The Gift Economy

Two basic economic paradigms coexist in the world today. They are logically contradictory, but also complementary. One is visible, the other invisible; one highly valued, the other undervalued. One is connected with men; the other with women. What we need to do is validate the one connected with women, causing a basic shift in the values by which we direct our lives and policies.

I first approached the idea of giving as a basic economic and life principle when I was doing work on language and communication. Later, as a feminist, I realized that in my free homemaking and child-rearing work, I was doing gift labor-as were women worldwide.

The present economic system, which is made to seem natural and too widespread to change, is based upon a simple operation in which individuals participate at many different levels and at many different times. This operation is exchange, which can be described as giving in order to receive. The motivation is self-oriented since what is given returns under a different form to the giver to satisfy her or his need. The satisfaction of the need of the other person is a means to thc satisfaction of one's own need. Exchange requires identification of the things exchanged, as well as their measurement and an assertion of their equivalence to the satisfaction of the exchangers that neither is giving more than she or he is receiving. It therefore requires visibility, attracting attention even though it is done so often that the visibility is commonplace. Money enters the exchange, taking the place of products reflecting their quantitative evaluation.

This seemingly simple human interaction of exchange, since it is done so often, becomes a sort of archetype or magnet for other human interactions, making itself-and whatever looks like it-seem normal, while anything else is crazy. For example, we talk about exchanges of love, conversations, glances, favors, ideas.

There is also a different type of similarity of exchange to linguistic definition. The definition mediates whether or not a concept belongs to a certain category, just as monetarization of activity mediates its belonging to the category of work or not. The very visibility of exchange is self-confirming, while other kinds of interaction are rendered invisible or inferior by contrast or negative description. What is invisible seems to be valueless, while what is visible is identified with exchange, which is concerned with a certain kind of quantitative value. Besides, since there is an equivalence asserted between what we give and what we receive, it seems that whoever has a lot has produced a lot or given a lot, and is, therefore, some - how more than whoever has less. Exchange puts the ego first and allows it to grow and develop in ways that emphasize me-first competitive and hierarchical behavior patterns. This ego is not an intrinsic part of the human being, but is a social product coming from the kinds of human interaction it is involved in.

The alternative paradigm, which is hidden - or at least misidentified - is nurturing and generally other-oriented. It continues to exist because it has a basis in the nature of infants; they are dependent and incapable of giving back to the giver. If their needs are not satisfied unilaterally by the giver, they will suffer and die. Society has allocated the caretaking role to women since we bear the children and have the milk to nourish them.

Since a large percentage of women nurture babies, we are directed toward having an experience outside exchange. This requires orientation toward interest in the other. The rewards and punishments involved have to do with the well-being of the other. Our satisfaction comes from her or his growth or happiness, not just from our own. In the best case, this does not require the impoverishment or depletion of ourselves either. Where there is enough, we can abundantly nurture others. The problem is that scarcity is usually thc case, artificially created in order to maintain control, so that other-orientation becomes difficult and self-depleting. In fact, exchange requires scarcity because, if needs are abundantly satisfied, no one is constrained to give up anything in order to receive what they need.

It is said that the earth produces enough at the present time to feed everyone abundantly. However, this cannot be done on the basis of the exchange paradigm. Nor can the exchange paradigm or the kind of dominant ego it fosters continue in a situation of abundance and free giving. That is why scarcity has been created on a worldwide scale by armaments spending and other wastes of resources: $17 billion would feed everyone on earth for a year and we spend it every week on the military, thus creating the scarcity necessary for the exchange paradigm to survive and continue to validate itself.

If we identify the gift paradigm with women's way, we see that it is already widespread, since women arc the majority of the population. Many men practice it to some extent also. Noncapitalistic economies such as native economies, often have major gift-giving practices and various important kinds of women's leadership.

I believe, for example, that many of the conflicts between women and men that seem like personal differences are really differences in the paradigm we are using as the basis for our behavior. Women criticize men's big egos and men criticize women as being unrealistic, soft touch. bleeding hearts. Each tries to convince the other to follow his or her values. Recently, many women have begun to follow the exchange paradigm, which has the immediate advantage of liberating them from grim economic servitude - and the psychological advantage that monetarization defines their activity as valuable. But the servitude itself is caused by the exchange paradigm.

As people change from one paradigm to the other, there is probably some holdover of the previous paradigm, so that women who take on exchange often remain nurturing while men who take on giving remain more ego-oriented. I see this in the case of religions, in which men legislate other-orientation, often according to exchange, excluding and disqualifying women. Indeed, they make altruism seem so saintly that it is impractical for the many (while ignoring that it is often the norm for women). This is like the madonna-whore syndrome, where the woman is either over- or undervalued, worshiped or despised. Altruism is made to seem above our reach, often with a self-sacrificing side (because of the scarcity - exchange economy), or seen as wasteful, spendthrift; charity is given by patriarchal religions in exchange for the soul.

The gift giving done by the big exchange ego does not work, as we have seen on the scale of aid between nations. There are strings attached by the donor country, which pauperize the recipients. Another aspect of the conflicts of paradigms is that housework or other unmonetarized women's labor is seen as inferior, or nonwork; valuing it is subversive to the exchange paradigm. Perhaps women's labor is paid less than men's to maintain it in a disempowered gift stance. What we need to do is not to pay women's labor more, but to change the values altogether, eventually disqualifying monetarization and exchange.

How can a noncompetitive, nurturing paradigm compete with a competitive one? It is always at a disadvantage because competition is not its motivation or its value. Yet it is difficult to not compete without losing, thereby validating the other's stance. Another major problem is that if satisfying a need is free, one should not require recognition for it. But by not requiring recognition, women have themselves remained unconscious of the paradigm character of their actions and values.

Yet clearly the ego-oriented paradigm is pernicious. It results in the empowerment of the few and the disempowerment, depletion. death, and invisibility of the many Since the ego is a social product, artificial in some ways, it needs to be continually re-created and confirmed. This can also be done by violence against the other, including sexual violence Anyone in the position of the other is ignored, denied, excluded, degraded to confirm the superiority and identity of the dominant egos. I would like to avoid any moral discourse on this point (in fact, I see guilt as internalized exchange, preparing to pay back for the wrong one has done) and simply see the problems as logical and psychological consequences of the paradigms. Vengeance and justice require a balance of accounts. But we need kindness and nurturing, When we find that 85 percent of people in prison have been abused as children, we must realize justice is not the issue. Like charity, justice humanizes the exchange just enough to keep it from changing. We need a world based on giving and for giving, not retribution.

At this point, it seems that it is important to create transitional structures by which giving can be validated. Such strategies as cause-related marketing, where profits are given to social change projects to satisfy needs, use exchange for giving. The social change funding movement also empowers giving especially when it comes from an abundance rather than a scarcity model. But so do all the people in the peace, feminist, healing, and therapy movements who devote their time and energy to satisfying human and social needs. We are doing the right thing, but we don't know why. Sometimes, we even disparage other-orientation while we arc practicing it, because the exchange model is so pervasive and strong. We need to give our money, time, and attention to the change in values, and both new and traditional economic alternatives not dependent on exchange and the market. Women need to realize that our values and energies are important outside the family as well as inside. Social problems are themselves needs that we must satisfy. Our other-orientation must become the norm.

Then the ancient dream that the powerful will lay down their arms and the rich their goods might come true, led by women of the world. We can, for example, move within the "first world" to forgive-the "third world" debt. I call your attention to the word for-give.

Genevieve Vaughan is a feminist activist who is writing a book on the gift paradigm, and trying to live it by creating Thc Foundation for a Compassionate Society, as well as Change of Heart, Inc., a cause-related marketing business. This article is excerpted from her presentation to Thc Other Economic Summit, Houston, 1990; an expanded version appears in thc Spring 1991 issue of "Woman of Power."

Via: gift-economy.com

10 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Giving Up on Your Dream

1. Why did you want to pursue this goal to begin with—and has anything changed?
You had a good reason for committing to this plan. Maybe you visualized a financially free future once you started this new business, or you realized you’d live longer and healthier if you lost 40 pounds.
Odds are you still want those things as much as you did before; you just stopped believing you could have them because your attempts have yet to yield results. Now you have to ask yourself: if you push through the discomfort will it be worth it in the end?

2. Have you been operating with too much information?
With so much information at our fingertips on the good ole World Wide Web, it’s easy to overwhelm yourself with more knowledge than you can apply. You read e-books and blogs, participate in teleconferences and coaching sessions, and join user forums to talk about getting things done.
One of two things happen as a result: you spend more time planning to act then acting; or you devote minimal energy to multiple plans instead of committing to one solid approach. Instead of drowning in all the data, why not narrow it down and start again from a less overwhelming space?

