MeganM2014: Clay Shirky

Clay Shirky writes, teaches, and consults thousands of people about the internet. With all of the far-reaching aspects of Internet, it is hard to conceive which topic in this vast realm would be important enough for Shirky to focus on for his TED Talk. Surprisingly for some, this Internet technology was not developed in America; it originated in Kenya in the midst of crisis. Ushahidi, as this Kenyan product was called, consisted of a communal website that anyone could send information t. The website would then automatically organize the information, put it on a map, and publish the post sents in. Shirky believes this is but one example of a concept he calls, “cognitive surplus.” Cognitive surplus is the voluntary sharing of information. Shirky believes that once it becomes a widespread movement, cognitive surplus will allow the world to work together to solve enormous issues no one person could ever figure out with their limited knowledge. In short, we need to share everything we know with each other so we can change the world.

Undoubtedly, this video sparked deep thought. The main point I considered while watching Shirky speak was how this cognitive surplus could be applied to all aspects of our lives. To begin, cognitive surplus could provide an enormously beneficial educational tool. Already, teachers encourage us to share our ideas and learn from each other. However, in a class room setting, students either only get the opportunity to discuss with a few students, or cannot share as much as they know because everyone in the class must have an opportunity to share within a limited time frame. With a website such as Ushahidi, students could report everything they knew and have the opportunity to read the viewpoints of all of their classmates. Another benefit of cognitive surplus to education is it appeals to many learning types. On Ushahidi, visitors can read posts, listen to them on podcasts, or view a map marking the locations described in every post. For use in classrooms, timelines could be added by teachers to be used like a class calendar. Moreover, if a website such as this was used for a class project, all of the articles could be placed strategically on a visual (such as a map or other symbolic picture) and then color-coded based on their main idea. When students try to tackle large problems, communicating with each other and creating a cognitive surplus would not only help them solve the problem faster, but it would also benefit the world if the student’s solutions were at all applicable to everyday life.

The possibilities of cognitive surplus throughout the world are limitless. Websites such as Ushahidi are already used to report the locations and details of crises. This same technology could be used during emergencies to help locate survivors. If a crisis hit, people could be taught to bring their smartphones with them when they took shelter. With 3G networks, survivors could post details about their situation as well as their exact location on a website. Emergency workers from all over the world could then check these posts and send out response teams. Even under a pile of rubble, if one can pull their phone up to their face, they can contact help. This technology would surpass the convenience of calling for assistance because it does not require functional radio towers and users are able to contact aid programs from several countries other than their own (which may already be overwhelmed

Throughout this school year, we have discussed in-depth the consequences of trusting media, and the traps society can fall into if media is not kept in check. Cognitive surplus is a divine way to control the reports of media. If everyone (or any number close to everyone) reported on events they experienced then published their viewpoint for the world to see, media could no longer escape with lies. Countries could not feed their citizens biased information or attempt to block out a certain point of view, because now it would all be on the web. If the government tried to shut down the Internet to block this information input, people would know a dictatorship was attempting to take over. In a time of war, this openness could, however, prove detrimental. One could convincingly argue that government propaganda fueled the success of America during the world wars. Ever since government stopped producing propaganda, America had been notably less successful in the wars it has fought (ie. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan). This new source of knowledge would only increase people’s intolerance of biased information. This could be both good and bad; war would be hard to fight when both sides lie and cheat, thereby loosing the support of their citizens, but the difficulty of successful warfare could also lead to greater attempts at diplomacy and peace throughout the world.

Shirky’s discussion triggered several questions for me, as well. For one, I would like to know how he came up with the number one trillion as the combined amount of free time of all the people in the world each year. With the current world population around 6,914,126,061 people, this would means the average person has about 144 hours of free time each year ("U.S."). This number seems relatively small; are only 144 out of the 8,760 hours in a year unscheduled? What exactly did Shirky consider as “free time?” A more pertinent question than this, however, is: How can competition be so great when the world accomplishes more together? By combining our knowledge and our resources, changing the world is a closer goal than it ever has been before. Competition has lead to the formation of brilliant ideas, but these ideas can never become reality without the efforts of many.

Finally, I noticed while watching this video that Shirky greatly resembles another speaker we listened to earlier. Both Shirky and Daniel Pink discussed the subject of instrinsic motivation and how it can produce even better results than extrinsic motivations. Shirky even gave the same example as Pink to support intrinsic motivation being more effective (the number of parents late when picking up their kids in Israel from daycare increased when a fine of ten shekels was added for being late). Shirky, like Pink, believed creativity was key to the development of cognitive surplus.

Though at first Shirky's argument for cognitive surplus may not seem particularly significant, after a few moments of reflection one realizes that the rise of cognitive surplus may cause great changes in the world.

More about the author: http://www.ted.com/speakers/clay_shirky.html or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clay_Shirky