While researching about
technology and culture I found a book in the library called We-Think by Charles
Leadbeater, its about the internet being ‘collaborative creativity’ and about
encouraging sharing ideas on the web.
Leadbeater thinks that the
Internet is such a useful tool for creativity and looks at the positive side of
the Internet, the ways it can be used to build creativity, not destroy it with
technology.
‘Thanks to the web, millions
of people can have their say” Via blog, videos, and websites, there are so many
ways people can share their ideas.
People all over the world in
different continent can work together, without even meeting.
Charles Leadbeater is a
business and political adviser as well as author, writing about social enterprize, the internet, and knowledge driven economy.
Leadbeater talks about the
web being a creative outlet where people can “pool their ideas together” he
goes on to say “creating mass innovation”. What he is saying makes sense to me
and it is already happening with all over the Internet, but he is talking about
how everybody imputing to create a mass creative product.
The book talks a lot about
Wikipedia, how it has “shared creativity and responsible self goverence” and
how public encyclopaedias should be encouraged and used by everyone.
Jimmy Wale the founder says
“Wikipedia is: an anarchy because no one is in control of its content, an
meritocracy because the best ideas win out, a democracy because people who have
been involved in the community for longer have a higher standing in the
community, and a monarchy because Jimmy Wale is like the King.
Leadbeater writes that
Wikipedia is about anybody and everybody collaborating together to make a
resource available for everyone. Leadbeater has a theory that is everybody was
to share everything that no one would need to pay to view or hide content. But
for this to work everybody would need to share instead of some people sharing and
other not. He states that “We are what we share, not what you own”
Some important questions are
raised in the book. Like ‘How do we protect what is private’? This is such a an
important question because we want to share our work but publishing it on the
internet lets anybody access to it, which leads to the question ‘are we safe
sharing?’ how do we know who is using or
copying our work? If everybody was
sharing everything on the web how ‘would people make people earn a living on
the net?’
I agree that every piece shouldn’t have a blurb about them
and you need to form your own opinions and assumptions about the piece because
art is meant to be subject.
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