3. Did you set a smart goal? SMART goals are:
Specific—you know exactly what your world will look like when you achieve this goal.
Measurable—you have a specific plan to mark your progress as you go.
Attainable—you have the attitude and aptitude to make your goal reality.
Realistic—you’re willing and able to do the required work.
Time-bound—you’ve set a concrete timeframe for completion to create a sense of urgency.

If you didn’t set a SMART goal, you may have set yourself up for failure. How can you possibly make something happen if you don’t know exactly what you want, or didn’t really believe you could do it? Are you really willing to walk away when you didn’t give yourself every opportunity to succeed?

4. What’s the worst that will happen if you keep going and don’t reach your goal?
Often when I want to turn around it’s because I’m afraid of failing—afraid other people will be disappointed in me or judge me, or afraid I’ll have wasted my time. In all reality, no one ever judges us like we judge ourselves.; and we always grow and learn through the process of striving, regardless of what we attain.
If you don’t keep going, you’ll never know how far you could have gone, and you’ll miss out on being the person you’d become through the effort itself. If you do keep going, well, it’s like this quote: “Shoot for the moon, for even if you miss you’ll land among the stars.”

5. Are you afraid of succeeding?
One of my biggest problems is that I don’t like responsibility. There are many things I’d like to do, but I resist because I don’t want the power to impact, hurt, or disappoint other people. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have dreams—it’s just that I’m just scared of what achieving them will entail.
If you can relate to this feeling, perhaps you’ll respond well to the mantra I’ve been repeating: great power comes with great responsibility, but it also brings great rewards. If you play it safe, you won’t hurt or disappoint anyone, but you also won’t help or inspire anyone. And equally important, you won’t help or inspire yourself.

6. Are you acting on impulse or emotion instead of thinking things through?
Sometimes our emotions give us hints about what we want and what we should do, but other times they’re just responses to stress, and maybe even indications we’re on the right track. If you act in that moment of intense emotion—be it anger, fear, or frustration—you may regret it once the wave has passed.
So sit back. Take note of what you’re feeling. Feel it fully, without judging it or yourself. Then act when you’ve gotten to the other side. At least then you’ll know you made your decision in a moment of peace and clarity.

7. Would you enjoy giving a loved one the honest explanation for why you gave up?
And I mean honest. Would you like telling your daughter, I stopped trying to quit smoking because cigarettes are more important to me than having more golden years to spend with you? Would it be fun to tell your mother I decided not to go to school because I’d rather spend time with my boyfriend of three months then prepare for a career that will ensure I won’t end up jobless and homeless?
If you lay out it out like this, odds are you’ll realize you had a really good reason for doing this difficult thing, and no matter how challenging the process is, it’s worth plowing ahead.

8. Would your life be better if you gave up on this goal?
This may not sound motivational, but sometimes giving up is actually good thing. Perhaps you set a completely unrealistic goal, and its pursuit is filling you with a constant set of inadequacy and anxiety. Or maybe the goal isn’t in yours or your family’s best interest, and it’s better to get out before you invest so much time it’s near impossible to walk away.
You could easily use this as a justification to delude yourself, so think about it carefully. Is this goal really a good thing, when you weigh all the consequences of its fulfillment?

9. How much have you already put in?
A concept studied in social psychology called “the sunk cost principle” indicates the more we’ve invested in something, the less likely we are to prematurely walk away.
How invested are you? How much money and time have you devoted? How many sacrifices have you made? Are you really willing to chalk it all up as a loss because you’re not feeling confident in your abilities?

10. What would you tell someone else if they were in your shoes?
Would you tell your best friend to throw in the towel because she can’t possibly reach her goal? Or would you practice your finest motivational speech and help her see what you see in her potential? Unless you’re secretly a frenemy who hopes she fails in life odds are you’d push her to be her best—so why not push yourself?
It may sound kind of cheesy, but you need to be your own best friend. You, more than anyone in this world, deserve your belief and motivation.
If you’ve gone through all these questions and still feel resolute about the decision to give up, you have my blessing to abandon your goal. (Bet you feel so relieved!)
If you don’t—if there’s some lingering doubt—keep working toward that dream that fills you with passion. Take a different approach if you need to. Enlist new assistance. Scale back your time commitment to something you can more easily maintain. But whatever you do, don’t give yourself a reason to one day utter the words, “I quit because I was scared.”

Via: tinybuddha

How to Come up with Good Ideas for Startups - the Scribd Story and the Trip Method

How to Come up with Good Ideas for Startups - the Scribd Story and the Trip Method

Don’t chase the money, chase the dream

At LeWeb last week in Paris, Tony Hsieh delivered a very inspiring speech about his company - Zappos - and the importance of company culture. We have highlighted below the main points of his message and explained why we think that these ideas are very relevant to Sandbox.

Define your core values

A company that has a good culture makes well in the long term. Companies have to commit to them and avoid making compromises, which also means hire and fire people based on these values. For Tony, the right way to start a company is to define its core-values.

Don’t chase the money, chase the dream

It is crucial to have a vision that goes beyond money and profits. Don’t begin a business with the objective to earn money. Do what you are passionate about and as you will do it well, the money will follow. Ask yourself what would you be so passionate about doing that you would do it for 10 years without earning a dime.

Once you have a strong vision, you will find it much easier to motivate yourself and your employees. You can motivate people with financial incentives or fear, but true motivation goes along with inspiration. If you can inspire your employees making them share your vision, you don’t need to worry about motivating them anymore.

Keep asking why

Ask yourself what you are pursuing in life: buying a home? getting married? Once you have the answers, ask why again. Why do you want to buy a house? Why do you want to get married? Eventually, everyone ends up with the same answer about what they pursue in life: happiness.

What is happiness about?

There are four factors that create happiness:

1. Perceived control
2. Perceived progress
3. Connectiveness
4. Meaning (being part of something bigger than yourself)

Once you have understood them, you can apply them in your business to better motivate your employees: Zappos for example gives small promotions every 6 months instead a big one every 18 months, increasing the feeling of progress among its employees.

The 3 types of happiness

Tony sees 3 types of happiness: pleasure, engagement and meaning. Most people start looking for the first one, hoping to then be able to reach the others, which is the wrong way to go.

- Pleasure is for example about buying new things. It works well, but only as long as you can sustain it.
- Engagement is about feeling passionate about what you are doing. It works better than pleasure, but is not sustainable either.
- Meaning is about finding in life what provides happiness in the long term. Finding meaning creates a long-lasting feeling of happiness.

Via: sandbox

Does every startup need a Steve Jobs?

What does Steve Jobs really do for Apple?
I had a recent conversation on Apple’s incredible design culture and what it would take to create that in a startup. In many ways, it seems like an insurmountably difficult challenge to play the role of Steve Jobs, with his god-like sense of product aesthetics and interactions.

And yet, Apple has hundreds of products and experiences – hardware, software, HR materials, commercials, etc. Steve Jobs certainly doesn’t have time to work on the design of every Apple product, and of course has 35,000 employees to manage. So what does Steve Jobs really do, to create the amazing design culture at Apple?

And more importantly, can a startup hope to even start to capture the same kind of culture?

Well, let me give you my best guess

IDEO’s product framework for Desirability, Feasibility, and Viability
First, let’s take a quick detour and talk about IDEO’s perspective on new product development – this is documented as part of their 100+ PDF on human centered design, but also recounted to me by my patient girlfriend who works there.

The idea is that all products ultimately come from an epic struggle between three perspectives: Desirability, Feasibility, and Viability. IDEO focuses on new products from the desirability side, which means they think about how to make sexy products with clear value propositions, and think technology and business goals flow from that. Most of their Fortune 500 clients do not act this way, of course, which is why they have to hire IDEO.

Here’s the diagram included in their HCD toolkit:



The way this was retold to me is that these factors map into functional parts of a business:

Viability = Business focus (marketing, finance)
Feasibility = Engineering focus (technologies, agile process, etc.)
Desirability = Design focus (customers, aesthetics, etc.)
Business-focused product perspective: Viability
For business-oriented products, the focus might be on any of the following:

“hot markets”
making money
funding potential
distribution
metrics
The idea there is that you get to a product via one of these first-order items. A business-oriented entrepreneur might identify a market, then try to come up with a product within the market – for example, “wow, Zynga is making $250M/year, and fish games are big. I should come up with a social gaming product too.”

I would also argue that “corporate” thinking (including MBAs and biz plan competitions) fundamentally revolve around this approach – the most important thing becomes the analytical discussion around the business, rather than the core user experience itself. Financial metrics and market sizes become the dominating point of discussion – I would argue also that most venture capitalists fall into this bucket.

The big “religions” in this perspective are frameworks like Built to Last, Crossing the Chasm, Customer Development, Blue Ocean Strategy, even Efficient Market Hypothesis. You might also count Six Sigma, all the stuff in McKinsey quarterlies, etc.

Engineering-focused product perspective: Feasibility
For technology-oriented products, the focus might be on the following:

programming language and development stack
cool technologies or libraries
engineering processes (agile or otherwise)
For people who use this as a first-order filter, you might end up with a line of thinking like, “BitTorrent is really cool, how do we build a business around it?”

