Collective Intelligence – Page 105 – Public Intelligence Blog

Metacognition — awareness of one's attention and thinking process — is increasingly a 21st century necessity. — Howard

Metacognition — I Know (or Don't Know) that I Know

At New York University, Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow Dr Steve Fleming is exploring the neural basis of metacognition: how we think about thinking, and how we assess the accuracy of our decisions, judgements and other aspects of our mental performance.

Metacognition is an important-sounding word for a very everyday process. We ‘metacognise' whenever we reflect upon our thinking process and knowledge.

It's something we do on a moment-to-moment basis, according to Dr Steve Fleming at New York University. “We reflect on our thoughts, feelings, judgements and decisions, assessing their accuracy and validity all day long,” he says.

This kind of introspection is crucial for making good decisions. Do I really want that bar of chocolate? Do I want to go out tonight? Will I enjoy myself? Am I aiming at the right target? Is my aim accurate? Will I hit it? How sure am I that I'm right? Is that really the correct answer?

If we don't ask ourselves these questions as a kind of faint, ongoing, almost intuitive commentary in the back of our minds, we're not going to progress very smoothly through life.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota: The role of ethics and philosophy in channeling and integrating knowledge is not sufficiently appreciated at this time. Apart from being ignorant in the whole, we also lack integrity in the whole.

2012/05/14

Mini-Me: Cash, and Time, Runs Out for Afghanistan’s Wi-Fi City

Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Hacking

Huh?

Cash, and Time, Runs Out for Afghanistan’s Wi-Fi City

It was a project that symbolized America’s grand ambitions to rebuild Afghanistan: a DIY Wi-Fi network, free for Afghans to use, powering the aid projects and business ventures of the eastern city of Jalalabad. But now funding for the JLink network has run dry, and like so much of the Afghanistan war, it’s run out of time. Most of Jalalabad is about to go offline.

The sudden collapse of the network is causing local aid workers, entrepreneurs and the entire city to adjust to the prospect of life without a freely available internet. JLink is woven into the fabric of Jalalabad: It took about two years for high-speed internet to become available through JLink in the city’s public hospital, local elementary schools and the women’s dorm at Nangarhar University. After one of JLink’s two satellite connections went dark on May 1, some in the city’s aid community considered it a prelude to a larger international withdrawal from Afghanistan.

JLink is not something the Taliban destroyed. Its impending collapse illustrates what happens when grand ambitions lead to grand achievements that ultimately prove unsustainable — perhaps because they proceeded from unstable, utopian premises. And like the war itself, the group that created JLink is out of time to salvage its project.

Continue reading “Mini-Me: Cash, and Time, Runs Out for Afghanistan’s Wi-Fi City”

2012/05/14

Patrick Meier: Departing for Qatar

08 Wild Cards, Advanced Cyber/IO, Blog Wisdom, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Government, Media, Mobile

Joining the Qatar Foundation to Advance Humanitarian Technology

Big news! I'll be taking a senior level position at the Qatar Foundation to work on the next generation of humanitarian technology solutions. I'll be based at the Foundation's Computing Research Institute (QCRI) and be working alongside some truly amazing minds defining the cutting edge of social and scientific computing, computational linguistics, big data, etc. My role at QCRI will be to leverage the expertise within the Institute, the region and beyond to drive technology solutions for humanitarian and social impact globally—think of it as Computing for Good backed by some serious resources. I'll spend just part of the time in Doha. The rest of my time will be based wherever necessary to have the greatest impact. Needless to say, I'm excited!

My mission over the past five years has been to catalyze strategic linkages between the technology and humanitarian space to promote both innovation and change, so this new adventure feels like the perfect next chapter in this exciting adventure. I've had the good fortune and distinct honor of working with some truly inspiring and knowledgeable colleagues who have helped me define and pursue my passions over the years. Needless to say, I've learned a great deal from these colleagues; knowledge, contacts and partnerships that I plan to fully leverage at the Qatar Foundation.

It really has been an amazing five years. I joined the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) in 2007 to co-found and co-direct the Program on Crisis Mapping and Early Warning. The purpose of the program was to assess how new technologies were changing the humanitarian space and how these could be deliberately leveraged to yield more significant impact. As part of my time at HHI, I consulted on a number of cutting-edge projects including the UNDP's Crisis and Risk Mapping Analysis (CRMA) Program in the Sudan. I also leveraged this iRevolution blog extensively to share my findings and learnings with both the humanitarian and technology communities. In addition, I co-authored the UN Foundation & Vodafone Foundation Report on “New Technologies in Emergen-cies and Conflicts” (PDF).

