Robert Paterson's Weblog

Fibonacci applied to stock market - Phi is everywhere

via economicedge.blogspot.com

My regular readers know that I think that the Fibonacci sequence maybe the order that can offer an insight to all systems. In particular to ideal human groupings - organizations - the use of social media etc.

This video shows us a glimpse of the work going on to use this sequence to understand the apparently chaotic nature of markets - My bet is that this work has only juts begun and that in time, Fibonacci Numbers will help us "see" the shape of most natural systems.

Posted via web from Rob's posterous

Growth - Why we usually get a cancer type versus a healthy type of growth

Is one of our problems today that when we talk of Growth – we get Cancer – a type of growth that feeds on the host rather than allows the host to grow?

Here Stuart shows us the difference and how to set up the pathway for “True” Growth. He sets us up to see that the ideal conditions for True Growth is a balance of values – that an over focus on one value leads to the Cancer type.

It is the environment that affects the kind of growth we have. For most things that means an optimal physical environment. But for humans it means an optimal Cultural environment.

Let’s see the difference.

An acorn, in its ideal environment, will grow into not only a tree but over time into a huge forest that offers a home for a huge ecosystem. Inside this system is a vast network of intangibles and unseen connections. As the system grows it get more complex and the intangibles interact in ever more complex ways. As a real growth happens, the “effort” is less and less and the ROI gets higher.

But we as humans tend to think that we can ignore the environment and use force and physical leverage to get nature to work harder for us. For a while this works but then it fails.

So in farming we strip out nearly element and add ever more outside energy. There is a huge early return but over time the ROI goes down. Finally there is collapse. We choose not to work with nature and so make our work hard and in the end futile.

In organizations the model is the same as it is for farming and in the end so are the results. We tend to try and use force and physical leverage to get results.

This leads to a type of Cancer Growth that destroys the host. This POV is a values construct. It is not because we are stupid or evil. We have been captured by a meme of dominance and of “Winning” – the word “Win” will mean more to you as we reveal more of the patterns that make up culture.

If we can see the natural model for growth as a starting point, then we can then move onto seeing how we can make it easier to use this better way. This will imply a balance between the 3 main sets of values that make up the system of human values.

In the next video we will introduce you to the whole picture/map.

via powerupproject.wordpress.com

Posted via web from Rob's posterous

Is Rupert Murdoch Stupid? No his issues are cultural

Please go to full volume.

Many of us know that we are in trouble, the economy, the environment, social justice are all going the wrong way. But they are frustrated that others not only don’t seem to see this but continue to work hard to make the trouble worse.

So the response is to think that these people are bad or worse evil. Many in business or politics think that those who “care” are unrealistic nuts. Worse, there is a small group of other people who can see beyond the problems and see solutions. But no one wants to listen. So they think that the other two groups are stupid.

The result is that we seem stuck. Those who know we have to take better care of each other and of the planet are frustrated and angry. Those who know we have to make a living feel blamed. Those who know the way feel ignored.

Can we find a way though this?

Yes I think we can. If we can see that this impasse is a consequence of our human culture. It is not about good versus evil but because we don’t have a lens to “see” how human culture is made as a system. It’s just like it was very hard to navigate before Galileo’s helio-centric view of the heavens was generally accepted. It was impossible to cope with infectious disease before Pasteur’s view of germs was accepted.

It’s all about “Seeing” the rules of the system. Once you can do that, you can act upon it with some confidence.

This blog is here to help us explore the system of human culture and to see its rules. You will be shocked at how simple the system is. Like all natural systems, it has few parts and few rules. But as in all natural systems, these can combine to offer infinite complexity. So my promise to you is that the initial insight is exceptionally easy to “get”. Not only will you understand it easily, but you will be able to use the ideas immediately to make sense of what confronts you.

Here is a link to a short summary of what we will be talking about in the 9 videos

Central to any new insight like this, is a person who has “seen” the new. In our case this person is my friend, Stuart Baker who has been working on this insight now for more than a decade.

We have recorded a series of 9 short videos that will take you through his discovery. What you will find by the end is that you will be able to “see” how our culture works or not. What the ideal would be. How to diagnose problems in hours. How to see what might have to be done to improve things.

Here he opens with what may seem like heresy – that it is the intangibles that shape the tangibles. Just a gravity, an unseen force, shapes the universe, so culture shapes human society and our impact on the planet. This arena of intangibles is our human culture.

It is our culture that enables us to adapt to changing environments or not. Our use of fire and clothes and tools took us from the world of all other species that had to rely on their bodies adaptation.

