Md.Toufiqul Islam & Rashmi Kodihalli Basavarajappa: “Too big to know? Rethinking knowledge in a web society.” PechaKucha presentation in the “Information & Communication Management in a Web Society” Course of Dr. Gerald Fricke, 14th, June 2013. Watch the presentation on YouTube (6:40 min).

“Too Big To Know” is a book written by David Weinberger. David Weinberger is a famous Internet philosopher, American technologist, professional speaker, and commentator. “Too Big To Know” is a stunning and profound book on how our concept of knowledge is changing in the age of the Internet. David Weinberger cements his status as one of the most important thinkers of the digital age. If you want to understand what it means to live in a world awash in information, “Too Big to Know” is the guide you’ve been looking for.

Weinberger’s work focuses on how the Internet is changing human relationships, communication, and society. It honours the traditional social practices of knowing, where genres stay fixed, and provides a graceful way of understanding new strategies for knowing in today’s rapidly evolving, networked world. It isn’t about technical communication either, but what it has to say about the changes the web has brought to scientific publishing should make us all fundamentally rethink how technical communication will work in the future.

His thesis in Too Big to know is that the web is changing the concept of expertise and what it means to know. Our concept of what knowledge is, what it means to know, and the role of authority in defining knowledge, he argues, is shaped by the nature of paper technology. Because of the economics of paper, facts were relatively rare and gem-like because there wasn’t room for a whole lot of them. Because of the physics of paper, once a fact was printed, it stayed there on the page; it cannot be changed, at least on that page. The limitations of paper made facts look far more manageable than they seem now that we see them linked into our unlimited network.

The web, Weinberger argues, breaks down the knowledge which is created artificially by the nature of paper. Books focus on specific topics because they have to fit between covers. So, in a book-based world, knowledge looks like something that divides into measurable domains. On the Net, topics don’t divide up neatly. They connect messily. Books thus fostered a culture which saw knowledge as the domain of experts speaking fixed truths.

Expertise’s value was the certainty of its conclusions. Books get to speak once. After they are published, it’s expensive for the authors to change their minds. So, books try to nail things down. But because the multitudes of people on the Internet are different in their interests and abilities, a network of experts is of many minds about just about everything. The value of a network of experts can be seen now. The author advised us to use the cloud computing system & forking method as to expand our knowledge and research.

Cloud computing is a colloquial expression used to describe a variety of different computing concepts that involve a large number of computers that are connected through a real-time communication networks (typically the Internet). In science, cloud computing is a synonym for distributed computing over a network and means the ability to run a program on many connected computers at the same time. The popularity of the term can be attributed to its use in marketing to sell hosted services in the sense of application service provisioning that run client server software on a remote location.

In software engineering, a project fork happens when developers take a copy of source code from one software package and start independent development on it, creating a distinct piece of software. The term often implies not merely a development branch, but a split in the developer community, a form of schism. Free and open-source software is that which, by definition, may be forked from the original development team without prior permission without violating any copyright law.

It is David Weinberger’s idea to develop a smart room before if you want to get some smart output. Smart room is nothing by a network place where people can share their ideas together. He said,

“Smart is not the one who knows the most but the room (networks) where people know together.”

So, before anyone who is willing to establish a cultural project in a web society, he should build a Smart Room first. Where people will work as volunteer, links will be developed there, these links will express interest & create contacts, Knowledge will expand one network to other, free access will make contradiction and lastly, disagreement and diversity will make the room richer.

If we disagree about one thing, it means the new way will open to discuss more. This is how knowledge expands. That’s why he said:

“What we have in common isn’t one knowledge about which we agree, but a shared world about which we disagree.”

The value of Too Big to Know for technical communicators is that it can help us grasp that the move to the web is not about having a new place to publish. It is about engaging with the continuous now of technical communications on the web. Technical writers may not like losing the coin of authority either, but the continuous now of technical communication on the web is not something that the world is waiting for us to create, but something that already exists, that thrives, and that is rapidly picking our pockets for whatever coin of authority we may still retain in opening things up, not simply coming to unshakable conclusions.

