out of all the conversations at lift, i am still awe struck by one presentation.

when i first had lunch with Ben Cerveny, our casual conversation would have led to nothing more than a few high-fives and an occasional email. though, something struck me funny when he casually made reference to his presentation and it's generic topic of metaphors. once Ben started his presentation, everyone shifted in their seats. it was instantly clear that this was was not going to be a simple conversation. by ben's second paragraph, Michele Perras and i had stopped taking notes. by ben's third slide i just closed my eyes and let the words flow into my ears

to me that there was no way in hell i would ever understand the complete value of this presentation. so at the end, (yup that me mucking up the microphone)... i had to say thank you for blowing my mind and inquire about Ben's perception on intelligent life... after a 10 min break, i attempted to sit down and listing to another presentation and could not. so i ran out and quickly wrote school of fish. since that afternoon, i have been in awe wondering how to use this data. after a request to laurent, the awesomeness face of lift; he uploaded ben's presentation. one by one, all presentations will be up! snag them via itunes or your pirate "arr-Rss" reader.

there are several ways of interpreting ben's presination. one, is to accept it at face value and only consider that the terms we use in technology as analogous to science terminology. two, we should think more about the abstract and not attempt to catalog it as a new invention. though we should continue branding these things as hip, hot, sexy beasts. three, is to look at flow as representative of nature's biological ecosystem. instead of attempting to think we are breaking through new walls of enlightenment, we should harness these tools to augment the ways we communicate in person. just like we have open conversations we should ensuring that the data flows freely. if that is the latter, data stuck within our brains is in it's natural state, harmonious with nature. sadly, in the technological world, there are two impediments that prevent flow from being at harmonious state...
1. closed technology systems.
2. technical hardware that data sits on.

imaging a world where you don't have to have a million and one user names and passwords. imagine a world world, where you have an aggregate social networking site, and you no longer have to create a million profiles and go though the same meticulous process of adding friends. imagine a world were your business systems are easily integrated with your desktop calendar, address book, cell phone, etc... the distance of this world isn't too far off. through the work of Lawrence Lessing, EFF, Save the Internet, Open Source, OpenID, Microformats, The Internet Task Force, and the Integration Proclamation - just to name a few - they are working endlessly fighting closed systems. thought the fight never really ends. there are many still who think they can control the flow.

most troubling of ben's metaphors is the hardware that sits beneath all of our society. two additional presentations at lift highlight the problems industries faces - suren erkman and julian bleeker. while suren's presentation was dry and complex, it provided a thorough review of industry and how we should move forward looking at which models we should use for industry. space is not just the final frontier, but is a clear example of a closed ecosystem that needs complete sustainability. note - peter barns who's attempting to move markets (not just companies) to calculate the cost of the environment - capitalism 3.0.

julian bleecker, gave a succinct presentation (video here) on the second life cost in our first life. julian's not just talking about the game, but all of our online activity. nicholar carr's deduction that a Second Life avatar is equivalent to a Brazilian is not an absurd statement to make. second life is not alone, google is also facing power consumption issues. in january, i, cringly reported that google has gone to extraordinary lengths to purchase property next to power plants. just in this week's economist's article "going green" goes on to expand the power dilemma we face, by fundamentally taking a look how AC conversion into DC is inefficient and the most costly in power consumption.

the power that is consumed by our flow is just part of the iceberg. greenpeace's green my apple campaign is nother example of the unsustainability our flow faces. even the most trendy of computer manufactures has problems producing environmentally computers. computers, cell phones, tivos, batteries, etc, are all manufactured from harmful products. grist magazine does a great job speaking in practical realistic language of things we can do to be better. as we have decreased the barriers of publishing a linty of online publications have appeared - ecogeek, treehugger, and worldchanging just to name a few. at home, you always have sustainable power and terrapass...

as the flow we create exceeds the footprint of a human, and our hunger for it's company becomes as prevalent as our desire for shelter, warmth and love. we should take stock in the transformative nature of all elements of our interconnected society.

Technorati Tags: ben cerveny, global change, Julian Bleecker, lift conference, lift07, second life, sustainable development, sustainability, transparency, web 2.0

i really don't want to even think about putting up a blog post digesting today's notes.

a few reasons...

one - i spent the day running around thinking, and getting ready for the open stage...
two - most of today's content really doesn't even come close to yesterday's presentations... though, i did enjoy Sugata Mitra's and David Galipeau's comments in facing the digital divide...
three - some jerkoff, called me an idiot and said yesterday's notes were useless...

in the meantime, check out my flickr photostream while a find some q-tips, clean out my head, and get tanked... btw, keep you eye on the space below... i will be twittering.

