Happy New Year Futurists!

Here is a link to my predictions for 2009:
http://www.djcline.com/2010/01/01/2010-top-ten-predictions/

Enjoy!
-DJ Cline

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

January 16 - 17 in Palo Alto will be the conference Foresight 2010: the
Synergy of Molecular Manufacturing and AGI (http://foresight.org/conf2010/).



Several rapidly-developing technologies have the potential to undergo an
exponential takeoff in the next few decades, causing as much of an impact on
economy and society as the computer and networking did in the past few.
Chief among these are molecular manufacturing and artificial general
intelligence (AGI). Key in the takeoff phenomenon will be the establishment
of strong positive feedback loops within and between the technologies.
Positive feedback loops leading to exponential growth are nothing new to
economic systems. At issue is the value of the exponent: since the
Industrial Revolution, economies have expanded at rates of up to 7% per
year; however, computing capability has been expanding at rates up to 70%
per year, in accordance with Moore's Law. If manufacturing and intellectual
work shifted into this mode, the impact on the economy and society would be
profound. The purpose of this symposium is to examine the mechanisms by
which this might happen, and its likely effects.





Miguel



Miguel F. Aznar

Director of Education

Foresight Institute

www.foresight.org <http://www.foresight.org/>

(831) 440-8558







[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi Futurists,

Blog post with links:
http://www.futuresalon.org/2009/12/science-beyond-reductionism-future-salon-.htm\
l

Happy New Year to all of you. We are starting 2010 with a great Future Salon.
One of Future Salon's pillars is the scientific method. Artificial Intuition
researcher Monica Anderson will take a closer look at the scientific process and
what the latest developments are in that field. How solid is this pillar?

Join us for this interesting evening on Thursday 21st of January 2010 6pm at SAP
Labs in Palo Alto. Please RSVP http://bit.ly/52OgZu. (more info further down)

Abstract: Reductionism - the idea that difficult problems should be attacked by
dividing them into simpler problems - is the most fundamental principle of the
hard sciences. The justification "The Whole equals the sum of its Parts" has
been used for thousands of years. Physics and related sciences, and the support
disciplines of mathematics and computer science are all permeated by this
Reductionist stance, and for good reason: It has worked really well.  We have
found compact explanations for all kinds of phenomena and have solved countless
problems using these strategies.
But these strategies don't always work in Life Sciences like Biology, Genomics,
Psychology, and Ecology. Often "The Whole is larger than the sum of its Parts"
and when taking things apart, emergent phenomena like life, quality,
intelligence, and meaning simply disappear. All attempts to capture the essence
of life using Reductionist models, equations, and theories of living systems
have failed. The Life Sciences have for decades managed to get by using other
approaches. They use methods that emphasize Whole Systems and where context is
to be exploited rather than discarded as a distracting nuisance. These methods
adopt a more "Holistic" stance.
What has gone largely unnoticed is that many of these alternative approaches
involve using weaker and weaker models, all the way to what we will call "Model
Free Methods" (following Lionel S. Penrose, 1935). We have gathered a zoo of
such methods and implemented some of them in computers. Amazingly, they allow
discovery of solutions to problems "without understanding the problem" in the
Reductionist sense.  The advent of computers able to manipulate Big Data has
made these Holistic Methods possible.

We finish with the claim that Artificial Intelligence failed in the 20th century
because "Intelligence is Holistic" but AI was then mostly practiced by
programmers - a profession that has, by its nature, always attracted the most
hard-lined Reductionists. In the 21st Century, progress in AI will require that
we convert AI into a Life Science and start using Model Free Methods the way
other Life Sciences do. Researchers at Syntience Inc.  have been pursuing this
approach to AI since 2001 using an Algorithm named Artificial Intuition.

For background information, see http://artificial-intuition.com ,
http://monicasmind.com , or view the videos at http://videos.syntience.com -
especially the video featuring Dr. Peter Norvig, Director of Research at Google.

Future Salons have the following structure: 6-7pm is networking with light
refreshments proudly sponsored by SAP; 7-9+pm is the presentation followed by
questions and discussion.

SAP Labs North America, Building D, COIL (Co-Innovation Lab). SAP is located at
3410 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94304[map]. Free and open to the public.
Please spread the word and invite others, but be sure to RSVP
http://bit.ly/52OgZu so we know how many people to expect.

We will do our best to webcast the event again via Ustream.tv on the Future
Salon Channel: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/Future-Salon

Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/futuresalon
Follow all twittering Future Salon speakers:
http://twitter.com/futuresalon/futuresalonspeakers.

See you all there, Mark.

Still open reg's left, 25 just added recently.  I figure there's likely a few
community leaders in the FUSalon.  Mark - you ought to attend this! _You're_ a
leader. :)


----- Original message -----
From: gilgamesh33@...
To: sf-lug@...
Date: Wed, 06 Jan 2010 15:41:45 -0500
Subject: [sf-lug] West Coast Community Leadership Summit

Two very cool events; a community un-conference - followed by an
Ignite at Google.
There are just a few more spots left, Now is the time to to register-
http://clswest.eventbrite.com

The West Coast Community Leadership Summit (AKA CLS West) is a one day
unconference event on Jan 9, 2010. It will be held at DeVry University
in Daly City. That evening, there will be a Community-themed Ignite
for CLS attendees and their invited guests in San Francisco at
Google's SF office.  Online resources for the events are:

* Website: http://clswest.us
* Attendees: http://clswest.eventbrite.com/#attendees
* People photo gallery:
http://www.communityleadershipsummit.com/wiki/index.php/CLS_West_People

If you are a community leader near the bay area (or just interested),
you should consider signing up for both events.

Regards,
Mark Terranova

The first Community Leadership Summit occurred before OSCON (O'reilly
Open-Source Convention.)  After CLSwest the next event will be;
17th-18th July, 2010 - Portland, Oregon.




   ----------

_______________________________________________
sf-lug mailing list
sf-lug@...
http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/sf-lug
Information about SF-LUG is at http://www.sf-lug.org/

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi Futurists,

Blog post with links:
http://www.futuresalon.org/2010/01/foresight-gathering-2010-the-synergy-of-molec\
ular-manufacturing-and-agi.html

Without Foresight Institute Gatherings I wouldn't have met John Smart and there
wouldn't be a Future Salon. Therefore it is my great pleasure to promote this
year's conference:

Foresight Gathering 2010: The Synergy of Molecular Manufacturing and AGI
(Artificial General Intelligence)

     * Saturday, January 16 and Sunday, January 17, 2010
     * Sheraton Palo Alto Hotel
     * 625 El Camino Real, Palo Alto, CA 94301

Christine petersonChristine Peterson the organizer of the Gathering is Vice
President of Foresight Institute, a nonprofit focusing on advanced technologies
especially nanotech and AI.

She once spoke at the Future Salon about Open Source Sensing too and answered a
couple of questions that I sent her about the event:

How did you end up organizing the event?

     "I love organizing conferences and this one covers the two most important
technology developments for the coming decades."

What are you most excited about the event?

     There have been meetings on molecular manufacturing and on artificial
general intelligence, but to our knowledge this is the first one to zero in on
the *interaction* of these, which will be huge.

How does a foresight gathering differ from other conferences?

     Foresight events attract some of the most intelligent and interesting people
on the planet, and many of them are working actively to make the world a better
place.  Participants often find new collaborators at our conferences -- and of
course new friends.

If only this would be during the week, which would make it easier for me to
come. Now with family, it is tough. On the other hand you don't have to take
vacation days to join the fun.

If you are fast, tonight aka this Sunday you can still get the early bird
discoun: Register by January 10 to get the early rate of $155.

Enjoy, Mark.

P.S. Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/futuresalon or the high signal
tweets from all the twittering Future Salon speakers:
http://twitter.com/futuresalon/futuresalonspeakers

P.P.S. Don't miss our next Future Salon:
Science Beyond Reductionism Future Salon Thursday 21st with Artificial Intuition
researcher Monica Anderson
http://www.futuresalon.org/2009/12/science-beyond-reductionism-future-salon-.htm\
l

Hi Futurists,

blog post with links: http://futuresalon.org

This Thursday the 21st Artificial Intuition researcher Monica Anderson will take
a closer look at the scientific process and what the latest developments are in
that field.

Join us for this interesting evening on Thursday 21st of January 2010 6pm at SAP
Labs in Palo Alto. Please RSVP. (more info further down)

I caught up with Monica and as a little teaser for our Future Salon asked her 3
questions and here are her answers (more detailed than I expected):

1) Do you have a favorite example where the reductionist method of science
doesn't work, or even leads to wrong answers?

My favorite example is understanding language. No system based on grammars or
other reductionist methods will consistently perform at human level on any task
requiring the decoding of the meaning of human languages since language is
holistic and meaning is emergent. Algorithms like those used for web search are
currently mostly counting unusual words in documents and in so doing, ignoring
common but important words like "not". This leads to false positives for words
that have many meanings and many other kinds of search quality problems.  A
decade from now we will likely view our current web search algorithms as gross
reductionist hacks but right now they are the best we can do. Besides web
search, machine translation and voice recognition are other examples where the
poor performance directly follows from their inability to understand language.
Neither really works, after decades of hard work, and they will never reach
human level performance as long as we try to do it using Reductionist methods.
Google's latest translation systems use non-parametric models and have been
outperforming all other algorithms in major competitions.


2) Intuition some may say is something that separates us from the animals. You
are working on Artificial Intuition. What is it and when do you know you have
succeeded in creation one?

