manolotalks

Trust as a success factor for the social web

Two weeks ago on the winquadrat 2008 conference in Austria we discussed in the Workshop "the future of information and communication technology especially the consequences of the continuous increasing technologization of our daily life. Today I subscribe to Friendfeed, a social web aggregator. So I asked myself why did I subscribed to that and at the same time I unsubscribed my membership in Paxo and deleted my profile there. There is not any physical reason neither I was unsatisfied with the service of Plaxo, I used it now for the last 5 years. So why did I subscribe to friendfeed instead using the new plaxo features, which allow you to share your feeds and aggregate them in one single interface and even connect them with your profile.
The reason for me is trust. Trust in the handling and the security of my provided data and simplicity. Friendfeed is a startup and Plaxo is a grown company, normally you would expect the grown company be more trustworth, but Plaxo was recently bought by Comcast and for me as a scared European with an reluctance against big American Enterprises having a lot of my personal data stored made me leave.
There is a bit truth in it, but the size was not the reason more the merger and my own reception of Comcast and Plaxo.
On the opposite Friendfeed is relatively new in the market for social web and it is does not have stored my work or private contact information, so first it has less relevant data and it only aggregates my social web data and information. Consequently only content created by myself, of course, it is still possible to creat a relatively complete profile of my likes and dislikes, my interests and more, but somehow I feel to have more control.
Second, Friendfeed has a few social web formentors, who I personally trust or believe in. For example Loic Le Meur, Robert Scoble or my best friend Adrien.
On the other hand the trust seems to be in the portal itself and the way it is communicated. Of course, there is a commercial intention and it is obvious that the founders need to pay salaries and want to earn money with it, but it creates the first hand image of "connecting people and facilitating the socializing in the internet".
Therefore in my eyes, it is not only the critical mass as David Jacobs was stating in the Social Media Morning. It is about trust in the system and the people behind it and the ones using it. But trust is the product or formentators and credible and trustworth creators and users.
Social Web and the use of it are more and more depending on the trust of users with regards to safety and use of their data. You need the critical mass to survive, but if the users loose the trust in the company or the tool, social web is not working. And this is the greatest advantage of the growing number of social web application, we the user have the choice. Maybe we are really on the way to democratizing the internet.

