Private Till You Plonk

"We philosophers are frequently torn between opposing considerations, but we very infrequently show it in print. We let ourselves be torn in private until we "plonk" for one alternative or another; then the published paper only shows what we plonked for, and not the being torn." - Putnam

I don't think this is unique to philosophers. Politicians seem to be judged harshly on flip flopping of ideas. We only see High-Board Divers, Ice-Skaters and Piano Maestro's after hours and hours of honing and perfecting a skill. When it is an idea you are honing there is, or at least should be, always the chance that you are wrong. The path you take to getting there is interesting. That is why I like the idea Google is famous for of allowing customers into the 'Beta' stage of development. I see no reason why Social Media shouldn't disrupt the idea generation of philosophers, politicians and stock pickers in the same ways it did to newspapers. If your thinking or your business is built on transaction costs, friction, and lack of transparency, you have issues if what you are selling is ideas. I still think we should continuously refine but the magic of the 'finished product' hides the interesting bits.

And of course, once you have plonked, there is less incentive to unplonk if you are wrong.

Reading: Philosophy - by Nicholas Fearn

Noise Broadcast or Signal Conversation

As we learn to use social media, and as the tools improve, we can start to re-incorporate some of the social skills we use offline but that couldn't be applied. I have always considered myself as having a fairly wide 'circle of trust' and have not been that afraid of saying things as I believe them to be. In truth however, I impose a large whack of self-censorship. Which is good.

I am definitely more blunt in my blog, partly because people choose to read it, so they can choose not to. Still, I don't have the same level of openness in my blog as I have with close friends. 

I have often chatted to my 'blogging buddy' +Stuart Torr about starting a private blog. This would be one where we could invite people and thus be more open in what we say. It felt like a lot of hard work and having previously attempted one in a work environment, it was quite cumbersome.

Facebook doesn't allow you the option of joining specific conversations (yet). Although in theory people can selectively choose who reads status updates, they are generally broadcast to all your contacts. This turns us into something similar to the original TV. One channel. On or off. Broadcasting noise.

This means that you get all a friends news without the context of offline conversations. If I know you, I know the areas of mutual interest and normally I know the areas I should avoid (or discover them along the way). Facebook currently just does broadcasts. I can't choose to hear all of a friends news - but not when they starting going on about [], or see all their photos, but not photos including []. Sensitivity, tact, context, permission etc. go out the window. 

Google+ is taking off, and has a 'community' option which is a little like Whatsapp where you can start a conversation with specific people. This is like new TV channels being opened up. Slowly but surely we can get the choice of which conversations to join again.

Exciting times.

Google Book Search

Wow.

I have been looking forward to this after hearing about it a couple of years back.

Do yourself a favour and check out http://books.google.com/.

Awesome. They are still working out the fine print with various stakeholders but there is already a lot of value there.

Partnering with universities around the world, Google has gone on a mission to scan as many texts as possible. As you can see by playing around with it, you can now search within the text of over 7 million titles. You can see links to all the books they reference and all the books that reference them. You can create online digital libraries of your own which friends can access. You can see previews of the texts of books in copyright, and the full text of ones that are in copyright.

Along with the rapidly improving ebooks, you will soon be able to access almost any text ever written in a matter of seconds.

What is also incredibly powerful is the ability to put in fragments of quotations, and it picks up the books they came from! Sorry plagiarizers, your days are gone!

"Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Today, together with the authors, publishers, and libraries, we have been able to make a great leap in this endeavor," said Sergey Brin, co-founder & president of technology at Google. "While this agreement is a real win-win for all of us, the real victors are all the readers. The tremendous wealth of knowledge that lies within the books of the world will now be at their fingertips."