Amar’s Blog

A CROWD OF ONE: The Future of Individual Identity
By John Clippinger
Book Party [TONIGHT!]

Thursday, April 19
5:30 pm Talk in Pound Hall 200
6:30 pm Cocktail Reception at The Berkman Center

John Clippinger, one of today’s preeminent experts on how technology influences business and society, offers a fresh and provocative perspective, grounded in everyday and historical examples, that presents a vision for a new scientific understanding of human nature and identity. In A CROWD OF ONE, Clippinger takes us through the historical origins of identity and the way it is influencing—and being influenced by—today’s world. He examines origin narratives from around the world and the religious underpinnings of many people’s identities, and explores the competing theories of human nature developed by Hobbes, Adam Smith, and some of the other leading philosophical minds throughout history. His conclusions will have profound implications for everything from social networking and virtual worlds, to leadership strategies in business and technology, to the structure of today’s military operations around the world.
More information on the book (and ordering information) is available here.
John’s Bio

Dan Gillmor will be a keynote speaker at the NMK Forum ‘07 on June 13.

David Weinberger blogged about Wendy Seltzer’s Luncheon Series talk yesterday.

Wendy waits for the room to fill by running a very funny YouTube clip of the Daily Show segment about Viacom vs. YouTube. (The room is now packed.)

She was watching the Super Bowl and saw the notice: “This telecast is copyrighted by the NFL for the private use of our audience. Any other use of this telecast or of any pictures, descriptions, or accounts of the game without the NFL’s consent, is prohibited.” She took the clip off her MythTV and posted it to YouTube under the title “Super Bowl Highlights,” with a caption that said: “The NFL’s overreaching copyright claim.” That was on Feb. 8. Five says later, she got a notification from YouTube saying that they had taken the clip down because the NFL claimed it was infringing under the DMCA .

YouTube had received a list of 158 clips the NFL claimed was infringing. It’s likely that the NFL had a robot search for anything that was titled or tagged as NFL. Wendy asked to see the list and received it.

To catch up, check out the video and podcast at MediaBerkman.

Everything is Miscellaneous
by David Weinberger
Book Release Party

Monday, April 30
Talk @ 6pm in Pound Hall Room 335
Reception @ 7pm at The Berkman Center, Harvard Law School campus

On behalf of the faculty and fellows of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, we invite you to join us on Monday, 4/30, for a celebration in congratulations of Berkman Fellow David Weinberger’s release of his book Everything is Miscellaneous through Times Books. David is a co-author of the national best-seller The Cluetrain Manifesto, has written for Wired, Salon, USA Today, and The Guardian, and in 2004, served as Senior Internet Advisor to the Howard Dean Campaign. David will give a talk on his book at 6pm at Harvard Law School in Pound Hall Room 335, which will be followed by a cocktail reception at 7pm at the Berkman Center, located at 23 Everett Street, also on the campus of the law school.

About Everything is Miscellaneous

For 2,500 years we’ve used the same principles for organizing information, ideas and knowledge that we use for putting away our laundry: Everything has its place, things are put with other things like it, it’s all neat and tidy. But as we move information on line, it no longer has to share the limits on the physical. We are rapidly inventing new principles of order, moving from newspapers to blogs, from encyclopedias to Wikipedia, from librarians to taggers. In fact, it turns out that the best way to manage digital information is *not* to have experts filter and sort it before hand, but to make a huge miscellaneous pile of it, include everything, and allow users to sort and organize it. This opens up new opportunities, but it fundamentally changes the nature of authority across all of our major institutions, including business, the media, science, education and government.

About David
More information on the book
Directions to Harvard Law School & The Berkman Center
Questions? Contact: Amar Ashar