Submitted by:

Md. Toufiqul Islam & Rashmi Kodihalli Basavarajappa

[1] Fork in Software Development, Wikipedia Page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_(software_development)

[2] Cloud Computing, Wikipedia Page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing

[3] Blog “Too Big to Know”.

http://www.toobigtoknow.com/about-2/

Sharma Dahal Prabhakar, Muhammad Nuruddin: “Public Parts: How is the web society changing our Private and Public Life?” PechaKucha presentation in the Web Society Course of Gerald Fricke, 14th, June 2013

“Public Parts: How Sharing in the Digital Age Improves the Way We Work and Live” [4] is a book written by Jeff Jarvis. Jeff Jarvis is an American professor, journalist and former television critic. In the book “Public Parts” he has described how the web technology is changing our private and public life. He listed benefits of being public and sharing in the web society. He also expressed his opinion against regulations of protecting privacy.

People need time to adapt to changes over technology. Some people are afraid of web and sharing. They are concerned regarding their privacy while sharing over the web. Moving to the past as early as 1450[1], as Gutenberg’s press started, some people were afraid of losing their privacy by printing names on books. They were worried and felt insecured with thoughts that they would be identified in future by book buyers. U.S. citizens thought the same when first Kodak portable camera [2] was invented. They were worried thinking that photographing themselves over public might hamper their privacy. Though technology has evolved and people are adopting openness, they still have same feeling regarding Google glass or Google street view. Recently Google glass was banned from many places including beaches. It was outlawed from the Washington monument [3]. Few years ago when Google launched street view, 3% of households of Germany expressed their objection [5]. They were complaining about violation of privacy by exposing their house photo in the web. But how? Jeff Jarvis asks openly that whose privacy is violated when Google published building’s photo in the web: Are they owners, since they own the building, or the architects since they design the house? Jeff Jarvis was worried about losing amazing benefits of publicness because of our over concern on privacy issues.

He also highlighted the relation between privacy and publicness. Privacy and publicness are not antonymous; instead they are dependent on each other. He explained these issues and gave some good argument about how web society is expanding the scope of private life. Our private life is becoming more public in course of time with new technology and there is nothing wrong with that.

Web Society has become essential part of human life. Jeff Jarvis on his book says it is hard for us to live or carry out our daily works without the web or the Internet. Development of different technologies eases our life. Evolution of media like blogging, YouTube, social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Wikipedia have changed our lives. He presented the net to be the tool for publicness.

Jeff Jarvis mentions 10 main arguments as strong evidence of publicness. We are free to connect to anyone we like, speak to each other to express our thoughts, compare such thoughts, combine them and come up with new ideas. Privacy is ethic of knowing, Publicness is ethic of sharing. The more we share our views, the more benefits we get because of different views and thoughts for the same thing. Internet must be open and equally distributed to everyone. It should not matter who or where the person is. Publicness provides interactions. Interacting on specific topic can be beneficial for all. For example: If a car company starts an internet group called Car Lovers, and wants feedback from the real users thoughts on “Car for middle class family”, then the company will be able to get the actual features for the car from the actual users. As a result both the car company and the community will be benefitted by the collaborative efforts.

He also mentioned that institutional information should be public by default and private by necessity. Government should become more transparent. Companies should be more open. Companies should share more to get collaborative benefits. And web is an amazing medium for openness and sharing.

Jeff Jarvis also stated some issues on publicness. It is not bad to publicly declare health report of a person. But personal data like social security number, pension ID should be kept secret. Data regarding citizen should be private in government offices and same applies with the bank card number or criminal records. All those information which can be misused or abused and can bring harmful results in the social life of a person should not be made public.

Internet is the tool of sharing information to change the society. But with the warning issues of publicness, should a government make its security planning open? Asking my audience should USA make its NSA project and data public?

Moreover on publicness, China is controlling single bits of information crossing out from its border. All social, blogging and micro blogging sites except Skype are banned in China. Should Chinese government think of openness not only to their public but also to the entire world and let these all banned sites server frequently over there? Iran during the prime minister Election time banned Facebook hampering the right of people to share over internet. Would it be a good idea? Leaking private information by Julian Assange was an attempt to bring internal structure of many countries over public. Do you think this attempt is enough? Was this attempt right and healthy for the general public?

