*LIVE* Clay Pushing Us Forward

Clay Shirky's leading example of unhappy British students coming together illustrated the power of organizing the pissed off. I thought he could organize with Barbara Ehrenreich, who just wrote a book "Bright Sided" about how forced optimism  is not healthy for our democracy. If she can get people to embrace their discontent and Shirky can help us organize, then there is true cause for optimism.

Some Key Ideas:

• People coming together has never been easier
• 2 way group communication is revolutionary as it is distinct to the Internet age
• The importance of the long tail when costs of entry are low to non-existent
• People who care about their information create information defense systems (I particularly like this one -- I think of my protective avatar as a ninja.)
• That you can measure your success in the 2.0 world by how much you are able to learn from others and shape your work accordingly.

Problematic Points:
Clay mentioned that, all else being equal, a government serves a more organized body rather than a disorganized mass. The problem is, all else is never equal, and that needs to be taken into account.

He also mentioned that we are in an age of unparalleled expressivity. which I think is only half true. Yes we can express ourselves digitally, but at the cost of human-to-human expressivity to some degree (the growing throngs of the socially inept).  The web is great for organizing people who are already sold on the cause, but in order to really change minds and be profoundly persuasive, face time is still queen.

--Amy Wolf, The New York Community Trust