I actually believe the opposite: All animals, including humans, have similar,
basic Intuition. We use this intuition every step we take; my theory is that
intuition based skills get better with practice. If practice makes perfect, then
you are using intuition. We all had to practice to learn to walk.

Better and larger brains evolved over time so the intuitive competence varies
from species to species. On top of the more basic skills like navigating the
world and moving around in it humans have more advanced Intuition based skills
that manifest themselves in several ways:
  - Humans are more effective learners than other animals.
  - Humans have much better language skills than other animals
  - Humans have much better reasoning skills than other animals.

"Humans are better at aping than apes". We can learn complex procedures after
seeing them once, which means our mechanisms for gathering experience are more
effective. Part of this is that as we mature, we learn better ways to learn. But
none of these skills require reasoning; they are the result of more effective
versions of Intuition (the algorithm) and more data (experience gathered over a
lifetime).

At Syntience we are concentrating on the task of understanding language. Our
focus is Artificial Intuition - a machine learning algorithm that attempts to
determine, learn, and re-use nested patterns in streams of bytes, such as text.
This includes determination of saliency and abstractions, concepts, relations,
etc. But before we can get to the higher levels of language understanding we
have to get the lower levels right since everything builds on all levels below.
20th century AI never got to the lower parts - the kind of understanding we
share with other animals - and therefore had nothing to reason about; they were
building castles in the air.

We know we will have succeeded when we can outperform the current Reductionist
methods on industry standard reading comprehension tests, such as word
segmentation: We remove all the spaces from a paragraph of text that the system
has never seen but in a language it supposedly understands. If it can put the
spaces back in 100.00% correctly, then we win. If you think this is too easy a
task, challenge me at the talk. And if we can get one such test consistently
right, then we can likely use the same system on *any* language understanding
task.

Incidentally, improved Chinese word segmentation would immediately be a product
that would create significant revenue.


3) Tell us about a holistic model at work. What problem got solved that wasn't
possible via old school science?

All models are the result of some reduction of the problem. Therefore there are
no holistic models; if there were, then they would be "perfect simulations", not
models. Also, all Model Free methods are Holistic, and vice versa. So if the
question had been "Tell us about a Model Free Method at work. What problem got
solved that wasn't possible via old school science?" I could have answered:

Around 1995 a friend turned me on to the Constrained Set Coverage Problem and I
wrote a short program in Macintosh Common Lisp that generated, in 20 minutes on
a Mac Quadra, the same (and complete) set of answers that had taken 3 days to
compute on a Cray. No analytical solutions are possible. The Cray effort used a
weak Model Free method (complete enumeration) and I used a more powerful Model
Free Method (a Genetic Algorithm). .

The Constrained Set Coverage Problem has been shown to be NP-Hard. So Holistic
Methods can sometimes be used even if the problems are NP-Hard. Of course, there
is no guarantee of success and no telling how long it takes. I succeeded because
of a limited dimensionality of the stated problem. But Model Free Methods will
be able to try and sometimes succeed in cases where Reductionist methods would
say "it can't be done".

The original problem was discussed in Science News Magazine.

This Future Salon is going to be really  interesting.

Future Salons have the following structure: 6-7pm is networking with light
refreshments proudly sponsored by SAP; 7-9+pm is the presentation followed by
questions and discussion.

SAP Labs North America, Building D, COIL (Co-Innovation Lab). SAP is located at
3410 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94304[map]. Free and open to the public.
Please spread the word and invite others, but be sure to RSVP
http://bit.ly/52OgZu so we know how many people to expect.

We will do our best to webcast the event again via Ustream.tv on the Future
Salon Channel: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/Future-Salon

Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/futuresalon  Follow all twittering
Future Salon speakers: http://twitter.com/futuresalon/futuresalonspeakers.

See you all in 2 days, Mark.

Hello Bay Area Futurists!
Extraordinary Measures, a real-life medical research drama very similar
to the amazing Lorenzo's Oil, 1994, which was also about parents taking
a hands-on approach to another rare genetic disease (not Pompe disease,
but ALD), is opening broadly tomorrow (and at 12:01 tonight in select
theaters for the night owls). Brendan Fraser plays John F. Crowley (see
below for the real character this movie is based on) and Harrison Ford
plays the research doc with the (potential) cure.
Alvis, Iveta, and I are going to see it at our local Century 16, 1500
North Shoreline Boulevard Mountain View, CA 94043 at the 7:15pm showing.
As we did with Avatar, after the show we'll convene by the main
restrooms inside the theatre and chat for 5-10 minutes. If there is an
interest, some of us will head over to Cafe Neto, 135 Castro Street
Mountain View, CA 94041, around 9:30pm for continued conversation.
It would be great to see some of our future-oriented friends at the
movie! If you'd like to buy your tickets in advance (always recommended
on opening days) you can do so
at:https://www.fandango.com/purchase/movietickets/process03/ticketboxoff\
ice.aspx?from=Redirect.aspx&tid=AACFX&wssac=90&mid=128400&wssaffid=11584\
_GoogleMoviesOneBox(Web)&refreshdate=01%2f22%2f2010&row_count=1621424601
Cheers,
John Smart
Here's background info on the real guy that Brendan Frazer plays.
When Drug Research is Personal
John F. Crowley, Founder, Novazyme Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Mr. Crowley's emotion-packed presentation will focus on his personal
struggle to find a cure for Pompe disease, a rare and fatal illness that
is caused by a defective or missing enzyme. Pompe disease affects fewer
than 10,000 people world-wide, including Mr. Crowley's two small
children.

Mr. Crowley, a Harvard educated businessman, created and built a
pharmaceutical company devoted expressly to finding a cure for the
disease. He will detail his journey through the labyrinth of scientific
and business fronts, which lead up to a first-round clinical trial.





*SOME MINOR SPOILERS BELOW*

JOHN F. CROWLEY
INSPIRATIONAL ENTREPRENEUR

John F. Crowley is an American business and social entrepreneur. He is
best known as the co-founder of several biotech companies devoted to
developing treatments for human genetic diseases. John's involvement
with biotech stems from the 1998 diagnosis of two of his children with
Pompe disease-a severe and often fatal neuromuscular disorder. In his
drive to find a cure for them, he left his post at Bristol-Myers Squibb
and became an entrepreneur as the co-founder, president and CEO of
Novazyme Pharmaceuticals, a biotech start-up conducting research on a
new experimental treatment for Pompe disease (which he credits as
ultimately saving his children's lives.) In 2001, Novazyme merged into
Genzyme Corp., the world's third-largest biotech company, and John
continued to play a role in the development of a drug for Pompe disease
as Senior Vice President, Genzyme Therapeutics. He is presently the
President & CEO of Amicus Therapeutics, Inc. John and his family have
been profiled in The Wall  Street Journal and are the subjects of a book
by Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Geeta Anand, "The Cure: How a
Father Raised $100 Million-And Bucked the Medical Establishment-In a
Quest to Save His Children." CBS Films is making a major motion picture
about John and his family starring Harrison Ford, Brendan Fraser and
Keri Russell. The film is set for release in January 2010. John is also
a commissioned officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve, assigned to the United
States Special Operations Command. He graduated with a B.S. in Foreign
Service from Georgetown University, and earned a J.D. from the
University of Notre Dame Law School and an M.B.A. from Harvard. John is
a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute and presently serves as the
President & CEO of Amicus Therapeutics, Inc. He lives in Princeton, NJ
with his wife, Aileen and their three children, John, Megan and
Patrick.. John was recently named "The Humanitarian of the Year" for
2009 by the Make A Wish Foundation.



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

If you've ever considered teaching or substitute teaching, you may want
to attend one of EnCorps informational webinars to see how you can get
started.  We need all the technology-literate teachers we can get!
~Elise

From: Debbie Brennan [mailto:debbie@...]

To make sure you have the opportunity to consider teaching this year, we
will host a special webinar information session on Wed, February  3,
2010 at 12pm (or they can sign up for our regular Thursday 12pm webinar)
AND we'll extend our deadline to February 12 so that your engineers can
apply.

All the best,
Jennifer Anastasoff
President
EnCorps Teacher Program
323 Geary Street, Suite 418
San Francisco, CA  94102

Please feel free to contact me with any questions.

Regards,

Debbie Brennan
1-877-619-3482, x505
************************************************************************

The EnCorps Teachers Program extends a special opportunity for STEM
professionals to learn more about becoming a math or science teacher in
California. Application dates have been extended to February 12 and an
EnCorps informational webinar for SVEC members/affiliates is scheduled
for February 4, 12pm. To register for the webinar, please visit our
website: http://encorpsteachers.org/index.cfm/page/infosessions

Launched in 2007,the EnCorps Teachers Program, recruits, selects and
supports experienced STEM professionals, planning to transition into
teaching math and science. The need for quality credentialed teachers is
great. In particular, math and science teachers are needed, vital to the
health of our economy and necessary to train our next generation of
engineers, entrepreneurs, scientists, researchers and doctors.
California depends upon our educated workforce to grow and prosper. Yet,
over the next seven to ten years, we will need 33,000 math and science
teachers in California.

For more information, please see the Encorps  website at
www.encorpsteachers.org.

EnCorps Teachers Program
(877)619-3482

Hi Futurists,

blog post with links:
http://www.futuresalon.org/2010/02/future-salon-activating-consciousness-in-corp\
orations-.html

We had many great Future Salons over the years, so I don't post this lightly.
You have to come to this one  on Thursday 25th of February 6-9pm at SAP Labs in
Palo Alto as it will be the most important Future Salon ever.

