OPENSOURCE LONDON

Lets stop the share croppers, HOW MUCH AM i WORTH FACEBOOK?

Simple idea here so I won't try to be too complex about it. Social networking sites are essentially made by the people that use them. Hence its pretty obvious that by participating in the network we are creating value for the network. hence the we are essentially the product and the consumer at the same time. So a social networking site is like a rock band....the fans make the band and if the band forget this they soon find themselves on the train back to where ever they come from. Fans make demands on bands, songs, musical direction and can sometimes limit creativity and even cause the band to break up. I digress! My point is this, we are the business, modern day social employees. Facebook is essentially us, without us the company would not exist. Hence my point being....Instead of demanding a share of the profits from our percieved value to the company. We should hold the company to ransom until it agrees to make charitable gestures i.e getting involved in good cause one which we decide upon.

BENEVOLENT PROFIT SHARING

HENCE THE IDEAS IS THIS - WE COULD HOLD A COMPANY LIKE FACEBOOK TO "RANSOM", WE ARE STAKEHOLDERS IN THE COMPANY AND IF WE GET TOGETHER WE COULD ASK THEM TO POSSIBLY GET INVOVLED IN THE HUNDRED DOLLAR LAPTOP SCHEME - OR SOMETHING ELSE WORTHWHILE. MICROSOFT JUST DROPPED A BILLION ON THEM - SHARE THE LOVE IF NOT WITH US THEN SOMEONE ELSE WHO REALLY NEEDS IT.

I mean we could down tools right....Just find a social networking site that gives 50% of profits to charity!

if you are a member of Facebook - Please join the group here and spread the word

FACEBOOK USERS UNION (FU2)

Rich

eMbraCe uNceRtaiNty

Well Everything is looking good so I thought I would try to sell a couple of T-shirts in a Blatant way to raise some funds for the payment of various things we have going on....So if you fancy supporting just buy this t-shirt. Thanks so much.... You can buy it by clicking here. It come in all sizes. So take your pick!!! thanking yoU!

Interesting Collage

IMG00057, originally uploaded by replayzero.

I found this fascinating. Don't know why....I guess its just my taste.

So who actually owns our culture?

Here is an interesting presentation on the ideas that structured the commodification of our history and the ideas that will shape the "ownership" of our cultural future - This is part one - part two can be found on here

OPENSOURCE GENERAL UPDATE>

Okay a quick update on exactly whats been happening in the world of opensource.

1) The next issue is currently in production and will be out soon. I have been in the process of setting up a distribution network for the magazine. No body wants to have a great magazine but nowhere to put it. This has taken slightly longer than I first anticipated....but its looking good. So you should be able to pick up the next issue from various places in West central, East and of course South east London. I have been getting lots of input from various sources and would like to say thanks for all the content. It seems to be coming together.....I am also looking to revamp the design of the web page so anyone out there who knows CSS, PHP, MYSQL.....I would love to have a chat.

2) Communitape is also nearly at completion. This project has been 5 months in the making and I am very excited about how its going to pan out, fingers crossed. The developers should be uploading the first incarnation this week....Which is for testing only. I will be sending out invites to people very soon....

3) The Rank Deluxes album, and this is the main reason I haven't been blogging. Recording has been pushed back to April. We were supposed to go into the studio in Feb, but we weren't ready. Typical rock band.......: ) But everything is looking sweet for April. We will be going into the studio for a full two weeks and  intend to learn as much as humanly possible about the whole recording/production process from our very talented producer. So fingers crossed everything will be cool on that front.

It seems that there is alot of finger crossing going on here. N.b the exploding skull is representative of mind expansion!!

Jasper Johns "0 through 9" : Opensource style!

I work everyday with numbers!!!

HOUSE OF M

I have to confess, I read comic books on and off.....I really enjoy them...One I am reading at the moment and can highly recommend is "The house of M". The story is amazing and the art, well look at the picture on the left.....I was talking to a friend the other day and he mentioned that a thought that comic/graphic novels have better narratives than most major motion pictures. hmmm. Well I think the obvious problem with dipping into a world everynow and then is that alot changes, especially in the comic book world. Its not the ideal solution for the die hard. But Wikipedia, apart from being the ideal resource for everything factual also seems provide Comic book character backstory, Which is I find a significant barrier to entry. For the partial observer/weekend driver it great to get an idea fo whats going on and with whom! Well, if you want to learn more about comic book narratives read Understanding comics: The invisible art, by Scott McCloud. Fragmented Narratives and alternate realities rock......Enjoy!

