Carr takes us through the earlier dramatic changes in technology, and hence: changes in our thinking – the clock, the map, the book. All of which changed us – but for the better. Now the internet – well that might not be for the better. Our brains have changed again, cause our brains are not like computers. They are organic, they change with what we do, and as we remember things. We’re not reading the way we used to. We’ve dropped reading at different speeds for different purposes in favor of skimming the internet. Oh yeah, and every piece of research shows that we suck at multitasking, no matter what we think.
So is doom, gloom and possibly brimstone to be expected? Well Carr actually takes position more as an observer, than an advocate. Except of course in his choice of topic, and the scientific research he’s meticulously building it all on. And just like his tour through the changes brought on by electricity in The Bigs Switch – it’s all very meticulous, and well documented by science. No matter how gloomy Carr paints our current situation, the book is both enlightening and important. Darn!

- Lucky I just read The Information Diet, which has actual practical advise for dealing with the internet and it’s flood of information.

Code for America is a fantastic project that uses the principles from Open source development and Crowdsourcing to solve problems within the public sector.

Code for America is a new non-profit that “helps governments work better for everyone with the people and the power of the web.” They are building a network of cities, citizens, community groups, and startups, all equally committed to re-imagining government for the 21st century.

A related project is “The Red Tape Challenge“. An experiment the British Government is conducting in an effort to clean up in legislation and laws. Using the web to give feedback to the law and policy makers, directly from the people, who on a daily basis are in contact with the consequence of the law. The initiative is “designed to promote open discussion of ways in which the aims of existing regulation can be fulfilled in the least burdensome way possible.” “…The default presumption will be that burdensome regulations will go. If Ministers want to keep them, they have to make a very good case for them to stay.”

This I believe is the real beginning of a change in democracies where the engagement of the citizen in the governing of democracies is changing. And where the key to the future of a 21st century society lies in its ability to implement this strategy with its citizens.

I think the most important thing any free society can do right now – big or small – is to use the power of social media to leverage the distance between policy makers and it citizens in the most concrete way imaginable.

To be a citizen in the new world you will have to participate – because “goverment is what we do together” in a democracy.

Forget social media – this is a global citizen movement.

TED talk about Code For America

Image from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wader/74677334/

There is gold hidden right next to "Sell More Crap to Idiots 2"

Topic 1: Marketing I love selling great ideas (though I’m not into marketing, as the number of readers on this blog reveals , but why not use the internet to market your great idea – or yourself, so you can get in a position, where more people will hear your idess?

Topic 2: Our Brains (and the Internet) - a topic that’s popular – also in this corner of the internet. What does the new input from the science du jour Neuro tell us about outselves, how to hack our own brains, or those of our readers. World domination, and perfect GTD mind like water, here we come!

Topic 3: Content and Curation are hot these days – so how do you create better content, bring it to more people or prune your content to the essentials, so your readers can find what they need. Curation is a closely connected topic; how do we value curation vs content creation, what is good curation – and what about the people, and algorithms who is curating our content for us?

Topic 4: Life & Work How do we manage all that information, how do we organize our digital lives – and find time for a life offline as well? Sort out your work life, and start to work on your life today!

I’ve read 2 so far, more about that soon, but there are plenty more good stuff to come. Like my taste in books? Well I’ll probably love yours! Find me on Goodreads!)

McGonigal is famous for her ideas about harnessing the skills and powers of the gamers of the world to make it a better place, in her book Reality is Broken – or her TEDtalk on the topic. Her appearance at #SXSW2012 was a talk about becoming SuperBetter (and a launch of the App/Gamesite for playing the game). Back in 2009 she had a concussion – and the treatment is lying still for around 3 months. No reading, no gaming, no tv, no moving around, no computer… Basically: Do nothing, have no entertainment – no wonder the suicide rates for concussed people are three times higher than average. McGonigal felt her choice was to either kill herself, or turn it into a game – so she came up with Jane, the concussion slayer (guess the inspiration). The video she made later, explaining the game, got so much response from people who had used  it to make their live quality better, she wanted to make it more easily adaptable to the multitude of possible uses – so she’s now made SuperBetter in cooperation with university researchers. It’s tapping into the knowledge about post-traumatic euphoria, and all about building up resilience – since all research shows, that this is key to surviving (almost) anything. Physical, social, mental and emotional resilience. Superbetter can help you do that, within whatever field you want to focus on. And yes, it’s free. There’s no excuse – go get SuperBetter right now!

Ogilvy Notes did these pretty visual notes of the talk: A Crash Course in Becoming SuperBetter – Jane McGonigal @ SXSW 2012.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering: McGonigal leveled up without a hitch – no falling over in her heels, not even wobbling along the way.

Also a good conference gives you input that isn’t necesarily digested on the spot. Ideas and impressions that you want to keep fresh for further deliberation later. So what to do? Twitter is great for the quick remarks or a photo, but it’s a real-time media, and the search function has a very short memory – so continuity is a problem. And your followers may not find your every note-to-self interesting.

The best solution I’ve found so far is to use a posterous blog as a catch-all for my thoughts and first impressions. It ain’t pretty, and it’s not supposed to be. But it keeps the impression fresh for later use, whether that’s show-and-tell’ing your colleauges about all the different gizmos they had at Bett, or your joint notes and impression pictures from SXSW.

Why Posterous? I love WordPress, but for the quick and dirty blog for short term use, I’ll go with Posterous any day: The ability to post anything via email is invaluable when mobile and on a mobile device most of the time. Posterous accepts audio, video, photos, text and whatever else you throw at it. No matter what format it is. If you can send it via email, posterous will post it for you. Then when you get home and your impressions have settled and ideas developed further – you can go back and consult your (audio/visual) notes.

Still have that MySpace account moulding away in the back of you digital closet? Not sure if you ever left that photo-sharing site you used before you found your current favorite? Are you 100% sure you remember all the sites you ever signed up for?

Step 1: Clean up your app permissions 
Great news: it’s not even difficult – a great new service mypermissions.org gives you direct access to app management with all the most popular services. One-click assess to the listing of apps you’ve allowed access to your accounts. From there it’s easy-peasy: click “Remove permission” for everything you aren’t sure you’re using anymore. My advice: Rather remove too many than too few – you can always grant permission again if needed.

Personally I’ve been very strict with my Facebook permissions – so not much clean-up to take of there, but it seemed every other service on the internet had access to my Twitter and Flickr accounts. But not anymore!

And in case you’re wondering (as you should) about security mypermissions.org does not ask for any of your passwords, it just provides you with easy access to manage you own permissions!

When you’re ready for the next step: It’s time to clean up your past!

More from Maria Andersen here: http://www.wfs.org/content/world-is-my-school