The supreme court decision Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission gave
corporation unlimited spending power to influence our democracy.

Lawrence Lessig with Change Congress First! is fighting to get legislation
passed for public financing of elections. Check out his latest video. He is also
calling for a convention. There is a chance that he will present at a Future
Salon in the spring too.

In our February Future Salon we are tackling this problem from a different
angle. What if we could activate consciousness in corporations, could bake it
into their bylaws?

Lawyer John Montgomery has represented over 1000 startups and sees a definite
pattern among the successful ones. He wants to share that pattern of success. He
is writing a book about it and will present it to a larger audience for the
first time at this Future Salon.
Here is what he is going to do:

1. Quickly review Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission not as a cause
of despair but as a hidden invitation to activate the latent collective
conscience in corporations.

  2. Give a quick history of the development of the conscience of the corporation
and the current stage of development of the corporate conscience.  A lot of this
is actually in the court case, which reflects the overwhelming ambivalence our
society has about corporations and the prevailing mistrust of them due to the
steady stream of unconscionable behavior they manifest.

3. Suggest the opportunity to take the corporate conscience to its next logical
stage of development.

4. Do an interactive exercise with everyone in the room to quickly demonstrate
how easy it is for a collective to consciously and expressly articulate and
activate its collective conscience.

For point 4 we need you to fill out the RSVP (http://bit.ly/9kPpRt) where we
have added one question:
What are your top three personal core values?

Bio: John Montgomery has practiced corporate law in Silicon Valley since 1984.
John's experience includes extensive corporate counseling to public and private
companies and venture capital firms. He has represented clients in connection
with numerous venture capital financings, initial public offerings, public and
private mergers and acquisitions, going private transactions and a variety of
other general corporate matters. [more]

Future Salons have the following structure: 6-7pm is networking with light
refreshments proudly sponsored by SAP; 7-9+pm is the presentation followed by
questions and discussion.

SAP Labs North America, Building D, COIL (Co-Innovation Lab). SAP is located at
3410 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94304[map]. Free and open to the public.
Please spread the word and invite others, but be sure to RSVP
http://bit.ly/9kPpRt so we know how many people to expect.

We will do our best to webcast the event again via Ustream.tv on the Future
Salon Channel: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/Future-Salon

Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/futuresalon  Follow all twittering
Future Salon speakers: http://twitter.com/futuresalon/futuresalonspeakers.

Don't miss this one, spread the word and see you there, Mark.

At 06:22 2/5/2010, you wrote:

>We had many great Future Salons over the years, so I
>don't post this lightly. You have to come to this one
>on Thursday 25th of February 6-9pm at SAP Labs in
>Palo Alto as it will be the most important
>Future Salon ever.
>
>The supreme court decision Citizens United v.
>Federal Election Commission gave corporation
>unlimited spending power to influence our democracy.
>
>Lawrence Lessig with Change Congress First! is fighting
>to get legislation passed for public financing of elections.
>Check out his latest video. He is also calling for a
>convention. There is a chance that he will present
>at a Future Salon in the spring too.


Dear Mark,

I'm not sure what to make of this.  One the one hand,
we have come to love and rely on Future Salon for high
quality presentations on technology and culture, and I am
not sure that politics fits into its ambit.

On the other hand, I am running for Congress myself and
am not really in a position to criticize others.

Perhaps the best way to think about this is just to
say that Politics has apparently become Fashionable.


Best Regards,
-Dave Chapman




=========================================================

www.davechapmanforcongress.com

Hi Dave,

Sorry that you feel my invitation was doing politics. I guess my frustration
about the supreme court ruling, that in my eyes worsen one of our biggest
problems of money in politics, made me look at who is doing something to change
the situation and linked to Lawrence Lessig.

The good news is, that the February Future Salon on the 25th is about Activating
Consciousness in Corporations therefore non political.

By the way we had a Future Salon around politics in 2004:
The Tao of Extreme Democracy
http://www.futuresalon.org/2004/09/if_you_check_am.html
We were exploring what is possible with the new capabilities that we have.

If Lawrence Lessig presents at a Future Salon in the spring, we are open to have
a descending voice heard at it too.

Please send me a suggestion and we will make it happen.

You are running for congress, citizen-funded elections may actually benefit you
and your campaign. Check Lessig's article in The Nation:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100222/lessig

All the best, Mark.

P.S. Follow us on twitter http://twitter.com/futuresalon

--- In bafuture@yahoogroups.com, Dave <dave@...> wrote:
>
> At 06:22 2/5/2010, you wrote:
>
> >We had many great Future Salons over the years, so I
> >don't post this lightly. You have to come to this one
> >on Thursday 25th of February 6-9pm at SAP Labs in
> >Palo Alto as it will be the most important
> >Future Salon ever.
> >
> >The supreme court decision Citizens United v.
> >Federal Election Commission gave corporation
> >unlimited spending power to influence our democracy.
> >
> >Lawrence Lessig with Change Congress First! is fighting
> >to get legislation passed for public financing of elections.
> >Check out his latest video. He is also calling for a
> >convention. There is a chance that he will present
> >at a Future Salon in the spring too.
>
>
> Dear Mark,
>
> I'm not sure what to make of this.  One the one hand,
> we have come to love and rely on Future Salon for high
> quality presentations on technology and culture, and I am
> not sure that politics fits into its ambit.
>
> On the other hand, I am running for Congress myself and
> am not really in a position to criticize others.
>
> Perhaps the best way to think about this is just to
> say that Politics has apparently become Fashionable.
>
>
> Best Regards,
> -Dave Chapman
>
>
>
>
> =========================================================
>
> www.davechapmanforcongress.com
>

BIL is the unconference companion to TED, independently produced, this
Fri-Sun Feb 12-14 in Los Angeles (Long Beach). (Starts Friday 10AM.)
http://2010.bilconference.com
http://bilconference.com


I'm gonna try to go, lead a session about Howto have global voice
meetings, one about GNU(Linux), maybe have an informal installfest.

Maybe you'd like to join the installfest, & help bring GNU(Linux) to the
BIL crowd.  Maybe you'd like to listen to a talk.  Maybe you'd like to
present a talk.

If you're interested in going, would like to save a little money & time,
wouldn't mind contributing to gas & expenses, & would like a ride,
leaving later today likely (Wednesday), or perhaps early tomorrow,
Thursday, from the San Fran bay area, email me with your phone # & maybe
we can arrange something.

BTW- Some Smart guy named John gave a talk there last year.  EvoDevo,
man, dig it.

==
There are 2 _opportunities_:
1) learn & spend time with similar minded people by attending other
people's presentations/talks/discussions,
2) learn & spend time with similar minded people by creating your own
presentations/talks/discussions.

Cost for BIL: $20 total for 3 days, or free if you volunteer.

You'll need: money for food, spare clean clothes, maybe a sleeping bag
or blanket, & a computer would be rather useful.


===
New info about speakers & talks, from the website.
"BIL Speaking Spaces
There are three talk formats for BIL this year, the Fire Hose, JIL, and
the Open Culture Space. The Fire Hose consists of 20 minutes talks, with
no Q&A and strictly enforced time limits. JIL is a set of talks curated
for a feminine perspective. Open Culture is a Flexible time format. A
number of spaces will be available for breakouts and socializing. The
talks are being held at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach,
CA. 628 Alamitos Avenue, Long Beach, CA 90802 http://www.molaa.org/"
http://2010.bilconference.com/

http://2010.bilconference.com/2010/02/bilxoutside/
"BIL has been growing, and we’re transitioning away from keeping
everyone in one room the whole time to encouraging people to strike out
in small groups for adventures and exploration in the nearby community.
This isn’t being organized centrally, but this page and SideWiki are
going to be an area for people to organize themselves."

Info about the BIL mailing list:
http://groups.google.com/group/bil-conference
"Description: BIL has been created as a free space for people with ideas
to come together and share them. Our event is self-organizing, emergent,
and anarchic. Nobody is in charge. If you want to come just show up. If
you've got an idea to spread start talking. If someone is saying
something good, stop and listen"

Hi Futurists,

Blog post with links:
http://www.futuresalon.org/2010/02/3-questions-future-salon-speaker-john-montgom\
ery.html

Today someone asked me: "Why are you doing the Future Salon Activating
Conscience in Corporations?" We are always looking for the biggest lever to push
the world in a positive direction. If we are able to awake conscience in
corporations, that will make an enormous difference.

That Walmart is embracing sustainability is one of the most positive signs for
our environment in the last years.

As a little teaser Future Salon speaker John Montgomery answered the following 3
questions:

1) According to history corporations where first created by kings. What
influence did that have on the conscience of the corporation?

Corporations in their current form are anachronisms from the days of feudal
Europe.  Corporations were designed to extend the reach and power of the
monarchy without creating rival centers of political and economic power.  The
king bestowed a charter upon the corporation and was its investor, intelligence
and conscience.  The corporation (corpus L. body) was split asunder from its
intelligence and conscience. If the corporation misbehaved, the king could
revoke the charter. The collective intelligence and conscience latent in those
managing the corporation was deactivated. Europe threw out its kings in the age
of Enlightenment but the basic lobotomized corporate form survives intact with
legacy architecture that lacks formal mechanisms to activate the collective
intelligence and conscience latent within each corporate collective.

2) What do you say to skeptics, that claim: When the rubber hits the road the
profit goal is overwriting conscience goals.
The early evidence is gathering that conscious businesses are better, more
profitable businesses.  See Firms of Endearment, for example.  Being a conscious
business is a significant competitive advantage.