I would also put engineering processes like agile into this, because that can easily become a first-order item in how to build a product as well. Agile won’t work for every team, for every product, in every situation, and yet it’s viewed as an all-purpose hammer – does that really make sense?

The big “religions” in this perspective are frameworks are agile, scrum, open source, etc. I might also count the “ecosystems” like Rails as a unique culture with its own set of beliefs and conventions. Frameworks like “Lean Startups” ultimately combine both Business and Engineering goals, via Customer Development plus Agile.

Design-focused product perspective: Desirability
For design-focused products, the focus might be on:

context, culture, and goals
customer goals and product experience
design aesthetics and interactions
The first-order filter in this case might be “Sick people go to hospitals and have a terrible experience – how do we improve that?” The tools employed at this initial stage might include user research, development of personas and user goals, and rapid prototyping to explore many product concepts.

The big “religions” here are led by Apple and their aesthetics and standards. And of course folks like IDEO and their “design thinking” ideas.

How business and engineering goals encroach on the desirability of a product
Reading through the above, perhaps you have identified yourself as prioritizing one versus the other. And in general, the prioritization of the three different goals drives what kinds of product experiences you can build.

From the perspective of making a sexy, highly desirable product, you’ll find lots of objections from business or engineering:

“spending money on visual design is too expensive”
“polishing a product will make the process too slow”
“this product is boring to implement”
“can you redesign this product so we can build it in 1 week sprints?”
“this target user is great, but we want the product to be more powerful and support more audiences”
“but Zynga doesn’t do this, can you just copy them?”
“why build so many prototypes that get thrown away? That’s costly and slow”
“if you added X to this product, it would put us into strategic market Y”
etc.
How do you handle questions like the above?

All of them are great questions, and of course the right answer means you have to find a balance in the approach. But what is the expense towards the core of your product experience?

Back to Steve Jobs – what does he really do?
Long story short, my hypothesis is that Steve Jobs is one of the rare CEOs who is very focused on product desirability. In battles with the business and technology goals, desirability will almost always win out.

So his role isn’t that of a designer, but rather Chief Design Advocate. This means:

he makes it clear that products should be “insanely great”
he recruits a top design team, and protects them from competing goals
he is willing to spend money, adjust technology processes, all for the goal of highly desirable products
he convinces financial analysts, industry pundits, etc. that product design is very important
To me, the amazing part about this is: Any company can do it.

Maybe not as good as Jobs, but they can decide to make it a priority – but few companies do. With the pressure of quarterly earnings, what competitors are doing, and employee aspirational desires, the focus moves off of killer experiences for customers – that’s no good.

If the above is true, then any of us can be the Steve Jobs of our team. Start by prioritizing design and desirability, and place it on a better footing relative to engineering and business goals. Learn the tools, develop your own religion, and start building great product experiences.

It almost sounds so easy!

http://andrewchenblog.com/2009/12/04/does-every-startup-need-a-steve-jobs/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+AndrewChensBlog+(Andrew+Chen+(@andrew_chen))&utm_content=Twitter

Strategic advice for war and statecraft by the Byzantine Empire

I. Avoid war by every possible means, in all possible circumstances, but always act as if war might start at any time. Train intensively and be ready for battle at all times -- but do not be eager to fight. The highest purpose of combat readiness is to reduce the probability of having to fight.

II. Gather intelligence on the enemy and his mentality, and monitor his actions continuously. Efforts to do so by all possible means might not be very productive, but they are seldom wasted.

III. Campaign vigorously, both offensively and defensively, but avoid battles, especially large-scale battles, except in very favorable circumstances. Don't think like the Romans, who viewed persuasion as just an adjunct to force. Instead, employ force in the smallest possible doses to help persuade the persuadable and harm those not yet amenable to persuasion.

IV. Replace the battle of attrition and occupation of countries with maneuver warfare -- lightning strikes and offensive raids to disrupt enemies, followed by rapid withdrawals. The object is not to destroy your enemies, because they can become tomorrow's allies. A multiplicity of enemies can be less of a threat than just one, so long as they can be persuaded to attack one another.

V. Strive to end wars successfully by recruiting allies to change the balance of power. Diplomacy is even more important during war than peace. Reject, as the Byzantines did, the foolish aphorism that when the guns speak, diplomats fall silent. The most useful allies are those nearest to the enemy, for they know how best to fight his forces.

VI. Subversion is the cheapest path to victory. So cheap, in fact, as compared with the costs and risks of battle, that it must always be attempted, even with the most seemingly irreconcilable enemies. Remember: Even religious fanatics can be bribed, as the Byzantines were some of the first to discover, because zealots can be quite creative in inventing religious justifications for betraying their own cause ("since the ultimate victory of Islam is inevitable anyway …").

VII. When diplomacy and subversion are not enough and fighting is unavoidable, use methods and tactics that exploit enemy weaknesses, avoid consuming combat forces, and patiently whittle down the enemy's strength. This might require much time. But there is no urgency because as soon as one enemy is no more, another will surely take his place. All is constantly changing as rulers and nations rise and fall. Only the empire is eternal -- if, that is, it does not exhaust itself.

Via: garry’s subposterous

Turgid Truth

New link

"The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life, seems to arise from over-rating the difference between one permanent situation and another.... Some of those situations may, no doubt, deserve to be preferred to others: but none of them can deserve to be pursued with that passionate ardour which drives us to violate the rules either of prudence or of justice; or to corrupt the future tranquillity of our minds, either by shame from the remembrance of our own folly, or by remorse from the horror of our own injustice." Adam Smith

from TED video "Dan Gilbert asks, Why are we happy?" [min 19:35]

Economy Internet Trends (2009)

Economy Internet Trends (2009)

The Hawthorne effect

The Hawthorne effect is a form of reactivity whereby subjects improve an aspect of their behavior being experimentally measured simply in response to the fact that they are being studied, not in response to any particular experimental manipulation.
The term was coined in 1955 by Henry A. Landsberger[3] when analyzing older experiments from 1924-1932 at the Hawthorne Works (a Western Electric manufacturing facility outside Chicago). Hawthorne Works had commissioned a study to see if its workers would become more productive in higher or lower levels of light. The workers' productivity seemed to improve when changes were made and slumped when the study was concluded. It was suggested that the productivity gain was due to the motivational effect of the interest being shown in them. Although illumination research of workplace lighting formed the basis of the Hawthorne effect, other changes such as maintaining clean work stations, clearing floors of obstacles, and even relocating workstations resulted in increased productivity for short periods of time. Thus the term is used to identify any type of short-lived increase in productivity.

Via: wikipedia

Everything You Wanted To Know About Startup Building But Were Afraid To Ask

Let’s say you have an idea for a startup. How do you begin the process of finding cofounders and employees, creating a corporation, handing investors, growing the company, etc.? There are lots of details about building a startyp that are usually a mystery to the newly initiated founder. Usually you have to learn this stuff on the job, making mistakes along the way.

Patzer shows how he raised and spent money, and generated revenue, throughout the lifecycle of Mint, from the very beginning to the $170 million acquisition. He also showed historical slides from early presentations to investors and compares those to the actual results.

Mint CEO Aaron Patzer on Startups from Techcrunch on Vimeo.

Via techcrunch

how to create a successful startup - Paul Graham at Startup School 08

Paradosso del compleanno

Il paradosso del compleanno (o problema del compleanno) è un paradosso di teoria della probabilità definito nel 1939 da Richard von Mises. Il paradosso afferma che la probabilità che almeno due persone in un gruppo compiano gli anni lo stesso giorno è largamente superiore a quanto potrebbe dire l'intuito: infatti già in un gruppo di 23 persone la probabilità è circa del 51%; con 30 persone essa supera il 70%, con 50 persone tocca addirittura il 97%, anche se per arrivare all'evento certo occorre considerare un gruppo di almeno 367 persone (per il principio dei cassetti).
Per effettuare il calcolo, si ricorre alla formula per la probabilità degli eventi indipendenti: per rendere più semplice il calcolo si assume che gli anni siano tutti di 365 giorni e che i compleanni siano equiprobabili, anche se ciò non è esatto. Aggiungere il giorno bisestile peggiora leggermente la probabilità, ma in compenso il fatto che i compleanni non siano equiprobabili la alza.
Il modo più semplice per calcolare la probabilità P(p) che ci siano almeno due persone appartenenti ad un gruppo di p persone che compiano gli anni lo stesso giorno è calcolare dapprima la probabilità P1(p) che ciò non accada. Il ragionamento è questo: data una qualunque persona del gruppo (indipendentemente dalla data del suo compleanno), vi sono 364 casi su 365 in cui il compleanno di una seconda persona avvenga in un giorno diverso; se si considera una terza persona, ci sono 363 casi su 365 in cui compie gli anni in un giorno diverso dalle prime due persone e via dicendo.

