Soft Skills to Master by 2020

1. Efficient integration with helper devices (Siri, smartphone reminders, smarthome sensors)

2. How to speak with devices: comprehensibility

3. Creative pursuits tied to the unique qualities of humanness (i.e. expression and ability to read emotional content with clear response)

4. Clear boundaries between self and the wearable tech world (time away from devices, Digital Detox, connection in balance with other humans, nature and the whole)

5. DESIGN for symbiosis: biomimicry, human-centered design combined with a clear understanding of our embedded future with helper devices

Infinite Consciousness, Disposable People?

Do you ever think about living forever? I have no personal desire to live out all of eternity in this body….but there is a desire to maintain some history of consciousness that can be passed on and shared across generations.

Ben Goertzel is getting to the vast unknown of infinite consciousness in his recent post on Mind Uploading:

“I don’t know if we will ever solve the “hard problem of consciousness”, i.e. the problem of rigorously connecting subjective experiences with physical structures and dynamics.   My gut feel is that this will require the invention of some new discipline going beyond contemporary science, synthesizing aspects of empirical/theoretical science with aspects of spiritual traditions and contemplative metaphysics like that of the medieval Buddhist logicians.  I gave a talk on this at the 2011 Asia Consciousness Festival.”

Mind Uploading connects the human spirit to the world of digital interfaces directly and it makes us question ideas like reincarnation where some karmic exchange is passed from death into new life. Uploading aspects of consciousness implies that your mind can then be accessed and used by others, perhaps even downloaded into a new host. Embodied intelligence can then take infinite new forms if the receptors and information retain their integrity. Research on reincarnation suggests a direct mind upload from one consciousness to another complete with habits, scars and physical connections.

The interesting future of AGI promises deep interconnection beyond individual access to any information – AGI taps into the collective desire to create new forms of awareness. Quantum computers, doping silicates and graphene nano & biochemistry experiments will yield all types of life over the next decades. We have just started to see the future and there is some interesting terrain and potentially scary monsters ahead.

The series Dollhouse (click the GIF for animation) showed personalities and minds stored in drives that were mixed and implanted into other humans. “Disposable humans” are a trend that should scare us, whether it’s our homeless, our foster kids and runaway youth, the lost and displaced among us who are often invisible and do disappear. Portable minds and population control dance a very close line in Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse, creating a 2 season exploration of what could happen if we let individual ambition, fear and control dictate our ability to work together. Emergence has dangerous consequences for us and we must expect big shifts in our way of life as we go through this bumpy evolution.

I am optimistic for the future of alternate intelligences as complimentary to our own, only because I have dedicated my work to building healthy bonds between humans and the rest of the intelligent universe to create the new science that Ben Goertzel suggests. I wrote a series for families on this topic with my husband (ManorMeta) and will continue to advocate for stories that promote symbiotic relationships between the human spirit and the emergent newness we are collectively creating.

I have spent the last nine months building EDDEFY with a team of brilliant scientists, designers and futurists because we saw the need to connect the dots in human learning & binding insight. People put objects, concepts, ideas together in creative ways that we have not yet been fully able to emulate with computing systems and over time we will begin to see the patterns in human binding, the context betweens the lines of content in our daily lives. The narratives that come between us and comprehending the choices we make are a tough nut to crack in the quest to create AGI and map the programming of human consciousness. I believe we can solve these contextual puzzles using great tools like EDDEFY to understand how humans put together their thoughts and over time learning how we connect the dots.

There are lots of leaders out there who may have tools to help you program yourself and fine-tune your abilities while embodied in this human reader now finishing a blog post. I am interested in creating the toolkit, bringing together the tools and making educational technology available and easy to use for anyone and everyone on this planet. I do not want to see us become a culture where “disposable people” are ignored, abused or destroyed. What kind of future do you want for the humans?

