Note: cross-posted at LinkedIn

When WAO starts working with organisations, the most important thing we have to figure out is how decisions are made. After we’ve established that, the second is the organisation figures out how best to serve their audience. The latter can be done in several ways, but there’s no substitute for talking to people!

In our experience, there’s quite a few reasons why organisations might avoid user research. Let’s have a look at a few of the most common along with some arguments against (and ways around) them.

1. Inadequate understanding of its value

The world is not slowing down, and product development and service delivery are particularly fast-paced environments. That means it’s not uncommon for managers and stakeholders to overlook the vital role that user research plays in their success. This oversight may stem from a lack of comprehension regarding the tangible benefits that user research brings to the table. As a result, decision-makers might be hesitant to allocate resources towards research initiatives.

However, by shedding light on the value of user research and illustrating its impact on the effectiveness of  products and services, we can help foster a deeper appreciation among stakeholders. Quantitative data is important, but gaining qualitative data from users or your audience is vital. It’s the difference between ‘having a better value proposition’ and the realisation that your core audience doesn’t think that your product or service is actually for them.

2. Overconfidence in existing knowledge

People are promoted within organisations often because of their understanding of the sector in which they work. However, it can be dangerous to think that previous lived experience or a particular view constitutes the ‘truth’ of the situation. This can lead to thinking that user research is superfluous. Such overconfidence is usually based on anecdotal evidence, personal experiences, or preconceived notions that may not accurately reflect the broader user base.

If we acknowledge the limitations of these informal insights, then we can emphasise the importance of user research in painting a more comprehensive and diverse picture of users’ needs. By doing so, organisations can make more informed decisions and avoid the pitfalls of overconfidence, which ultimately results in more successful products and services for their users or audience.

3. Fear of negative feedback

No-one particularly likes to hear that they or their organisation are doing anything other than a good job. So it’s natural for people to be wary of negative feedback. The problem is that this apprehension can sometimes give rise to resistance towards user research, as decision-makers may be reluctant to uncover potential issues or face criticism.

There is a way of reframing this mindset by embracing the notion that constructive feedback is a valuable opportunity for growth and improvement. Looked at this way, organisations can overcome hesitations and appreciate the indispensable role that user research plays in enhancing their offerings. In the end, it’s through facing these challenges head-on that organisations can truly thrive and achieve long-term success.

4. Short-term focus

As mentioned above, we live in a fast-paced world with organisations tending to focus on short-term objectives and instant outcomes. User research, on the other hand, represents a long-term investment in product development, which might not always align with the immediate ambitions of an organisation or its decision-makers.

However, when undertaking user research for the first time, or for the first time in a while, immediately-actionable insights often are forthcoming. Coupled with the long-term value that user research brings to the table, organisations can strike a balance between short-term wins and sustainable success. In doing so, they can foster a more holistic approach to product development that not only meets immediate needs but also paves the way for a future-proof, user-centric experience.

5. Limited resources 

User research is a time-consuming process. I’m well aware of this as my wife (Hannah Belshaw) is a user researcher! As such, organisations might find themselves facing constraints around budgets or staff, which can make it challenging to plan and carry out research sessions. More frequently, they may opt to prioritise other initiatives over user research.

Nevertheless, by acknowledging the long-term value that user research brings to product development and service design, organisations can make a conscious effort to allocate resources effectively. User research can be weaved into the fabric of strategic planning to ensure that their products and services continually evolve to meet the needs and expectations of their users. This ultimately drives long term success.

6. Lack of expertise

Organisations often don’t know what they don’t know about user research. Sometimes they don’t have the required in-house expertise for designing, implementing, and analysing user research sessions. This gap in their knowledge can make it difficult to derive actionable insights which means that they’re hesitant to get started in the first place.

Once this challenge has been recognised, organisations can seek to bridge that gap in their expertise, either through training existing staff, hiring new ones, or partnering with external experts. By tapping into the wealth of knowledge that user research provides, organisations they can ensure that their products and services evolve in sync with the ever-changing needs of their users.

7. Resistance to change

The idea of user research is to gain insights to improve products and services. Sometimes, these insights can lead to a call for substantial alterations which, understandably, might be met with resistance. After all, if you’ve invested considerable time and effort into the existing design, then you might not be best pleased if you’re being asked to change course. In addition, there are many people and organisations who are naturally averse to change of any sort.

However, by embracing the notion that adaptability is key to long-term success, organisations can begin to  adopt a growth mindset. By navigating this resistance to change they can make use of user research insights to create better, more user-centric products and services that ultimately stand the test of time.

8. Other factors

There are many other reasons barriers to performing effective user research. For example, gaining buy-in or support from leadership can be an uphill battle, making it difficult to secure the necessary resources or cooperation. Then there are sometimes privacy and legal concerns, particularly when handling sensitive information or user data. And, of course, logistical complexities in terms of co-ordinating with research participants, internal teams, and external organisations can be off-putting.