The Marshmallow Experiment & Time

Why italy?

Una delle presentazioni vista al convegno 'Un ponte fra due mondi: Milano - Silicon Valley' il 17/09/09 al Politecnico di Milano

Progetto: mind the bridge

Silicon Mind

Studenti che gestiscono milioni di dollari, scienziati visionari e finanzieri coraggiosi, in due parole: Venture Capital. Un viaggio nel mondo del capitale di rischio, in quella Silicon valley dove i milioni sposano le idee e creano il futuro.

Video

Gandhi’s Top 10 Fundamentals for Changing the World

1. Change yourself.

“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”

“As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world - that is the myth of the atomic age - as in being able to remake ourselves.”

If you change yourself you will change your world. If you change how you think then you will change how you feel and what actions you take. And so the world around you will change. Not only because you are now viewing your environment through new lenses of thoughts and emotions but also because the change within can allow you to take action in ways you wouldn’t have – or maybe even have thought about – while stuck in your old thought patterns.

And the problem with changing your outer world without changing yourself is that you will still be you when you reach that change you have strived for. You will still have your flaws, anger, negativity, self-sabotaging tendencies etc. intact.

And so in this new situation you will still not find what you hoped for since your mind is still seeping with that negative stuff. And if you get more without having some insight into and distance from your ego it may grow more powerful. Since your ego loves to divide things, to find enemies and to create separation it may start to try to create even more problems and conflicts in your life and world.


2. You are in control.

“Nobody can hurt me without my permission.”

What you feel and how you react to something is always up to you. There may be a “normal” or a common way to react to different things. But that’s mostly just all it is.

You can choose your own thoughts, reactions and emotions to pretty much everything. You don’t have to freak out, overreact of even react in a negative way. Perhaps not every time or instantly. Sometimes a knee-jerk reaction just goes off. Or an old thought habit kicks in.

And as you realize that no-one outside of yourself can actually control how you feel you can start to incorporate this thinking into your daily life and develop it as a thought habit. A habit that you can grow stronger and stronger over time. Doing this makes life a whole lot easier and more pleasurable.

3. Forgive and let it go.

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”

“An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”

Fighting evil with evil won’t help anyone. And as said in the previous tip, you always choose how to react to something. When you can incorporate such a thought habit more and more into your life then you can react in a way that is more useful to you and others.

You realize that forgiving and letting go of the past will do you and the people in your world a great service. And spending your time in some negative memory won’t help you after you have learned the lessons you can learn from that experience. You’ll probably just cause yourself more suffering and paralyze yourself from taking action in this present moment.

If you don’t forgive then you let the past and another person to control how you feel. By forgiving you release yourself from those bonds. And then you can focus totally on, for instance, the next point.


4. Without action you aren’t going anywhere.

“An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.”

Without taking action very little will be done. However, taking action can be hard and difficult. There can be much inner resistance.

And so you may resort to preaching, as Gandhi says. Or reading and studying endlessly. And feeling like you are moving forward. But getting little or no practical results in real life.

So, to really get where you want to go and to really understand yourself and your world you need to practice. Books can mostly just bring you knowledge. You have to take action and translate that knowledge into results and understanding.

You can check out a few effective tips to overcome this problem in How to Take More Action: 9 Powerful Tips. Or you can move on to the next point for more on the best tip for taking more action that I have found so far.


5. Take care of this moment.

“I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following.”

The best way that I have found to overcome the inner resistance that often stops us from taking action is to stay in the present as much as possible and to be accepting.

Why? Well, when you are in the present moment you don’t worry about the next moment that you can’t control anyway. And the resistance to action that comes from you imagining negative future consequences - or reflecting on past failures - of your actions loses its power. And so it becomes easier to both take action and to keep your focus on this moment and perform better.

Have a look at 8 Ways to Return to the Present Moment for tips on how quickly step into the now. And remember that reconnecting with and staying in the now is a mental habit - a sort of muscle - that you grow. Over time it becomes more powerful and makes it easier to slip into the present moment.


6. Everyone is human.

“I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.”

“It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.”

When you start to make myths out of people – even though they may have produced extraordinary results – you run the risk of becoming disconnected from them. You can start to feel like you could never achieve similar things that they did because they are so very different. So it’s important to keep in mind that everyone is just a human being no matter who they are.

And I think it’s important to remember that we are all human and prone to make mistakes. Holding people to unreasonable standards will only create more unnecessary conflicts in your world and negativity within you.

It’s also important to remember this to avoid falling into the pretty useless habit of beating yourself up over mistakes that you have made. And instead be able to see with clarity where you went wrong and what you can learn from your mistake. And then try again.


7. Persist.

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

Be persistent. In time the opposition around you will fade and fall away. And your inner resistance and self-sabotaging tendencies that want to hold you back and keep you like you have always been will grow weaker.

Find what you really like to do. Then you’ll find the inner motivation to keep going, going and going. You can also find a lot of useful tips on how keep your motivation up in How to Get Out of a Motivational Slump and 25 Simple Ways to Motivate Yourself.

One reason Gandhi was so successful with his method of non-violence was because he and his followers were so persistent. They just didn’t give up.

Success or victory will seldom come as quickly as you would have liked it to. I think one of the reasons people don’t get what they want is simply because they give up too soon. The time they think an achievement will require isn’t the same amount of time it usually takes to achieve that goal. This faulty belief partly comes from the world we live in. A world full of magic pill solutions where advertising continually promises us that we can lose a lot of weight or earn a ton of money in just 30 days. You can read more about this in One Big Mistake a Whole Lot of People Make.

Finally, one useful tip to keep your persistence going is to listen to Gandhi’s third quote in this article and keep a sense of humor. It can lighten things up at the toughest of times.


8. See the good in people and help them.

“I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won’t presume to probe into the faults of others.”

“Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.”

“I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.”

There is pretty much always something good in people. And things that may not be so good. But you can choose what things to focus on. And if you want improvement then focusing on the good in people is a useful choice. It also makes life easier for you as your world and relationships become more pleasant and positive.

And when you see the good in people it becomes easier to motivate yourself to be of service to them. By being of service to other people, by giving them value you not only make their lives better. Over time you tend to get what you give. And the people you help may feel more inclined to help other people. And so you, together, create an upward spiral of positive change that grows and becomes stronger.

By strengthening your social skills you can become a more influential person and make this upward spiral even stronger. A few articles that may provide you with useful advice in that department are Do You Make These 10 Mistakes in a Conversation? and Dale Carnegie’s Top 10 Tips for Improving Your Social Skills. Or you can just move on to the next tip.


9. Be congruent, be authentic, be your true self.

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”

“Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.”

I think that one of the best tips for improving your social skills is to behave in a congruent manner and communicate in an authentic way. People seem to really like authentic communication. And there is much inner enjoyment to be found when your thoughts, words and actions are aligned. You feel powerful and good about yourself.

When words and thoughts are aligned then that shows through in your communication. Because now you have your voice tonality and body language – some say they are over 90 percent of communication – in alignment with your words.

With these channels in alignment people tend to really listen to what you’re saying. You are communicating without incongruency, mixed messages or perhaps a sort of phoniness.

Also, if your actions aren’t in alignment with what you’re communicating then you start to hurt your own belief in what you can do. And other people’s belief in you too.


10. Continue to grow and evolve.

”Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.”

You can pretty much always improve your skills, habits or re-evaluate your evaluations. You can gain deeper understanding of yourself and the world.

Sure, you may look inconsistent or like you don’t know what you are doing from time to time. You may have trouble to act congruently or to communicate authentically. But if you don’t then you will, as Gandhi says, drive yourself into a false position. A place where you try to uphold or cling to your old views to appear consistent while you realise within that something is wrong. It’s not a fun place to be. To choose to grow and evolve is a happier and more useful path to take.

Via: positivityblog.com

10 Characteristics of Great Companies

1) Great companies are constantly innovating and delighting their customers/users with new products and services.

2) Great companies are built to last and be independent and sustainable. Great companies don't sell out.

3) Great companies make lots of money but leave even more money on the table for their users and partners.

4) Great companies don't look elsewhere for ideas. They develop their ideas internally and are copied by others.

5) Great companies infect their users/customers with their brand. They turn their users and customers into marketing/salesforces.

6) Great companies are led by entrepreneurs who own a meaningful piece of the business. As such, they make decisions based on long term business needs and objectives not short term goals.

7) Great companies have a global mindset. They treat every person in the world as a potential customer/user.

8) Great companies are attempting to change the world in addition to making money.

9) Great companies are not reliant on any one person to deliver their value proposition.

10) Great companies put the customer/user first above any other priority.

Via: avc.com

The 7 Most Overrated Businesses

1. Restaurants. Dining out and cooking are among Americans' favorite pastimes. But "restaurants are among the toughest businesses to run," says Donna Ettenson, vice president of the Association of Small Business Development Centers in Burke, Va.