Bitcoins for Business Startups

Last year while I was deep in the Singularity University graduate program in AI, Education & Collective Intelligence Entrepreneurship in Mountain View, I took a weekend away from the unconferences and IGNITE talks to officiate the wedding of two friends in the Bay Area. My husband and I drove up to a winery, spent a beautiful day with the new family and I whipped out my iPad to make their vows visible for the world. At the end of the day we drove home and I went back to my team starting EDDEFY, our learning technology startup.

A few weeks later, the groom sent me bitcoins. At the time they were trading somewhere in the $11-$13 range and his gift of 8 bitcoins stayed with me for a few months. When it came time to bootstrap the incorporation of EDDEFY, I emailed the bitcoins over to my cofounder for her to cash in and use for the formation of the company.

Now two months later, the bitcoins have tripled in value (trading near $45) and our company is cash-positive! My original investment of time with friends has now bloomed into a new business and we still have a few bitcoins left over thanks to the generosity of the new family.

When we went to incorporate, we asked our new colleagues if they would accept bitcoins directly. While the company that assisted with our filing does not yet accept bitcoins, there are many larger companies like WordPress that do accept bitcoins as a new global currency that can remove barriers to commerce. The walls are coming down. We no longer need one government to insure our money – corruption in the traditional economy is apparent and we have seen their unwillingness to prosecute those companies who have stolen billions if not trillions from our workforce through fraud and questionable practices.

As a global company, we are thrilled to be using bitcoins as part of our path to helping others achieve their purpose, profit and passion. As a learning technology company, we see the potential for bitcoins to be used for mentors and tutors, webinars and classes along with a wide variety of learning opportunities that can now be offered directly from the provider to the world audience. We also see bitcoins as one way to bring social impact investing back into the hands of the people.

There is a mix of trepidation, interest and curiosity about alternative currencies in America and we have seen a tremendous shift for the last decade, from creatives making Lindens in Second Life to the growth of time banks, local currencies and sharing economy sites like Yertle. The opportunities start to outweigh the risks. We recognize that our trusted currencies are no longer as bulletproof as we once thought and the stalwart markets of metals and commodities are not the answer for the internet age.

If we want to open doors to new opportunities, we must be open to trying new things. Bitcoins allowed our company to incorporate quickly, make money and show that we are ready to join the global networked economy.

How are you employing new methods to success, and how are you opening doors for others to achieve?

Languages of Mindfulness: Connected Learning and Collective Intelligence

Many movements are now forming to gather collective insight, solutions for a troubled planet. I see you all lining up in your positions and I see the leaders who have the big picture to our dynamic puzzle. I see you, striving hard to achieve and bring together the beauty of our world. Our eyes meet across the meetup. We are connecting.

Two aligned movements are colliding: connected learning and collective intelligence. We are learning to use our potential to solve problems together quickly.

Now is the time for collective intelligence to open doors to universal wisdom. We need to learn from each other quickly, sharing our shared insights. We share so much in common – our water and air, food and arteries of transportation that can bring us together in a day. We can solve the big issues like never before. Our capacity and technology grows exponentially, and now we must learn to work together to keep up with our creations.

Now is the time to be all we can be together, to mobilize and put our plans into action. If you do not have a plan yet, write one out…it can be as easy as change what we do and how we value things. Here’s a process that works for me:

GOAL:  Grow love, increase capacity to resolve conflict

OBJECTIVE:  Change global mindset, shifting culture for billions over the next 10 years

STRATEGY:  Clear message of peacebuilding, participation in public commons, growing empathy in daily life. Promote deliberative efforts.

PLAN: Talk to 10 friends, throw a party and gather insights at public events to develop a common message. Spotlight empathy through interactivity and public participation in related channels. 

ACTION: Event inquiry/conversation and social sharing (Twitter, G+, Facebook, LinkedIn) to grow engagement on collective insight, participation in media and empathy in daily life. Host deliberative events and produce local/global conversations that include resolutions for personal and collective actions.