When confronted with a challenge, the key is to find a response that can be accepted by our culture. When organizing, the best organizations line up along their ideal culture or sets of values.

When we fail to adapt, the failing is a block caused by problems in our culture. When organizations fail, they too have evolved along a cultural path that is not ideal.

This may seem like heresy because we think that it is our actions or our reason that have priority. Many think that if they only do the right things with their kids, that they will be well nurtured and have the best chance – not true. Many hope that if they could only offer the facts, the other would agree. But as anyone who has been in a conflict of ideas knows, you will never argue your way to success.

But if you understand gravity and its rules, understand bacteria and their rules, understand culture and its rules then you can do a lot. That is why we call this the Power Up Project – if you have the map, you can know where you are and where is best to go – this is power. You have a lot more control back in an uncertain world.

Welcome to a new way of being and seeing.

via powerupproject.wordpress.com

Why is Rupert Murdoch taking such a stand that seems wrong to many about the web? Is he stupid? I don't think so.

I am sure that his issue is this - that he is the embodiment of a set of values that are all about "winning". He is the ultimate "Provider". As such he was the success story of a system that saw news as a transactional commodity.

He is the very embodiment of one of three complimentary sets of values that make up the system of Human Culture.

He is so over invested in this one perspective that he cannot "see" the relational world and does not care about it. This is not because he is evil. It is about his core values as a "Provider". He cannot see the value of the web because he cannot see how he can win with it. For Providers, winning is everything. If some one could show him how to make money now on the web - he would go there. But as it is likely that the answer will involve relationships and caring more than just about winning, he likely never will.

I offer up RM as an example because his challenge is an example of the challenge that we all face today. Those who we don't agree with, we see as the enemy. look at American Politics! Look at the abortion/healthcare issue. The lines are drawn and there seems no way forward.

We cannot see a way of bringing the "other" around. The result is that we are stuck.

But what if we could see a way?

Before we could see that the sun was the centre of a system, we could make no progress in navigation. Before we could see bacteria and how they worked as part of a system, we could make no progress in health care.

What if culture was a system of nature? Then it would have key parts and a few rules. If we could see the system and know the rules, then we might be able to break out of our impasse.

There is always an individual that "sees" the new early. This video is of my friend Stuart Baker. I am convinced that he has "seen" how we can see culture as a system and that he has seen the rules that enable us to make sense of what is going on and then what is best to get an outcome.

How to get these ideas out there? The web of course.

With my pal Stuart Baker, we are launching a series of videos and posts that I hope can help in the same way as "seeing" the systems and their rules in other parts of nature have helped us make progress.

Stuart is of course not the only person working on this. We intend to add as many to this site as we can find who are working on elements of this system - hence the "Project" in the site title.

The Power Up part is about finding our power to act in a complex world with a strong likelihood that we may get the outcome that we seek. Not with the precision of the machine POV with at least a high probability.

The kind of probability that we get in gardening or child rearing. If we set the early environment up to the ideal for the plant or the child - we stand a good chance of getting fruit or a good person.

Welcome

Posted via web from Rob's posterous

Enterprise 2.0 - Tools Or Mindset? If this is a true revolution - Mindset

I am finding the whole adoption debate about a 2.0 world wearisome. All these "Social Media Marketing Experts" with 40 Tweets and 12,000 followers - all those looking for ROI.

The premise for many is that if you can only use the tools - you will be there. Or that if you can only measure the tools, you will find the value.

OK let's go back and see if revolutions are about the tools or the mindset behind them.

It's 1940 - what do you see here and what did the French General Staff see?

 

A Tank right? This is a Char B. It was much better than nearly all the German tanks of the time.

But in reality this is what the French General Staff saw. They saw this as a mobile pill box that could be deployed as moving strong points with the infantry.

Now let's look at the Germans at the same time.

Here they are about to launch the first Blitzkrieg in Poland. These are Mk II's a vastly inferior tank to the Char B. 

This is how the German General Staff really saw them and how they were used.

A raging but narrowly confined Torrent that would destroy and disrupt all in its path - it is an idea all about controlled chaos. Only the German Army with their highly devolved culture that pushed command down could cope with such an idea.

This idea was truly "disruptive". The actual tools were inferior to the opposition. Their context was superior.

2.0 has next to nothing to so with tools. It has everything to do with mindset.

This is why the measurement idea is so foolish. For what is the context for measurement? I bet it is all about pillboxes.

Last question: why did the Germans get it and not the rest of us? I think that the answer has two parts.