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Technorati Tags: lift conference, lift07, david galipeau, Sugata Mitra

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it's hard to think of all that has happened yesterday when yesterday's second to the last speaker is reverberating through your head. i'm absolutely impressed with the quality of speakers and the diversity of ideas. there is one theme that seems to be more prevalent than most...

we need to build ecologies, not systems.

speaker by speaker we have been introduced to the ubiquity of data, communication methods and it's impact to everything around us. most importantly, many of yesterday's coversations focused on the envroment, and how we don't take physical impact into consideration. rarely, before today, have i ever heard the concept of the physical world discussed in such dire and unforgettable ways.

lee bryant's morning presentation spoke on ways we need to rethink our intelligence inside the enterprise. while he waxed on collective intelligence, his statement "we need to feed our minds, not our machines..." stood out. from my personal view point he is correct, we have entered a point were our focus is too much on products and not on practice. after lunch, sugata mitra extendisng this concept when he spoke on reengineering primary education. he focused on peer education and how children from small improvised towns across india, cambodia, and south africa can teach them self to learn new languages and technology.

after lunch, julian bleecker spoke susinctly on his research on the affects of second life on our first life. mind you this is just surface research... we are now living in a world where our desire to participate in a "second life" has highly expensive, and non-sustainable costs. best quote - "there is no way to reboot our first life if it crashes..."

BUT that doesn't mean we should stop...

mr. bleecker's comments were mirrored in a similar presination by Suren Erkman and Paola Chillani who solely focused their conversations on sustanable develoment. both reiterated the fact, we must start thinking of everything as an ecosystem. slide after slide and from two different vantage points - humanity and industry - we see the systemic fallacy of our consumption. no penguins army here... just plain thought into how we can increase efficiency and design a better world at the same time.

then, my brain exploded. i had lunch with Ben Cerveny and he mentioned that his presentation would be on metaphors, but little did i know that his presentation would be the keystone of all other conversations. eloquently, mr. cerveny linked every digital action to a biological term. through this synthesis of actions, we have shaped information to be the proteins of the digital age.

these proteins, like in biology, are the building blocks of life... it's hard for me to even attempt to be so eloquent as mr. cerveny. needless to say, the world we live in now is like a school of fish, and as mr. cerveny reiterated "a fish does not know what the school looks like..."

that's day one of lift!

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Technorati Tags: ben cerveny, hole in the wall experiment, Julian Bleecker, Lee Bryant, lift conference, lift07, Paola Ghillani
Paola Ghillani, digital ecology, second life, Sugata Mitra, Suren Erkman, sustainable development, technology, web 2.0

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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...

while i'm sitting here listening to Stowe Boyd educate Eurpoeans and a few North Americans, Justin from Blogads passes along a complementary YouTube video. for the past few hours, Stowe has torn into every social media app of the past few years. i'm so happy to hear him provide commonsense advice for the future.

And if you disagree with him, check out Web 2.0 - The Machine is Us/ing Us. it's hard to argue with Digital Ethnography @ KSU and Stowe.

this article was cross posed at lift's attendants blog..

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Technorati Tags: blogs, geneva, lift conference, Stowe Boyd, technology, web 2.0, youtube

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click on here to see my photos from geneva!

i'm normally not a huge fan of the super bowl. consistently, i'm sitting in a room of people too immersed in the statistics to have a sustainable conversation on the weather. this year, i found my self in an interesting predicament.

tired and exhausted, i limped though the day. finally, after a tea and drinks with florian, a buddy from last year's lift, and a heavy couscous dinner with laurent, the head organizer for lift, we headed back to the same Irish pub i had breakfast. after laurent's departure, i met up with my alabama breakfast mates and we watched don johnson get smoked and prince rock the house!

in the past 48 hours, i've had to ask my self the following questions...

1. why in the hell did sky sports put don johnson as a sports announcer?

2. is "gatorman" geneva's serial graffiti artist as prevalent as neckface?

3. do you know what's a intersquat? they have a great logo

4. how comical is it to see stencil artist copyright their logo.

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Technorati Tags: funny, geneva, hipsters, neckface, graffiti

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while i'm in geneva, i'm going to be posting back and forth between this site, noneck.org and my open-source travel project, On the luck of Seven. there's already one juicy story, and once i find a higher speed connection, i'll be flicking some pictures up. Until then, I'll see you on the luck of seven!