Far too many people assume their culinary abilities will lead to success in the restaurant business. Instead, about 60% of restaurants close in the first three years, according to a 2003 study at Ohio State University. That's quite a bit higher than the roughly half of all start-ups that close in the first five years.

The reason: Restaurants typically have low profit margins and need strong managers who can run an ultra-tight ship through seasonal fluctuations and other struggles. Most people don't have that kind of intense managerial ability to pull it off. By the way, the pitfalls are quite similar for restaurants' cousin – the catering business. In other words, Chef Emptor.

2. Direct Sales. It's a tempting pitch: Work from home and earn commissions by selling cosmetics, kitchen knives or cleaning products. But companies that recruit independent sales reps tend to attract new team members by pointing to the success of their highest earners.

A harder look shows that those high earners are making big money in large part by recruiting new reps into the organization and getting bonuses or a cut of their recruits' commissions, says Ken Yancey, chief executive of SCORE, a Herndon, Va., organization of current and retired business executives who volunteer time counseling entrepreneurs. The new reps then have a much harder job because they need to recruit more people on top of selling product even though the number of reps out there is increasing.

The result, Yancey says: "Most of them wind up with a bunch of jewelry or kitchen equipment sitting in their basement that they can't sell."

3. Online Retail. By far, one of the easiest businesses to start is selling items through online marketplaces such as eBay or Amazon. But as online commerce ages and these sites fill up with more established retailers, it's much harder for new, small sellers to compete for attention and generate a viable income.

"A lot of people are thinking it's the Web of five or 10 years ago and you stand out simply because you're on the Web," says Rieva Lesonsky, chief executive of GrowBiz Media, a content and consulting company for small businesses based in Irvine, Calif.

Instead, successful online retailers today must have a handle on sourcing their products at a low enough price, then layering on clever online marketing and fine-tuned logistics. These businesses won't generate much income if they can't be easily found in searches, maintain a good reputation among buyers or add enough value so that sellers can build profit margins high enough to take on bigger players and physical stores.

4. High-End Retail. Many people dream of opening a day spa, luxury jewelry store or designer clothing boutique – businesses they feel good patronizing. But specialty retail businesses close at higher rates than non-specialty stores, according to the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy, and are even riskier now that consumer discretionary spending has dried up and people are no longer spending money on little luxuries.

"It's going to be a long time before we return to the days of conspicuous consumption," says Ms. Lesonsky of GrowBiz Media. High-end retailers often suffer from poor locations and lack of understanding of how to source and market their products in an effective way. In today's economy and in coming years, she says, retail entrepreneurs should be looking to sell non-discretionary consumer goods or offer items at a value rather than high-end products.

5. Independent Consulting. Common advice for aspiring entrepreneurs is to stick with industries they know. So, for many looking to escape the corporate treadmill that means turning their professional expertise into a one-person consulting firm.

It seems practical – more companies are indeed relying on independent contractors and freelancers these days – but it's not as easy to pull off as many imagine, says Dennis Ceru, an entrepreneurship professor at Babson College in Babson Park, Mass. Many consultants struggle with time management problems, spending so much time scouting work that it's very difficult to earn steady income. "The difficulty many face is they go through peaks and valleys of having work," says Prof. Ceru. "When the engagement ends, they are frantically looking for work," which may take weeks or months.

A possible solution: "A successful consulting firm needs people to find the work, grind out the work and mind the work. Unless you know you can do all three yourself, you potentially expose your business to great risk."

6. Franchise Ownership. The idea of being handed a proven business plan without the uncertainties and headaches that come with building a business from scratch is understandably alluring. But too many people don't understand the risks associated with franchising and sign restrictive franchise agreements without thoroughly researching their franchisor and their contractual obligations, says SCORE's Yancey.

Some franchisors, for instance, allow franchisees to open stores too close together, oversaturating the market. Or they simply require their franchisees pay so much in royalties and fees or other operational costs that it's very difficult to be profitable. Beyond that, when a franchisee fails, a franchisor may make it extremely difficult and costly to get out of its contract.

It's a myth that franchises are far more successful than independent businesses. A 1995 study by a researcher at Wayne State University found that 62% of franchises were open for business after four years, compared with 68% of independent businesses. And franchises were also found to be less profitable in those early years.

7. Traffic-Driven Web Sites. Everybody has witnessed the success of social-networking sites like Facebook and popular blogs that generate all their revenue off advertising. But as the Internet ages, that's much harder to accomplish, says Martin Zwilling, a start-up consultant in Fountain Hills, Ariz., who specializes in helping entrepreneurs find angel investors.

Zwilling says he hears pitches for new social-networking sites about once a week, but actively deters people from starting them. "I say, skip it," he says. "You need to invest $50 million to get any presence" in the social-networking space right now and it's very difficult to get people to leave established sites. What's more, he says, the amount of traffic needed to build a lucrative traffic-driven Web site is far more than most new Web entrepreneurs realize: "Until you get to the point where you have a million page views a day, you're nowhere."

Via: smallbusinessanswers

The Power of 1%

The following was sent to all Zappos employees :


Team,

Happy New Year! To kick off the year, I sent this on Jan. 2nd to a smaller group, but a few folks suggested that it should be sent to all Zappos employees. Here is a slightly cleaned up and better version of what was sent.

--

"It was the best of times and it was the worst of times." – A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens

On CNBC Reports 2008, Maria Bartiromo quoted Charles Dickens, noting that, while Dickens was referring to the French Revolution, he could have easily been talking about 2008.

No doubt, 2008 was a very challenging year, starting out with a weak economic and retail environment that degraded slowly in the first half of the year and then fell off a cliff in the second half of the year. Depending on what reports you read, online ecommerce was down 3-5% this holiday season, marking the first time ecommerce didn't grow. Reading about these not-so-positive reports just goes to show how very lucky we are at Zappos, because we were able to ride through these rocky times and produce pretty incredible results. No, things weren't perfect, but 2008 was still a great year for us! Official results have to wait until our finance team closes the books and releases the audited financials in early March, but we managed to grow our business over last year and during the holiday season (when ecommerce was down), exceeded $1B in gross merchandise sales, and by Doing More with Less, kept ourselves profitable and cash positive – all the while having a lot of fun serving our customers!

We can reminisce about 2008, but now that 2009 is here and we are back from some much needed downtime, it's time to get our A-game back on. We'll be going over our goals and our "official" plans as soon as our board approves them, but even before that "officially" happens, we already know what we need to do.

One thing I encourage you to do is to refer back to our Core Values document and specifically the challenge in there: make at least one improvement every week that makes Zappos better. Ideally, we would do this every single day. It sounds daunting, but remember improvements don't have to be dramatic. Think about what it means to improve just 1% per day and build upon that every single day. Doing so has a dramatic effect and will make us 37x better, not 365% (3.65x) better at the end of the year. Wake up every day and ask yourself not only what is the 1% improvement I can change to make Zappos better, but also what is the 1% improvement I can change to make myself better personally and professionally – because we, Zappos, can't grow unless we as individual people grow too.

Imagine yourself making 1% changes every day that compounds and will make you and Zappos 37x better by the end of the year. Imagine if every employee at Zappos was doing the same. Imagine how much better you, Zappos and the
world will be next year.

It won't be easy and 2009 will no doubt present its own set of challenges, but we positively will get through it. Have a great and happy 2009!

P.S. Also check out Tony's blog entry, Your Culture Is Your Brand.

P.P.S. This is for the math geeks. If you start out with $100 at the beginning of the year and you were able to increase what you have by 1% every single day, at the end of the year, you would have $3,778.34 = $100 * (1 + 1%) ^ 365. That is 37.78x what you had at the beginning of the year. Get that 1% every single day!

Via: zappos.com

What Makes A Presentation Great?

Clarity
Clarity of communication is the first thing I look for. In thought, and how that thought translates the message you are intending to communicate to your audience. A great presentation is clear in intent, communication and articulates a specific point of view. Bonus points for presenting that point of view in a unique fashion.

Drama
Great presentations are delightful in some way. Drama means connecting with your audience in a way that taps into some emotional trigger at a human level—storytelling often does this. One of the most difficult things to do is to present information (even dry information) in a way that is compelling and captures the attention. A certain amount of drama will do this.

Design
Visual communication in presentations can really help them stand apart from others. You can take two presentations that have equal amounts of substance, but the one that is better designed is usually the one that has the advantage. Visual design matters in presentations.

Flow
Great presentations seem to have a natural cadence and flow to them that's hard to describe, but you know it when you see it. It's not forced, transitions are natural and it all just seems to come together. Getting your presentation to flow well seems like it should take the least amount of time but often ends up taking the most, it involves editing, iterating and tweaking that can take your presentation to the next level.

Substance
Of course, a presentation is nothing without great content. If your story is dull, then no matter how great of a storyteller you are, it will fall flat. All great presentations should include a level of substance that make you feel like you've invested your time well after reviewing it.