Geistiges Eigentum im Cyberspace

Seit einiger Zeit gibt es in Deutschland eine intensive Diskussion über Geistiges Eigentum, Urheberrecht und das Internet (PRBlogger, Heise.de und Thomas Hoeren auf beck-blog). Auslöser war ein offener Brief (hier hinterlegt bei Heise.de) einiger Künstler und Medienschaffende an die Bundesregierung, in dem die Unterzeichner/innen sich über die mangelnden Schutz durch Politik und Justiz beklagen und vor allem die Anbieter von Telekommunikationsdiensten, China im allgemeinen für illegale Downloads und unrechtmäßige Angebote verantwortlich machen.
Dieses Beklagen ist nichts neues, aber es ist spannend zu sehen, dass sich nun die KünstlerInnen dazu verwenden lassen und nicht ein einziges Mal im Rahmen dieses offenen Betriebs ein großes Unternehmen der Kreativindustrie sich beklagt. Die großen Einnahmenausfälle geschehen nämlich auf Unternehmensseite und nicht auf Künstlerseite. Eine andere Argumentation, die aufgegriffen wird und der mich im folgenden annehmen werde, ist das Argument, dass geistiges Eigentum in Anlehnung an Mark Getty das Öl des 21. Jahrhunderts ist, denn die Kreativindustrie sei der Motor für Wachstum und Wohlstand in der Zukunft.
Dieses Argument klingt interessant, aber eines sollte festgestellt werden, diese Aussage gilt nicht für das 21. Jahrhundert, sie ist bereits für das 1450 relevant, als der Buchdruck erfunden wurde.
Geistiges Eigentum per se ist kein Motor für Wohlstand und Wachstum, sondern die ständige Erfindung neuer Technologien, kreativer Werke etc. Diese Rekombination neuer Technologien ist Innovation und Weiterentwicklung, sie beruht aber auf der Verwendung bestehender Erkenntnisse und Erfindungen. Das heißt, geistiges Eigentum muss die Umdeutung, die Aneignung einer bestehenden Kreation ermöglichen und gleichzeitig den oder die Urheber der Ausgangswerke schützen. Hierin liegt eine der großen Herausforderungen des Urheberrechts. Die gewählte Argumentation in dem offenen Brief zielt aber nur auf den monetären Aspekt der Verwertung, das heißt es geht, den Künstlern und vor allem den hinter Ihnen stehenden Unternehmen nur ums Geld, nicht um die soziale oder gesellschaftliche Verantwortung durch die Weiterentwicklung bestehender Artefakte und Werke.
Im Rahmen einer Seminararbeit im Bereich der Rechtsethnologie habe ich mit den kulturellen Aspekten Geistigen Eigentums vor allem im Bereich des Cyberspace und der Anwendung auf indigene Gruppen beschäftigt. Ich habe mich vor allem auf das Lizenzmodell des Creative Commons fokussiert.
Das Internet stellt nicht nur einen Raum für das Anbieten von Dienstleistungen, sondern hat sich zu einem Raum gewandelt, in dem große Mengen von Wissen und Information verfügbar sind. Diese Freiheit der Verbreitung und Benutzung (Wilson 2002) von Wissen stellt die klassische Lehre des Urheberrechts für neue Herausforderungen...
Die Frage nach dem Urheberrecht im Cyberspace ist keine rein-juristische oder technologische (Kelty 2004), es stehen auch Aspekte der Aneignung und des Umgangs mit Wissen und Informationen im Vordergrund. Es geht um die Frage nach der Lebensweise des 21. Jahrhunderts, diese äußert sich im Umgang mit Wissen und Informationen im Cyberspace. Kelty fordert ein neues Set von Verfahren für Urheberschaft, Eigentümerschaft, Ausdruck, Spreche, Recht, Politik und Technologie (Kelty 2004), das seiner Meinung nach mit dem Konzept der freien und quelloffenen Software zum ersten Mal geschaffen worden ist.
Ich werde in Kürze eine kondensierte Version dieser Arbeit (aktuell 26 Seiten) hier veröffentlichen. Falls jemand die ganze Arbeit lesen möchte, meldet Euch bei mir per E-Mail.

Using blogs in education

A comment/answer to the question from James from edublogs.org regarding using blogs in education. We are currently not using the edublog platform, but i definitely consider it now.
Because i could not comment on edublogs website, i write down my requirements and experience after the first weeks here:
We are using a blog (URL: econlaw.wordpress.com) this semester for the first time to move participation and discussion on a different level. First because we would like to show new media tools to the students, second to enable the students of a proper internet usage for their seminars and papers.
The students chose in the first session one topic of interest from a list of several proposals. Now up to three students are collaborating on one topic and cover certain aspects of international economic law. We are using the categories to be able to sort the articles and we have one single blog with several authors. We did not want to use several blogs, like one per students to facilitate the aggregation of information. The students are encouraged to cover all aspects of each topic, they should start with a general introduction and think about key questions they want the other students to answer. The weekly offline/presence session is used for discussing certain aspects of each topic, review the blog entries and deepen the discussion.
The core requirement for a blog used in a session should the ability to see all articles and comments made by one participant, the time and the  frequency of blog entries to be able to do a proper grading.
The most striking issue for me (as a social web addict) was to see, that the students are not aware of new media and especially the interesting aspects of blogging. Therefore some kind of an online tutorial would be of amazing help (including an explanation of really basic stuff like RSS etc.).

