Group items tagged

Open FutureInterested in Open Innovation & Crowdsourcing? Follow Open Innovators on twitter or subscribe to the Open Innovators RSS feed! In addition to tracking specific trends about open innovation and crowdsourcing, it is important to build a broader view on those trends' underlying drivers and facilitators, and how they could evolve in the years to come. Trends, forecasts and scenarios about the power of the Internet, Web 2.0, the rise of virtual worlds, consumers becoming prosumers… The Open Future report is somewhat atypical, as it is build around interesting videos and quotes. It explains why and how one should constantly keep track of (disruptive) trends, build different scenarios, and have corresponding strategies prepared.

The Open Technology Initiative formulates policy and regulatory reforms to support open architectures and open source innovations and facilitates the development and implementation of open technologies and communications networks. OTI promotes affordable, universal, and ubiquitous communications networks through partnerships with communities, researchers, industry, and public interest groups and is committed to maximizing the potentials of innovative open technologies by studying their social and economic impacts - particularly for poor, rural, and other underserved constituencies. OTI provides in-depth, objective research, analysis, and findings for policy decision-makers and the general public. More Info

"On Tuesday 2nd July, we hosted open democracy and legal afficianados David Bovill and Jordan Greenhall, co-founder of DivX Inc. as well as individuals from organisations such as the Quakers, Occupy, People's Assembly and School of Everything, for a discussion focused on Liquid Democracy - a voting process and accompanying software enabling a richer form of dialogue to be embedded in decision-making structures."

"During the one-day session on April 19 at the AutoDesk Gallery, experts, researchers, and guests explored the many different frontiers where 3D printing and open manufacturing are changing the way that things are made. Among the topics that were explored were:"

Nice summary from Jamais on open foresight

"The European Journal of Futures Research is a peer-reviewed open access jounral published under the brand SpringerOpen: It publishes original research papers on all aspects of foresight and futures studies; Welcomes (inter-)disciplinary articles on society, politics, economy and science and technology, in particular from European and/or comparative perspectives; Encourages empirical, theoretical and/or methodological contributions; Strengthens networking and community building among scholars engaged in European futures studies. This journal provides an international platform for leading and upcoming scholarly work on possible, probable and desirable European and global futures. We invite submissions of articles focusing on both interdisciplinary and disciplinary studies on future developments in society, politics, economy and science and technology. The journal publishes empirically oriented articles as well as contributions of a more methodological, epistemological or theoretical nature.  Envisioning a common future, the journal welcomes lively debates on European affairs - viewed against the backdrop of a shared, yet diverse and complicated history. The journal seeks to foster comprehensive analyses of key European policies, such as those for research and education - among others. A central objective of the journal is to strengthen European dimensions of futures studies. All research articles are subject to double-blind peer review."

"Together, they highlight five "technologies that matter" for cities in 2020: mobile broadband; smart personal devices, whether they're dirt-cheap phones or tablets; government-sponsored cloud computing (modeled on the U.K.'s national "G-cloud" initiative); open-source public databases to promote grassroots innovation, and "public interfaces." Instead of Internet cafés, imagine an outdoor LED screen and hacked Kinect box allowing literally anyone to access the Net using only gestures."

"The image below this post comes from the latest IMF working paper (May 2012) looking at the "The Future of Oil: Geology versus Technology" (opens pdf) which attempts to take both the models of oil availability - that proposed by geologists and that by technologists and work out what the likely price implications are going to be to 2020. An internal working paper that "does not presume that there is a constraint on how much oil can be taken out of the ground. It prefers to believe that extraction rates will depend on the price that will be able to be charged for the final product", it makes the wonderfully understated point that "the future may not be easy". I continue to be amazed at the number of people I meet, sitting in leadership positions, who are unaware of this issue. I have heard from colleagues of engagements in the past couple of years with groups of senior decision-makers who have refused to discuss the issue as they believe it to be a fringe problem."