Continue reading “Patrick Meier: Departing for Qatar”

2012/05/112012/05/12

Robert Steele: World Bank Open Access / Open Knowledge

Access, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Future-Oriented, Government, International Aid, IO Deeds of Peace, Key Players, Knowledge, Non-Governmental, Officers Call, Open Government, Peace Intelligence, Policies, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Resilience, Threats, True Cost, World Bank

steele smiling final — Robert David STEELE Vivas

Press Release

WASHINGTON, April 10, 2012 – The World Bank today announced that it will implement a new Open Access policy for its research outputs and knowledge products, effective July 1, 2012. The new policy builds on recent efforts to increase access to information at the World Bank and to make its research as widely available as possible. As the first phase of this policy, the Bank launched today a new Open Knowledge Repository and adopted a set of Creative Commons copyright licenses.

The new Open Access policy, which will be rolled out in phases in the coming year, formalizes the Bank’s practice of making research and knowledge freely available online. Now anybody is free to use, re-use and redistribute most of the Bank's knowledge products and research outputs for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

“Knowledge is power,” World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick said. “Making our knowledge widely and readily available will empower others to come up with solutions to the world’s toughest problems. Our new Open Access policy is the natural evolution for a World Bank that is opening up more and more.”

The policy will also apply to Bank research published with third party publishers including the institution’s two journals—World Bank Research Observer (WBRO) and World Bank Economic Review (WBER)—which are published by Oxford University Press, but in accordance with the terms of third party publisher agreements. The Bank will respect publishing embargoes, but expects the amount of time it takes for externally published Bank content to be included in its institutional repository to diminish over time.

Event 21 May 2012 1230-1400 Washington DC

Join us for an Open Discussion: What the Bank's Open Access Policy Means for Development

Monday, May 21, 2012 12:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. ET/16:30 – 18:00 GMT

The World Bank will be adopting an Open Access Policy as of July 1. In addition, the Bank recently launched the World Bank Open Knowledge Repository (OKR) and became the first major international organization to adopt a set of copyright licenses from Creative Commons. As a result, a wealth of Bank research and knowledge products are now freely available to anyone in the world for use, re-use, and sharing.

Why is this so significant?
How can open access contribute to the goal of eliminating poverty?
How does the new policy impact the Bank's researchers and authors?
How will the OKR benefit users of Bank knowledge, in particular those in developing countries?

Join us in person at the World Bank or online for a lively conversation about these and other aspects of open access to research, and its potential for development progress.

FEATURED GUESTS:
Peter Suber Director of the Harvard Open Access Project and a leading voice in the open access movement	Cyril Muller Vice President for External Affairs at the World Bank
Michael Carroll American University law professor and founding board member of Creative Commons	Adam Wagstaff Research Manager of the World Bank's Development Research Group
HOST:
Carlos Rossel World Bank Publisher

THE OPEN SOURCE EVERYTHING MANIFESTO: Transparency, Truth & Trust

INTELLIGENCE FOR EARTH: Clarity, Diversity, Integrity, & Sustainability

COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

Open Source Agency: Executive Access Point

2012/05/112012/05/12

David Isenberg: Death for Reed-Elsevier, Life for Knowledge

Academia, Access, Advanced Cyber/IO, Collective Intelligence, Commercial Intelligence, Knowledge

Elsevier Versus Wikipedia: Academics Revolt Against Giant Publisher

by Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch Blog

CorpWatch, May 11th, 2012

Over 11,000 academics have pledged to boycott Elsevier, the Dutch publishing giant, for profiting off their work and making it unavailable to the general public. Now Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, is about to turn the world of corporate academic publishing on its head, in the same way that his website effectively took down Encyclopedia Britannica.

Elsevier is part of the Anglo-Dutch company Reed Elsevier, which had 2010 revenues of $9.3 billion and annual profits of over $1.67 billion. It publishes over 250,000 articles in some 2,000 journals a year that range from global publications like the Lancet to more specific ones like the Journal of the Egyptian Mathematical Society.

Some of these journals are very expensive. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta, for example, sells for $31,000 to Japanese subscribers and $25,000 a year to European and Iranian subscribers. (The rest of the world can buy it for a mere $20,930 a year!) There is a market: University libraries in the UK alone spend over $320 million to make these publications available to their students.

Publishers like Elsevier knew they were onto a good thing because before the arrival of the Internet, there was no other way for researchers to tell their peers about the important work they were doing, or vice versa. Plus getting published in a respectable journal was also the key to keeping academic jobs and getting promotions, so the researchers and professors – like rock musicians and best-selling writers – were leery about giving away their work for free.

“(P)ublishing companies became the de facto gatekeepers to scientific knowledge, restricting who could see the latest ideas rather than allowing ideas to spread as far as possible,” writes Aloke Jha in the Guardian.