Using online communication tools at university

Since last week we are using in one course a blog for online collaboration among the students. The course is about International Economic Law and is taught at the Institute for Law as a minor subject.
We are asking the students to be responsible for one topic and post at least one or two post a week and not only write about the subject, but also describe the process of getting into the topic, the used sources and so on. They could choose the topic themself and the portfolio is covering a very large portion of aspects of international economic law from the current banking crisis and the implications of a globalized financial sector on international law systems to the issues of extraterritorial jurisdiction in international law. Further important aspects will be international investment dispute settlements, foreign investments and human rights with regards to economic questions and issues.
I am grateful to the head of the institute for letting me introduce new technologies and new ways of communication in university life, because as far as we can estimate, this is not common for courses at the University of Munich. It is interesting to see the reactions from the students. All are between 22-26 years. Some are very open and want to try it out, even if they have very limited knowledge about blogging or other online collaboration tools, others are geeks, but even some are totally skeptic towards the new media and are hesitating the usefulness or the importance of such new communication tools, which was a surprise for me, because I thought everyone knows what a blog is and what you can use it for, especially in the below 30 generation. But now I know, even this is not a implicitness.

Therefore I will use this blog to write about my experiences, but also to collect information about how to start a blog as part of a university course/seminar and to gather experiences. The best would be to create best practices about new media in university courses.

So let me know your experiences, comments and suggestions.

Blogs are communication - the German Web2.0 documentary

Through Werbeblogger.de (link) my attention was directed to the following documentary (German only) about the development of Web2.0 in Germany.
This movie gives an interesting insight on how a community developed over time and what the key actors think about it.
In my opinion this documentary is far away from drawing a pink, everything is easy world, it focus on critical and important aspects regarding startups.
Interesting is the opinion of Oliver Gassner (link) that blogs are a form of communication and that the term journalist derives from the term journal and consequently every blogger can be seen as a journalist and every weblog is some kind of a journal, because the original meaning of journal is diary.

Link: sevenload.com

The movie can also be watched at sevenload.de (link)

Freedom and Right to vote

It is sunday and today are the elections for the Lord Major, the City Council and area committees in Munich.
We are called upon to vote for each of them.
I executed my right to vote just a few minutes ago. I was surprised by the amount of people approaching the polling stations.

On the way to the building I remembered an interview I recently read in the German News paper DIE ZEIT (Feb. 28, 2008, No. 10, page 6) with Harald Schmidt, the German late night talker, the only real one we have.
There are two sentence, which I really think deserve credit.
The first one is about one reason why he is going to vote: throughout the world people shoulder a lot to execute their right to vote including prison, torture and even death, so we (here in the western/European countries should value this and feel obliged to go and vote.
And the second sentence is: Voting because of respect for democracy.

Personally I think, that people here in Germany do not value enough democracy and the freedom to choose.
Voting is the basic criteria for Democracy.
We are not going to be killed, surveillanced or threatened when we go to the polling stations or cast our votes.
We should value this more.

Maybe you remember this at the next time you vote.

It seems like a witch hunt - defraudation of tax is a crime

This morning the hot topic of all newspapers (Sueddeutsche.de, Faz.net)was the new heavy scandal of tax defraudation in Germany. And the picture in most of the newspapers showed the police and the prosecutor convoying the CEO of the Deutsche Post, Dr. Klaus Zumwinkel out of his house.
The clamour was huge and everyone had to say something about it, our chancellor was really sad and felt sorry and she officially expressed her feelings of sorrow.

What happened? Someone died? A catastrophy somewhere in the world hit people really bad and killed thousands of people... or was someone hijacked?