• Most importantly, the Germans lost WW I. The winners always have the challenge of hubris. The Losers can always examine their loss
• The underlying culture of the German Army is a paradox for the rest of us. The big joke we like to tell each other is that the German Army was all about following orders. But in reality, that was not true after the reforms of the 19th century. The opposite was the truth - huge discretion was pushed out to the field right down to the NCO. The French and American Army are massively controlled by culture. The Brits are somewhere in between.

Large previously successful organizations "won" the industrial wars. They did this by having tightly centralized command and control cultures.

So they are like the French in 1940 - two strikes against.

I think that we are wasting our time trying to get the "French" to get 2.0. They can't and they wont.

Find those who have

• Lost the industrial wars - why I picked Public Radio and TV
• Have a culture of pushing out/down power

Only when these folks have won will the rest even listen - and then some still will not

Content + Context + Community = TV as a social object = Success?

A lot of the discussion about the future of TV is about how it will die in the context of the online alternative. I myself watch nearly all the video that I do on the web now. I think that it is inevitable that in a few years this will be commonplace.

This raises the large question - what is the new business model? For stations and for producers?

As Dave Snowden suggests, when you have a complex problem, you can only experiment until you see the new emerge.

In this context, KETC has been conducting as series of experiments to seek out answers. I have shown you how they are using their ideas about being the convener for major community issues such as the Mortgage Crisis and Flu. KETC are getting close to answer a related question - how does a public station get the support it needs from its local community.

Today I would like to share with you a big idea that they are trying to answer the Producer question. How do you get a return on high quality content in the online social age?

Our big idea is one that Hugh McLeod has long espoused - Create a "Social Object".

Here is quick summary of what we are trying. Then I will unpack the ideas and show you the details - my hope is that you can see the DNA of our approach and hence then see how you might use this or improve it.

• We picked a community that exists - that is not merely a fan based community - but a community of rabid Participants that had an equally rabid following. A Community that spans North America with chapters in every major centre. We picked a community that everyone admires an thinks is worthwhile. We picked a community that does something very visual and where drame and story is built in. We picked an ideal starting point to create a Social Object - We picked First Robotics. If you are one of the 3 people in North America who know nothing about this - here is a link, In essence this is a community that hosts teams who kids who build robots and then compete with them in a national series.

• We then picked a series of partners that would enable us to follow many teams on their way to the finals and from all of this found our "heroes" and our narrative. That was the classic Content part that was not new.

• We then built a supporting web world that will act as the Social Amplifier for not only the film but the entire community - that is the new aspect and this has a number of features that I think will become useful for any such community and project. Imagine a "Jane Austen" community that enfolds Masterpiece Theatre? Imagine A Science Fair community that enfolds say Nova?

So here are some of the features that we have put together - as you can see this is not hard to do technically - the barriers, as always are cultural.

Just a taste of the excitement.

Lesson 1 - While we have a banner on our main page that takes you here - we have a dedicated piece of real estate for the community. With the web, we can have an infinite amount of dedicated real estate. At KETC we have an Economic area - A Flu area and now the Gear Up area - there is really no limit. This is the SPACE where the community will be hosted - not just a page.

Here you can see a small section of the national map for First. These are the nodes of a scale free network. Each community can have their own local space. So what is National is also local. In aggregate we might get something remarkable.

 

This is what all scale free networks look like. This is actually a picture of flu!. This is the test for you. The Pattern" must look like this, if you have any chance of getting life and emergence from your network.

The Gear Up First design enables this to occur.

If we follow the Jane Austen Book Club idea - every city can have a boo club. People meet face to face and then go on to meet regionally and then nationally. Such a network can afford to have say Colin Firth visit! The national producer has this huge keen and identified group to base their ideas, projects and funding on.

QW

We are using Facebook and Twitter to bind the local, regional and national groups more tightly. We have used our Trust as the host.

With more and more safe and trusted connections - there is more chance of Emergence. The deep value of Public TV is Trust. Communities need this to flourish. So part of our role here is Hosting - providing that safe place on the unsafe web.

Now the kids themselves and their families have a local, regional and national place to put up their own content. So this space is not just for chat or for KETC to show content - but for all in the group.

Having a film that is a social object means in the end that people get together. The climax for First is the nationals. This is the SXSW of First. For the next few years, St Louis, the home of KET, will be the host.

As many of us who are the children of the social web have found, meeting each other is the payoff. Star Trek? First? Jane Austen?

These kind of events in themselves create more energy - social and economic. Is not the new model for authors to use the book as a social object to convene face to face meetings that pay?

