SHORT RUSHKOFF VIDEOS / WISDOM OF THE CROWD DISCUSSIONS AND RESPONSES

 RUSHKOFF ON COLBERT REPORT:
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/238643/july-15-2009/douglas-rushkoff

RUSHKOFF'S NEW BOOK LIFE INC.


This didn’t just happen.
In Life Inc., award-winning writer, documentary filmmaker, and scholar Douglas Rushkoff traces how corporations went from a convenient legal fiction to the dominant fact of contemporary life. Indeed as Rushkoff shows, most Americans have so willingly adopted the values of corporations that they’re no longer even aware of it.

This fascinating journey reveals the roots of our debacle, from the late Middle Ages to today. From the founding of the chartered monopoly to the branding of the self; from the invention of central currency to the privatization of banking; from the birth of the modern, self-interested individual to his exploitation through the false ideal of the single-family home; from the Victorian Great Exhibition to the solipsism of MySpace; the corporation has infiltrated all aspects of our daily lives. Life Inc. exposes why we see our homes as investments rather than places to live, our 401k plans as the ultimate measure of success, and the Internet as just another place to do business.

Most of all, Life Inc. shows how the current financial crisis is actually an opportunity to reverse this 600-year-old trend, and to begin to create, invest and transact directly rather than outsourcing all this activity to institutions that exist solely for their own sakes.

Corporatism didn’t evolve naturally. The landscape on which we are living – the operating system on which we are now running our social software – was invented by people, sold to us as a better way of life, supported by myths, and ultimately allowed to develop into a self-sustaining reality. It is a map that has replaced the territory.

Rushkoff illuminates both how we’ve become disconnected from our world, and how we can reconnect to our towns, to the value we can create, and mostly, to one another. As the speculative economy collapses under its own weight, Life Inc. shows us how to build a real and human-scaled society to take its place.

In Life Inc, Douglas Rushkoff presents the unnerving, unbelievable, but ultimately undeniable proof that our world has been overtaken by an absolutely artificial economy.

He shows how our most fundamental assumptions about money and commerce are actually false ones – artifacts of a 400-year-old plan by a waning aristocracy to maintain control of Western Europe. Although the architects of this corporatism have long since passed on, we still live in a landscape defined by their plans and have internalized their values as our own.

Taking on some of the biggest assumptions of our age, this is a book filled with dangerous ideas and rather unspeakable heresies:
•Money is not a part of nature, to be studied by a science like economics, but an invention with a specific purpose.
•Centralized currency is just one kind of money – one not intended to promote transactions but to promote the accumulation of capital by the wealthy.
•Banking is our society’s biggest industry, and debt is our biggest product.
•Corporations were never intended to promote commerce, but to prevent it.
•The development of chartered corporations and centralized currency caused the plague; the economic devastation ended Europe’s most prosperous centuries, and led to the deaths of half of its population.
•The more money we make, the more debt we have actually created.


FIRST WATCH IN CLASS:
 RUCHKOFF LIFE INC


1. we will find partners today to start the "Digital Nation" Discussions..

2. Under my direction we will divide into groups of 2-3

3. By the end of class you need to read your partner's essay,  and post their thesis on your blog..

followed by a in-class discussion..

DUE FOR WED 2ND

RESPOND ( in the comments section of your partner's blog)
YOUR REPONSE should be 1-2 pages
I also want you to read 2 other students postings and make a short response in their comments section..

MAKE SURE YOU INCLUDE YOUR FIRST, LAST NAME, AND A FULL LINK TO YOUR POSTING IN THE COMMENTS

***ALSO MAKE A POSTING ON YOUR BLOG THAT LETS ME KNOW WHICH OTHER PEOPLES BLOG ENTRIES YOU ARE RESPONDING.
(LIST OF STUDENT'S BLOGS ON RIGHT OF THIS PAGE-->)

Social Media and The Wisdom of the Crowd Postings

Social Media and The Wisdom of the Crowd Postings
After Finishing Digital Nation and Reading "Social Media and Web 2.0" and The Blog Posting on Transparency in Social Media

I would like to pose the Following topics taken from online talks from boingboing.net about "the crowd" - particularly the way group activity, creativity, and awareness are both enhanced and exacerbated by our digital networks. 

TOPICS LIST:

Open Source and Crowdsourcing.
What are the values implicit in both collaborative open source activities and "crowd-sourced" activities on behalf of a corporation or organization? Has the open source movement created new forms, or just copies of old ones? What are the possibilities, here, for new cultural and economic institutions, and how might they be improvements on the status quo? 


Whither the Individual?
As we join groups and social networks from affinity sites to Facebook, are we extending and expanding identities, or increasingly conforming to the cookie-cutter profiles demanded of these interfaces? Is the loss of "personal space" and "reflection" so many users complain of merely the necessary surrender of "ego" as we learn to participate as members of a more evolved "collective organism" of "hyper-people?"

Folksonomy and the Folks.
Everybody is, indeed, here now - but should everyone be here? Does the rise of the amateur lead to an unnecessary devaluation of the professional? Do collective online activities promote a new form of participatory democracy and the development of new and accurate folksonomies, or rather to they lead people to overestimate the value of their unconsidered posts and opinions? Do representative democracy, academic disciplines and other seemingly elitist artifacts fall by the wayside?

choose one of the above topics for a blog posting on the topic equivalent to about a 3 page paper ..