The image below this post comes from the latest IMF working paper (May 2012) looking at the "The Future of Oil: Geology versus Technology" (opens pdf) which attempts to take both the models of oil availability - that proposed by geologists and that by technologists and work out what the likely price implications are going to be to 2020. An internal working paper that "does not presume that there is a constraint on how much oil can be taken out of the ground. It prefers to believe that extraction rates will depend on the price that will be able to be charged for the final product", it makes the wonderfully understated point that "the future may not be easy". I continue to be amazed at the number of people I meet, sitting in leadership positions, who are unaware of this issue. I have heard from colleagues of engagements in the past couple of years with groups of senior decision-makers who have refused to discuss the issue as they believe it to be a fringe problem.

thanks Gareth, I'm sure you have already added this ;)

Iceland's Crowdsourced Constitution - A Lesson in Open Source Marketing

2020 Media Futures is an ambitious, multi-industry strategic foresight project designed to understand and envision what media may look like in the year 2020; what kind of cross-platform Internet environment may shape our media and entertainment in the coming decade; and how our firms and organizations can take action today toward capturing and maintaining positions of national and international leadership.

IN library - Open-source foresight project on future media 2020 Media Futures is an ambitious, multi-industry strategic foresight project designed to understand and envision what media may look like in the year 2020; what kind of cross-platform Internet environment may shape our media and entertainment in the coming decade; and how our firms and organizations can take action today toward capturing and maintaining positions of national and international leadership.

Mosman council in Sydney offers open datasets to the public.

The principles of openness and universal access that underpinned the creation of the internet three decades ago are under greater threat than ever, according to Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

"It all started with Steven Ing's counseling practice. He was working with all sorts of people who were dissatisfied with their lives in one way or another. A man and wife who couldn't talk to each other about their problems, a woman who felt depressed but didn't know why, an older man who seemed to hate the world. And then there were the people who had committed sex crimes who were court ordered to go through therapy with Ing. As Ing went on with his practice, it became apparent to him that his "regular" clients and his "sex-offender" clients all had similar problems that stemmed from the same place. The problems all came back to their individual sexualities and inability to cope with them. Ing then went further and realized that these problems were societal, no one seemed to be able to have an open and honest conversation about sex. But it was not just because in his own backyard that struggled with this aspect of their lives, it was people and cultures all over the world as well. So Ing decided to start a community called "sexual futurist." He wasn't trying to solve everyone's problems or tell them what to think, he just wanted to encourage people to start having intelligent and logical conversations about sex to ultimately lead to change for the better. If we are able to have these intelligent conversations about sex using reason and logic, perhaps one day we'll start being more comfortable with the topic and therefore able to respect sex as an important aspect of our lives. Perhaps we will be able to encourage the United Nations to help people all over the world by enacting our "Sexual Bill of Rights.""

**Let's intentcast to bootstrap Creative Economy 3.0** What is intentcasting? I came across this concept on Seb Paquet's blog, Emergent Cities. He describes it as follows Interest brings groups together, but intent is what brings teams together to actually get things done. Intentcasting is deceptively simple to describe. It consists in broadcasting your intent to make something happen. That something could be anything: "I want to have a party at my house!" "We want to raise $1,000 for Japan!" "I want this piece of software to exist!" "We want this work of art to exist!" In order for intent to catch on, it has to meet a few conditions: It must describe a promise - a future state of affairs that could conceivably happen, explained in a way that people understand. It must open participation in one or more well-defined ways. It must be expressed in a way that enables it to travel and spread over the communications infrastructure. There must be other people or groups out there who resonate with the intent and can get excited enough to connect.

…retail commercial activity within resilient communities will be growing and in some cases exceeding the activity seen before the depression. The reason?  The effort these communities made in building locally viable open markets that promoted the wares of local producers.  

"Because of the grand nature of this expedition, not only the launch and landing will draw large audiences. In 2013, Mars One will start the selection of the first crews that will train to be able to go to Mars. Unlike the astronaut selection processes at the space agencies, Mars One will open up this procedure for everyone to see. And not only to watch: after Mars One experts have eliminated unsuitable candidates, the audience will have a say in who will be the first humans on Mars. Mars One will make the selection of the first ambassadors to another planet a democratic process!"

"Bertolt Meyer is used to being viewed as not fully human. Born with a stump where his left hand should have been, he spent his childhood wearing a hook connected to an elaborate pulley and harness. "To open the hook and grasp things I had to flex my shoulders like this," he says, striking a he-man pose. "The harness was very uncomfortable. To stop it chafing my skin, I had to wear a shirt underneath it at all times. I was always sweating.""

An open market for services - price fixed at $5.