Via: Logic Emotion

Your Culture Is Your Brand

Building a brand today is very different from building a brand 50 years ago. It used to be that a few people got together in a room, decided what the brand positioning was going to be, and then spent a lot of money buying advertising telling people what their brand was. And if you were able to spend enough money, then you were able to build your brand.

It's a very different world today. With the Internet connecting everyone together, companies are becoming more and more transparent whether they like it or not. An unhappy customer or a disgruntled employee can blog about bad experience with a company, and the story can spread like wildfire by email or with tools like Twitter.

The good news is that the reverse is true as well. A great experience with a company can be read by millions of people almost instantaneously as well.

The fundamental problem is that you can't possibly anticipate every possible touchpoint that could influence the perception of your company's brand.

For example, if you happen to meet an employee of Company X at a bar, even if the employee isn't working, how you perceive your interaction with that employee will affect how you perceive Company X, and therefore Company X's brand. It can be a positive influence, or a negative influence. Every employee can affect your company's brand, not just the front line employees that are paid to talk to your customers.

At Zappos.com, we decided a long time ago that we didn't want our brand to be just about shoes, or clothing, or even online retailing. We decided that we wanted to build our brand to be about the very best customer service and the very best customer experience. We believe that customer service shouldn't be just a department, it should be the entire company.

Advertising can only get your brand so far. If you ask most people what the "brand" of the airline industry as a whole is (not any specific airline, but the entire industry), they will usually say something about bad customer service or bad customer experience. If you ask people what their perception of the US auto industry is today, chances are the responses you get won't be in line with what the automakers project in their advertising.

So what's a company to do if you can't just buy your way into building the brand you want? What's the best way to build a brand for the long term?

In a word: culture.

At Zappos, our belief is that if you get the culture right, most of the other stuff -- like great customer service, or building a great long-term brand, or passionate employees and customers -- will happen naturally on its own.

We believe that your company's culture and your company's brand are really just two sides of the same coin. The brand may lag the culture at first, but eventually it will catch up.

Your culture is your brand.

So how do you build and maintain the culture that you want?

It starts with the hiring process. At Zappos, we actually do two different sets of interviews. The hiring manager and his/her team will do the standard set of interviews looking for relevant experience, technical ability, fit within the team, etc. But then our HR department does a separate set of interviews, looking purely for culture fit. Candidates have to pass both sets of interviews in order to be hired.

We've actually said no to a lot of very talented people that we know can make an immediate impact on our top or bottom line. But because we felt they weren't culture fits, we were willing to sacrifice the short term benefits in order to protect our culture (and therefore our brand) for the long term.

After hiring, the next step to building the culture is training. Everyone that is hired into our headquarters goes through the same training that our Customer Loyalty Team (call center) reps go through, regardless of department or title. You might be an accountant, or a lawyer, or a software developer -- you go through the exact same training program.

It's a 4-week training program, in which we go over company history, the importance of customer service, the long term vision of the company, our philosophy about company culture -- and then you're actually on the phone for 2 weeks, taking calls from customers. Again, this goes back to our belief that customer service shouldn't just be a department, it should be the entire company.

At the end of the first week of training, we make an offer to the entire class. We offer everyone $2000 to quit (in addition to paying them for the time they've already worked), and it's a standing offer until the end of the fourth week of training. We want to make sure that employees are here for more than just a paycheck. We want employees that believe in our long term vision and want to be a part of our culture. As it turns out, on average, less than 1% of people end up taking the offer.

One of the great advantages of focusing on culture is when reporters come and visit our offices. Unlike most companies, we don't give reporters a small list of people they're allowed to talk to. Instead, we encourage them to wander around and talk to whoever they want. It's our way of being as transparent as possible, which is part of our culture.

We've formally defined our the Zappos culture in terms of 10 core values:

1) Deliver WOW Through Service
2) Embrace and Drive Change
3) Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
4) Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
5) Pursue Growth and Learning
6) Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
7) Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
8) Do More With Less
9) Be Passionate and Determined
10) Be Humble

Many companies have core values, but they don't really commit to them. They usually sound more like something you'd read in a press release. Maybe you learn about them on day 1 of orientation, but after that it's just a meaningless plaque on the wall of the lobby.

We believe that it's really important to come up with core values that you can commit to. And by commit, we mean that you're willing to hire and fire based on them. If you're willing to do that, then you're well on your way to building a company culture that is in line with the brand you want to build. You can let all of your employees be your brand ambassadors, not just the marketing or PR department. And they can be brand ambassadors both inside and outside the office.

At the end of the day, just remember that if you get the culture right, most of the other stuff -- including building a great brand -- will fall into place on its own.

Via: zappos blog

i 7 principi della complessità

1) Auto-organizzazione: il principio postula la comparsa spontanea di ordine in sistemi con un’organizzazione chiusa ma aperti comunque verso l’esterno.

L’esempio classico è uno stormo di uccelli che vola in formazione, sul web invece possiamo applicare il principio ai motori di ricerca “umani” come Wikipedia o Yahoo Answer dove gli utenti, all’interno di un sito chiuso, sulla base di semplici regole si danno un’organizzazione che crea qualcosa di molto articolato sebbene di fatto spontaneo.

2) Orlo del caos: tutti i sistemi viventi evolvono quando si trovano in uno stato di confine tra il caos e l’ordine, troppo caos provoca la disintegrazione, troppo ordine la fossilizzazione.

Per il web 2.0 il ragionamento non può essere diverso: se un sito o una tecnologia non consente nessuna variazione e sperimentazione agli utenti presto muore, così come un sistema senza nessun tipo di regola è destinato a disintegrarsi.

Per questo ad esempio esistono le API o i codici sorgenti dell’open source, che consentono di spingersi sempre più avanti ma che sono gestiti da gruppi più o meno ampi quando devono essere messe a disposizione di tutti in modo da applicare solo quelle novità che portano un reale beneficio e da indirizzare il lavoro verso le soluzioni davvero utili.

3) Principio ologrammatico: il tutto è in una parte, la parte è nel tutto. Ciò è quanto mai vero nei social network e nei siti che consentono di condividere informazioni o file, dove il contributo individuale (ad es. una voce in Wikipedia) acquista piena importanza solo all’interno della community e dove allo stesso tempo il sito contenitore ha senso e funziona solo grazie a tutte le piccole parti che lo compongono e che appaiono all’esterno come un insieme unico.

4) Impossibilità della previsione: sembra anche qui chiaro che in un contesto dove sono gli utenti a creare la maggior parte dei contenuti e del valore aggiunto è di fatto impossibile prevedere tutti gli usi del servizio che si va erogando.

Per fare un esempio concreto, nel progettare un social network si possono prevedere una serie di funzioni ma poi bisogna essere pronti a capire e gestire tutti gli usi imprevisti dello strumento che gli utenti adottano e che possono diventare poi la killer application dell’intero sistema, imprevedibile finché le persone non iniziano a interagire fra loro.

5) Potere delle connessioni: il tutto è maggiore della somma delle sue parti.

Nel Web 2.0 questo è particolarmente vero dato che le relazioni e gli interscambi che le persone attuano fra loro portano ad un risultato finale superiore ad un’addizione dei singoli contributi.
Una cosa vera per tutte le relazioni ma che sul web, grazie all’enorme bacino disponibile e all’aiuto della tecnologia, porta ad un’accelerazione notevole del fenomeno.

6) Causalità circolare: nei sistemi complessi la causa genera l’effetto che retroagisce di nuovo sulla causa in modo circolare.

Per quanto riguarda il web possiamo individuare questa situazione in qualsiasi nuovo servizio a carattere relazionale dove la tecnologia genera degli usi sociale del mezzo comportando delle modifiche della tecnologia che di nuovo agiscono sui modi d’uso in processo circolare.

7) Apprendimento try&learn: in un contesto complesso l’unico modo di apprendere è quello che procede per tentativi.

In un mondo dinamico come quello dell’online moderno gli stessi professionisti del settore si trovano continuamente davanti a sfide e comportamenti che impongono un modo di procedere fatto di prove, che in combinazione con gli altri principi portano alla continua e veloce evoluzione di Internet.

Via: Internet Manager Blog

L'attenzione è potere

Oggi per avere successo non basta che un oggetto funzioni: deve funzionare molto bene e guadagnarsi costantemente il nostro interesse. Come fanno Google e le celebrità.

Le nuove regole per la new economy possono essere riassunte con una formula: dove c'è attenzione c'è denaro. È l'attenzione a fare la differenza. I beni di lusso restano tali per un breve periodo di tempo. Appena vengono contraffatti sono alla portata di tutti. Le cose più prestigiose non solo attirano l'attenzione, ma la mantengono viva.