The perry bible fellowship

I first heard about Nicholas Gurewich when my friend Ben drew my attention to a piece he had read in G2. The first strip I saw was the whales in which Barry the whale is told to "shut the fuck up!". I was hooked, but in a nice way! I don't think anyone has a bad word to say about these dark humoured universes. Well, I just found the Perry bible fellowship website on Zefrank so thought I would direct some of the unconverted to it. Well get into it man! You can check it out here or http://www.pbfcomics.com/. El primo comic lust!

ISOMETRIC EYE CANDY

If you, like me, like graphics then you have to give kudos to the pixel by pixel artist. This method of working is labour intensive and only for the die hard. I really love pixel work, I am a geek for it. I don't know what it is about it that I love so much but I know that pixel joint enables me to get my fix anytime I like. So pixel joint is like a hub for point by point artists. I don't want to "dance about architecture", so you can go look for yourself, Here is a great example to start your heart skipping.

I recognise that of late ISO ART has had a bit of a resurgence. Personally it never went away. Isometric art is, i find, one of the hardest but rewarding forms of computer art. Innovation is paramount. It's amazing what people can do with a limited pallette and a few hundred squares. ISO's have been used in print advertising and various other promotions. One prominent is the honda branded ISO CITY, which is not in your face but just a nice thing. It is vibrant and full of amazing colour. Just as it should I could look at this stuff all day....I mean all day! What a geek I am! Check out pixel joints graphic loving community here! Thanks to Elliot Tai for the Delorian you can see some of his other stuff here

Its always been done like that!

Start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the bananas. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all the monkeys with cold water.

After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result – again all the monkeys are sprayed with cold water. This continues until pretty soon whenever another monkey tries to climb the stairs all the other monkeys will try to prevent it.

Now put away the cold water. Remove one of the monkeys from the cage and replace it with a NEW one. The NEW monkey will see the banana will attempt to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror all the of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt, and attack, he knows that if he climbs the stairs he will be assaulted.

Next remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with new one. The newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Like wise replace third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth and a fifth. Every time a new monkey takes to the stairs it is attacked. The monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.

After replacing all the original monkeys none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the bananas. Why not? Because as far as they know that’s the way we’ve always done it around here.

For further info check out Ian jukes article here. What a brilliant thing!

contemplation - view from my window!

A strange giant mirror containing people pretending to be a microchip!

New opensource magazine logo, you decide!

Personally I am digging all of them...but I can't decide so let me know which ones you like?

Exhibit yourself!

X PartyDeptford X 2006

The X Party has grown! It's now a 3 day rock'n'roll meets Art installation at the New X Inn (the Venue's next door neighbour). It has moved for reasons outside of our control......
As part of this year's Deptford X visual arts festival the Music Tourist Board are hosting the X Party on Thursday 23rd November , Friday 24th November and Saturday 25th November 2006 at The New Cross Inn, New Cross, SE14 from 7pm  - late.
The line-up includes and The Rank Deluxe, The Veez, The Alps and The Faries Band amongst many others.
Entry is £5
Check out these websites for more informations
www.myspace.com/x_party
www.deptfordx.org.uk

Does this picture make you feel something?

The big apple

I have been in NY for about a week now and have seen some interesting stuff. I have listened to a lot of people from Manhatten to downtown Brooklyn. Looking around I see that fads here are total, they span the entire 5 boroughs. Ny is supercharged. The most obvious one that jumped at me was the amount of micro dogs/pooches/mutts on the streets, I mean everybody has dog the same size as a cat and some also get dressed up too. Please see "little miss". One other thing I noticed is that most people on the side walk are by themselves. I mean everyone walks solo and if they aren't walking solo they are driving an SUV the size of a house. Just a couple of observations I made.

I also learnt a great quote from George Benard Shaw;

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world,
The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself,
Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man"

and dropped into the Russell davies coffee meet in NY, which was nice to listen to everybody.

I have also played a couple of shows with my band and am still trying to figure the out the universe...never gonna get to that one....

I have told a few people about opensource.....but in a city this vast you kinda feel a little bit washed away............but the next issue will be out soon.....oh yeah!

OPENSOURCE AND DEPTFORD X

The Deptford X festival is a celebration of the Art scene in general and more specifically the South east of London. I think this is an amazing opportunity for everyone doing something to come together and promote as a collective. Sum being more than the parts and all that.

The promoters had a "Warriors" Style meet in the Live bar on Sat. Everyone is aiming to get the party going for the 23rd of November. I think it is a great amount of time to put something special together. It will have bands, Art installations, Art participation, Dj's and and an amazing celebratory atmosphere and of course a copy of the ole "opensource magazine" will make a physical appearance.