3) You saw a pattern within the 1000+ startups that you helped. What about
established, long time corporations, can they be guided towards greater
corporate social responsibility?

Absolutely, YES,

Look at Google.  Google is flirting with activating its corporate conscience.
Its mantra "Do no evil" is the Hippocratic oath and the fundamental precept of
buddhism.  As a double negative, it is a very weak statement, but it is better
than what most companies have.  This ethic is part of what creates the
perception that Google is a great place to work. It hints at a corporate
conscience.  People are hungry to work for businesses that have a conscience. 
Having a corporate conscience will become a very important competitive advantage
during this decade.

Look at Google's recent action with respect to trying to do the right thing with
respect to its operations in China.  Imagine what Google would be like if their
mantra were "Do Good".

To call Google a long time corporation is a bit of a stretch. Can't wait to
continue the discussion this Thursday. Going to be so interesting.

Future Salons have the following structure: 6-7pm is networking with light
refreshments proudly sponsored by SAP; 7-9+pm is the presentation followed by
questions and discussion.

SAP Labs North America, Building D, COIL (Co-Innovation Lab). SAP is located at
3410 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94304[map]. Free and open to the public.
Please spread the word and invite others, but be sure to RSVP
http://bit.ly/9kPpRt so we know how many people to expect.

We will do our best to webcast the event again via Ustream.tv on the Future
Salon Channel: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/Future-Salon
Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/futuresalon  Follow all twittering
Future Salon speakers: http://twitter.com/futuresalon/futuresalonspeakers.

See you all there, Mark.

Why everything he says is wrong, and corporations are the foundation
for the next stage in the evolution of life on earth:

The next stage in the evolution of life on earth is electronic life.
The speed of information processing in brains, using neurons, is much
faster than the speed of information processing in DNA, using the
millions-years-long process of evolution by natural selection. The
speed of information processing in electronics is faster still.

This is trivial to demonstrate today. For example, I can write a
computer program that will find all the prime numbers from 1 to 1
million. If you were to perform this computation, either in your head
(rather difficult) or on paper, it would take you many years. However
my computer can do this in about 1/4th of a second. (And my computer
is "old" by today's standards.)

Semiconductors are faster, more accurate, and can process larger
volumes of data. But, there are many things human brains can do that
semiconductor technology (in any form) cannot. However, this situation
is not going to persist forever. Eventually, the computations
performed by brains and nervous systems will be figured out. Then,
machines made from semiconductors will be able to do everything a
human can do.

Here's how I expect this will play out. First, you have to recognize
that a corporation is a life form. Just as a human is a mulit-cellular
organisms, composed of a large number of cells, so a corporation is a
larger organism composed of humans. Of course it is not the only such
form -- and the ability to compose such forms is a hallmark of
humanity going all the way back to our hunter/gatherer days. Nor are
humans strictly the only form of life that can do this -- there are
other "social species", such as wolves, chimpanzees, and so on. But,
humans are better at this than any other species. We can create
hierarchies composed of hundreds of thousands of individual humans.

What makes these valid as "life forms" is the relationship between
energy flow and structure. Picture for a moment an individual animal,
say a fox. If the fox can obtain more energy from the rabbits that it
eats than it expends chasing rabits, it gets to survive. If the fox
fails to obtain more energy from the rabits that it eats -- maybe it
has too much competition from other foxes and cannot eat enough rabits
-- then it dies. Corporations are the same way. The energy flow is
represented by money. From a "global" perspective, energy and money
are two different things, because energy dissipates, while money
circulates. But, from the perspective of a single corporation (or any
other single economic entity), this simplification works just fine.
The corporation has to bring in revenues that exceed its costs. If it
succeeds, it is allowed to continue existing. If it fails, it goes out
of existence.

Next, and this is why the corporation deserves special attention, we
note that if each person in the corporation can be replaced with
semiconductors that perform the same "business function", that the
corporation can continue to function exactly as it did before.

What this means, in practical terms, is that over the next 50 years or
so, all jobs will be automated, and all humans will be removed from
the structure of corporations. After this, corporations will continue
to compete with each other as economic entities. They will be fully
electronic.

This is why I think Alan Turing made a bit of a mistake when he
devised his Turing Test. The Turing Test says that something is
"intelligent" when it can convincingly imitate a human being on a
teletype. I don't think that's the right test.

What I think is the right test -- call it the "Radinsky Test" :) -- is
this: When machines can automate all jobs, then true "artificial
intelligence" has been achieved. Until then, true AI has not been
achieved, because there still exists something that a human can do
that a machine can't.

Now, you're probably thinking, there's another dimension, which is
cost. It's not enough to merely be able to do what the human can do,
but you must be able to do so at lower cost. After all, if a cheap
Chinese peasant is cheaper to hire than an AI/robot, why spend the
money on the AI/robot? However, I don't worry much about this, because
history so far says, as soon as semiconductor-based machines are
capable at all of accomplishing a business function, humans are very
quickly removed completely from it.

Every corporation today has, as its largest expense, the cost of the
people that work for it. Corporations have an extremely strong
economic incentive to replace people with machines. More and more
business functions are being automated into software, running on web
servers and so fourth. (This is in fact what I do for a living --
writing software to automate business processes.) Manufacturing is
being taken over by robotics, with humans sticking around mostly for
checking up on quality to make sure the robotics is working properly.
Business competition forces companies to eliminate jobs and automate
in response to their competition, otherwise higher costs and lower
quality threaten to put them out of business.

Once humans have been fully removed from corporations, then the real
fun begins. These fully electronic corporations will compete against
each other. This will usher in the next round of competition and rapid
innovation. It seems pretty much impossible to predict what will
happen after this. Perhaps this stage in the evolution of life will
just be a stepping-stone to yet another stage which will follow the
electronic life era.




On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 10:51 AM, markfinnern <mark.finnern@...> wrote:
> Hi Futurists,
>
> Blog post with links:
http://www.futuresalon.org/2010/02/3-questions-future-salon-speaker-john-montgom\
ery.html
>
> Today someone asked me: "Why are you doing the Future Salon Activating
Conscience in Corporations?" We are always looking for the biggest lever to push
the world in a positive direction. If we are able to awake conscience in
corporations, that will make an enormous difference.
>
> That Walmart is embracing sustainability is one of the most positive signs for
our environment in the last years.
>
> As a little teaser Future Salon speaker John Montgomery answered the following
3 questions:
>
> 1) According to history corporations where first created by kings. What
influence did that have on the conscience of the corporation?
>
> Corporations in their current form are anachronisms from the days of feudal
Europe.  Corporations were designed to extend the reach and power of the
monarchy without creating rival centers of political and economic power.  The
king bestowed a charter upon the corporation and was its investor, intelligence
and conscience.  The corporation (corpus L. body) was split asunder from its
intelligence and conscience. If the corporation misbehaved, the king could
revoke the charter. The collective intelligence and conscience latent in those
managing the corporation was deactivated. Europe threw out its kings in the age
of Enlightenment but the basic lobotomized corporate form survives intact with
legacy architecture that lacks formal mechanisms to activate the collective
intelligence and conscience latent within each corporate collective.
>
> 2) What do you say to skeptics, that claim: When the rubber hits the road the
profit goal is overwriting conscience goals.
> The early evidence is gathering that conscious businesses are better, more
profitable businesses.  See Firms of Endearment, for example.  Being a
conscious business is a significant competitive advantage.
>
> 3) You saw a pattern within the 1000+ startups that you helped. What about
established, long time corporations, can they be guided towards greater
corporate social responsibility?
>
> Absolutely, YES,
>
> Look at Google.  Google is flirting with activating its corporate conscience.
Its mantra "Do no evil" is the Hippocratic oath and the fundamental precept of
buddhism.  As a double negative, it is a very weak statement, but it is better
than what most companies have.  This ethic is part of what creates the
perception that Google is a great place to work. It hints at a corporate
conscience.  People are hungry to work for businesses that have a conscience.
 Having a corporate conscience will become a very important competitive
advantage during this decade.
>
> Look at Google's recent action with respect to trying to do the right thing
with respect to its operations in China.  Imagine what Google would be like if
their mantra were "Do Good".
>
> To call Google a long time corporation is a bit of a stretch. Can't wait to
continue the discussion this Thursday. Going to be so interesting.
>
> Future Salons have the following structure: 6-7pm is networking with light
refreshments proudly sponsored by SAP; 7-9+pm is the presentation followed by
questions and discussion.
>
> SAP Labs North America, Building D, COIL (Co-Innovation Lab). SAP is located
at 3410 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94304[map]. Free and open to the public.
Please spread the word and invite others, but be sure to RSVP
http://bit.ly/9kPpRt so we know how many people to expect.
>
> We will do our best to webcast the event again via Ustream.tv on the Future
Salon Channel: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/Future-Salon
> Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/futuresalon  Follow all twittering
Future Salon speakers: http://twitter.com/futuresalon/futuresalonspeakers.
>
> See you all there, Mark.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
>     bafuture-unsubscribe@...! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

So we need the equivalent of the "Three Laws of Corporations"

On Feb 20, 2010, at 11:24 AM, Wayne Radinsky wrote:

