everything is miscellaneous weinberger

8/4/2019 Everything is Miscellaneous Weinberger

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About• Co-author of the best-seller The Cluetrain Manifesto , The author of the critically-

acclaimed Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory of the Web .• He has a fellowship at Harvard Law's Berkman Center for the Internet & Society• Has been published in a wide variety of journals, including Wired, Harvard Business

Review, The New York Times, Smithsonian, The Guardian...even TV Guide.• Was Senior Internet Advisor to the Howard Dean campaign• Called a "marketing guru" by the Wall Street Journal• Is a strategic marketing consultant to big name companies, as well as to small,

innovative ones.• Wrote gags for Woody Allen for seven years• Has a Ph.D. in philosophy and was a college professor for 6 years• Has been a frequent commentator on National Public Radio's All Things Considered• Writes a column for Knowledge Management World and Il Sole 24 ore• Is a well-known blogger

• Has been a dot-com entrepreneur and serves on the advisory boards of some well-known and some not-yet-known tech companies• Is frequently cited by national and international news media• Lives in Boston



Hello

“Hello! Thanks for discussingmy book. I'm eager to seewhat you make

of it, especially since it isfairly open-ended. (My [email protected] . Don't

hesitate!)Best,

David W.”

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]



Key messages

• The laws around things change when they become

digital• Filter on the way out, not the way in• Categorisation is doomed• Bottom up is the only way to cope



Information & the physical

“In a physical store, ease of access to information

can be measured with a pedometer”

Cf.



Things we take for granted

• In physical space, some things are nearer than others

• Physical objects can only be in one place at one time• Physical space is shared• Human physical abilities are limited• Organisation needs to be orderly and neat



The music industry analogy



The music industry analogy

"For decades we've been buying albums. We thought it was forartistic reasons, but it was really because the economics of the physical world required it: Bundling songs into long-playing albums lowered the production, marketing, anddistribution costs ... As soon as music went digital, welearned that the natural unit of music is the track.

What does the record company do?• Market• Find/Filter • Produce physical product• Handle logistics required for physical product



And when it goes digital?

Users handle logisticsUsers shareArtists produce cheaplyArtists sell directlySocial services provide filter

function

Conc: why do we need arecord industry?



The importance of categories

In the physical world categories matter

“We invest so much time in making sure our world isn’t miscellaneous in part because disorder is inefficient”

“We’ve been raised as experts at keeping our physical environment well ordered, but our homespun ways of

maintaining order are going to break” Scale changes thingsConclusion: “The solution to the overabundance of

information is more information”



Things in multiple places

1 st gen – we mapped physical,we put files in folders

2 nd gen – we use multiple

terms to describe files andsearch

The same thing can be inseveral places at once

Libraries – books can only bein one category, becausethey’re physical



The order of order

1 st order – need to organise theobjects themselves

2 nd order – physical objects

separate info from actual object,e.g. catalog3 rd order – digital, content and its

info“We have entire industries built on the

fact that the paper order severelylimits how things can be organised.Museums, educational curricula,newspapers, the travel industry,and television schedules are allbased on the assumption that in the

2nd

order world we need experts togo through information, ideas, and



Amazon vs. Libraries

The absurdity of the Deweysystem

There is no perfectclassification

Physical limitationsHave to learn a system

A whole range of metrics andpaths

There is your classification

No limitationsThe system learns about you



New classification

“Classification is a powerstruggle – it is political –because the first two

orders of order require thatthere be a winner”

Tagging – use any terms thatare useful to you

Folksonomies – bottom uptaxonomy

Data mining – we findrelationships between item



Four new strategies

Filter on the way out, not the way in

Put each leaf on as many branches as possibleEverything is metadata and everything can be a

label

Give up control



Discussion

Michael Wesch video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v

=-4CV05HyAbM

Do you agree with Weinberger’s analysis?What are the important messages?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4CV05HyAbM







For education

Wikipedia vs Britannica

Digg vs NewspapersStumbleupon vs Journals

Is it an either/or?



Granularity

Size of coursesSize of publications



Socially constructed knowledge

“Our children are doing their homework socially

even though they’re graded and tested as if they’re doing their work in isolation booths”AssessmentWhat are we teaching?



Messiness

Education is about order,

filtering stuff outBut in the 3 rd order the moreyou add the greater thevalue, because you can’t

predict useWhat sort of content do weproduce, promote, reward



Authority

The removal of the filter

Democratisation of authorityCan the new metrics be cheated?Are they more reliable than the old ones?



A small example

Weinberger, D. (2007) Everything ismiscellaneous: The power of the new digital disorder. Times books.

““Classification is a power struggle – it ispolitical – because the first two ordersof order require that there be awinner”

ISBN-13 9780805080438

http://fr.bookbutler.com/do/bookSearch?searchFor=9780805080438&searchBy=isbn&searchIn=uk&sortBy=salesrank&amountIn=gbp&shipTo=gb&zip=&showMore=true&pageNr=1

http://fr.bookbutler.com/do/bookSearch?searchFor=9780805080438&searchBy=isbn&searchIn=uk&sortBy=salesrank&amountIn=gbp&shipTo=gb&zip=&showMore=true&pageNr=1



Discussion

What do the four strategies mean for education:

Filter on the way out, not the way inPut each leaf on as many branches as possibleEverything is metadata and everything can be a

labelGive up control



ActivityWrite 3 words that describe the book

Social construction via Twitter Let’s cloud tag it! http://tagcrowd.com/

http://tagcrowd.com/




everything is miscellaneous weinberger

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