An awful lot of talent is waiting to break out and I think this could be a prime opportunity for people to come and experience brilliant direction in its infancy. If you have any suggestions for the party you can either leave them as a comment here or post an idea to the magazine submission page and I will try to include it.

We go on then, jump in the water is lovely!

Food for Autodidactic people

The world of academia has been opened up to the everyman. Indeed, an exciting time to exist. Lectures on subjects a varied as economics to astrophysics, politics and philosopy to the theory of music and get this most of them are in video...... : )

Like Matt Damon in good will hunting said "you probably just dropped 150G's on an education you could have got for a buck 50 in late charges at a public library".

Google "lectures" and "University" for access to some great ideas and perspectives. Opensource education means anyone can participate. They even give you the powerpoints.

ARG and the rabbit hole

So what do Nokia, lost, Collectable gaming cards and a couple of million people have in common. the answer would be "alternative reality gaming".

Have you ever seen the movie "The Game" with Michael douglas and Sean Penn, You know when MD's character thinks he is involved in a conspiracy and it just turns out to be a well orchestrated game constructed by a company. A birthday gift from his brother no less!

Over the last five years a new form of gaming has come to the fore. Alternative reality gaming is pervasive. The line between gamer and game is disturbed and sometimes erased. World of warcraft requires you to go into the network, create a character and work it out. ARG's invade reality and turn you into the game. The clues are delivered in many media. No one channel is selected for distribution. It is a case of ears and eyes open!

Nokia have one every year, the TV show has the lost experience and these literally bring millions of people together. Right now as we speak people are scowering the web for a person in the above picture. He is infact a clue to unravelling a plot worth $100,000 to one lucky contestant. This type of gaming is ongoing and can consume some people. People who aren't consumed team up and form communities to take on the challenge!

This is a very powerful opensource movement. People coming together to solve problems in an alternate reality. Who knows given time people maybe able to utilise some this collective intelligence for political games in the real world. My introduction came in the form with the Speilbergs "A.I." movie promotion. These games are a real time hallucination, people playing have to ask is this real and I fear may begin to consider everything as a game. I already believe that but hey thats another story!

A great book on the subject is "This is not a game" by Dave Szulborski.

think your smart huh?!

Watching people solve the rubiks cube is impressive. Watching someone solve the rubicks cube in under a minute and a half, whilst blindfolded is something else!! There are hundreds of people out there doing this a bit like walking on a mental high wire.

Ze frank

 

 

If you haven't heard of Ze then check it out. Everything make sense eventually. Confusion makes you smarter. Its currently happiness week! Ze frank is a shining example in the world of user generated content. Basic premise is to build social connection through humour. It helps when you as humourous as him. His show is watched globally and he encourages people to mix it up and get involved. This is social production at its funny best.

Move from the 70 to the 20 and then to the 10! SO why are you still here then! CLICK HERE

Annenberg and cocreation

I stumbled across this School of thinkers called Annenberg. If you are into social production, technology and media. Maybe this site could enlighten you somewhat. They have teh best brains investigating the effect of different types of communication media upon Global culture. It centres itself around the enabling characteristic of networked technology. Some thinkers believe that this networked interaction will define the future of work, rest and play. Some argue it could create more democratic societies. Who knows?! The one thing I do know is that we have had massive development and we haven't even got wimax in cities.

Thomas friedman in his book "The world is flat" highlights a section in the Communist manifesto.Many people it seems are excited by the inherent and obviouss parallels between Marxism and these new forms of Web bades social production. I am not a marxist, nevertheless being able to express myself online, create artefacts and enable action through net based collaboration has left me with a great sense of confidence. I think everyone has a passion and that the internet enables people to take their non professional intellectual potential to its furthest point. Perhaps in the future people will do what pleases themselves first and that will feed back into the network or physical world. A society based upon the selfish unselfishness of passionate amatuers.

"The world is flat"

I am currently reading a book called "The world is flat" by Thomas Friedman. Basically it concerns itself with the idea that we are moving to a networked society. Similar in Nature to Manuel Castell.

I am fascinated by this idea. Is the world flat? I don't know. One thing I do know is that I am a 25 year old guy in London. I have a laptop and a broadband connection and I am in the process of setting up my first business website. I love technology, I love it because it enables me to have long talks with developers in India about how I want my site to look. I love technology because I can gain access to information on any subject I like. I love technology because it enables.

All of a sudden the world is wide open to anyone with an idea. The internet appears to be replacing coincidence with confidence. Excited? I am!

