Notes from 55th International STC Conference
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, June 1-4, 2008

Keynote Address:
New Technologies Have Lowered the Threshold for Collective Action

Howard Rheingold

Author, teacher, and technology consultant Arthur Rheingold's third book, Smart Mobs, named one of the "big ideas" of 2002 by The New York Times Magazine, explored how the merger of mobile communications, pervasive computing, and the Internet would lead to a new form of collective action. Rheingold's recent work examines the ways in which the mobile phone, computers, and wireless Internet are changing the way we conduct our lives—not only how we meet and entertain, but how we govern and conduct business. Contact: http://www.rheingold.com

Session Description: Rheingold makes a compelling case of how the new media such as text messaging, blogging, and the like are exerting a more profound impact on society than many may realize. They are becoming powerful tools for a new form of collective action that can influence the course of elections, influence public policy, and change — literally — the course of history.

• We are watching a new story evolving about how humans get things done, moving away from the traditional Law of the Jungle in business and government to a new model that is still competitive, with self-interest at the core, but surrounded by concentric rings of emerging disciplines.
• Japan, Finland, and many other nations are ahead of us on the degree and sophistication of use of mobile phones, hand-held computer devices, and the emerging web-based media.
• As an example, in the Philippines, huge demonstrations against the Estrada government were keyed by a massive grassroots text messaging campaign.
• As emphasized in Smart Mobs, the threshold for collective action has been lowered (amplified real-time communication can serve beneficial or destructive ends).
  
• In another example, the grassroots Korean mass media vehicle "Omynews" elected a president who was being virtually ignored by traditional media—and the president-elect granted his post-election interview to the web-based medium.
• And in Spain, a peaceful anti-government demonstration was involved to block an action the government was trying to "railroad" past the population.
• On the flip side, the SMS organized violent protests in Denmark and Syria after the cartoons depicting Mohammed were published in Danish media; in Australia, racists used text messaging to set up beatings on the beach; and in Nigeria, riots broke out after the Miss World contest.
• Human beings’ communication capabilities distinguished the earliest humans from fierce competitive species and enabled survival in harsh environments. Humankind survived via collective action: for protection, for hunting and fishing, for agriculture.
• The next earth-changing development in Western communication was cuneiform, followed by the invention of alphabetic writing; a similar pattern was evident in the East.
• The next huge impact came with the invention of the printing press by Gutenberg in the 1500’s. Before Gutenberg, the total # of manuscripts in existence (all hand-scribed) was about 20,000. Within 50 years after Gutenberg, more than 20,000,000 volumes were in existence. This had a tremendous impact:
   
• The Scientific Revolution (Newton)
• The Reformation (Luther)
• The American Revolution (Jefferson)
• Capitalism grew from double-entry book-keeping. Flyers on the subjects were published in Amsterdam, written by some of the world’s first "technical communicators."
• Paper currency greatly facilitated trade.
• The Internet has triggered a similar revolution. Projections indicate that most people will be wearing high-speed computers within a matter of decades. The socio-politico-economic ramifications of this are enormous.
• Web 2.0 has brought in new forms of e-commerce centered on the concept of "open sourcing." For example, Toyota and IBM are empowering suppliers, even competitors, with cooperative rather than competitive actions (release of freeware, certain design requirements, etc.), yet ultimately still in their best business interest. (Nobody’s giving away priceless proprietary information; rather, companies are strategically putting more into the public domain of e-commerce to stimulate their own long-term growth.)
• Amazon and Google have opened up some of their proprietary data not out of altruism but under a new business models. Where # of hits drive online ad revenue, pennies from free downloads add up into millions.
• E-Bay’s and Wikipedia’s entire business is based on this Web 2.0 principle.
• Other new media are springing up like e-mushrooms after rain:
   
• Wikis
• Forums
• Blogs
• Chatrooms
• Social bookmarking
• Micro-blogs (such as "Twitter")
• Videos
• Vodcasts
• Podcasts
• Text messaging
• ThinkCycle. A new, far more cost-effective system of providing life-saving hydration to cholera victims was developed by 6 design students using inexpensive, user-friendly software).
• http://folding.stanford.edu → studying "infinite" DNA patterns to fight AIDS, cancer, etc., by downloading small amounts of information to millions of volunteers.
• After the devastating tsunami in Southeast Asia, the first relief to reach the scene was a result of the Asian Tsunami Blog → a perfect example of harnessing the collective action potential of the new media to do good.
• Similarly, after Hurricane Katrina, the Katrina People Finder wiki was successful due to a thorny data processing algorithm challenge being solved free by a 15-year-old "hacker.
• In the Search for Jim Gray, 12,000 e-volunteers scanned a massive database of aerial photos (unfortunately, the search was not successful, but it would not even have been possible without this collective e-action). It won’t be long before a lost child is found in this manner, before he/she comes to harm.
• Web 2.0 has also reinvented philanthropy.
• Technologies of cooperation and sharing economics:
   
• Easy to use: e-mail, blogs, wikis
• Enable connecting: webs of links and markets are converging; blog-rolls are generating a whole new medium called the blogosphere in which anybody online has a voice. A "blogging rhetoric" is evolving for people’s "public voice."
• Open: no license needed to publish ideas
• Group-forming
• Self-instruction
• http://www.cooperationcommons.com
• Participatory media (network, digital)
   
• Broadcast/receive text, audio, video, software
• Social media
• Coordination of collective action
• Today, about 1 billion people have Internet, there are 3.3 billion cell phones, and 100 million camera phones. These numbers are exploding exponentially world-wide, especially in the East, with major economic implications.
• The new generation is precocious technologically, but that does not carry with it education in socially responsible use of this ability.
• An educational outgrowth of the technology revolution is participative pedagogy, using blogs, wikis, chatrooms, podcasts, etc.
• http://www.socialconflicts.net ... digital media
• Social media virtual classroom: online syllabi and free and open-source software: an historic initiative.
• Bottom line: Alphabetic/visual literacy is no longer sufficient for technical communicators — don't keep up with the technologies, keep up with the literacies which develop from them.