Ci sono molti modi per farlo: potete essere originali, premurosi, affascinanti, affidabili, sinceri. E mille altre cose ancora. Dovete convertire l'attenzione in denaro. Ma non è quello che fanno le celebrità o i self-promoter senza scrupoli? È vero, ma è anche quello che fanno Google, Genentech e altre aziende che forniscono prodotti molto utili. Anche i loro concorrenti lo fanno. Lo facciamo tutti.

Inventare qualcosa e renderlo disponibile con un clic è sempre più facile. Ovunque spuntano catene commerciali piene di piccoli oggetti tecnologici e internet trabocca di siti più o meno utili. In questa crescente marea di occasioni, i prodotti sono diventati un rumore di fondo a cui è impossibile sfuggire.

Immaginate un mondo con milioni di piccoli robot di forme diverse, tutti disposti ad aiutarci. Ci siamo quasi. Prestare attenzione a tutte le cose interessanti che ci sono in circolazione è impossibile. Ci sono troppi film, canzoni, oggetti e siti interessanti.

Dimenticate i prodotti di massa e gli oggetti acclamati dalla critica che per voi non significano nulla. Concentratevi sulle cose che vi colpiscono. Ce ne sono molte. Ci sono band, libri e oggetti pensati apposta per voi.

Lo standard è l'eccellenza
Tutto ciò che non funziona o non serve è automaticamente eliminato dal sistema. Ma oggi, per avere successo, non basta che un oggetto funzioni: deve essere molto utile e funzionare molto bene. Potrei quasi dire che lo standard minimo è diventato l'eccellenza.

Per durare nel tempo, un prodotto deve attirare continuamente la nostra attenzione. Se ci riesce, arrivano anche i profitti. Il denaro è un modo per manifestare la nostra attenzione. Se continuiamo a usare il prodotto significa che ci interessa molto e se lo raccomandiamo ai nostri amici vuol dire che merita davvero la nostra attenzione.

Ok, ho creato qualcosa che merita attenzione. Dove sono i miei soldi?

Sempre più spesso arrivano indirettamente. Un esempio è il contributo degli inserzionisti. Un altro modo intelligente per attirare attenzione è la gratuità.

Come dimostra l'analisi dei quattro tipi di gratuità di Chris Anderson, ovunque c'è un prodotto gratuito si chiede in cambio attenzione. Senza un ritorno di interesse verso il produttore, la gratuità non avrebbe senso.

I modi per trasformare l'attenzione in denaro non sono nuovi. Oltre al classico acquisto in contanti, ci sono le sottoscrizioni, i club, il modello freemium, il due per tre, i discount e tutti i trucchi del commercio. Il legame tra attenzione e denaro è sicuro e affidabile.

Gli inventori di Google hanno guadagnato miliardi perché hanno offerto un servizio che le persone desideravano (il minimo necessario per un prodotto), e hanno mantenuto vivo l'interesse perché il risultato è decisamente superiore alla media. All'inizio non sapevano in che modo ne avrebbero tratto dei profitti, ma sapevano che avrebbe funzionato. Facebook, Myspace, Netflix e centinaia di altre startup lavorano sullo stesso principio.

In questo momento l'attenzione dei lettori si è spostata dalla carta stampata ai blog. Sono certo che i soldi seguiranno lo stesso percorso. Riuscire ad attirare l'attenzione per un po' è un gioco da ragazzi, il problema è mantenerla viva.

La sfida per una band non è essere scoperta ma rimanere sulla cresta dell'onda. La sfida per un sito non è avere un improvviso picco di visitatori, ma fare in modo che tornino. La scommessa per chi progetta un nuovo prodotto non è trovare qualcuno che lo compri ma che lo usi tutti i giorni. Se state esplorando nuove idee in campi considerati marginali, fidatevi: l'attenzione genera denaro.

Via: internazional.it

I nostri fratelli artificiali

Kevin Kelly immagina un mondo modellato sulle ossessioni di Philip Dick. Tra robot, cloni, specie ibride e intelligenze artificiali, gli esseri umani dovranno riflettere sulla loro identità.

Uno dei dibattiti principali di questo secolo riguarderà la ricerca di una nostra identità collettiva. L'obiettivo è capire chi siamo: cosa significa essere umani? Esistono vari tipi di umani? E cos'è esattamente un umano?

Ogni giorno la scienza scopre qualcosa di nuovo che mette in dubbio la nostra identità: terapie a base di cellule staminali, sequenze genetiche, intelligenze artificiali, robot autonomi, nuovi cloni animali, transpecie ibride, impianti neurali, droghe che potenziano la memoria, protesi artificiali e reti sociali.

Ognuno di questi elementi rende più vago il confine tra le persone: in Second life o nelle chat su internet possiamo scegliere il nostro genere, la nostra genetica e perfino la nostra specie. Con la tecnologia possiamo modificare radicalmente il nostro corpo.

Al tempo stesso ci troviamo di fronte a delle iper-realtà: simulazioni così complesse da sembrare reali; falsi talmente perfetti da essere venduti come oggetti straordinari e così seducenti da stimolare la creazione di altri falsi (ci sarà pur qualcosa da contraffare in un falso!). E inoltre immagini ritoccate con Photoshop così surreali da dar vita a un nuovo tipo di realismo, materiali sintetici più stimolanti di quelli naturali e riproduzioni migliori degli originali.

In fondo a chi importa cos'è vero e cos'è finto? Queste iper-realtà ci mettono di fronte a una serie di domande: un attacco virtuale è un vero attacco? Quanto della nostra vita reale è pura attività mentale o solo un'allucinazione collettiva? Dove finisce lo spazio della nostra mente e comincia l'esterno? E se tutto quello che percepiamo al di fuori di noi non fosse altro che la nostra stessa mente? Più comunichiamo attraverso la tecnologia e più diventa importante domandarsi cos'è reale.

Matrix sul tg delle undici
Mi hanno sempre affascinato le storie al limite della follia dello scrittore Philip K. Dick. I suoi libri trattano gli stessi argomenti che la nostra cultura affronterà per i prossimi cent'anni. In un discorso strano e affascinante del 1978, Dick raccontava: "In particolare mi interessano due domande: cos'è la realtà? E cosa ci rende umani? Ho cercato di analizzare questi temi per ventisette anni, attraverso i miei racconti e romanzi. Cosa siamo? Cos'è che ci circonda, ciò che chiamiamo il non-io o mondo empirico, fenomenico?".

Queste domande si stanno spostando progressivamente dai confini della fantascienza al centro della nostra cultura. Il problema dell'identità diventerà la notizia di apertura di Usa Today e della Cnn e la corte suprema dovrà esprimersi a riguardo. Discuteremo di questi argomenti a cena con i nostri amici.

Tra pochi decenni, quando la realtà immaginata da Dick sarà qualcosa di concreto, il suo dilemma diventerà il nostro: avremo a che fare con intelligenze artificiali più avanzate, bambini geneticamente modificati diventati adulti, menti potenziate da sostanze artificiali, realtà virtuali ormai consuete e coscienze collettive costantemente attive. Immaginate Matrix, ma sul tg delle undici. Senatori, uomini d'affari e repubblicani convinti diranno: "Ehi, e se la realtà appartenesse davvero a un altro livello? Se essere un umano fosse solo una scelta?".

Avremo grandi incertezze sull'identità della nostra specie e sulla natura di quello che consideriamo reale. Questa profonda ansietà darà vita a molti culti bizzarri, e nasceranno psicosi e guerre: la lotta all'aborto e alla schiavitù sono solo due esempi di gravi conflitti generati dall'incertezza nella definizione di ciò che è umano. Ci troveremo tutti di fronte a una serie di dubbi irrisolti.

Un robot può essere un figlio di Dio? La schiavitù delle macchine intelligenti è accettabile? Dovremmo estendere il senso di appartenenza, oltre agli animali e agli esseri viventi, anche alle cose artificiali? Se qualcosa provoca dolore, è davvero reale?

Sono domande a cui è difficile dare una risposta e che ci paralizzano con il loro peso insopportabile. Immaginate il nostro mondo nelle mani delle ossessioni di Dick. Una specie intera afflitta da una crisi di identità. Non manca molto.

Via: internazionale.it

Il noleggio batte la proprietà

Possedere le cose non ha più senso, scrive Kevin Kelly. Perché comprare qualcosa se posso avere gli stessi vantaggi con l'affitto e la condivisione?

Uso strade di cui non sono proprietario. Ho accesso al 99 per cento delle strade e delle infrastrutture del mondo, tranne qualche eccezione, perché sono pubbliche. Chiunque le può usare perché c'è qualcuno che paga le tasse.

Le strade del mondo sono a tutti gli effetti al mio servizio come se ne fossi il proprietario. Anzi, meglio: non devo preoccuparmi della loro manutenzione. Anche internet è un bene comune. Posso usarlo in qualunque momento, con estrema facilità.

Probabilmente molto presto non saremo più proprietari di dischi, libri o film. Avremo invece accesso a tutta la musica, a tutti i libri e a tutti i film pagando una tassa o un abbonamento. Non dovremo comprarli, ma potremo leggerli o ascoltarli quando vogliamo, scaricandoli dalla rete.