Richard Buchanan INC; whats in a name?

I recently did a Dave Gorman and typed my name into Google. In a way I was happy to see that most people with the same name as me were all quite successful individuals.

Richard Buchanan Numero Uno is a Design professor at Carnegie Mellon. He is totally maximising the power of the brand. Internationally famous and a published author. Well done Rich Five stars. The name is proud of you.

Richard Buchanan 2 is a professor of Marketing at Massey university. He doesn't have a personal profile but I am sure he is a nice guy. He looks serious but being a professor can't be fun all the time. Another post states that Rich is a "humourous business speaker", "a guru" and "not your ordinary academic". Yet again 5 stars to Richard. Hes keeping the stock of Richard Buchanan inc high and mighty!!!

Wiat it gets better.....Richard Buchanan 3 is A CEO at a very large and powerful media company. It says in his biography that he works very hard and has had a successful career. Wow I am beginning to think that the name "Richard Buchanan" is a gateway to sucess. Totally impressive Stats there Rich. Keep it coming. 10 out of 10

Richard Buchanan number 4 seems to be just as powerful. My other name sake is a "world renowned expert" on Enterprise architecture and IT Strategy. As above he is also a published author on numerous subjects. Looks like he would a good person to know in the world of networks. It also turns out that Rich 4  "was the founder and principal of The Buchanan Group". Which means that there is already a Group of people out there called the "Buchanans". Awesome! I wasn't told tho'. I wonder if teh other Richards were invited.

It turns out the wikipedia entry on Richard Buchanan shows that I am also a labour movement politician. It looks like he was someone who worked hard. He recently passed away but was a bonafide member of parlianment.

I have investigated the list further and further and every Richard Buchanan I come across just makes me feel like I don't work hard enough. So far I have a  professor in Design, a marketing expert, A CEO and IT Expert and a politician. All very powerful people. Could it be that the name Richard Buchanan inspires people to be great or just that the google search will naturally bring back people who are great.

Hey maybe I could get them together and we could form RICHARD BUCHANAN inc for real. I don't what we would make or do but I am sure we would be great at it.....this has taught me a lesson. Some things are best left undiscovered. Now I have to do something or bring down the average!

Wikipedia Experts and the shallow ocean theory

If you don't know who Joi Ito is, well you'd better find out. He is one of many people contributing to the subtle and silent take over of information. One of many leading the charge to a creative commons and various other Co-creation activities he is prolific and full of ideas.

Joi talks quite alit about the fear of wikipedia and the like being incosistent due to the vandals. Its weird because one of the most prolific experts posters on the site turned out to be a 15 year old kid. I find this interesting as it shows that given the chance social structures tend to be self healing and self organising. Wikipedia above all for me is a global experiment in trust developed through consistent checks and balances. Essentially in order for the system to reach its full potential.

I think of Wikipedia users as creating a shallow ocean. Think of it like this. One person cannot look at every part of the ocean in detail, the task is too difficult. Wikipedia works by dividing the ocean up into glasses of water and gives one to each user. Thus each user is looking after a manageable amount of the volume and can quite easily spot problems. Ask yourself what is better a passionate amatuer or a sloppy professional?

Well anyway Click here to check it out.

CollectiveX

I have recently learnt about a great website that provides groups with a unique workspace to share ideas and work on products. It is called collective X I first heard about this on the blog of Russell Davies, Account planner extraordinare.

I shall be putting this to good use on my website project Code name "COMMUNITAPE"

I will let you know how I get on.

The future of competition

So I am thinking about the future of competition. Reading about Co-creation, profit sharing and the like and began to think that perhaps this could just be a fad, a philosophical bubble.

Well for the record I am making a site where the user is both the customer and owner. Radical!!!

If you know of any cool Profit sharing websites please let me know.

At the moment I am reading a book called The future of competition "Co-creating unique value with customers" by C.K. Prahalad and Venkat Ramaswamy. It was released back in late 2004. I think they are trying to establish the framework for a gift economy. Obviously they are looking at the benefit businesses and customers can recieve. In the future the customers will be the business. A silent takeover is afoot.

I am also revisiting some of the writings of Manuel Castell, some call him the smartest living sociologist. I don't know about that but It sure would be interesting trying to find out. He is a big thinker on the distribution of power in society and the tendecy towards a networked society. V.V.V Interesting.

New venue, expansion

So we thought it was going to be smooth sailing. From port to port with smooth weather. unfortunately we have entered our first obstacle. The owners of the Bubblegum club, the location of the first Opensource party have decided that it was far too much of a success and that they couldn't possibly hold another successful party. A great shame considering the fact that halfway through the night the owner had to dive out for some extra cans of beer from the local Tescos. Which I thought was a good good sign. neverming onwards and upwards!

