BIG, big day... ahhh, i am now living under dire consequences. i'm stuffed with hot cheese fondue, and contrary to everyone's warning i am drinking a cold beer and will polish off a 1.5l of water.

later tonight, i'm going to summarize my thoughts in a separate post, and toss them up here tomorrow morning. my new hostel (really same old hostel, just a different room, a single room no less...) doesn't have wee-fee so my online activities are confined the hostel's bomb shelter. I AM NOT KIDDING. You'll see a few pictures of the door tomorrow. until then, these are my running thoughts from today's sessions. i have to apologies to all the speakers whom i couldn't attend... don't worry, i'll watch your videos and comment on them later... ;)

many kisses goodnight!

full notes after jump...

conference things to note, or my perspective...

• there is great energy running this morning. even though i was running late, i see two interesting... one - registration took longer than expected. two - the lift plus play area is awesome
• sessions are scheduled back to back forcing non-stop presentations. so far, i've only seen 30 to 50 switch back and forth between rooms.
• conference attendants are 90% men / 10% women... of them, a majority of the men are wearing suits.
• internet shit the bed 30 mins after 500 people joined the same node. it's now been more than an hour since we've last seen access (11.15).
• it's soo funny to hear them say Zed, like X, Y, Zed...
• of the first round of sessions... room two is huge and is currently holding 300 - 350 people. the smaller is currently cradling 100 or so. out of the two, the larger is packed with suits; the smaller, is filled with bohemians. Ironically, the smaller room's focus is "beyond conventional interactions" and the larger focus - "the social web."
• HUGE THEME!!! Ecologies... Everything is connected...
• stowe boyd is enjoying himself a lot... it's funny to see a man in his "moment."
• AHHHH, the pain and agony of no wifi. these wireless nodes are going up and down like Bill Clinton's pants!

Florence Devoured - Chair of the board, Wikipedia

• "there are no walls and no limit to the wealth of information in today's society."
• damn-it, my camera's dead and she's got awesome slides... damn-it.

Do biologists dream of robotic art? - R. Debatty & F. Cadet

• doglab.net - an art display of modified robotic dogs that are genitally altered to demonstrate the humorist aspects of modern biological modifications.

Collective Intelligence inside the enterprise - Lee Bryant - headshift.com

• we need to feed our minds, not our machines... let's refactor the factory. why? because the tools we use at the enterprise level break when tooo many people use them.
• IT has the finger in the dike.
• social tools are good <- still experimenting in ways to make them productive
• next level, collective intelligence - MIT center for collective intelligence and three examples - inventive, wikipedia, google.
• down to earth rules are the same as community empowerment...
• there is too much repetitive work, many are doing the same things over and over.
• editorial - we've reached that point in the presentation where we start talking about the importance of del.icio.us and digging. oy! why does everyone have to say the same thing..
• note dion hinchcliffe's five suggestions on collective intelligence...
• "this is not just a technology issue, but a cultural issue. context is key and we must engage people on their workflow." so far the world is being created by geeks and we need to help shape the conversation.

Contemporary space(s) - Christophe Guignard

• philosophy and architecture are key in building a relationship with your space. (example the greeks using math in the construction of the acropolis)
• studio project "blur" make architecture made with water and humidity.
• interesting exploration of Nestle's real rooms. in their headquarters, they have a series of rooms representing every time zone in the world.

What kind of Humanity do we want? - Paola Ghillani

• "i want to speak to your soul."
• "we must be sustainable - economic performance, social development, respect of the environment - this can only be done in a transparent world."
• first, let's look at enron, and it's profitability came from raping the world. second, let's look at sustainability and how it can be successful by protecting people.
• let's look at profit from personal equality.
• we all have the power to make the change from econ-system to eco-system.
• we are over producing and don't allow for to cover the cost of production.
• note: the norvegian model of incorporation and how corporations should look.
• unlimited growth is unsustainable
• 90% of future energy must be from renewable sources. nuclear power is also unsustainable.
• the swiss have a unique opportunity to become leaders in sustainable development.

Industrial Ecology - the future of hyper-industrial economy - Suren Erkman

• let's think of a mission to mars that will have no communication with earth - the only solution is to create a biosphere above earth. example - project Melissa, from ESA
• let's look at industrial ecology - broad and rigorous conceptional frame work (scientific ecology)... operational strategy (practical approach to sustainability)... collective and cooperative strategy (systemic scale) - and they only way we can do this is to think of a full blown ecology when building industrial systems.
• Editorial note - many people are walking out of this presentation... granted this is very heavy stuff, but it's kinda interesting. it would be better if this guy didn't have a gazzilion slides with overstated ecosystem work-flows. it's kinda sad that his study is lost among people who have empty stomachs and short attention spans.

••• LUNCH... yummmy! ••• other thoughts... i wish we had name tags... oh, wait here they are... doh, i wish we had them before lunch... damn it, weefee down again!