Per molte persone questo tipo di accesso immediato e universale è meglio della proprietà: nessun problema di accumulo, smistamento, archivio, pulizia. I prodotti digitali sono beni condivisibili e senza padrone. Anzi, in un mondo di bit la proprietà stessa diventa uno sforzo collettivo: più che la proprietà conteranno l'uso e il controllo.

Non si può possedere un'idea come se fosse un lingotto d'oro: un'idea, infatti, non vale nulla se non è condivisa. Più è al servizio di tutti, più acquista valore. Ma se non ha un proprietario, chi ne ricava qualcosa?

Nel nuovo sistema sociale gli utenti dovranno assumersi molti dei compiti che un tempo spettavano ai proprietari. E dunque, in un certo modo, l'uso diventerà proprietà.

Oggetti gratuiti
Il nostro senso della proprietà è curioso. Se compriamo un libro in pdf, pensiamo che quel libro ci appartenga. Se invece lo scarichiamo gratuitamente non abbiamo l'impressione che sia nostro.

Possedere una copia sembra meno importante che comprarla, per questo le cose gratuite non ci fanno sentire veramente proprietari. I regali invece, che per chi li riceve sono gratuiti, aumentano il nostro senso della proprietà perché li valutiamo in base al "costo di sostituzione", cioè a quanto ci costerebbe comprarli.

Se un prodotto ha un valore di mercato pari a zero non abbiamo l'impressione che ci appartenga. Quindi, più l'economia gravita intorno al concetto di gratuità, meno forte è la percezione del possesso.

Condividere è un po' come affittare. Potremmo dire che la sharing economy, l'economia della condivisione che sta emergendo dai social media, è un'economia dell'affitto. Per guardare un film alla pay tv in realtà dobbiamo noleggiarlo.

Non ne diventiamo proprietari ma paghiamo per prenderlo in prestito. Però non ci sembra un affitto perché non c'è uno scambio tangibile di beni come succede con l'affitto di un dvd. Ma quando la nostra videoteca ci farà scaricare i film in formato digitale sarà pur sempre un affitto.

Con i prodotti digitali non diciamo "affitto" perché associamo questa parola agli oggetti e non ai servizi. Affittiamo uno smoking, non un servizio internet. Ma affittare significa condividere il costo della proprietà con un gruppo. La proprietà legale è della società che offre qualcosa a noleggio, ma la proprietà effettiva (la proprietà d'uso) è nelle mani del gruppo che paga per usare un bene o un servizio.

In un contratto di affitto, l'affittuario gode di molti dei vantaggi della proprietà, ma senza bisogno di un capitale iniziale e senza spese di manutenzione.

Naturalmente gli affittuari hanno anche degli svantaggi: non hanno tutti i benefici della proprietà, come il diritto di modifica, l'accesso a lungo termine o la possibilità di ricavare un profitto in denaro.

Proprietà e affitto sono nati praticamente insieme, e oggi si può affittare quasi tutto: l'affitto delle borse da donna, per esempio, negli Stati Uniti rappresenta un mercato da nove miliardi di dollari.

La borsa di uno stilista famoso può costare anche 500 dollari, ma si può noleggiare per 30 o 60 dollari a settimana. La proprietà condivisa funziona in particolare quando l'uso è a breve termine. E per molti degli oggetti che useremo in futuro, il breve termine sarà la norma.

Beni di lusso
Dal momento che si progettano e si fabbricano nuovi oggetti, ma le ore a disposizione per usarli sono le stesse, abbiamo sempre meno tempo da dedicare a ogni singola cosa. In altre parole, in futuro i beni e i servizi ci serviranno per poco tempo e saranno sempre più candidati al noleggio e alla condivisione.

Quando hai una borsa alla moda potresti avere bisogno di nuove scarpe, gioielli e sciarpe, che a loro volta si possono noleggiare. È un fenomeno che non riguarda più solo la moda femminile. Il mercato per il noleggio di beni di lusso è in crescita. Oggi possiamo avere orologi costosi, barche, porcellane pregiate e opere d'arte per un periodo limitato, prendendole in affitto.

Anche gli oggetti più economici hanno una lunga storia di noleggio: mobili, lettini per bimbi, sedie e tavoli pieghevoli, arnesi da costruzione, tende per ricevimenti, strumenti per il fai da te e apparecchiature sanitarie possono essere prese in prestito in dodicimila società di noleggio solo negli Stati Uniti.

Leasing, licensing, abbonamenti sono tutti tipi di proprietà condivisa. In generale, affittiamo per un breve periodo e facciamo un leasing per un periodo più lungo: noleggiamo un'automobile per una settimana e la prendiamo in leasing per due anni.

Il leasing è un affitto con diritto di riscatto: pagando regolarmente una certa somma, diventiamo proprietari una volta raggiunta la cifra che corrisponde al prezzo d'acquisto. Le famiglie a basso reddito spesso ricorrono all'affitto con diritto di riscatto (a tassi di interesse altissimi) di mobili e attrezzature che altrimenti non potrebbero permettersi.

Tecnicamente un mutuo ipotecario è un tipo di contratto di affitto con diritto di riscatto in cui la proprietà è trasferita all'affittuario quando comincia a pagare le rate. La tendenza più recente della proprietà condivisa di beni materiali è la proprietà frazionata. È simile alla multiproprietà, ma con privilegi e responsabilità tipici della proprietà unica.

Gli accordi più comuni di proprietà frazionata possono concedere a un comproprietario un certo numero di ore di volo su un jet privato, la possibilità di guidare un'automobile da corsa per cinquemila chilometri all'anno o quella di trascorrere un numero limitato di giorni in una villa. In questo modo è anche possibile condividere la proprietà di una squadra di calcio, di un cavallo da corsa o di una vigna.

Un sito web creato per promuovere la proprietà frazionata dei beni di lusso la descrive così: "È il modo ideale per realizzare il massimo guadagno dal vostro investimento, acquistando solo le quote o il tempo di cui avete bisogno. Tutti gli altri aspetti, sia i vantaggi sia i costi, sono distribuiti tra un numero limitato di soci".

Seminterrato virtuale
Il difetto del noleggio dei beni materiali è che si tratta di un gioco a somma zero: solo uno vince. Se prendo in affitto la tua barca non può farlo nessun altro. Se ti affitto una borsa, non posso affittare la stessa borsa a qualcun altro.

Per rimediare a questo difetto bisognerebbe comprare più barche e più borse, ma i beni immateriali e i servizi funzionano in modo diverso: puoi affittare lo stesso film a tutti. La curva della condivisione dei beni immateriali è sempre in crescita.
La possibilità di condividere qualcosa su larga scala senza diminuire la soddisfazione del singolo utente fa crollare il costo dell'uso. All'improvviso la proprietà perde importanza.

Perché possedere qualcosa quando si ottiene lo stesso vantaggio dall'affitto, dal leasing, dalle licenze d'uso e dalla condivisione? E, cosa ancora più importante, perché farsi carico di un bene se potete accedervi in modo immediato, continuo e durevole? Se viveste nel più grande noleggio del mondo, a cosa servirebbe essere proprietari di qualcosa?

Potendo prendere in prestito tutto, aumentano i vantaggi e diminuiscono i problemi. Se ci fosse un noleggio magico, dove tutta la merce fosse immagazzinata in un seminterrato virtuale, basterebbe nominare un articolo per farlo apparire immediatamente.

Modifica e controllo
Internet è questo noleggio magico. Il suo seminterrato virtuale è infinito. Esistono sempre meno ragioni per essere proprietari di qualcosa. Attraverso l'accesso illimitato chiunque può procurarsi un bene o un servizio rapidamente, come se lo possedesse.

La qualità delle cose è identica a quella di cui si potrebbe essere proprietari, e a volte si può ottenere quello che ci serve più velocemente. L'accesso è talmente superiore alla proprietà o al possesso che sarà il traino dell'economia immateriale.

L'ostacolo principale alla trasformazione della proprietà in accesso illimitato è la questione della modifica e del controllo. Nei sistemi tradizionali solo i proprietari hanno il diritto di modificare o controllare le cose di loro proprietà. Il diritto di modifica non viene ceduto con il noleggio, il leasing o con le licenze d'uso. Invece questi diritti sono trasferiti con le licenze open source, che per questo motivo oggi sono sempre più diffuse.

La possibilità e il diritto di perfezionare, personalizzare e tenere per sé ciò che è condiviso sarà un elemento fondamentale nella crescita dell'accesso illimitato. Ma dal momento che la possibilità di modificare è sempre più ridotta nella proprietà tradizionale (pensate a quelle garanzie vincolanti), la proprietà perde valore.
La tendenza è evidente: l'accesso sbaraglia il possesso. L'accesso è meglio della proprietà.

Via: internazionale.it