> Why everything he says is wrong, and corporations are the foundation
> for the next stage in the evolution of life on earth:
>
> The next stage in the evolution of life on earth is electronic life.
> The speed of information processing in brains, using neurons, is much
> faster than the speed of information processing in DNA, using the
> millions-years-long process of evolution by natural selection. The
> speed of information processing in electronics is faster still.
>
> This is trivial to demonstrate today. For example, I can write a
> computer program that will find all the prime numbers from 1 to 1
> million. If you were to perform this computation, either in your head
> (rather difficult) or on paper, it would take you many years. However
> my computer can do this in about 1/4th of a second. (And my computer
> is "old" by today's standards.)
>
> Semiconductors are faster, more accurate, and can process larger
> volumes of data. But, there are many things human brains can do that
> semiconductor technology (in any form) cannot. However, this situation
> is not going to persist forever. Eventually, the computations
> performed by brains and nervous systems will be figured out. Then,
> machines made from semiconductors will be able to do everything a
> human can do.
>
> Here's how I expect this will play out. First, you have to recognize
> that a corporation is a life form. Just as a human is a mulit-cellular
> organisms, composed of a large number of cells, so a corporation is a
> larger organism composed of humans. Of course it is not the only such
> form -- and the ability to compose such forms is a hallmark of
> humanity going all the way back to our hunter/gatherer days. Nor are
> humans strictly the only form of life that can do this -- there are
> other "social species", such as wolves, chimpanzees, and so on. But,
> humans are better at this than any other species. We can create
> hierarchies composed of hundreds of thousands of individual humans.
>
> What makes these valid as "life forms" is the relationship between
> energy flow and structure. Picture for a moment an individual animal,
> say a fox. If the fox can obtain more energy from the rabbits that it
> eats than it expends chasing rabits, it gets to survive. If the fox
> fails to obtain more energy from the rabits that it eats -- maybe it
> has too much competition from other foxes and cannot eat enough rabits
> -- then it dies. Corporations are the same way. The energy flow is
> represented by money. From a "global" perspective, energy and money
> are two different things, because energy dissipates, while money
> circulates. But, from the perspective of a single corporation (or any
> other single economic entity), this simplification works just fine.
> The corporation has to bring in revenues that exceed its costs. If it
> succeeds, it is allowed to continue existing. If it fails, it goes out
> of existence.
>
> Next, and this is why the corporation deserves special attention, we
> note that if each person in the corporation can be replaced with
> semiconductors that perform the same "business function", that the
> corporation can continue to function exactly as it did before.
>
> What this means, in practical terms, is that over the next 50 years or
> so, all jobs will be automated, and all humans will be removed from
> the structure of corporations. After this, corporations will continue
> to compete with each other as economic entities. They will be fully
> electronic.
>
> This is why I think Alan Turing made a bit of a mistake when he
> devised his Turing Test. The Turing Test says that something is
> "intelligent" when it can convincingly imitate a human being on a
> teletype. I don't think that's the right test.
>
> What I think is the right test -- call it the "Radinsky Test" :) -- is
> this: When machines can automate all jobs, then true "artificial
> intelligence" has been achieved. Until then, true AI has not been
> achieved, because there still exists something that a human can do
> that a machine can't.
>
> Now, you're probably thinking, there's another dimension, which is
> cost. It's not enough to merely be able to do what the human can do,
> but you must be able to do so at lower cost. After all, if a cheap
> Chinese peasant is cheaper to hire than an AI/robot, why spend the
> money on the AI/robot? However, I don't worry much about this, because
> history so far says, as soon as semiconductor-based machines are
> capable at all of accomplishing a business function, humans are very
> quickly removed completely from it.
>
> Every corporation today has, as its largest expense, the cost of the
> people that work for it. Corporations have an extremely strong
> economic incentive to replace people with machines. More and more
> business functions are being automated into software, running on web
> servers and so fourth. (This is in fact what I do for a living --
> writing software to automate business processes.) Manufacturing is
> being taken over by robotics, with humans sticking around mostly for
> checking up on quality to make sure the robotics is working properly.
> Business competition forces companies to eliminate jobs and automate
> in response to their competition, otherwise higher costs and lower
> quality threaten to put them out of business.
>
> Once humans have been fully removed from corporations, then the real
> fun begins. These fully electronic corporations will compete against
> each other. This will usher in the next round of competition and rapid
> innovation. It seems pretty much impossible to predict what will
> happen after this. Perhaps this stage in the evolution of life will
> just be a stepping-stone to yet another stage which will follow the
> electronic life era.
>
> On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 10:51 AM, markfinnern <mark.finnern@...> wrote:
> > Hi Futurists,
> >
> > Blog post with links:
http://www.futuresalon.org/2010/02/3-questions-future-salon-speaker-john-montgom\
ery.html
> >
> > Today someone asked me: "Why are you doing the Future Salon Activating
Conscience in Corporations?" We are always looking for the biggest lever to push
the world in a positive direction. If we are able to awake conscience in
corporations, that will make an enormous difference.
> >
> > That Walmart is embracing sustainability is one of the most positive signs
for our environment in the last years.
> >
> > As a little teaser Future Salon speaker John Montgomery answered the
following 3 questions:
> >
> > 1) According to history corporations where first created by kings. What
influence did that have on the conscience of the corporation?
> >
> > Corporations in their current form are anachronisms from the days of feudal
Europe.  Corporations were designed to extend the reach and power of the
monarchy without creating rival centers of political and economic power.  The
king bestowed a charter upon the corporation and was its investor, intelligence
and conscience.  The corporation (corpus L. body) was split asunder from its
intelligence and conscience. If the corporation misbehaved, the king could
revoke the charter. The collective intelligence and conscience latent in those
managing the corporation was deactivated. Europe threw out its kings in the age
of Enlightenment but the basic lobotomized corporate form survives intact with
legacy architecture that lacks formal mechanisms to activate the collective
intelligence and conscience latent within each corporate collective.
> >
> > 2) What do you say to skeptics, that claim: When the rubber hits the road
the profit goal is overwriting conscience goals.
> > The early evidence is gathering that conscious businesses are better, more
profitable businesses.  See Firms of Endearment, for example.  Being a conscious
business is a significant competitive advantage.
> >
> > 3) You saw a pattern within the 1000+ startups that you helped. What about
established, long time corporations, can they be guided towards greater
corporate social responsibility?
> >
> > Absolutely, YES,
> >
> > Look at Google.  Google is flirting with activating its corporate
conscience. Its mantra "Do no evil" is the Hippocratic oath and the fundamental
precept of buddhism.  As a double negative, it is a very weak statement, but it
is better than what most companies have.  This ethic is part of what creates the
perception that Google is a great place to work. It hints at a corporate
conscience.  People are hungry to work for businesses that have a conscience. 
Having a corporate conscience will become a very important competitive advantage
during this decade.
> >
> > Look at Google's recent action with respect to trying to do the right thing
with respect to its operations in China.  Imagine what Google would be like if
their mantra were "Do Good".
> >
> > To call Google a long time corporation is a bit of a stretch. Can't wait to
continue the discussion this Thursday. Going to be so interesting.
> >
> > Future Salons have the following structure: 6-7pm is networking with light
refreshments proudly sponsored by SAP; 7-9+pm is the presentation followed by
questions and discussion.
> >
> > SAP Labs North America, Building D, COIL (Co-Innovation Lab). SAP is located
at 3410 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94304[map]. Free and open to the public.
Please spread the word and invite others, but be sure to RSVP
http://bit.ly/9kPpRt so we know how many people to expect.
> >
> > We will do our best to webcast the event again via Ustream.tv on the Future
Salon Channel: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/Future-Salon
> > Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/futuresalon  Follow all twittering
Future Salon speakers: http://twitter.com/futuresalon/futuresalonspeakers.
> >
> > See you all there, Mark.
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------
> >
> >     bafuture-unsubscribe@...! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >
>

__________________
Robert J Berger
Internet Bandwidth Development
15550 Wildcat Ridge, Saratoga, CA 95070
+1 408-838-8896
http://blog.ibd.com



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi Futurists,

Blog post with links:
http://www.futuresalon.org/2010/02/future-salon-activating-consciousness-in-corp\
orations-.html

Don't miss this great Future Salon happening in less than 20 hours:
Activating Conscience in Corporations.

Future Salon speaker John Montgomery is a lawyer who has represented over 1000
startups and sees a definite pattern among the successful ones: They activated
their conscience. He wants to share that pattern of success. He is writing a
book about it and will present it to a larger audience for the first time at
this Future Salon.

Check out http://futuresalon.org for a couple of posts including three questions
that he answered and a word cloud from the top 3 values of the people that have
RSVPd.

The event is free and open to the public and you can come even if you have not
RSVPed.

Future Salons have the following structure: 6-7pm is networking with light
refreshments proudly sponsored by SAP; 7-9+pm is the presentation followed by
questions and discussion.

SAP Labs North America, Building D, COIL (Co-Innovation Lab). SAP is located at
3410 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94304[map]. Free and open to the public.
Please spread the word and invite others, but be sure to RSVP
http://bit.ly/9kPpRt so we know how many people to expect.

We will do our best to webcast the event again via Ustream.tv on the Future
Salon Channel: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/Future-Salon

See you all there, Mark.

Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/futuresalon  Follow all twittering
Future Salon speakers: http://twitter.com/futuresalon/futuresalonspeakers.

Hi Futurists,

blog post with links:
http://www.futuresalon.org/2010/03/reality-mining-future-salon-understanding-inf\
ormation-flow-in-the-mobile-corporation.html

Please join us on Thursday 25th of March for Mining Future Salon: Understanding
Information Flow In The Mobile Corporation with MIT Professor Sandy Pentland.
Please RSVP  http://bit.ly/amkhve

Abstract: Mobile phones, laptops, and other digital devices form a network of
sensors, recording their user's location, time, who else is nearby, as well
communication patterns.  We can `reality mine' this data to better understand
and predict human behavior within the corporation, and improve coordination, job
satisfaction, and productivity.  In more than a dozen case studies we have found
that this `reality mining' approach to management often uncovers dramatic
possibilities for improvement in both job satisfaction and productivity, by
allowing more effective combination of face-to-face and digital communications.