Outdoctrination: Society, Children, Technology and Self Organization in Education - Sugata Mitra

• first - remoteness and the quality of education. in these situations of remoteness, with no infrastructure and difficulty retaining teachers. mr. mitra took a small trip across india to explore why teachers stay at their jobs... looked the more remote, and the worse in performance. there was no correlation to power, books, water, etc... but the correlation came with teacher motivation.
• second - education technology (ET), traditionally piloted in urban areas has biases results. ET is perceive to be over-hyped and under-performing in schools that have good students and teachers. DISCOVERY - ET should be piloted in rural areas first.
• "a teacher that can be replaced by a machine should be."
• the hold in the wall experiment from 1999 - 2004. this experiment placed a computer in a wall and linked the computer to altivista.... this also discovered that in under 8 mins kids will teach themselves.... in a later experiment, within 3 months kids learned 200 english words amongst themselves. also discovered that the young ones taught the older ones... 6-13 year olds can self-instruct... in a connected environment irrespective of their background. an interesting side-note, they only educate in groups.
• irrespective of location, results mirrored national performance in standard education programs.
• normally there is one child on the computer, 3 are watching and learning properly, and behind them 16 are following incorrectly. through the power of group learning, the 16 will eventually learn correctly.
• after 6 years of testing, primary peer education can be done...
• FOUR STATEMENTS on "Outdoctirnation." And one fundamental question, can these be goals for education technology in the future?
• 1 - remoteness affects quality of education.
• 2 - Education Technology should be introduced in rural first.
• 3 - values are acquired, dogma is imposed.
• 4 - learning is a self-organizing system.
• on the $100 laptop... it's great idea and it's a spin off my hole in the wall project but needs to have metrics.
• btw, the same experiment has the same results in camboda, south london, and south africa.

Community on the Net: Going virtual in proportion to being actual - Sister Judith Zoebelein

• WOOT! i saved the day by switching the sister's monitor display... btw, she uses a powerbook! god is a mac user! ps - did you know that john paul once was given a white newton?
• simple interactions are primary to the church.
• service needs to understand in completeness... virtual seeking and real acting...
• there must be sacramentally to our lives. the internet should facilitate real world connections.
• grounded in hope, the internet is the desire to belong to something greater...
• there is no way to reboot our first life...

Communication technologies and new forms of social interaction - Lara Srivastava

• "technology is personal and inseparable from our lives."
• "social relationships are now regulated by social technology."
• mobile, mobile, mobile, mobile
• in the past we've keep our social context separate, and now with social technology we are combing all networks.
• "what is our tipping point of sustainable connectiveness?"
• "we live by inference."
• "we are looking for simplexity."
• "we are the center of many different networks, and the center of the paintable internet self."
• how can we hold onto the concept of self within the network of social.

When 1st Life Meets 2nd Life - Julian Bleecker

• really thinking about second life in second life...
• first life has many material contingencies, and is the debt we face in second life on many levels - materials, resources, expended energy (example - toxic circuit making, 1753 kWh per avatar, 1061 kilos of CO2), debt to physical body, time...
• "there is no way to reboot our first life, if it crashes."
• "in first life, there is only one world to inhabit."
• How can we bridge the two? Is it possible to bridge the two? Can we make the second life an educational tool to learn about the first life's connection to the second?
• Start by creating legible, playful reminders of the materiality of the first life - motion, time and distance.
• Through motion, Wii is a good example of reminding us the materiality of first life.
• Time, the game animal crossing.
• Distance, the game Teku teku angel, your steps are coordinated with a pedodomter.
• "we should not do away with second life, but we should make a bridge between the two... i work at a stand up desk to remind my self of my physical connection to the work i'm doing online."

The Luminous Bath: our new volumetric medium - Ben Cerveny

• editorial note - my head is exploding!!!!! when i get this video i will not stop pushing it to everyone!
• what are some metaphors to discuss in our space...
• first metaphors... "spilling of information into space..." flickering of communication in our existence...
• we're becoming more conscious of the concept of flow.
• collectively we represent a blanket of flow... "it's flooding everything..."
• our digital existence is the dna and particles of our space of attention.
• Memotaxis. protein sequence through tags...
• when they come together though meta data
• data starts to build it self out and construct it's own existence.
• accretion - attach to people places and things.... in a fluid medium, there is no hard line... data is similar..
• signaling - passive ways of communication.
• schooling - signaling makes us flexible for education... "the shape of a school of fish is not noticeable by fish." data visualization!
• bioluminescence - everything is traceable and trackable
• how is all this useful?????
• decant - taking a bit of the fluid and studying it. like wikipedia on one laptop per child...
• crystallize - interface for refacturing data. from gas, liquid to solid and back again...
• acculturate - what are the results through applying different forces. "becoming part of bath."
• i then asked about artificial intelligence... ben's responce... "we may already have intelligent technology. the fish does not know what the school looks like..."
• my brain hurts... all these metaphors have linked tooo many systems together. i don't know where to begin and where to end... it's like "there," yes, "there," no not there... but "there."

Everyware: Further down the rabbit hole - Adam Greenfield

• Weiser's notion of computing "invisible, but in the woodwork everywhere around us..."
• editorial note - i had to leave; after ben, my brain exploded...

<!-- technorati tags start -->

Technorati Tags: Christophe Guignard, conferences, Florence Devouard, geneva, global warming, google, Julian Bleecker, Lara Srivastava, Lee Bryant, lift conference, lift07, live blogging , Paola Ghillani
Paola Ghillani, holl in the wall experiment, Second Life, Sister Judith Zoebelein, Sugata Mitra, Suren Erkman, sustainable development, technology, web 2.0, wikipedia

<!-- technorati tags end -->