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Transparancy in politics

I recently came across this website that is dedicated to fact checking on political statements in the USA. If you listen to the candidates for US president it is often very hard to know if they are talking the truth, bending the truth in their direction or lying outright. Interesting to see that this website (and there are several other ones like this one) are increasing the transparancy a lot. It is shocking to see how much "distorted truths" are being told by these politicians. The power of sites like these is that it will be getting harder and harder to stretch the truth once very white lie is monitored..
2008 09 07 Martijn Kriens Tags: , Comments (0)

Private?

I came across this article in the paper on Saturday about the fact that civil servants are adding and changing information on Wikipedia during working hours. Some time ago I blogged about the Wikiscanner and of course one can see more and more how important transparency is. There have been numerous cases where with the help of the wikiscanner people have been found out while trying to create their own truth ... However, the question is how are we going to deal with this transparency. Of course ciivil servants also use the Wikipedia during working hours and of course they sometimes also change information. Just like people in companies and people at home. Wherever we are we still remain individual human beings. One of the effects of Web 2.0 is that the different roles we have are more and more blending together. At all times of the day we are private person, employee, citizen, husband and father and can switch easily between all these roles. Somehow we have to learn how to deal with this transparency. The fact that information came from a computer within a public department ...
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2007 11 19 Martijn Kriens Tags: , , , Comments (0)

black swans

Bill sent me this article that describes how voters have a systematic bias regarding some economic effects. The article questions the fact that voters in general have a bias for anti-market, anti-foreign, anti-efficiency loss of work and a pessimistic outlook. This systematic bias of course would lead to bad decisions since the errors do not even out. The stupidity of the crowds. Though I think part of the bias is not completely false due the following reasons: Not all companies are rational too. Look at some of the big mergers in the world where the merger is probably more driven by the ego of the winning CEO than by economical motives. Most large mergers fail Not all market are markets where demand and supply have a more or less balanced power. Once one side creates a invincible power and becomes a monopoly the market stops. Look at Microsoft or the cartel of energy companies in the Netherlands. Health is also an example where it is very hard to impossible to establish a fair market because it involves your health... Markets are driven by the ...
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2007 09 27 Martijn Kriens diversityTags: , , , Comments (2)

PANGEA DAY

First have a look at the video: The way I see it the idea behind this video is that until now images have been used for a lot of bad reasons. Their message on their website is: So ask yourself this. If you had the entire world's attention for just a few minutes, what story would you tell? Perhaps you think the world looks at you, your country and your culture... and just doesn't understand. Then do something about it. Make a film and upload it here http://www.youtube.com/group/pangeaday. You never know. It could end up bringing millions of people that bit closer together. The least you can say is that they are used to influence a lot of people at the same time. As they say: "images of the many have been in the hands of the few". How extraordinary it would be to look through the eyes of other people around the world. Not the people in control of the big cameras but ordinary people like you in me. And in a way we can if you look at the video somebody makes when he ...
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2007 09 16 Martijn Kriens crowdsourcing
diversity
social networksTags: , , Comments (0)

Identity

When I have an appointment at an organisation that is very security conscious (e.g. Police, Thales, the home office and others) I normally have to show an official ID like driver license or passport. In normal life we all feel comfortable doing this when there is a reason for this security. And we see it as a normal task of the government to provide us with the means to identify ourselves in a way that creates a fair amount trust that we are who we say we are.In digital life there is a serious lack of trustworthy identification. At the moment I am developing a project that deals with organising prevention, care and cure bottom up. Not starting with the specialists but with the people in the local districts. Helping people organise this in their own district can help to strengthen the social fabric of our society. Through helping people to help each other and through a stronger say from the civilians living in these areas in what is important. For them and for the district. This is especially important in areas with problems like the Ella Vogelaar wijken in Rotterdam. For some services you definitely ...
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2007 07 05 Martijn Kriens businessmodel
governance
privacyTags: , , Comments (0)

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Does Wikipedia work or doesn't it? That is the question.There is a lot of discussion on what the quality of Wikipedia is and how we should use it. An interesting point of view is the comparison with Open Source software. I think there are two quite important distinctions how Wikipedia and the Open Source movement handle the way they organize their processes. Wikipedia is for the most part anarchy. Anybody can simply put some information in and correct whatever is there. Even when Einstein would have written the part about relativity than john doe can easily "improve" upon it. On pages where this leads to numerous changes (who the hell does this Einstein guy thinks he is by changing what I, John Doe, have shown to the world...) the adopt a feudalist approach where some people (the Aristocracy) have received special administrator powers by Jimmy Wales (the King, Wikipedia: c'est moi). Open Source has adopted a much more open approach to this. Also here you find the few who are at the inner circle with special powers but they are promoted there by the group based on their merit. In software it is ...
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2007 07 02 Martijn Kriens Social Software
governance
workspaceTags: , , Comments (0)

Privacy or piracy

Privacy is dead and I am afraid we are all to busy to attend the funeral. And face it, we don't love her as much as we used to. It is amazing how much information can be found on all of us. So much that it amazes me when I can not find digital traces of a person on the Internet. Recently I talked to a job applicant at Telematica Insituut. One of the things I always do before the interview is Google the person. Sometimes quite interesting information pops up that you can use in the interview. In general I feel this is good. It gives me much more insight in what a person really has done. When I googled this person, to my surprise, no info at all came up. It surprised me so much that during the Interview I made it a subject to talk about (after all, we did make him an offer...). But there is also a down side to this. I am member of a committee guiding the research on privacy by the Rathenau instituut, an institute that does research on politically sensitive subjects in order to inform parliament and other politicians. During on of ...
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2007 06 06 Martijn Kriens privacyTags: , Comments (0)

Citizen participtation

Yesterday we had a meeting for the political party I am active in (the PVDA in Arnhem). The subject was participation of citizens in the decisions the local government is taking. Often decisions effect the direct environment of the citizen itself. It is amazing how little trust people can have in the capabilities of groups of people. Many feel that giving much responsibility to the people in an area to determine the way a reconstruction budget is spent is foolish since they can not agree or some people will only go for their own interest. I think web 2.0 will be an interesting concept also in this environment. Giving enough participants in the discussion to create diversity this will give amazing results. Precondition is of course that the civil servants start with the idea that contributions from citizens can be valuable. At his moment they normally start to develop their plans and when they are ready they ask the citizens: ?do you like this?". A better way would be to start the participation before the plan and collect all the good ideas in order to incorporate this into the plan. Social software gives us so much more possibilities to be open to ideas from ...
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2007 05 23 Martijn Kriens workspaceTags: Comments (0)

Hello World!

This is my first entry in this blog. This is my first blog. Why am I joining the countless number of people that are blogging? Do you care? Should you? For me this blog is a way of structuring my thinking about social software. I believe that social software (wiki's, blogs, decision market) is changing our society in more ways than we can imagine. And I think that this change is a positive one where people can make a difference based on what they have to offer instead of the role they occupy. A world where all the intelligence available is used and where people are motivated to make their contribution because they are awarded for it. In my work at the Telematica Instituut (a research institution between universities and business) I am involved in social software through a research project I am setting up called "The future workspace". Also I am thinking about doing my thesis around this subject. Focus here is the use of social software in business environments. How can it be used and what conditions are needed to make it successful? Are the current organisations capable of implementing these flat structures or will the hierarchies win. That is ...
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2007 05 20 Martijn Kriens Social Software
Uncategorized
workspaceTags: Comments (0)