Such a process is different from the traditional mass media model where over time, interest wanes and more and more resources are required to keep the show on the road. With a good social object, the social power scales over time and the group resources take over from the seed resources.

It's like gardening. If you tend and care for your tomato plant until it is time to plant, by fall nature and the plant will give you the crop.

Our film is just the seed for a whole garden of First related stuff to come.

Of course this is early days. This is an experiment. There will be some parts that do better than others. But I think we are close to a model that will work - will offer the public and the producer a great return in the new web age.

What do you think?

Profitability - the Holy Grail in the Web World - Finding the Network Effect

Jeff Jarvis has fired the opening shot in what I think will be the most productive discussion so far in the media wars.

But I think Owens hit on it when he wrote this: “I realized I needed to flip the expense/revenue picture upside down. Instead of thinking about how to generate more cash, I needed to figure out how to create a news operation that could exist profitably based on a reasonable expectation for local online revenue.”

Everyone that I have talked to recently in senior pub media roles worries that they cannot find the gross from their web operations that they need to replace their 1.0 gross.

I think they are right - it seems clear now that the web revenues cannot be grown fast enough. So the costs are out of synch. Many are reluctantly finding themselves in the same kind of death spiral that the newspapers are in. So what to do?

I don't think the Holy Grail is an attempt only to grow web based revenue. I think it is to use a new business model. The good news is that enough of this new model is now here. Our challenge is to "see" it and having "seen" it to build upon it.

So let's "see" where we are now - "see" what is emerging and "see" what can be done to implement it.

Where we are now.

If we look at ourselves with outsiders eyes, we will see that we face the same problems as the papers do. Today a Public TV or radio station is  a single purpose organization with dedicated staff  organized to do one thing - to keep a TV/Radio station on the air. It gets its revenue by using a transactional appeal based on its content. All its costs are based on supporting this approach.

Each station is an island to itself. It has transactional relationships with other stations and with producers. It has transactional relationship with its staff as well.

As with newspapers - all of this needs to be unpacked and reassembled in a  more personal way. So that it can release the power of the network effect.

What we can "see" emerging?

I observe many of the stations in the Facing the Mortgage Crisis Project, I can "see" that:

The best stations are using their reputation and trust to facilitate the strengthening of a powerful community network of partners who are all working to help the citizens of the city get through the economic crisis.

It has been the trust built up as a public broadcaster that gives them this ability. They a new role as a consequence and a new value that has NO DIRECT LINK TO its traditional CONTENT. Thousands of people who would never watch the traditional content are now attached to the station.

The relationship has expanded beyond content to include true public service.

Expanding from Content to Context - A vital aspect of this public service is to help co create the best Context for issues. Nearly all the debate in America today is lost in wrangling or in sound bites. Pub Media has come into its own with the financial crisis by not only doing a much better job of explaining what is going on but also in engaging with people where they live - in helping them help each other get through this. 

Reinvention? - America will have to reinvent itself - we can all see how the health care debate is subject to the same forces that made the financial debate so fruitless. Soon energy, food, education will all come onto the table. The only way through the morass is to help people work through these issues on the ground with how they affect their lives and their communities.

What service? They are using their ability to tell stories and their ability to offer a powerful megaphone to the public. Again this ability has arisen as a product of their history as a public broadcaster. Their new relationship with the public extends therefore beyond showing them content but in showcasing the public's content about issues that are vital to them.

Part of their new value is to give voice to the voiceless - when a station does this, it attaches those people to it.

It is the web that gives the stations the space to do this and gives the people the cheap and easy tools to use to have their say.

Over time the content mix can shift from 100% professionally produced content to maybe 15% professionally produced content with most of the new being on the web. Over all a major increase in content for much less cost. Most of the new content being for and about people who are New to the Station - a much broader "audience"

They are learning to use the web to support and enhance their offering on Air - the web has given them more flexibility, more real estate and better equity - content lasts for a long time there. The web is no longer just a new form of banner advertising but is not integrated into this new Public Role. The web offers an infinite amount of choice to the public - using an invitation and curation, the station has all but limitless space to fill and can fill it at very low cost. The core new skills - Curation and Facilitation.

They are starting to see signs of the impact of this work that can be used to make the case for this new value.  A new way of measuring that goes beyond eyeballs to impact. It will be a stronger case to monetize impact than only content. Using the web and a much broader view of context and content, the station can offer any supporter a precise demographic that was impossible when only the air was measured. People whose lives have been affected will attach their own identity to the station. People who have been able to contribute to issues that are vital to them because of the station will attach their identity to the station.