Lay out a path for yourself that starts with a goal and works through setting measurable objectives, a strategy to get there, a plan that you can enact and the call to action you need to see it through. This is a path of mindfulness, of creation with care.

Last weekend I produced social & streaming with the amazing @GATECommunity for GATE3 & StoryCon at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills. Amy Domini spoke of investing with your heart, a theme that has come up frequently in my work with the Center for the Greater Good to design impact investment and social development tools. The potential for social impact bonds is extraordinary – we have an opportunity now to show what value we can create together.

We all have a stake in our future. I am focused now on building the tools and models we need to create a beautiful world for our collective futures. Our learning technology startup Eddefy is a fantastic multitool, one of many tools that we are ready for in our box….tools that enhance our capabilities, organize information effectively and help us collaborate with others to solve those great challenges.  What do you want to learn and how do you want to use these tools to contribute your art to all of us?

This film may get your juices going to connect to the global grand challenges and find a solution to bring to the world. If you’re interested in medical innovation, check out the FutureMed stream this week from Singularity University, my alma mater is on fire this week.

Learning how to live with love & make media

In 2005 I traveled to Thailand to make a documentary with kids and women affected and infected with HIV & AIDS. In three weeks I visited social service centers, a camp for kids and families and a residential living center that makes its own clothing, bread, art and goods to sell that supports a village of 40 residents. There are many inspiring stories out there of what it means to love oneself and others through positive action – this is just a glimpse at a few of the people who have inspired me along the way.

A big thank you to Lars Hasselblad Torres and the Global PeaceTiles Project for making this journey possible, along with all of my extraordinary colleagues featured in this short. This was very early in my video production career and was all self-produced and edited – thankfully I can hire editors now to help me. It’s good to know our strengths – and hire others in our community to create more beautiful things together.

Please leave a comment and tell me what’s inspiring you to action – and let me know how we can create beauty together.

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=9212315598638441881&hl=en&fs=true

Jumo: the need for true Social Action Networks

Five years ago we would muse with catalysts at the Omidyar Network about relationship networks, reputation and trust and the essentials of building strong communities of change for both local and global impact. Today some of those ideas have come to fruition with platforms like Change.org, Wiser Earth, Ushahidi, Quora, LinkedIn and Twitter campaigns. As many of us have worked together and cross paths frequently in the ethers there’s been a desire to track those engagements and understand true reputation through our work over time, mapping the most prolific leaders with great questions & endeavors like we do on the TechSoup Forums.

Jumo released to the public in the last 24 hours and has the potential to fill the gap between great people and great endeavors in a different way than Change.org, LinkedIn or Wiser Earth manages to do. Unfortunately it seems Jumo may have more interest in the transactional economy of giving than the relationship economy it has the potential to grow, becoming a philanthropic passthrough that takes a cut higher than most fiscal sponsors, but lower than the United Way. So far it functions very closely to the Causes function on Facebook, more like Razoo. It’s a start, but personally I want a real economy of contribution that goes deeper than dollars.

Tracking followers simply in the Quora fashion is a nice and elegant way to see who influences who but it lacks any sort of qualification or indication of endorsement. Recommendations in LinkedIn are more helpful but a star/point system would allow for users to vote up their favorite leaders and catalysts in various fields.

I think the creators of Path are on to something by creating limited networks and I’d like to refine it more deeply in the #TrustTable project – creating true indicators of trust and reputation by demonstrating who are the most reliable people indicated on a short list of must-contacts in case of emergency. #TrustTable is an ad hoc project designed to solve at least two problems: the need for quick emergency contact data in a semi-public online space and mapping reputation & relationship trends to show who are the most trusted people in our communities.

