Clay Shirky---WOW!

Somehow, I had not heard of Clay Shirky until today. He studies cultural changes and identifies sometimes positive, sometimes unsettling trends that we have already begun to experience. Below are links to two knock-your-socks-off lectures in which Shirky expounds upon his findings.

In the first one, Shirky discusses what he calls cognitive surplus. He suggests among other things, that a tiny decrease in the amount of time Americans watch television would free up enough free time for us to create a couple thousand Wikipedias a year.

In the second video from TED.com Shirky explores changes coming about due to technology and predicts that these transformations will shake many established institutions to the core in the coming years. Shirky says that this will have ramifications that we can’t imagine today. Fascinating stuff.

Shirky’s online writings can be found at http://www.shirky.com/.

TED Conference and Kodak Video

TED Conference
I recently came across an article about the TED Conferences by David Pogue published in the New York Times on March 15th. Each of these conferences brings together a thousand thought leaders to hear speakers such as Al Gore, Dean Ornish, Ray Kurzweil and Malcolm Gladwell. The TED people have been kind enough to make many of the talks available on the Internet.

Kodak
On a more humorous note, Kodak has apparently placed a video on YouTube that both pokes fun at their own reluctance to get into digital photography and hints at the company's plans to jump in to digital now and revolutionize the field.

Take a look at both of these.