No, just the CEO of the Deutsche Post is suspected to have committed tax evasion. Around one million, which is in my eyes nothing serious, if someone earns more than that within one year and simpy think of the bonus for the CEO of Goldman Sachs and the current cumulative impositions of the Bavarian federal state bank, which are at the moment around 1.9 Billion and now is really complaining, this was just a one day news.
1 Million in comparison to 1.9 Billion? Where is the relation?
Tax evasion is a crime and the committing person has to be prosecuted. But where is the relation? Do we need police and prosecutors to trace him down and do we need to treat him like a dangerous criminal?
In my eyes this is becoming some kind of witch hunt. The bad guys in top management, they are the ones stealing jobs and getting bonuses for this. Maybe. But did ever some raised the hand in this fooly debate and said, that at the end they are under the control of the Board of directors and in Germany these boards are composed by employer and employee representatives (half and half).
Bad against good, elite versus the rest of the society and the newspapers headlines are claiming that there is a huge number of managers and top executive who committed tax evasion - 700 hundred, who are on some mysterious list of the prosecutors.
Just to compare this and put in into relation to some other numbers. According to the manager-magazin there are 760.300 millionaires (Link) in Germany. Maybe not all our millionaires have some money in Liechtenstein, but even people with less than a million in the bank account did transfer money to Liechtenstein and other off-shore or banking paradises.

In my opinion this is debate has a complete different focus.
1. We are getting closer to elections and this is a first sign of possible election campaign topics, we had the Nokia debate and now we have again the bad management guys.
2. The conspirancy theorists can think about a mysterious person taking revenge for not being considered at the last round of selecting successor for management positions and therefore providing the state attorneys and the German secret service with a list of potential tax evader.
3. Over the last two to three years, there is a debate going on in the German society, which is based on the principles of envy and mistrust and egoism. Everyone is only focused on his own advantage, the big picture is not important. No one is interested in the connections and relations between issues and topics.

I ll stop here, because such a debate annoys me and I do not understand why it gets so much public attention.
And above all and to return to Dr. Zumwinkel, he did not evade company's taxes or so, he did it with his own money, yes it is a crime, but did he hurt or kill someone, did he try to destroy our free democratic basic order?

I plead for commensurability.

life is great...welcome Amelie Teresa

something complete out of any topic... but a very happy news just arrived in my inbox.
Melanie and Tom are parents now.
Yesterday morning at 2:45 am there little daughter Amelie Teresa was born.
My congratulations. I wish you all the best. And welcome to Amelie.
Btw. a wonderful name you chose.

Here you can see a picture at the blog of family Babst.

Life is great.

Munich

Munich is one of the most beautiful cities in Germany as some of you might have found out at the last DLD conference. But now, we probably become the first German city with an Apple Store.... which is super cool.
As macessentials.de (German Mac Information Portal) writes this morning in their Newsblitz Apple is looking for retail stuff in Munich.

Link to the story is here
For the Apple Job Opportunities here

Aftermath of WEF in Davos - interview with Alfred Gusenbauer

By accident I saw recently an interview of Bloomberg with Alfred Gusenbauer, current chancellor of Austria. Despite the minor role of Austria in the European Economy and the ongoing internal struggles of the Grand Coalition between the SPÖ (Social Democrats) and the ÖVP (Conservatives) the interview had a two interesting points.
With regards to the financial subprime crisis in western and northern countries, especially the US and Switzerland, chancellor Gusenbauer made clear, that after the Asian crisis the banks agreed on a voluntary control scheme, which somehow failed completely. Especially western banks for demanding control and safety mechanisms from their Asian counterparts and now even they got hit by the subprime crisis and mainly only American and European banks. The Emerging markets got out of the crisis relatively unharmed, but we will have to wait for another six months to see the full consequences, especially on Chinese and Japanese banks, because they have nowadays strong ties with American investment banks.

The second interesting point Gusenbauer made referred to the increasing involvement of Asian and Middle East State Funds. The Austrian Petrol Company OMV has a long tradition with such an investor and is very pleased with the involvement of the Abu Dhabi State Fund.
He demanded a reserved involvement with such fund and an appreciation of values of such an involvement, but the empirical experience especially with Arabian Investors was a very good one.

Source: Interview with Alfred Gusenbauer, Austrian Chancellor, Bloomberg TV, WEF, Davos 08