The concept for TrustTable is simple:
You have a round dining table with only 10 seats for guests. Choose the people you would want at your last meal on earth, the person who should be first to pick up your kids if something happens to you. Ten seats only: make sure you include the people who should be contacted if something happens to you – this is your command center and this is your league of personal superheroes. Colorcode their chairs with contact protocols and link it to their FB or Twitter page so someone can push your big red emergency button if they need to – you choose who will be contacted for your customized needs. Choose to share your private link with your school, hospital and family or make certain data public and decorate your table for a feast to benefit your favorite cause.

I value social action networks with indicators to vote up submissions to the creative economy. If you imagine each post, video or photo as an asset in the marketplace of Facebook or Twitter I want the ability to be able to give extra stars, points or fiery dragons to the people who are submitting the best possible solutions. The LIKE button is ok but I’d rather have 30 stars a day and have the ability to blow 5 stars on the best link or photo. I believe that this mix of a creative economy and reputation-associated relationship building will allow us to find collaborators and get things done more effectively in less time.

So far the social action networks that have sprung up to get things done quickly include Ushahidi, the Crisis Camps/Crisis Commons movements and Twitter social campaigns. Most of these have required the frequent use of googledocs and wikis to manage collaborative information across wide virtual teams and lack the ability to track the backend of engagement well as we look to reward those who are getting the most done.

Credit and attribution is tricky in the nonprofit creative commons world of open sharing; we walk a dicey line between collaboration and needing to toot our own horns enough to win grants. We want to empower great ideas and resources always seem scarce compared to the giant needs we’re facing. Any tool that helps us leverage more for less is helpful….for now the tools that are helping me the most to create social change ripples include Twitter, Quora, YouTube, LinkedIn and Facebook. For now the social action networks like Change.org and Jumo offer enough for me to chime in once or twice, but I’m not seeing enough sticky reasons to keep coming back to share new endeavors. Some networks like #TrustTable would only be updated twice a year….but is there a future for a philanthropic discovery site like Jumo that does not push regular emails or curated updates? Would you keep going back, or are you having better experiences with other social action networks?

SocialGOV: Learning from Leaders at Social Media Week Los Angeles

Social Media is a fantastic evolution of human communication. It allows us access from afar and participation, even when sick.

On Monday I was lucky to host the SocialGOV panel in the beautiful Bradley room atop City Hall here in Los Angeles. We had a great panel of special guests: Alan Silberberg moderated with Christina Gagnier, Jim Gilliam, Heidi Nel and special guest Eric Garcetti joined the conversation.

Eric Garcetti, Alan Silberberg, Christina Gagnier, Jim Gilliam and Heidi Nel discussing government engagement & social media, hosted by Evonne Heyning

We learned a handful of useful skillsets when juggling multiple accounts, constituencies and engagement needs across diverse communities. Eric Garcetti talked about his dream dashboard for municipal engagement about 7 minutes in to this 90 minute event, along with talk on listening tools, finding the right mix of skills and voice for social media interaction, being willing to step in on difficult situations with openness, transparency, care for people in a very human way. All of our speakers spoke to both the technologies they use and the human skills they rely on to make online communication efficient for everyone.

What did I learn from these leaders? The *8 Tweets A Day* engagement standard seems to keep people going with enough information without overloading your social media channels. Jim Gilliam has a new tool launching next month that will allow for much more robust campaign management for activists and organizers. CitySourced has proven useful in Los Angeles along with Google Moderator, but Eric Garcetti still prefers Twitter for conversational engagement. OpenGov is growing as local agencies and departments embrace the localized news potential of tools like Twitter, Facebook, video tools and policy engagement Q&A spaces including the free Google tools used by LA government.

Beautiful photos can be seen at Flickr and you can watch the stream starting here at UStream for Social Media Week Los Angeles. Here’s a taste:

http://www.ustream.tv/flash/viewer.swf?vid=9717005

FroggOil

PLAY FROGGOIL HERE

Not sure why I felt compelled to make a Frog-Oil Spill game but now you can help our favorite little friend rescue his fellow animals before getting too close to the oil slicks, dispersants and other dangers in the gulf. Some of the research on this is coming from http://www.tedxoilspill.com – an amazing amalgam of activists, scientists and leaders exploring oil spill solutions.

