discusses how sometimes people feel overwhelmed when it comes to new technologies and learning how to use and work them. He goes on to say that people need these new technologies and need to know how to use them in order to grow with society. “The more an institution or industry relies on information as its core product, the greater and more complete the change will be." –pg.107Shirky also says that we do not need to unlearn information, but rather learn more. This is probably because with that overwhelming feeling of learning we might feel that we can forget things we have been taught in the past.
I learned a lot in this book when it comes to accepting what is offered out there and how to take advantage of it and use it to the best of your ability. This book was a perfect find/ read for me, because I know that I absolutely hate learning how to use to new things and especially when it comes to technology (I usually give up before I even try). This book was more of a reality check for me. With that being said, meaning as much as I don’t want to give in and learn all about the social networking sites and all the features of blogging, I just need to accept it and also accept the fact that this is where society is headed (or already headed). One thing that really surprised me that Shirky discussed was the freedom of the internet. Even though I do blog and use Twitter, I have never really taken advantage of these outlets and published my true opinion on either. I have never thought about the fact that the “unimportant” becomes important when it’s posted online, or the fact that to post online is so effortless. Hopefully once I get out of school and have found a steady job, I will be able to express myself more over the internet, but for the time being I’m too scared at what potential employees might think of my opinions. Remember Shirky said that the internet is a loss of professional control. One thing I would like to know more about was when Shirky discussed group undertaking and how they are improved by social tools. This chapter was not made clear to me with the exception of the section about how group interaction is easier now due to technology and communication improvements. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone out there who is looking to move forward with their life to accept what society is coming to or has already come to.
