Re: [ba-unrev-talk] Document for Review
Re: (01)
>I am also
>> inclined to believe that commercial interests are (will be) against such
>> granularity in pages carrying advertising.
>>
>> But, then again, your immediate concern is not with web-wide level of
>> co-operative work. However, it might be well, to keep such a future
>> extension in mind.
> (02)
Go figure: Ever been a victum of "contagious" products and ideas? (03)
It works like this. First, they find out how the mind of their target
consumer works by getting at his or her ideas and subconscious thoughts.
.... (more info below) (04)
- John (05)
* Mind virus could give us shopping bug (06)
Tracy McVeigh
Observer (07)
Sunday March 26, 2000 (08)
"It may prove to be the most successful new selling technique
the capitalist world has ever known. The 'mind virus' is the
latest form of consumer brainwashing. (09)
A mix of psychology and Internet technology, the aim is to
create social epidemics by feeding the right information, or
virus, into someone's mind. Once implanted, it can make the most
useless of gadgets seem essential, the most unnecessary
accessory irresistible. It is a money-spinning dream. (010)
That is the claim of psychologist Paul Marsden, who believes he
can help businesses to trigger shopping crazes for their products."
<http://www.brandgenetics.com/archive/Guardian%20Unlimited%20%20Archive%20Search.htm> (011)
* (012)
Mental epidemics (013)
"WANT to change the world? Find out how in Malcolm Gladwell's
The Tipping Point. He has "the rules" for engineering social
epidemics. You'll see how to turn an idea, product or practice
into a virulent mind virus that will sweep through society to
become the latest craze, fad or fashion."
<http://www.brandgenetics.com/archive/New%20Scientist%20Mental%20epidemics.htm> (014)
* Genetically Modified Food and Memetically Modified Ideas (015)
... "In a memetic project somewhat similar to the Human Genome
Project, evolutionary psychologists have begun mapping the
cognitive hardwired structure of our minds, and the development
of associative networks have allowed researchers to map the
acquired or softwired structure of those minds. (016)
What is interesting about all this is that these advances now
allow for the possibility of engineering of ideas so completely
adapted to the structure of our minds that when exposed to them,
we automatically adopt them, sometimes in spite of ourselves.
Memeticists are now taking their first tentative steps in using
this knowledge to engineer and modify cultural information; to
design fashions, fads, ideas, advertising and brands that fit
our minds, like a jigsaw piece in a puzzle. The GM mind virus
may have been a product of blind chance that just happened to
fit our minds, but the possibility is now with us of consciously
and deliberately modifying the structure of information to
render it more palatable, and indeed infectious." ... (017)
... "Of course, infecting others with our ideas so that they do
what we want is a time-honoured human preoccupation. Compliance
professionals, from door to door salespersons to politicians to
religious zealots have long used the techniques of social
influence to go about their business. But the difference, and it
is a big difference, is that memetic engineers are developing a
theoretically informed comprehensive understanding of how this
process works that turns manipulation into a science." ...
<http://www.viralculture.com/gmmm.htm> (018)
* Brand Positioning: Meme’s the Word (019)
"Using a simple but powerful technique of memetic analysis, it
is shown how marketers can unpack how brands are actually
positioned in the minds of consumers in terms of their component
memes, that is, their ‘genes of meaning’. A demonstration of the
validity and reliability of memetic analysis is given through an
investigation of how the notion of ‘healthy-living’ is
positioned in the minds of consumers. The practical utility of
memetic analysis in brand positioning is discussed, and the
possibility is raised of using the analytical tool to increase
profitability by ‘memetically modifying’ brands with true,
unique and compelling consumer values."
<http://www.brandgenetics.com/archive/Brand%20Positioning%20-%20Memes%20the%20Word.htm> (020)
* Help advertising evolve: Clone consumer thought patterns (021)
Harnessing the power of evolution (022)
"Of all processes in the universe, evolution is perhaps the most
awe-inspiring. What’s more, it is beautifully simple: Descent
(continuity) with modification (change) powered by a simple
mechanism of natural selection. Evolution and its effects are
all around us today; emerging, designing, producing species
adapted to their environment, antibodies adapted to infections,
and knowledge adapted to the world. Indeed, the very idea of
evolution is itself a product of evolution, and has been
described by philosopher Daniel Dennett as simply the best idea
anyone has ever had. We have found a way of harnessing this
process to help design advertising campaigns and brands that are
highly adapted to their target markets."
<http://www.viralculture.com/admap99.html> (023)
Gary Richmond wrote: (024)
> Eric and Henry,
>
> Eric you wrote in response to Henry's comments on your document for
> review:
>
>>Granularity is in there. But I *really* liked your comment about
>>advertisers' possible objections!
>>
> I would also like to reinforce the concluding comment of Henry's,
> pointing exactly to what
> I would like to comment on after I return to NYC on Monday. Henry wrote:
>
>>But, then again, your immediate concern is not with web-wide level of
>>co-operative work. However, it might be well, to keep such a future
>>extension in mind.
>>
> These kinds of co-operative/collaborative concerns are what Aldo de
> Moor and I have maintained
> would distinguish a Pragmatic Web from a (mere?) Semantic Web. He and
> I discussed this informally at ICCS
> 2001 in Palo Alto and, with Mary Keeler, wrote a paper, "Towards a
> Pragmatice Web," for ICCS 2002..
>
> http://infolab.kub.nl/people/ademoor/papers/iccs02.pdf
>
> For a brief treatment of the theme of a Pragmatic Web, see this
> article (to which Aldo recently directed
> me) by Munidar P. Singh, Editor in Chief of IEEE Internet Computing.