Why should we not be public? What is the fear of being public for personnel, companies or countries? Such questions are still unanswered and might be unanswered for long.

Sharma Dahal Prabhakar, Muhammad Nuruddin

[1] Printing press, Wikipedia page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press

[2] History of Camera, Wikipedia page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_camera

[3] Online journal – Time Ideas, “Fears of Google Glass Are Unfounded”, http://ideas.time.com/2013/05/22/fears-of-google-glass-are-unfounded/  , May 22, 2013

[4] Jeff Jarvis, “Public Parts: How Sharing in the Digital Age Improves the Way We Work and Live”, August 1, 2011

[5] Shane Richmond, The Telegraph blog, “Germans blur their homes on Google Street View. But why?” , http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/shanerichmond/100005975/germans-blur-their-homes-on-google-street-view-but-why/, November 4th, 2010

[6] Jeff Jarvis, “Authors@Google”. WWW data. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFZ-AsmxV-w accessed on 14^th June, 2013.

Amsterdamer Tulpen, bzw. Tulips from Amsterdam, dürften alle LUSH Fans kennen. Für uns nicht eingeweihte: Es sind wundervoll duftende, aus Naturmaterialen handgefertigte Badekugeln des UK basierten Unternehmens LUSH. Diese und noch viele andere durfte ich heute vom Team des Shops in Braunschweig abholen.

Carina, Nicole und Steffi (nicht im Bild) haben 100(!) Stück für unser Projekt home eingepackt. Carina hat sie als Gewinnspielpreise gespendet. Denn am 1.6.2013 werden wir auf dem Sommerfest am Exer in Wolfenbüttel beim ITZ das Projekt vorstellen, ein kleines Gewinnspiel anbieten und Probanden zu unseren neuen Symbolen befragen.

Wer Lust hat kommt vorbei.

Also: Einen riesigen Dank an die drei von LUSH für ihr Engagement und die großzügige Spende.

Gestern war es soweit und wir haben zusammen mit Studierenden der Wirtschaftsinformatik, Informatik, sowie Medientechnik und Kommunikation die Volkswagen Financial Services AG besucht. Dabei haben wir interessante Einblicke in die vielseitige Welt der Volkswagen Financial Services AG bekommen.

Angefangen mit einem Besuch zum Informations- und Logistikcenter, bei dem wir sehen konnten, wie man mit über 4000 Briefen am Tag umgeht. Dabei wurde uns ein einzigartiges System aus automatisierter Datenerfassung mit Hilfe von “Mörderscannern”, dem geschulten Auge von Mitarbeitern und einer sicheren Datenspeicherung gezeigt.
Weiter ging es mit unseren ehemaligen Studenten Jonte und Edgar, die ihre Erfahrungen als Berufseinsteiger schilderten. Gefolgt von einem Erfahrungsbericht aus der internationalen Projektarbeit, bei dem wir vor allem lernen konnten, dass unterschiedliche Nationen unterschiedliche Mentalitäten, Gewohnheiten und Arbeitsweisen mit sich ziehen und hier neben einer Menge Spaß auch ständig Neues gelernt wird.

Ein praktischer Workshop im Bereich Innovationsmanagement hat uns dann, nach einer typischen VW Mittagspause, aktiv mit eingebunden und es konnten innovative Ansätze für verschiedene Bereiche und Unternehmensfelder gefunden werden, die anschließende präsentiert und diskutiert wurden.

Am Ende haben wir dann noch auf eine “flapsig-humorvolle Art” erfahren, warum Facebook für die Kommunikation eines Unternehmens so wichtig ist, obwohl das Tool eigentlich ziemlich “Grütze” ist. Dazu gehört natürlich auch ein eigener Facebook-Eintrag, den wir per “Schwarmentscheidungen” verfasst haben.

Ja, “schön war’s”!
Vor allem auch, weil wir unseren Fragen auf den Grund gehen konnten und einen umfangreichen Einblick in die Praxis gewinnen konnten.
An dieser Stelle noch einmal vielen Dank an alle Studierenden, alle Vortragenden und vor allem an Frau Biesenthal für die tolle Organisation.