Continue reading “David Isenberg: Death for Reed-Elsevier, Life for Knowledge”

2012/05/092012/05/09

Patrick Meier: Advice to Future PhDs from 2 Unusual Graduating PhDs – Blog Twitter Hybrid Teach-Consult Dissertation Focus

Advanced Cyber/IO, Blog Wisdom, Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Intelligence (government), Methods & Process, Officers Call

Advice to Future PhDs from 2 Unusual Graduating PhDs

Next week I will be attending my official graduation from The Fletcher School to receive my PhD diploma. It is—in a word—surreal. I've been working on my PhD for almost as long as I've known my good friend and colleague Chris Albon, which is to say, a long time. Chris is also a newly minted political science PhD and recently joined the FrontlineSMS team as the director of their Governance Project. Needless to say, our paths have crossed on many occasions over the years and we've had many long conversations about the scholar-practitioner path that we've taken. With graduation just a few days away, we thought we'd write-up this joint post to share our pearls of wisdom with future PhDs.

First: blog, blog, blog! The blog is the new CV. If you don't exist dynamically online, then you're not indexable on the web. And if you're not indexable, then you're not searchable or discoverable. You don't exist! Blog-ergo-sum, simple as that. Chris and I have been blogging for years and this has enabled us to further our knowledge and credibility, not to mention our of network of contacts. The blog allows you to build your own independent brand, not your advisor’s and not your program’s. This is critical. We've received consulting gigs and keynote invitations based on blog posts that we've published over the years. Do not underestimate the power of blogging for your professional (and yes, academic) career. In many ways, blogging is about getting credit for your ideas and to signal to others what you know and what your interests are.

Second: get on Twitter! Malcolm Gladwell is wrong: social media can build strong-tie bonds. Heck, social media is how I originally met Chris. If the blog is the new CV, then consider your Twitter account the new business card. Use Twitter to meet everyone, everywhere. Let people know you'll be in London for a conference and don't underestimate the synergies and serendipity that is the twittersphere. Chris currently follows around 1,200 people on Twitter, and he estimates that over the years he has met around half of them in person. That is a lot of contacts and, frankly, potential employers. Moreover, like blogging, tweeting enables you to connect to others and stay abreast of interesting new developments. Once upon a time, people used to email you interesting articles, conferences, etc. I personally got on Twitter several years ago when I realized that said emails were no longer making it to my inbox. This information was now being shared via Twitter instead. Like the blog, Twitter allows you to create and manage your own personal brand.

Continue reading “Patrick Meier: Advice to Future PhDs from 2 Unusual Graduating PhDs – Blog Twitter Hybrid Teach-Consult Dissertation Focus”

2012/05/082012/05/08

NIGHTWATCH: European Election Updates – Crowds Against Corruption

Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Corruption, Government

Election Updates:

France: As expected, Francois Hollande is the new president of France. In his victory speech on 6 May, Hollande said “…austerity cannot be the only option.”

Greece: As expected, no party won a majority. The conservative New Democracy Party obtained the most votes, followed by a coalition of leftist parties and then the Socialists. Nevertheless, the New Democracy and Socialist Parties both sustained an enormous reduction in popular support. The magnitude of the anti-austerity vote was described as a volcanic eruption by Greek political analysts.

On 7 May the New Democracy Party failed in its attempt to form a coalition government. The second place party, the Coalition of the Radical Left rejected the New Democracy's offer. The leader of the Coalition, AlexisTsipras, said the parties that make up his coalition are in opposition and demand that the austerity measure be canceled.

The Greek President has asked the Coalition of the Radical Left to form a government. If it fails, the Socialists will be asked. coalition with the conservative New Democracy (ND) party, AP reported May 7. After talks with ND leader Antonis Samaras, Alexis Tsipras said the parties are in opposition and demanded that austerity measures be canceled.

Comment: The popular mood is dark. A neo-Nazi party won 7% of the vote which will entitle it to have representation in parliament for the first time. Expect street disorders.

German reaction also is as expected. Germany will not work to change Europe's compact on budget discipline and rejects growth measures that increase debt levels, government spokesman Steffen Seibert said on 7 May.

New negotiations of the fiscal compact are not possible, Seibert said, adding that growth should come through structural reforms, not through new debt. Greece must implement reforms it agreed to as part of its bailout package. The agreements represent Greece's best path forward and Athens must adhere to them, Seibert said.

Die Welt's editorial wrote,

“Both Hollande and the Greek opposition are serving people's desire for a fundamental change in political and social conditions, which are mainly attributed to the most powerful woman in Europe: Chancellor Angela Merkel.”

“They were voting against a tight rein on states by a central authority in Brussels, against the loss of democracy through ‘expert government'. These elections were a clear rejection of the Angela Merkel's system in Europe.”

Comment: Teutonic sternness is more likely to be incendiary than helpful. Die Welt has the right of it. The eurozone experiment is proving unsustainable against the sentiment for utopian and egalitarian solutions. The economies do not mesh. The regime of the bankers and bureaucrats in Brussels is under threat.

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Category: Collective Intelligence

Howard Rheingold: Meta-Cognition