Of course there is the flip side to this development: George Oswell's 1984
constant supervision nightmare finally arriving. We the Future Salon audience is
known for our interesting questions and dialog during the Future Salon.
Therefore it is going to be a super interesting evening, not to be missed.
Alex (Sandy) Pentland Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Sciences

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Alex ("Sandy") Pentland is a
pioneer in organizational engineering, mobile information systems, and
computational social science. Sandy's focus is the development of human-centered
technology, and the creation of ventures that take this technology into the real
world.  He directs the Human Dynamics Lab, helping companies to become more
productive and creative through organizational engineering, and the Media Lab
Entrepreneurship Program, which helps translate cutting-edge technology into
real-world impact around the world. He is among the most-cited computer
scientists in the world, and in 1997 /Newsweek/ magazine named him one of the
100 Americans likely to shape this century.

SAP Labs North America, Building D, COIL (Co-Innovation Lab). SAP is located at
3410 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94304[ map ]. Free and open to the public.
Please spread the word and invite others, but be sure to RSVP
http://bit.ly/amkhve so we know how many people to expect.

We will do our best to webcast the event again via Ustream.tv on the Future
Salon Channel: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/Future-Salon

Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/futuresalon
Follow all twittering Future Salon speakers:
http://twitter.com/futuresalon/futuresalonspeakers.

See you all there, Mark.

Hi fellow FutureSalonists,

There's an event coming up of interest to those who attend Future Salons - it's
being run by Shareable.net, a great blog which deals with a lot of the same
topics that the Future Salons deal with.

Hope to see you there!

Regards,

Rachel
(helping to do a little social media outreach for the event)

-----------------

EVENT URLS:
site:
http://shareable.net/blog/design-4-resilience-thriving-in-an-uncertain-world
registration: http://d4r.eventbrite.com/

DESCRIPTION:



Have you ever wondered what qualities enable certain people, organizations or
communities to thrive despite unexpected challenges?

D4R is a full-day exploration of resilience as a strategy for thriving in an
uncertain world.  And a call to action to prepare for the crises and
opportunities unfolding today.

D4R will empower you to explore resilience through a combination of
presentations and workshops (in Open Space format).  As an Open Space
participant, you'll collaborate with innovators from the social enterprise,
design thinking, transition town, network science, local economy, urban
planning, green evangelical, open source, public media, and positive psychology
communities to create a unique, cross-sector learning experience.

At D4R, you'll:

     * Add resilience thinking to your strategy toolbox

     * Build relationships across sectors by learning with diverse participants

     * Take home valuable insights to apply in your life and work.

D4R is a must for those managing dramatic change in business and civil society,
and are determined to thrive on the challenge.

D4R will be the first all-day event at Hub SoMa, a new co-working and events
center for social enterprise located where the SF Chronicle's presses used to
be.  D4R will be the first in a series of events culminating in a D4R presence
at SOCAP10.  This is your invitation to inaugurate the D4R community.

WHERE:  Hub SoMa, 901 Mission Street, San Francisco.  #D4R on Twitter.  Check
the pre-event blogging and day-of livestream at http://shareable.net/tag/d4r

WHEN:  April 10th, 2010, 8:30-5:00

HOW:  Our speakers will talk about design thinking, resilience, and the commons
in the morning to set the context. The afternoon will be Open Space.  You're
encouraged to facilitate a session on a topic of choice rethinking it from a
resilience perspective.

If you're interested in sponsoring D4R, please contact Neal Gorenflo, neal at
shareable dot net.

--

PROGRAM

8:30 WELCOME: Neal Gorenflo, Shareable.net

8:40   Resilience Thinking, Harald Katzmair, Ph.d, CEO of FAS.research

8:55   Resilience & the Commons, Neal Gorenflo, Shareable.net

9:10   Design Thinking, Stephanie Smith, founder, WeCommune.com

9:30 Q & A

10:00 Structured networking faciliated by Jerry Michalski of Sociate.com and our
MC for the day

10:30 BREAK

11:30 OPEN SPACE INTRODUCTION, Jerry Michalski

All tracks are decided on by participants. You're strongly encouraged to
facilitate a track on a topic that you're passionate about linking it to
resilience. DELICIOUS BOX LUNCH PROVIDED to take into sessions.

12:30 - 1:20 Track 1

1:30   - 2:20 Track 2

2:30   - 3:20 Track 3

3:30 BREAK

4:00 RECONVENE ASSEMBLY FOR DISCUSSION, facilitated by Jerry Michalski

5:00 WRAP UP

5:30-7:00 CASH BAR RECEPTION (at a nearby restaurant, TBD)

--

Hosts:

FAS.research, The Idea Hive, Sociate.com, Hub Soma, SOCAP10, Shareable.net

Sponsors:

The Green Arcade, Open Collaboration Encyclopedia, clear-bits, shapeshifters,
Greater Good Science Center, The Sharing Solution, Independent Arts & Media

Hi Futurists,

Blog post with links:
http://www.futuresalon.org/2010/03/3-questions-for-future-salon-speaker-mit-prof\
essor-sandy-pentland.html

As a little teaser to our Reality Mining Future Salon next Thursday 25th of
March I sent a couple of questions to our presenter MIT professor Sandy
Pentland.

Please: RSVP http://bit.ly/amkhve

Attention: Sandy Pentland is flying in that afternoon for the talk and has to
take a red-eye out to Atlanta later that evening. We will therefore skip the
networking hour and start the presentation right away at 6pm. Better be there on
time.
Questions:

1) What was the biggest surprise for you that the reality mining research
brought out?

It is amazing when you actually measure dollar effects of face-to-face
communication on productivity, employee training, customer satisfaction, etc.,
and it is even more surprising when you realize that the main effect seems to be
through learning-by-imitation rather than through `information'.  This poses a
real challenge for management practice and for distance work in particular.

2) What have you changed in your or your family's life as a result of your
reality mining research?

We now pay much greater attention to learning-by-imitation and the role that
social signal play in cementing behaviors.  This way of looking at families and
children upends a lot of the assumptions on which current public policy is
based.

3) To own the recorded data is potentially very powerful. How can we mitigate
abuse? Who can watch the watchers? Any chance of people owning their own data?

The idea of privacy is broken, and we need a new deal on data to move forward. 
I am a strong advocate that people should `own' data that their actions produce,
both to protect their interests and to give them the opportunity to derive
benefits from such data.  I have been working with several international bodies
on this problem and see a consensus view emerging around creating information
markets that broker such data.

Wow, interesting answers that beg for more questions: Learning by imitation? How
do social signal cement behavior? Which public policies need to be revised?

Going to be really interesting.

See you all there, Mark.

--------------------------
Future Salon 25th of March 6pm-9pm presentation followed by questions and
discussion.

SAP Labs North America, Cafeteria building 1. SAP is located at 3410 Hillview
Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94304[ map ]. Free and open to the public. Please spread
the word and invite others, but be sure to RSVP http://bit.ly/amkhve so we know
how many people to expect.

We will do our best to webcast the event again via Ustream.tv on the Future
Salon Channel: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/Future-Salon
Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/futuresalon
Follow all twittering Future Salon speakers:
http://twitter.com/futuresalon/futuresalonspeakers.

Hi Futurists,

Blog post with links:
http://www.futuresalon.org/2010/03/honest-signal-book-by-sandy-pentland-future-s\
alon-speaker.html

Attention: Sandy Pentland will have to take a red eye out to Atlanta that night,
this is why we will start at 6pm already and will do networking afterwords. Be
on time or you will regret it.

As a good host of the Reality Mining Future Salon later today Thursday 25th of
March, I got MIT Professor Sandy Pentland's latest book: Honest Signals: How
they shape our world.

Turns out, that our non verbal signals are the better predictors of outcomes in
situations of our daily life. Not only that, but that we are highly influenced
by the group that surrounds us. We are mimicking the people that we are with,
even complete strangers.

I once saw a candid camera episode where a person walked into an elevator with
two people already in there. Once the new person has settled in, the other two
turned around and faced the wall instead of the door. Like puppetry the third
person would turn around too. The force was so powerful.

Sandy Pentland writes the best theory to explain charismatic people is, that
they are those who are particularly talented at reading and responding to social
signaling. It might even be that charisma is the other end of the autistic
spectrum: a genetic variation that affects the ability to read and display
social signals, and that is more associated with males than females.

An important finding of his research was, that we could use the social signaling
to accurately determine each person's group and task roles. This means that we
can build on sociometer readings to create a computerized feedback system that
helps groups steer away from groupthink and polarization. -- That I think could
be really powerful.

Our ability to make group decisions may have evolved from an ancient signaling
mechanism that is based on a market of ideas rather than on deduction.

That is how far I got with the book. For sure very interesting and relevant for
everyone. Please join us tonight Thursday 25th of March at SAP Labs Palo Alto
3410 Hillview Avenue Room Cafeteria. [map]. Free and open to the public. Please
spread the word and invite others.

We will do our best to webcast the event again via Ustream.tv on the Future
Salon Channel: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/Future-Salon

See you all here, Mark.

Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/futuresalon
Follow all twittering Future Salon speakers:
http://twitter.com/futuresalon/futuresalonspeakers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBlOX3PaVKs


On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 12:36 AM, markfinnern <mark.finnern@...> wrote:
> Hi Futurists,
>
> Blog post with links:
http://www.futuresalon.org/2010/03/honest-signal-book-by-sandy-pentland-future-s\
alon-speaker.html
>
> Attention: Sandy Pentland will have to take a red eye out to Atlanta that
night, this is why we will start at 6pm already and will do networking
afterwords. Be on time or you will regret it.
>
> As a good host of the Reality Mining Future Salon later today Thursday 25th of
March, I got MIT Professor Sandy Pentland's latest book: Honest Signals: How
they shape our world.
>
> Turns out, that our non verbal signals are the better predictors of outcomes
in situations of our daily life. Not only that, but that we are highly
influenced by the group that surrounds us. We are mimicking the people that we
are with, even complete strangers.
>
> I once saw a candid camera episode where a person walked into an elevator with
two people already in there. Once the new person has settled in, the other two
turned around and faced the wall instead of the door. Like puppetry the third
person would turn around too. The force was so powerful.
>
> Sandy Pentland writes the best theory to explain charismatic people is, that
they are those who are particularly talented at reading and responding to social
signaling. It might even be that charisma is the other end of the autistic
spectrum: a genetic variation that affects the ability to read and display
social signals, and that is more associated with males than females.
>
> An important finding of his research was, that we could use the social
signaling to accurately determine each person's group and task roles. This means
that we can build on sociometer readings to create a computerized feedback
system that helps groups steer away from groupthink and polarization. -- That I
think could be really powerful.
>
> Our ability to make group decisions may have evolved from an ancient signaling
mechanism that is based on a market of ideas rather than on deduction.
>
> That is how far I got with the book. For sure very interesting and relevant
for everyone. Please join us tonight Thursday 25th of March at SAP Labs Palo
Alto 3410 Hillview Avenue Room Cafeteria. [map]. Free and open to the public.
Please spread the word and invite others.
>
> We will do our best to webcast the event again via Ustream.tv on the Future
Salon Channel: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/Future-Salon
>
> See you all here, Mark.
>
> Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/futuresalon
> Follow all twittering Future Salon speakers:
http://twitter.com/futuresalon/futuresalonspeakers.
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
>     bafuture-unsubscribe@...! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

Pictures from Mar. 25, 2010 Future Salon Sandy Pentland are now on
DJCline.com.
http://www.djcline.com/2010/03/26/mar-25-2010-future-salon-sandy-
pentland/
Enjoy!
DJ Cline

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi future saloners,

Jerry Michalski, David Hodgson, Harald Katzmair, myself and others are hosting a
mini-conference on resilience.  It'll be a full-day cross scale,
cross-discipline exploration of resilience with some short framing talks in the
morning and open space in the afternoon.

Resilience thinking is especially important in a world where change is
increasingly unpredictable, fast, and dramatic.  Since we can't predict the
future, we must be prepared for many possibilities.  Come learn explore how
resilience thinking can help us thriving in an uncertain world.

More information and registration is here:
http://d4r.eventbrite.com

Future Salon members get a 25% discount at checkout using this discount code:
Future

Having been to several salons over the years, I know members of this group has a
lot to add to the exploration.

Hope to see you,

Neal Gorenflo
Publisher
http://shareable.net
@ShareableDesign

---------- Forwarded message ----------


Please join us for the Electric & Fuel Cell Vehicle Showcase at Stanford on
April 7, 2010.  The Showcase is held in conjunction with the Energy
Seminar<http://energyseminar.stanford.edu>--which
is holding a 4-part mini series on Electric Vehicles in spring term--and a
spring seminar taught by Lee Schipper called Sustainable Mobility: Improving
Energy Efficiency and Reducing CO2 Emissions from
Transport<http://explorecourses.stanford.edu/CourseSearch/search?view=catalog&pa\
ge=0&catalog=&q=MS%2526E+296&collapse=>.
The events are free and open to the Stanford community.

ENERGY SEMINAR PRESENTS A MINI-SERIES ON ELECTRIC VEHICLES

Wednesdays, 4:15-5:15, Building 420, Room 40 (April 7, 4:15-5:45 in PS2,
across from Y2E2)

1. *March 31 - The Future of EVs: Ford’s Electrification Efforts **Sherif
Marakby, Ford Motor Company - Director of Electrification Programs and
Engineering. *

2. *April 7 - Electric and Fuel Cell Vehicle Showcase *4:15-5:45 Parking
Structure 2 (across from Y2E2). Daimler, Honda, Pi Mobility, Tesla, Toyota,
VW, and AC Propulsion eBox from PG&E's fleet. Groups will rotate through
stations, so please arrive promptly.

3. *April 14, 4:15-5:45 - Consumer Behavioral Responses to and Perceptions
of Electric Transportation **Dr. Tom Turrentine, UC Davis Institute of
Transportation Studies – Director PHEV Research Center*

4. *May 12 - A Vision for Transitioning Towards Sustainable Transportation *
*Jason Wolf, Better Place – Head of North America Business Development *

For more information, please visit *http://www.energyseminar.stanford.edu*

*Thank you to Chevron for supporting the Energy Seminar. *

*
*
  ELECTRIC AND FUEL CELL VEHICLE SHOWCASE
April 7, Special Sustainable Mobility Seminar (12:15-3:30), followed by
Vehicle Showcase (4:15-5:45)

* Special Sustainable Mobility Seminar, Clark Center, Clark Auditorium, For
more information, please visit: http://peec.stanford.edu/events*
12:15-1:05 *What Problems Can Electric Drive and Alternatives Solve?*,
Professor
Lee Schipper, Stanford University
1:10-1:35 *How Consumers Choose Cars*, Robert Bienenfeld, Honda of North
America
1:35-2:00 *Surprise--The Remarkable Rise in Electric Bikes and What it Means
*, Jonathan Weinert, Chevron Research
2:00-3:15 *Panel Discussion: The Way Forward with Electric Drive*, Robert
Bienenfeld, Honda; Zak Edson, Tesla; Justin Ward, Toyota; John Tillman,
Volkswagen; Marcus Hays, Pi Mobility; Brett Williams, UC Berkeley
Transportation Sustainability Research Center
  Energy Seminar, Electric and Fuel Cell Vehicle Showcase, Parking Structure
2, Lower Level, across from Y2E2
4:05-4:15 Arrive for Vehicle Showcase
4:15-5:45 Daimler, Honda, Pi Mobility, Tesla, Toyota, VW, and AC Propulsion
eBox from PG&E's fleet.
  Groups will rotate through stations, so please arrive promptly.
5:45-6:30 A reception follows the Energy Seminar, adjacent to the cars in
the parking structure.
  For more information, please visit *http://www.energyseminar.stanford.edu*





--
Alison Chaiken
(650) 279-5600  (cell)
http://www.exerciseforthereader.org/
If you can't be part of the solution, at least be part of the spectacle.

   ----------

--++**==--++**==--++**==--++**==--++**==--++**==--++**==
woods_energy_faculty_seminars mailing list
woods_energy_faculty_seminars@...
https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/woods_energy_faculty_seminars



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Trimtabs for systemic change Future Salon Wednesday May 26th Please RSVP
<http://bit.ly/fstrimtab>  http://bit.ly/fstrimtab

Mark Finnern offered me, Miguel F. Aznar, a chance to host the Future Salon
because I met someone (speaking at the May 1 BIL conference @ UCSC) whose
ideas call for a Future Salon.  Join us Wednesday, May 26, to listen and
share.  Dino Karabeg, professor of informatics at University of Oslo,
describes his presentation this way:

"When we shift focus from symptoms of systemic dysfunction to systemic
change, an uncommonly rich and inspiring action space becomes available.
'Trimtabs for systemic change' are acts that are small enough to be
feasible, which can add up to make our civilization change course and guide
us along a new and different direction of progress.

"In this talk I will present eight prototype trimtabs in key ares including
corporate business, informing, scientific research, education and design.
Those examples have been developed at the  University of Oslo with external
collaborators during the past fifteen years and implemented in practice in
varying degrees. Part of the presentation will focus on a strategy for
worldview and value change. This twenty five-minute lecture will set a stage
for further development of these ideas through dialogue."

We catch him the evening before he returns to Oslo, so don't miss this
salon.

Dino Karabeg <http://folk.uio.no/dino/>  has been at the University of Oslo
since 1992, where he is a professor in the Institute of Informatics.  See
more information: Invitation
<http://knowledgefederation.project.ifi.uio.no/KF2010_CallforAbstracts.pdf>
to Self-Organizing Collective Mind workshop, Knowledge
<http://heim.ifi.uio.no/%7Edino/ID/Misc/ElevatorPitches.pdf>  Federation
Elevator Pitches, blog  Holoscope
<http://polyscopy.wordpress.com/2010/01/07/holoscope-for-the-buckminster-ful
ler-challenge/>  for the Buckminster Fuller Challenge, blog Trimtabs
<http://polyscopy.wordpress.com/2009/11/07/trimtabs-for-systemic-change/>
for systemic change, and introduction
<http://folk.uio.no/dino/IDBook/Introduction.pdf>  to book manuscript.

Future Salons have the following structure: 6-7pm is networking with light
refreshments proudly sponsored by SAP; 7-9+pm is the presentation followed
by questions and discussion. Please RSVP <http://bit.ly/fstrimtab>
http://bit.ly/fstrimtab

SAP Labs North America, Building D, COIL (Co-Innovation Lab). SAP is located
at 3410 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94304[map
<http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=3410+Hillview+Ave,+Palo+Alto,+CA+94
304&sll=37.573154,-122.338858&sspn=0.007347,0.014291&layer=&ie=UTF8&om=1&ll=
37.404528,-122.145138&spn=0.028977,0.058365&z=14&iwloc=addr> ]. Free and
open to the public. Please spread the word and invite others, but be sure to
RSVP so we know how many people to expect.



