Smart mobs emerge when communication and computing technologies amplify human talents for cooperation and collective action of both beneficial and destructive kinds.
Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution | Cooperation Commons
this may become one of my guiding principles / phrases for my next projects / activities
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Tags: smart, mob, howard rheingold, communitcation, technology computer, cooperation, collaboration
chris sagte
If you really like this concept, the best two books I have read on the topic are Wikinomics by Don Tapscott and The Wealth of Networks by Yochai Benkler. Wikinomics is a really enjoyable read that goes into alot of different examples and tries to draw out the fundamental forces that are moving the world towards crowd-sourcing / peer production. The Wealth of Networks is a little heavier, but the thing I found really valuable there was a deep exploration of the motivations of individuals to participate in social ventures without direct monetary compensation. That’s one of the first questions that doubters of this phenomena always bring up: why would people work for free? Dr. Benkler provides many answers to that.
Also, I am in the middle of „The Big Switch“ by Nick Carr (the guy who wrote IT Doesn’t Matter that caused such a firestorm amongst IT leaders a few years ago). While not directly related to peer production, it focuses on the move to software as a service, which IMHO is a key technical enabler of social production. Imagine a manufacturer providing product development tool in the cloud that it’s customers could access to particiapte directly in the design process.