Clay Shirky on Collaboration, Abundance and Aims

From the invention of the printing press to the telephone, the radio, and the Internet, the ways people collaborate change frequently, and the effects of those changes often reverberate through generations. In this video interview, Clay Shirky, author, New York University professor, and leading thinker on the impact of social media, explains the disruptive impact of technology on how people live and work—and on the economics of what we make and consume.

Reference: The disruptive power of collaboration: An interview with Clay Shirky.

This is a taut interview, replete with key ideas about how we are coming to work together, in an era of new media and high technology.

My takeaways

The thing about social media and blogging is that we don't need to have a polished or complete idea, before we put something out there.  The very value of such platforms is (a) presenting something and (b) commenting on it, and thereby developing it further.  It is so easy to do both, and it's totally free.  That's the new collaboration Shirky speaks to.

I know that the oil and gas industry has entered a veritable era of abundance, that is, with its ability to extract so-called unconventional resources (e.g., shale oil).  While the impact on business models in this industry is clear, it may not be so straightforward in other industries or for some companies (rf. Kodak, Border's, and Blockbusters).  CEOs must examine this new landscape vis-a-vis their aims, business and people.

Finally, Shirky's last set of points is crucial, and resonates well with Theory of Algorithms and The Core Algorithm.  You see, we plan things as if (a) the future were certain or controllable and (b) we actually knew and therefore could predict the future.  Fools Paradise, I'd say.  Instead, we must acknowledge that planning is an ongoing process of monitor, review and adjust.  We will know more about how things go, as we go along, and then we must course-correct as necessary.