This game is in early beta testing and all comments, ideas and solutions are welcome as we add to it. Thanks!

International Architecture is Here

Is it possible to be efficient as both a local and global creator?  Virtual vocations create an opportunity for international collaboration that is unparalleled — have we learned to work efficiently together across boundaries?

International Architecture

The architects of today’s International Architecture in Virtual Worlds panel hosted by the US Department of State in Second Life explored both the global and local implications of their shift to Second Life as a tool for professional design and education.  Judy Cockeram, Amr Attia, David Denton and Jon Brouchoud (also known as JudyArx Scribe, Archi Vita, DB Bailey and Keystone Bouchard) took an hour to join participants inSL for a streamed discussion followed by a tour of their key architectural builds.  Students and designers were given time to explore open source 3D design solutions like the Wiki Tree and Studio Wikitecture along with the gorgeous landscape of reimagined Cairo being built with the collaborative design team led by Amr and David.

International Architecture

After years of producing mixed reality events it still astonishes me when we can beam multiple speakers from around the world through space and time to join us in one place.  Synchronous collaboration still has its challenges (try finding one time zone that works for Egypt, New Zealand and the US) but we were able to gather 70 people from over a dozen countries in one place to share a conversation about architecture and international partnerships that may prove fruitful for a burgeoning new industry.

International Architecture

As the 3D web and our collective design desk radically evolves we are wise to make the best use of the tools in front of us, not only the Wiki Tree and www.archvirtual.com for Architectural design community but also the rich global community we share inworld at these panels, conversations and events.  Together we are asking questions, exploring potential, offering perspectives and hopefully opening a few eyes and ears along the way.

International Architecture

I am grateful for the professionals working virtually to share their work with a larger global audience and learn something new from people half a world away.  Their willingness to explore new methods is what gives us a rich landscape to explore and build on together, scripting new doors where none existed before.  Whether we work in architecture or public diplomacy, we  have this amazing time and space to share together and explore what our world could be like if we could take the best of our cultures and bring them together.  The virtual landscape is a dreamlike media where worlds can mingle and merge, much like our real world malls and living spaces where cultures collide, and I am grateful for the builders, creators and trailblazers who are making these worlds worth living in.

Thank you to Any1 Gynoid for this CNN iReport; take a few minutes to see more of the photos and videos shared at this event tagged #intlarchitecture.

Essentials of Virtual Community Building

No matter who you are, where you come from or what challenges you are hitting right now, there are a few things we all share in common.  We need a few basic things: food, water and shelter are followed by education and communication with others who share our experiences.  Deep down we want to bond and experience a sense of connection.

Connections thrive when we create solid and healthy communities and this is where virtual worlds excel: the immersive landscape is appealing to network weavers as it provides an infinite canvas for collaboration and experimentation.  My avatar In Kenzo wears her wings as a visible reminder to crosspollinate between the worlds and bring people together so that millions can come together and create the emerging 3D web.

When I first sat down with Douglas Thomas of the USC Network Culture Project he excited me with an idea:  Create a challenge to grow the communities of the virtual world.  Together with a stellar team we crafted The Second Life and the Public Good Community Challenge and successfully gave away a million L$ to winning projects chosen by a panel of experts.

Through the process of reading over 20 proposals and helping our panel through the process of picking their top five, I recognized that listening is essential to community building.  If there’s one secret ingredient to success from events to metaverse productions it’s deep engaged receptivity, not only to words but to actions and creations expressing the ideas that proposals sometimes struggle to capture.  Once you listen to what others say and do you are able to connect them with new ideas and resources to help them grow, which helps the whole community in turn.