To overcome these additional obstacles, organisations can focus on ensuring proper legal guidance when dealing with sensitive data — which is something they should be doing anyway! Effective project management should help with difficulties around logistics, and it’s always a good time to start fostering a culture of research appreciation among leadership.

Conclusion

User research is a form of superpower for organisations. Doing it effectively means the difference between designing products and services that work for your users and audience, and creating a barrier between you and them. It’s no silver bullet, but if the best time to start was several years ago, the second best time to start is today!

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Images CC BY-ND Visual Thinkery for WAO

The post Identifying and overcoming barriers to user research within organisations first appeared on Open Thinkering.

Note: cross-posted at LinkedIn

Open Badges are web-native digital credentials that allow anyone to recognise anyone else for anything. One popular approach is microcredentialing, although there is a growing movement around Open Recognition.

It’s not long since the third major version of the standard was released, with this one aligning with the W3C’s Verifiable Credential data model. If that sounds like a mouthful, and if reading specification documents makes your eyes glaze over, here’s a few highlights to explain what’s new.  

1. A Farewell to Email Addresses

Although it’s technically been possible to use something other than email addresses in previous versions of the Open Badges standard, almost nobody has done so. Using an email address as an identifier can be problematic in terms of privacy, security, and long-term maintenance, as email addresses can change or become inactive over time.

Verifiable Credentials use a decentralised identifier (DID), which provides a unique, persistent, and secure way of proving who you are. This can be based on virtual wallets built into web browsers and smartphone apps, although they don’t have to be. In fact, you can generate a DID from a phone number or email address. 

The DID method ensures greater privacy and security, as well as long-lasting recognition of achievements, independent of changes in the recipient’s email address. Although there may be a little bit of confusion to begin with, hopefully badge platforms will make this extremely easy to use.

2. Image-free recognition

One of the mandatory requirements of Open Badges is to use some sort of image. In fact, the metadata is hard-coded into the image as part of the ‘baking’ process. I do like a good badge image, but sometimes they can be a barrier to recognition because organisations want to ensure consistency with a house style. 

With Open Badges v3.0, the alignment with the Verifiable Credentials data model means that there is no longer any requirement for an image. Verifiable Credentials are primarily focused on data and use something called JSON-LD (a standard for linked data) to describe the content. This approach means that the badge/credential is both human- and machine-readable.

While I hope it’s not the end for images in badges, I do think that it’s incredibly helpful to be able to recognise others quickly and easily. 

3. Greater control

With Open Badges, the badge earner has to either share none of the details (the metadata) about their badge, or all of it. Verifiable Credentials allow for more granular control using ‘Verifiable Presentations’. This means that holders can choose what information to share and with whom, giving them greater autonomy and flexibility.

There are all kinds of things possible with this approach, including for example having an ID card in the form of a Verifiable Credential. Using the Verifiable Presentation approach, an individual could, for example, remain anonymous while still being able to prove that they are of a legal age to buy alcohol, or have the correct licence to drive a car.

In a learning context, someone could choose to create a Verifiable Presentation of several of their badges/credentials for the purposes of applying to university or for a job. Alternatively, the Verifiable Presentation could be made up of different people’s data showing the skills and achievements of a cohort. It’s very flexible.

Conclusion

As the technological landscape of learning and development continues to evolve, it’s important for educators and organisations to understand what’s possible. While Open Badges v2.1 is a great standard upon which to build, the opportunities with v3.0 using the Verifiable Credentials data model are exciting! I’m looking forward to starting to issue badges using the new approach, and sharing more information as I go.

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Image CC BY-ND Visual Thinkery for WAO

The post Verifiable Credentials and Open Badges 3.0: What’s changed? first appeared on Open Thinkering.

Note: cross-posted at LinkedIn

Sharepidation (noun) A fusion of sharing and trepidation, sharepidation refers to the state or condition in which a person feels anxious, apprehensive, or nervous about disclosing or presenting their work, ideas, or personal creations more widely. This term encapsulates the vulnerable and courageous act of making one’s efforts transparent despite the underlying fear of judgement, criticism, or rejection.

I come across this all of the time in We Are Open Co-op‘s work. People get over it (and flourish!) but it’s a thing. So let’s have a name for it!

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Image by Quentin Lagache

The post Sharepidation first appeared on Open Thinkering.

In a previous blog post, I discussed how microcredentials have deviated from Mozilla’s original Open Badges vision. This post explores some ways in which microcredentials can be realigned with those initial goals and better empower individuals and communities.

Firstly, it’s essential to emphasise the importance of informal and non-formal learning. Experiences such as volunteer work, self-directed online learning, and engaging in communities of practice have immense value. Microcredential issuers should think more widely to recognise a broad range of learning, allowing individuals to showcase not only their knowledge, skills, and understanding, but also their behaviours, relationships, and experiences.

Interoperability and decentralisation are crucial for a thriving microcredential ecosystem. Open standards and protocols can enable seamless sharing and displaying of badges across platforms. Microcredential providers need to think not only about their own issuing, but that of others. How can learners showcase learning that has taken place elsewhere? In addition, how can we use approaches such as Creative Commons licensing to encourage the reuse and remix of badge metadata? The move to Verifiable Credentials will allow badges without images, which will make collaboration around taxonomies even more important.

