This document discusses the hacker mindset of combining random bits of information and applying psychology. It touches on various technology topics like open source, mobile phones, data, and crowdsourcing. The author advocates for building flexible technologies, collaborating with practitioners, and focusing on simplicity. The recap emphasizes that technology is strategic for nonprofits and education, and that technologists need to think of building instruments rather than just tools and get more experience outside of their field.

1. Better tools for a better world
Because we're worth it...

2. About me
●
Hopeless from the start
●
I blame Lego Technix!
●
Bought a ZX 81 @ 11 years
●
Fell for the wrong crowd
●
The perfect fusion of
science and art should be
served in a Martini glass...

3. Language, it is a virus...
● non-profit vs NGO
● fluffy, yet feral
● what the hack?
● community & multitude

4. “In the beginning the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry
and has been widely regarded as a bad move.”

5. The spell is broken
Remember the world ending in '82?
Well, it didn't...
But it did create a spirit of DIY,
and a healthy disregard for authority,
be it traditional or of the guru kind.

6. Gimme my tech !
Rediscovering radio
Modem, the bookpress of our age
Ooh, and we're in university now...
No Internet? Well, let's make some.

7. Fast forward a decade or so...
Gov: we can't measure noise
People: oh yes we can
Gov: but the infrastructure is not there
People: uh, yeah, got it
Gov: D'oh!

8. Geluidsnet

9. The hacker mindset: combining
random bits of information...
● Tropical hardwood is expensive.
● Beancounters like to tag expensive stuff
● Barcode programmers are still programmers
● The country code for Birma is 95

10. Just add psychology
Two options:
A: get a small spy camera
B: get a friggin' big tele lens and be very visible
(yes, two weeks later they switched to RFID ;-)

11. “[The Ident-I-Eeze] encoded every single piece of information
about you, your body and your life into one all-purpose machine-
readable card that you could then carry around in your wallet, and
it therefore represented technology's greatest triumph to date over
both itself and plain common sense.”

12. Buzzword alert
We're at a paradigm shift
Adapt or perish
Open source is just the beginning
Oh, did I mention it's great fun?

13. Bovine excrement alert
Laws of physics are pretty stable
The laws of politics even more so
Mind the gap
'Weak ties – strong ties'
'The Four Powers' (Within, With, To, Over)

14. That money thing...
“This planet has — or rather had — a problem, which was this:
most of the people living on it were unhappy for
pretty much all of the time.
Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were
largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper,
which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of
paper that were unhappy.”

15. A new currency ?
€ ₩
$ ₫
₪ ฿
₮ ₹ ¥ ៛
£
£
₭ ₸ ₴
₱
₢
The most important one is missing. The minute.
Yeah, time is money, quite literally.

16. Are you completely bonkers?
Of course, cold hard ka-ching still counts
But tech is a great equalizer
Make no mistake, net and mobile are disruptive
NGO funding is directly related to attention

17. “The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends
to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases,
those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication,
otherwise known as the How, Why and Where phases.
For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question
How can we eat? the second by the question Why do we eat?
and the third by the question Where shall we have lunch?”
lunch?”

18. We're no major Galactic Civilization
So, we're doing it all at once.
Sort of.
Let's try to get away from data and tech...

19. Back to the cave...
Basically, we're still huddled round the fire
listening to stories
singing songs
teaching the new generation

20. Gathering our words
Crowdsourcing: even ants do it
Sourcing a crowd is key
Up against vampires: get stakeholders!
Location, location, location...
Mobiles outnumber toothbrushes...

21. Tech check #1:
● Keep the lines and the tools open
● Walled gardens: a nicer prison?
● Make tech personal. And communal.
● Design for simplicity. Practitioners first.
● Security, that double-edged sword...

22. “A common mistake people make when trying to
design something completely foolproof is to
underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools..”

23. A story is born...
Sifting and sorting: it takes a village
Organize many eyes AND many mouths
Avoid tunnel view. Upset your experts.
Tradition: stupidity, repeated.

24. Tech check #2:
● Build flexible
● Don't blind with 'science'
● Your design can hide alternatives
● Collaboration is messy. Cope with that.
● Yet, we have some unique experiences to offer.
● Don't stay in your safe tech hideout !

25. Minstrels and prophets...
“Human beings, who are almost unique in having
the ability to learn from the experience of others,
are also remarkable for their
apparent disinclination to do so.”

26. We're definitely at the
“where to have lunch” stage here...
Facts: necessary, by no means sufficient
Remember that attention economy?
You better work, supermodel!
(timing, beauty, urgency, relevancy, catchy...)
having a villain always helps...

27. “Nothing travels faster than the speed of light
with the possible exception of bad news,
which obeys its own special laws.”

28. Tech check #3:
“The best way to get value from data is to give it away.”
Neelie Smit-Kroes
● Presentation is NOT optional.
● You're part of an entire orchestra.
● We not only build instruments, but play them.
● Yes, that means dealing with humans. Lots of 'em.

29. “In order to fly, all one must do is
simply miss the ground.”

30. Ouch
● The Camel & the Gnu
● Structurally sound?
● Open-washing

31. Recap: for nonprofits and edu
●
Tech is strategic. Not an expense.
●
Discussions are n-way conversations...
● Practice what you preach.
● Relax, your chances have improved massively since
beating each other up in the sandbox ;-)
● Learn some new lingo. Seriously. It's 2012.
●
Tech needs you as well.

32. Recap: for techies
● Don't build websites. Build an œuvre.
●
Think instruments, not tools.
●
Delivering to specs is delivering the next legacyware.
● Open source, data, channels. We need 3 out of 3.
●
Not including mobiles? You're elitist.
●
Get out more. We have stuff to tell.
And still a lot to learn...

33. “We have normality. I repeat, we have normality.
Anything you still can't cope with is
therefore your own problem.”

34. Catch me
● IRC: polyester
●
twitter: polyester
●
paul@cleanclothes.org
(all quotes: Douglas Adams.
Subliminal message: Towel day is May 25th)

35. Some further reading
http://openforchange.info
http://selection.datavisualization.ch
http://www.kobotoolbox.org
http://www.akvo.org/blog/?cat=4
http://irevolution.net
http://ushahidi.com
http://fairsay.com/events
http://tacticaltech.org

36. “Gazing up at a god's crotch can do wonders
for a person's lack of low self-esteem.”