Dvora Yanow recently quoted a study from the 1970s according to which only 7% of face-to-face communication is verbal (some claim the percentage is around 10). In online interaction, such as the sending and receiveing of social network-service invitations, the ‘rich’ embodied expressions and gestures have to be inferred from ‘poor’ codified information (e.g. tickboxes and a few lines of text explanation). The forced codification that such invitations require has annoyed even the most prolific of the online textual expressionists.

Social sofware developers appear to be grappling with the broad issue of codifying embodied knowledge into computer-readable ‘information’ on many fronts (annotating photos, simplifying moblogging, FOAF… the list goes on). Much of this very interesting work is characterised by a strong epistemological buy-in to the cybernetic worldview formalized by Shannon and Wiener, according to which the world is made of definite entities and ‘information’ can be abstracted from its material embodiment.

A set of critical analyses of this worldview and its practices also exists. Its range includes interesting work by Brian Bloomfield on the assumptions of inscriptions like requirements analyses, Lucy Suchman on situatedness, Geoff Bowker on the cybernetic concept of information, and Leigh Star on classification, only to name a few. Chuck and Candy Goodwin’s work at UCLA is particularly striking in its visuality. In Chuck’s words, meaning is enacted by way of ‘an ecology of sign systems that includes not only talk, but also a range of different kinds of displays made by the body, and structure in the environment.‘

A welcome stab at the lacklustre ROI vs. Strategic Fit dichotomy that motivates many “theories” of corporate venturing: “The Future of Corporate Venturing” by Andrew Campbell et al. in the recent MIT Sloan Management Review. They distinguish four venturing strategies: ecosystem venturing, innovation venturing, harvest venturing and private-equity venturing. Sine qua non, venturing attempts to grow a new billion-dollar leg outside the core business always crash in flames because they lead to endless strategy-changing (i.e. lack of strategy). Instead, companies should ascetically practice the venturing strategy that leverages their market position and assets: thy perseverance shall be rewarded…

For a few years now, socially-minded tinkerers have been building various systems for locating friends in bars. The most popular approach to solving this problem technically has been to dump the required computation about where you are to the user (see Imahima and Dodgeball, for instance). The problem is that to shout “Here I am!” users have to learn to input the commands, which is a bit clumsy even on i-mode phones. Another approach has been to use GPS or cellular positioning, but even where the technology is available, it’s not precise enough. A third way is the check-in/check-out approach, where some piece of technology (usually a low-cost card-swiper, infrared beacon, or RFID reader) is installed in the physical setting and users carry some sort of ID tags. There the problem is the cost and scalability. When building the Aula space for instance, we wanted for there to be a graceful way to let other members know when you’re there. After months of negotiations with the building management, wiring the door locks, and scavenging hardware, we managed to get the RFID-based Hunaja system working. But transferring the system to other premises was too costly, and so we had to shut Hunaja down when Aula left that space. The fourth and most recent solution is to do the tracking with WiFi or Bluetooth, although users then need an expensive terminal. Even if no one has quite figured it out yet, there might be a niche for a business model here, because (some) proprietors are willing to pay to attract a community of regulars, and (some) people will pay to publish their whereabouts to their small worlds when they’re out in town. (Although for sure it does have its problems, like stalking.)

Cory Doctorow writes: “The last twenty years were about technology. The next twenty years are about policy.” I’m reading Carlota Perez’s “Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital,” where she argues that every 50 years or so capitalism undergoes technological revolutions (sort of like the Kondratiev long waves) that go: technological revolution—financial bubble—collapse—golden age—political unrest. ICT:s were the 5th technological revolution, and if Perez is right we should now be in an important turning point of “institutional adjustment”. If the adjustment is successful, Perez says it will lead to a golden age period of full employment, comfortable profits and all the good stuff, although inevitably people’s expectations will grow too high and lead to frustration and protests. Although the emphasis is on the financial side, her analysis is rich and interesting.

Well, I’m back in Lancaster after a really strange christmas vacation in Cuba, which felt like a leftover chunk of soviet russia lost in the Caribbean. “Matkailu avartaa”—traveling opens the mind—goes a Finnish saying. Not only to the faraway things, but also to those subtle discrepancies in one’s home environment that normally go unnoticed. Like how annoying it is to search for a decent place in Helsinki to log on and do email. Just as annoying as in Havana, not to mention Lancaster where the café by the castle just shut. The spots keep changing. How to keep track?