Miguel



Miguel F. Aznar

Executive Director

KnowledgeContext

www.KnowledgeContext.org <http://www.knowledgecontext.org/>

(831) 440-8558

Discussion group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/knowledgecontext/

Blog: http://knowledgecontext.blogspot.com/





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi Futurists,


Future Salon's tag line is: Creating a world that works for all.
Looking at the current world turmoil (currently unfortunately: turmOIL)
, we may get discouraged and think our action do not make a difference.

This is why I am excited about this month's Future Salon. Dino
Karabeg will introduce us to Trimtabs:

> 'Trimtabs for systemic change' are acts that are small enough to be
> feasible, which can add up to make our civilization change course and
guide
> us along a new and different direction of progress.


Please join us Wednesday May 26th RSVP <http://bit.ly/fstrimtab>
http://bit.ly/fstrimtab <http://bit.ly/fstrimtab>

See you all there, Mark.


--- In bafuture@yahoogroups.com, "Miguel F. Aznar" <aznar@...>  wrote:
>
> Trimtabs for systemic change Future Salon  Wednesday May 26th Please
RSVP
> <http://bit.ly/fstrimtab>   http://bit.ly/fstrimtab
>
> Mark Finnern offered me,  Miguel F. Aznar, a chance to host the Future
Salon
> because I met  someone (speaking at the May 1 BIL conference @ UCSC)
whose
>  ideas call for a Future Salon.  Join us Wednesday, May 26, to listen
and
>  share.  Dino Karabeg, professor of informatics at University of Oslo,
>  describes his presentation this way:
>
> "When we shift  focus from symptoms of systemic dysfunction to
systemic
> change,  an uncommonly rich and inspiring action space becomes
available.
>  'Trimtabs for systemic change' are acts that are small enough to be
>  feasible, which can add up to make our civilization change course and
guide
> us along a new and different direction of progress.
>
> "In this talk I will present eight prototype trimtabs in key  ares
including
> corporate business, informing, scientific  research, education and
design.
> Those examples have been  developed at the  University of Oslo with
external
> collaborators  during the past fifteen years and implemented in
practice in
>  varying degrees. Part of the presentation will focus on a strategy
for
>  worldview and value change. This twenty five-minute lecture will set
a  stage
> for further development of these ideas through dialogue."
>
> We catch him the evening before he returns to Oslo, so don't  miss
this
> salon.
>
> Dino Karabeg  <http://folk.uio.no/dino/>  has been at the University
of Oslo
>  since 1992, where he is a professor in the Institute of Informatics.
See
> more information: Invitation
>
<http://knowledgefederation.project.ifi.uio.no/KF2010_CallforAbstracts.p\
df>
>  to Self-Organizing Collective Mind workshop, Knowledge
>  <http://heim.ifi.uio.no/%7Edino/ID/Misc/ElevatorPitches.pdf>
Federation
> Elevator Pitches, blog  Holoscope
>
<http://polyscopy.wordpress.com/2010/01/07/holoscope-for-the-buckminster\
-ful
>  ler-challenge/>  for the Buckminster Fuller Challenge, blog Trimtabs
>
<http://polyscopy.wordpress.com/2009/11/07/trimtabs-for-systemic-change/\
>
>  for systemic change, and introduction
>  <http://folk.uio.no/dino/IDBook/Introduction.pdf>  to book
manuscript.
>
> Future Salons have the following structure:  6-7pm is networking with
light
> refreshments proudly sponsored  by SAP; 7-9+pm is the presentation
followed
> by questions and  discussion. Please RSVP <http://bit.ly/fstrimtab>
>  http://bit.ly/fstrimtab
>
> SAP Labs North America,  Building D, COIL (Co-Innovation Lab). SAP is
located
> at 3410  Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94304[map
>
<http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=3410+Hillview+Ave,+Palo+Alto,+C\
A+94
>
304&sll=37.573154,-122.338858&sspn=0.007347,0.014291&layer=&ie=UTF8&om=1\
&ll=
>   37.404528,-122.145138&spn=0.028977,0.058365&z=14&iwloc=addr>  ].
Free and
> open to the public. Please spread the word and  invite others, but be
sure to
> RSVP so we know how many people to  expect.
>
>
>
> Miguel
>
>
>
> Miguel F. Aznar
>
> Executive Director
>
>  KnowledgeContext
>
> www.KnowledgeContext.org  <http://www.knowledgecontext.org/>
>
> (831)  440-8558
>
> Discussion group:  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/knowledgecontext/
>
> Blog:  http://knowledgecontext.blogspot.com/





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

In just two days our Future Salon will be "Trimtabs for systemic change" with
Dino Karabeg. Please RSVP <http://bit.ly/fstrimtab> http://bit.ly/fstrimtab

"When we shift focus from symptoms of systemic dysfunction to systemic change,
an uncommonly rich and inspiring action space becomes available. 'Trimtabs for
systemic change' are acts that are small enough to be feasible, which can add up
to make our civilization change course and guide us along a new and different
direction of progress.

"In this talk I will present eight prototype trimtabs in key ares including
corporate business, informing, scientific research, education and design. Those
examples have been developed at the University of Oslo with external
collaborators during the past fifteen years and implemented in practice in
varying degrees. Part of the presentation will focus on a strategy for worldview
and value change. This twenty five-minute lecture will set a stage for further
development of these ideas through dialogue."

We catch him the evening before Dino returns to Oslo, so don't miss this salon.

Dino Karabeg <http://folk.uio.no/dino/> has been at the University of Oslo since
1992, where he is a professor in the Institute of Informatics.

Future Salons have the following structure: 6-7pm is networking with light
refreshments proudly sponsored by SAP; 7-9+pm is the presentation followed by
questions and discussion. Please RSVP <http://bit.ly/fstrimtab>
http://bit.ly/fstrimtab

SAP Labs North America, Building D, COIL (Co-Innovation Lab). SAP is located at
3410 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA
94304[map<http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&=3410+Hillview+Ave,+Palo+Alto,+C\
A+94304&sll=37.573154,-122.338858&sspn=0.007347,0.014291&layer=&ie=UTF8&om=1&ll=\
37.404528,-122.145138&spn=0.028977,0.058365&z=14&iwloc=addr> ]. Free and open to
the public. Please spread the word and invite others, but be sure to RSVP so we
know how many people to expect.



Miguel


Miguel F. Aznar
Executive Director
KnowledgeContext
www.KnowledgeContext.org <http://www.knowledgecontext.org/>
(831) 440-8558
Discussion group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/knowledgecontext/
Blog: http://knowledgecontext.blogspot.com/

Anticipating our Wednesday Future Salon, I asked our speaker Dino
Karabeg three questions.  Here are his answers:

1. What is the single thing that everyone can do that has the greatest
lever for change into a positive direction?

Create trimtabs for systemic change. I will take one half hour to
explain what this means and to plead my case, then I will give the
participants a chance to either challenge it, or to roll up our sleeves
and begin doing it.

2. What is the greatest danger you see for us?

I believe that our greatest danger is that we may be engaging in
contemporary problematique in a symbolic way, to use Murray Edelman's
expressive term. What if we may be recycling our trash and perhaps even
riding bicycles (as I myself do), and as result receiving all the
biochemical rewards of right-doing, while at the same time avoiding to
raise to the challenges that are presented to us? I will invite the
Future Salon members to a bit of meta-thinking and meta-design –
What can you and I do that really can lead to a radical positive shift?
I will raise this question by proposing a candidate answer.

3. What is your greatest hope?

My motivation is an anticipation of the next Renaissance. I even dare
believe that I can see how this might happen in some detail. But I have
ethical qualms about focusing my speech on this  enticing vision,
because there is still some work that we need to do to make it possible.
This is why I chose this rather technical title.


Join us this Wednesday, 6:00 PM, at SAP Palo Alto
<http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=3410+Hillview+Ave,+Palo+Alto,+C\
A+94%20304&sll=37.573154,-122.338858&sspn=0.007347,0.014291&layer=&ie=UT\
F8&om=1&ll=%2037.404528,-122.145138&spn=0.028977,0.058365&z=14&iwloc=add\
r> .  Please RSVP <http://bit.ly/fstrimtab>


Miguel F. Aznar



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

http://www2.slac.stanford.edu/lectures/default.asp?id=home
Dr. Jeremy Dahl, SLAC - Stanford University
Tuesday, May 25 2010 at 7:30 PM

Panofsky Auditorium

Diamonds exist in all sizes, from the Hope Diamond to minuscule
crystals only a few atoms across. The smallest of these diamonds are
created naturally by the same processes that make petroleum. Recently,
researchers discovered that these "diamondoids" are formed in many
different structural shapes, and that these shapes can be used like
LEGO blocks for nanotechnology. This talk will discuss the discovery
of these nano-size diamonds and highlight current SLAC/Stanford
research into their applications in electronics and medicine.

--
Alison Chaiken
(650) 279-5600  (cell)
     http://www.exerciseforthereader.org/
If you can't be part of the solution, at least be part of the spectacle.

May 26, 2010 Future Salon Karabeg Trimtabs pictures are now on
DJCline.com at:
http://www.djcline.com/2010/05/29/may-26-2010-future-salon-karabeg-
trimtabs/
Thanks to Mark Finnern for his help that night. :-)
Enjoy!
DJ Cline

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]