>
>http://www.csc.ncsu.edu/faculty/mpsingh/papers/columns/bi-6-3-02.pdf
>
> More when I return.
>
> Gary
>
> PS Eric, thank you for your kind words regarding my loss. Tomorrow
> begins a long, sad car trip
> to Greenville, SC.
>
>>
>>
>>>Eric.
>>>
>>>Glad you took it well. I was a bit in a blue mood when I wrote my
>>>response. So much to be done, so little time left for doing it.
>>>
>>>At any rate, a major item in your original post (and in your posts way
>>>back during the days of the colloquium) is granularity. Granularity in
>>>all web pages extant is very much desired. I believe that
>>>paragraph-level granularity is a good, practical goal. I am also
>>>inclined to believe that commercial interests are (will be) against such
>>>granularity in pages carrying advertising.
>>>
>>>But, then again, your immediate concern is not with web-wide level of
>>>co-operative work. However, it might be well, to keep such a future
>>>extension in mind.
>>>
>>>Henry
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>On Wed, 2003-01-08 at 16:19, Eric Armstrong wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Hey, Henry.
>>>>
>>>>Thanks for the post. I'm trying to get at basic infrastructure questions,
>>>>though, rather than large design concerns. I got caught up in the vision
>>>>myself, and list moved towards big-picture things.
>>>>
>>>>But mostly I'm trying to enumerate the low-level infrastructure issues
>>>>that emerge when the rubber hits the road, and someone tries to code
>>>>something.
>>>>
>>>>Actually, one of the things I should have put on that list is time
>>>>synchronization. When updates are happening simultaneously at remote
>>>>locations, and the results are shared, "which happened first" becomes important.
>>>>
>>>>(Note to Self: Examine the bread crumbs in the design document for other
>>>>low level issues.)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Henry K van Eyken wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Eric.
>>>>>
>>>>>You are talking here about stuff dear to my heart, but it is so complex
>>>>>I cannot just immediately respond in a satisfactory way - especially
>>>>>because I am overloaded and my mind is getting slower while my body is
>>>>>screaming to get me away from my desk.
>>>>>
>>>>>I would want to tick off the points you raise in a media/educational
>>>>>setting, which is something I would want Fleabyte to evolve into, but
>>>>>which I am not likely to ever see.
>>>>>
>>>>>Media, typically are close to one-way instruments, from emitter to
>>>>>receiver. Oh yes, readers may write letters to editors, but it is the
>>>>>editors who select what and how much of each letter received is printed.
>>>>>In other words, the readers are under editorial control.
>>>>>
>>>>>Schools to a little better. Students may ask questions, but even those
>>>>>questions may be ignored or rephrased.
>>>>>
>>>>>Eventually I shall have to produce an article outlining how Fleabyte
>>>>>might move from being a webzine toward a collaborative tool. One
>>>>>question is: who are doing the collaborating? Another: what is the depth
>>>>>of that collaboration, the commitment involved. These questions ought be
>>>>>posed in a well-defined context of which I perceive various stages.
>>>>>
>>>>>Stage one is getting, evaluating, pruning information. We now have
>>>>>search engines; we lack evaluation engines. And we haven't got
>>>>>well-defined means of making individuals with their limited mental
>>>>>capacity feel comfortable with an extensive body of machine-held
>>>>>information. To make matters more complex, that body is dynamic with
>>>>>information continually added, removed, altered in a way that any person
>>>>>who exhibits this kind of a continually changing mind is considered
>>>>>fickle, unreliable, undependable, and, hence, even unemployable!
>>>>>
>>>>>Stage one would involve a moving feast of involved expertise, knowledge
>>>>>workers with a sense of the future and a sense of how directions in
>>>>>their field are potentially being deflected by projected developments
>>>>>elsewhere. (Think of Doug's "frontier outpost" people as discussed
>>>>>during the colloquium!)
>>>>>
>>>>>A next stage would involve "spreading the word" to a critical mass of
>>>>>decision-makers, which "at bottom" is the electorate, but which need
>>>>>depend on either experts trusted by their elected representatives or
>>>>>depend on digitally held expertise - a benign auto pilot.
>>>>>
>>>>>Following that comes planning for action, the problem of alternatives,
>>>>>levels of certainty, etc., all of which would lead into appropriate
>>>>>action.
>>>>>
>>>>>I guess I have gone a little beyond the kind of cooperation people
>>>>>normally think of when contemplating tools for collaboration. Really, we
>>>>>are here in the domain of dynamic, coevolutionary collaboration. The
>>>>>kind of stuff Doug is talking about.
>>>>>
>>>>>Too bad he has not been getting the needed support.
>>>>>
>>>>>Too bad, Fleabyte is likely to whither on the vine.
>>>>>
>>>>>But, by all means, let's keep on dreaming and scheming.
>>>>>
>>>>>Henry
>>>>>
>>>>>The production of the
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>On Mon, 2003-01-06 at 18:10, Eric Armstrong wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>I've just published a document at my web site, entitled
>>>>>>Technical Impediments to Persistent Collaboration Tools.
>>>>>>http://www.treelight.com/software/collaboration/Technical_Impediments.html
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I would appreciate feedback from you guys.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>The document is an attempt to identify the set of necessary
>>>>>>infrastructure features that, by their absence, make it
>>>>>>difficult or impossible to develop usable collaboration tools.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Essentially, it's an "infrastructure wish list", and you folks are
>>>>>>admirably positioned to tell me what's missing from the list.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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> (025)