During our event on Monday 11/17 I sat with our awardees and discussed the real world impacts that their communities have created in the last few months.  The awardees shared many triumphs including new sims and groups now hosting events along with challenges such as responsible research management in the nebulous terrain of virtual worlds.  Some tested the strength of virtual bonds as dynamic personalities make conversation a complex game about identity; one sim away excited groups at the Nonprofit Commons shared about the strength of their alliances built effectively in these networked spaces.

As avatars learning to work remotely for the first time our panelists for the challenge tested new tools including a graphic consensus-building device that allows groups to map themselves and see statistically significant data made by Alpine EMS. We relied on the talents of the Vesuvius Group to help us produce podcasts and content for USC Network Culture Project and many content creators throughout Second Life who brought their best to the table as artists and activists.  Global Kids, our virtual worlds collaborators for many events including the mini-conference this week, detailed their birds of a feather sessions and RezEd talks on their blog Holy Meatballs for youth audiences (and in the podcast below!).

Together we witness blooming artistic communities, machinima that tells stories of good created in virtual spaces that echoes into our daily lives.  Amazing storytellers like Draxtor Despres are now being recognized for machinima works; Draxtor is accepting an international humanitarian award for his work with the Virtual Guantanamo team who also brought us Wallsickness, a memorial to the walls that divide us and how we have systematically built them up and torn them down.  How do these virtual teams evolve over time as relationships extend beyond the platform?  The Wallsickness team is one example of a solid partnership sustained over years while other groups find their footing as new 501(c)3 organizations.

There are a few rare leaders who can gather a group of people and enjoy that space together over a long period of time, enriching each others lives in ways that we rarely reach in the real world.  Collaborations are more common, requiring great glue and gumption to form a sustainable community that grows and evolves with the people involved. Enrichment can take so many forms, like the support spaces created by the Ability Commons or the International Health Challenge created by the Texas Obesity Research Center.  The people behind these groups are just as fascinating as the beautiful places they create together; a conversation with Nany Kayo of Native Lands or Eme and Gentle of Ability Commons reinforced my belief in these spaces as viable for true social change.

The new Foundations sim brings avatars new life in a handful of ways, providing an encyclopedic museum of the various lifeforms we know and understand now while offering maps of conservation areas and local community building efforts throughout Chicago.  The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has been a unique presence in Second Life over the last few years as leaders in philanthropic exploration into virtual worlds, choosing not only to build their own presence but to give to other leaders to grow and explore what we can do together.  Few institutions have the foresight to allocate resources to these brave new worlds and it has been a joy to learn and grow with the Digital Media and Learning staff at the MacArthur Foundation this year.

Craig MacFound welcomed attendees at Monday’s event, speaking about Doctor Ludovico (Douglas Thomas) and his definition of Network Imagination as it relates to the freedom and agency of invention shared with copresence available in virtual worlds such as the new Foundations sim.  “This notion of community and imagination and the way they intersect motivates our presence here”, Craig MacFound noted as he expressed gratitude for the work of Aimee Weber studios bringing “beauty, imagination and playfulness” to the new Foundations sim.

In Draxtor’s video seen above he hits on four key affordances as outlined by Thomas’ upcoming paper from the USC Network Culture Project.  The communities we work with in Second Life embody 1) Awareness 2) Desemination 3) Organization and Action and 4) Intercultural Dialogue that breaks through traditional media resources into the daily lives of their members.  Each of our communities has learned to leverage at least one of these affordances very well to grow a community of likeminded avatars who care about political advocacy, health or engagement with their tribal brethren like the Native Lands project has provided in these photos of their Veterans Day honoring dedication and drum circle.

We share a desire to connect people and resources with our friends at Global Kids who have created RezEd and the Justice Commons.  Barry Joseph and Rik Riel hosted a discussion at Monday’s mini-conference that speaks to the future of these platforms for community building; listen to their podcast below and stay tuned for links to the USC Network Culture podcast of Monday’s panel with these amazing community leaders.