Being part of true "Public Service" therefore expands and deepens the connection way beyond that great content alone could ever achieve.

Their non profit status has been essential in enabling it to have this role. Being a non profit seems to have a major influence on how much you can be trusted. Many are beginning to see that much of what is news and on the media has been shaped by those that pay the bills. When the public pay the bills the fears of conflicts of interest are mitigated and trust is enhanced. Trust is the most scarce of anything today and so in the end will have the most value.

It is hard for purely commercial media organizations to compete for the hearts and minds of people in thus way - this space of True Public Service is open to Pub Media.

Most important of all they have been learning how to run themselves internally as a network and also how to facilitate groups of outside partners. This - even more than the web tools themselves is the real new value.

Group Forming will be the most valuable skill that any station will have.

We have positioned ourselves to move beyond content - beyond members - to groups that we form. Group Forming is an exponential activity that drives out the value of the Network Effect.

So what next?

Here are a number of steps that they can take that will release the value in the Network Effect:

• Help the leading institutions in their community learn what they have learned. Many important institutions in every city need to use the power of the 2.0 world to improve their ROI as well. Museums, Universities, Performing Artists etc all have to extend beyond their physical walls and a 5 day a week 9-5 time slot. Who can help them do this best? Make a real business out of this. Become the social media/relationships tutor to the institutions of your community. Help them engage their community. Help them expand their "Real Estate" beyond time and space. Help them learn how to Form Groups and realize the Network Effect.

The old Underwriting relationship is transformed to a much deeper and ongoing relationship based on working directly with each other. They become us and we them.

• Expand the Community Partnerships so that more can be done to reinvent the community. Health, Energy, Local Food, Education are all going to move into prominence. There are community partners that exist already in these areas just as they did in the Mortgage Crisis. Again help them learn and do what we are doing.

This will enable us to continue to expand our relationships with and so support from with people that normally would never watch our conventional content.

• Become the "School" for the networked world in their community - The most important new literacy and skill set of our time will be how to use the web and how to facilitate rather than direct. Who better than Pub Media Station to set up such a learning centre?

Tie the young (hence their parents too) of the community into both the station and to our other relationships. We become a vital new factor in the lives of families

• Build a web alternative to on air delivery - Many of the parts for this are ready right now. Here is a case for how and why

In effect set out deliberately to learn build and operate an off ramp where the bulk of the offering is available on the web - where public, local and national content and community involvement all take place

• Create a real Network with other nodes in pub media - Public media itself can shift from a series of entirely independent and single purpose stations in TV and Radio into a real network where many assets can be truly shared and the real power of the network effect realized. Work as a true partner with the local stations and with many other stations and producers across the system. Here the web enables much better curation and sharing of content. Here space can be leveraged as can support services.

Create regional support hubs where common services can be centred and offered out to members. Reduce overhead systemically not piece meal.

I will post more soon on a number of practical steps that flow out of these principles.

Heresies

Bees - What can you do? Have a meadow

Thanks Brian

Rhondaforever - The 3D Drawing Tool

Years ago, I was in the car with my son James and we were talking about perspective in art. We were wondering how it would be possible to draw in more than 2 dimensions. For the New World of Networks demands that we describe it in 3D.

Now with Rhondaforever - James brilliant programming pal Amit Pitaru has designed such a tool. Rhondaforever.com

Amit actually developed this back in 2003 but now they are ready.

The last time we had such a shift in perspective was at the outset of the Renaissance when artists moved from a perspective based on social hierarchy (Kings were big, Bishops smaller, peasants very small) to the perspective of the artist (2D). At first this was so hard to do, that artists needed a tool to help them.

I see this as being more than a nice to have for artists. Finally we will be able to draw the networked world

The hands on the screen belong to James Paterson. He is using "Rhonda", a 3D drawing tool developed by Amit Pitaru circa 2003.

The first half of the video shows James doing a drawing start to finish. In the second part James is cycling through various previous drawings, created between 2004 and 2005.

For the last several years Rhonda has been shown in galleries, museums, festivals and conferences. We are excited to finally release this video online (about time!).

Even more exciting is that our good friends Zach Lieberman (openframeworks) and Zach Gage (synthpond) have just joined the Rhonda Team! With their help we will be creating stable releases of Rhonda for various platforms.

The Natural Organization - The Metaphor in Reality - Chris Corrigan on PEI

Chris spent the week with us on PEI. On a walk the other day we were struck by the contrast between an old meadow and a plowed field. All that he and I have been thinking about Natural Organization revealed itself. 5 minutes of pure insight.