So we have decided to move the party to another, larger venue. this could be risky. But hey OPENSOURCE S.E>X is all about expansion. I am interested in getting something going. The Zine is also growing and we have established a CollectiveX collaboration environment. People come get involved......

<a href="http://technorati.com/tag/opensource" rel="tag">"Opensource"</a>

OPENSOURCE PARTY!

Okay so we held the first opensource party "OPENSOURCE S.E>X" on the 14th of June. Was it a success? Well people turned up, so in a promotional sense YES.  However, the overall idea of the party was to foster an environment in which the people at the party generated ideas for the next one via a relatively easy to use voting system, with the profit of the night paying for the next one! SIMPLE!

At the party we had live music from my band The Rank deluxe, also Rosemary and on the decks John Kennedy(XFM EXPOSURE). It was a great night and would like to thank everyone that participated!

I kept checking the evolution bank every now and again and it seemed to be working people began participating and therefore shaping the next event.  It seemed the users were more than happy to contribute an idea or two! Well how great! Until that is, a comedien decided to steal the idea votes.  Well lesson learned.  it needs to be manned. Ideas are valuable and drunk people are drunk people!

The first OPENSOURCE user defined evening did not go 100% according to plan. Not to worry tho'. These are glitches that can be ironed out. We are looking forward to the next party which should be held soon.

Compilations

In the world of infinite choice how is anyone going to choose. I know from experience that choice can paralyse. I remember being a child going into the newsagents to buy a magazine. I would be gripped by indecision. I would have a limited resource. Pocket money and I would be confronted with 100 titles.

Struck by confusion I would pick them up one by one to read. By the time I made up my mind I had read most of them and would decide it would probably be better to spend my pocket money on something else. It could be that when markets are dominated by infinite choice that firms will have to either spend lots of money on getting the product into peoples conciousness or giving it away for free so consumers will at least use it and have some point of reference for future purchases.

This is already being seen in the piracy of windows in Asia(they seem to let it happen so they can walk straight into a captive market) and also with other software. Get the basic platform, then sell you extended services and updates.

Well I was thinking about how, with the development of the the singles download market users would be able to purchase and learn about music. Web 2.0 would suggest that this should be determined by the user of the service? I mean why not? who is best place to position music than the people that listen to it everyday and love it. User defined compilations are a great idea. They allow people to position obsure relatively unbuyable long tail tracks within a subset of tunes that make it relevant. that add value through positioning and relevantivising.

Compilations are a way to make things relevant. Collectable things always need a point of reference. If someone can provide you with a starting point, a handle it is alot easier to explore.

Too many pasta sauces!

It is interesting to look at the shelves in a supermarket.  I often look and try to work out how many resources were wasted trying to bring all 100000 different pasta sauces to market. I understand the idea of competition and appreciate that a bit of competition is healthy for products and ideas to develop.

I was thinking the other day about prepaying for products that haven't been made yet. Imagine that. A website in which you can prepay for a product help to design and make it and then have it. I don't mean the individual either. I was thinking mass scale.

Okay lets look at a pasta sauce. It is essentially tomato, water, herds, sugar and salt(other ingredients too), This product in pretty undifferentiated in the market. You have 100's of brands all competing on the strength of their branding, which ultimately pushes up costs.

I was mulling over the idea of a user defined product and for some reason I came up with a pasta sauce. I think it had something to do with the fact that it could be called "open Sauce" or something like that!! Anyway this got my mind to thinking about opensource products and pre-pay customers. It could work something like this: You prepay for a jar of pasta sauce say £1.50 and the tell the company which pasta sauce you buy the most. Once we have compiled enough data and enough people have pre-payed we can produce the product and provide it too the customer. You don't need to have a mega-branded product because it is user defined on co-operative principles. The product is tailored to the people who designed it. A prepay, opensource system enables you to define the product in the eyes of the customer.

Taking it a step further, the recipe could be place under the creative commons and you could make the customers direct shareholders.  Ina sense every product purchase becomes an investment into the development of a project you are designing. It a vehicle to create product loyalty via direct participation. This model can be applied to anything. The beauty of the system is that the profit goes straight back to the consumer in the form of a great product at a low price.

This kind of technology is not about creating products for profit.  It is about redistributing the choice of a consumer from which pasta sauce to purchase to how can I halp make this pasta sauce better.

I don't know its just an idea!Picture thanks to takuya37