You can take a positive or negative stance towards your chosen topic, but you need to back up your opinions with examples from valid sources, such as the reading on social media, Rushkoff's digital Nation and other in class topics--This means to include links to your sources.

After that I am going to have you respond to each others blogs in the form of commentaries. 

First Posting is Due Monday the 28th

FINSH DIGITAL NATION POSSIBLE BLOG ASSIGNMENT

Lets finish Digital_Nation..

Then we will have a discussion about the film,

If we finish today, then I will give you a blog assignment pertaining to the film.

Continue Digital Nation

..

Today we are going to CONTINUE watching DIGITAL NATION by Douglas Rushkoff and  Rachel Dreztin..

You will need to Take Notes during this video.

 Rushkoff and Dretzin's Digital Nation

KEEP IN MIND THIS LIST OF  web 2.0 terminology as we continue the video

user-generated content
network as platform : platform as in "computing platform"- a place to launch media

folksonomy
syndication

mass collaboration
computer supported collaboration

social-software

mashups

WEB 2.0 and Digital Nation

..
Today we are going to start watching DIGITAL NATION by Douglas Rushkoff and  Rachel Dreztin..
You will need to Take Notes during this video.



 Rushkoff and Dretzin's Digital Nation

A list of web 2.0 terminology
user-generated content
network as platform : platform as in "computing platform"- a place to launch media
folksonomy
syndication
mass collaboration
computer supported collaboration
social-software
mashups


________________

Read "Social Media and Web 2.0" and The Blog Posting on Transparency in Social Media Please answer the followin the discussion questions Include any relevant links or media in a your blog entry due Monday the 21st.

1. Today many TV shows and advertisements try to look amateurish or "homegrown" to emulate what is often seen on the Web. Do you think professional production values will continue to drop, or do you think amateur user-generated content will get better over time? WHY??
   
   
2. What social media sites do you find yourself using the most, and why? In your opinion why is Facebook so much more successful than MySpace, and do you think Facebook is "here to stay" for the long term.
   
   before answering question #3 please read the Transparency in Social Media Blog Article
   
   
3. Why is transparency such an important concept in the Social Media world? Is it MORE or LESS important in the offline world? Why?
   
   The wikipedia article on "Astroturfing" may be of help

THE HOW AND WHY OF WEB IMAGE OPTIMIZATION

1. TUTORIAL ON THE HOW AND WHY OF WEB IMAGE OPTIMIZATION USING PHOTOSHOP.

2.

NOTICE:

You have Until the end of class to finish your McLuhan Compositions..

Make a blog post "McLuhan Photoshop Final Post"--Including your image and description.

Leave your self enough time to optimize your file as a .jpg or .gif not a .psd and post athoughtful explanation with your image. ->This should incorporate the idea of content vs. message from The McLuhan reading and Lectures.

I will be here to help with photoshop questions as much as possible.

IF YOU PUT ALL THE "FINISHING TOUCHES" AND OPTIMIZE YOUR FIRST MCLUHAN PROJECT THEN:

IN-CLASS MCLUHAN ASSIGNMENT:

We are going to follow up the last assignment with another photoshop in-class project.
Create another version of the last assignment.. so,
choose another example of a medium write a blog posting explaining the content, message, etc..
post this on your blog at the end of class..

Continue Photoshop Assignment

1. Look at previous student's mcluhan assignments

2. Photoshop Tutorials

3. IN CLASS PHOTOSHOP LAB

3. .JPG POSTED ON BLOG, AND .PSD ARE DUE NEXT MONDAY THE 14th

Create a New Photoshop Document at a minim 1024X 768 pixels, 72ppi, that composites 3-10, or more different images to create a .PSD that VISUALLY CONVEYS shows what effect or significance this medium's introduction had on society.

POST A .JPG VERSION OF THIS ALONG WITH A DESCRIPTION ON YOUR BLOG, AND BRING THE .PSD VERSION TO CLASS ON THIS  MONDAY THE 14th (CORRECTION!)

Channeling McLuhan into Photoshop

"The efficiency of the machine age cannot discover anything worthwhile now."
Marshall McLuhan, WIRED magazine interview

1. watch some videos from www.marshallmcluhanspeaks.com 

2. Look at some of your examples of mediums

3. Photoshop Composite techniques

setting up a document

Layers

image size

canvas size

selection tools.. filters, layer effects

cut/paste

cropping

save as .PSD

save for web and devices

4. Channeling McLuhan into Photoshop (progress due wed. 9th)
choose one of the three mediums you found from your previous assignment.
making the distinction between the content of your medium and how McLuhan would see the Message caused by this innovation


Create a New Photoshop Document at a minim 800 X 600 pixels, 72ppi, that composites 3-10, or more different images to create a .PSD that VISUALLY CONVEYS shows what effect or significance this medium's introduction had on society

SAVE YOUR PROJECT, RETAINING THE LAYERS AS A .PSD

SAVE THIS .PSD ON YOUR FLASH DRIVE AND BRING IN YOUR PROGRESS FOR NEXT CLASS.

so, for next class you need a your flash drive with .jpgs of mediums, and one .psd that has a composite of the .jpgs, we can continue the work on this next time.