This week in links - week 45, 2008

"Transparency 2.0" by Daniel Tunkelang:

Our notions of privacy and secrecy are changing as we no longer have privacy through difficulty. Many people–as well as governments and institutions–are reacting with alarm, trying to find ways to safeguard individual or corporate confidentiality in an age of hypercommunication. Perhaps we would do better to accept that privacy as we used to know it is lost, and come up with legal and social norms that reflect the world we live in today.

"Process is an embedded reaction to prior stupidity" by Clay Shirky:

Process is an essential part of group work, and without it, groups would suffer paralysis. However, though I overstated the case, I didn't misstate it, and I stand by the core observation: Process is an embedded reaction to prior stupidity.

Process is the feature creep of organizations. In the same way software has to have features, groups have to have process. But like software, process creep in groups is insidious -- each additional check in or form seems to cost little and add much, but over time, the cumulative overhead of process can hamstring an organization, almost without their noticing.

...Open Source works though it has less process than commercial firms. This is not to say that there is not a process to Open Source efforts, but rather that it is considerably simpler than the process adopted by Serious Commercial Software Firms®, who for years misunderstood Open Source, because they assumed no one could build software with that little process.

"Digital boom is about to hit the workplace" by Don Tapscott:

If Barack Obama is elected U.S. president tomorrow, it will be a spectacular display of power by a new generation of young Americans. They overwhelmingly support Mr. Obama, of course, but their clout is far greater than the number of their votes. Their real power lies in the way they use digital tools that give them unprecedented abilities to spread information, work together and organize.

Young Americans have used these tools to rewrite the political playbook in the campaign to elect the first African-American president. Just wait until they start using them to shake up the world of work.

Their Web, the New Web, is not just for surfing or hunting for information. It's not a passive medium. The New Web enables people to create their own content, collaborate with others and build communities. It has become a tool for ordinary people to organize themselves, instead of waiting for orders from the authorities.

The Net Generation are starting to use these remarkable digital tools to transform every institution of modern life - as this year's presidential race has shown in such a spectacular fashion.

(from information aesthetics)

Congratulations to all U.S. (and world) citizens for having elected Barack Obama as president of the U.S.!