Thirdly, accessibility and reducing barriers to entry are vital in countering the commercialisation of microcredentials. Universities and other microcredential providers are no doubt feeling the squeeze in the current economy, but free or low-cost learning opportunities make for a more inclusive learning ecosystem. After all, the original vision for Open Badges was to widen participation and recognise different kinds of learning.

Open Recognition plays a key role in realigning microcredentials with the initial Mozilla Open Badges white paper. Along with approaches such as ungrading and Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL), we can focus on formative aspects such as learner growth and development, rather than solely on traditional summative evaluation methods. This approach can help build trust and ensure microcredentials are meaningful to employers, educators, and learners alike.

Finally, building a diverse ecosystem is essential. At the moment, microcredentialing seems to be almost entirely about the formal education to employment pipeline. However, wider collaboration can ensure the relevance, sustainability, and utility of microcredentials. Community-driven initiatives and partnerships can foster innovation, create new opportunities, and encourage widespread adoption of the original Open Badges vision.

So, in conclusion, realigning microcredentials with the original Open Badges vision has the potential to empower learners, recognise diverse skills, and foster a more accessible recognition ecosystem. By implementing the strategies discussed in this post, we can contribute to the revitalisation of the Open Badges movement and create a better future for learners worldwide.

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Image CC BY-ND Visual Thinkery for WAO

The post Realigning Microcredentials with Open Badges first appeared on Open Thinkering.

We’re committing $30M to build Mozilla.ai: A startup — and a community — building a trustworthy, independent, and open-source AI ecosystem.

The post Introducing Mozilla.ai: Investing in trustworthy AI appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

There was some sadness around Vancouver last year when Indian Summer Festival’s founders announced their looming departure. The husband-and-wife team of Sirish Rao and Laura Byspalko oversaw the event for 12 years, leaving a profound imprint on the city’s cultural life.

That’s because in partnership with Simon Fraser University they created a festival that aimed high. Rao and Byspalko maintained this standard even during the pandemic years.

Under their leadership, Indian Summer presented a veritable banquet of visual arts, music, literature, theatre, and current affairs. This was often accomplished through imaginative collaborations.

Well, fans of the festival can now take comfort in the new faces at the helm. The Indian Summer Arts Society has appointed former Out on Screen artistic director Anoushka Ratnarajah as lead curator.

From 2017 to 2022, Ratnarajah distinguished herself with her daring curation of the Vancouver Queer Film Festival. She shattered stereotypes in a range of areas. Examples include featuring a series of transmasculine films and offering brave movies about the real lives of sex workers.

“I’m looking forward to contributing to the unexpected collaborations, challenging conversations, and magical connections the Indian Summer Festival is known for,” Ratnarajah said in a news release announcing her appointment.

Ratnarajah grew up in Ladner in the traditional territory of the Tsawwassen people. She’s the daughter of a Tamil father born in Malaysia and an English mother.

Veteran curator joins Indian Summer for 2023

She’ll be joined by guest curator Devyani Saltzman for the 2023 festival. The Oxford-educated Saltzman was previously director of public programming at the Art Gallery of Ontario and director of literary arts at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.

Saltzman is the daughter of film directors Paul Saltzman and Deepa Mehta. In addition, Saltzman is the author Shooting Water: A Memoir of Second Chances, Family and Filmmaking.

Subsequent to the news release announcing the appointments of Ratnarajah and Saltzman, the society revealed that Indigenous media and cultural leader Jarrett Martineau will also be a guest curator for this year’s event.

Familiar face returns

Martineau is the host, producer, and creator of Reclaimed, which is CBC Radio’s first program devoted to Indigenous music. In addition, he’s the curator in residence at UBC’s Chan Centre for the Performing Arts.

In the past, Martineau has curated culturally diverse music events at the Indian Summer Festival.

Martineau is nêhiyaw (Plains Cree) and Denesųłiné from Frog Lake Cree Nation in Alberta. He has a PhD in Indigenous governance from the University of Victoria.

Meanwhile, the society has announced that two longstanding employees will share the leadership role. Pawan Deol is executive director of cultural programming; Laura June Albert is executive managing director.

The society’s newsletter describes Deol as the “curator of curators”.

“Our beloved festival will continue to feature some of the finest artists and visionaries across Canada, South Asia, and beyond,” Deol said. “And I’m so pleased to be co-leading as we continue our vision of presenting South Asian arts and ideas.”

From Bollywood stars to a Booker Prize winner

Over the years, the Indian Summer Arts Society has featured Bollywood stars such as Tabu, Shabana Azmi, Anupam Kher, and Sharmila Tagore. In addition, the society has introduced Vancouverites to some amazing writers, including Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy, two-time Giller Prize winner M.G. Vassanji, Jnanpith Award winner Amitav Ghosh, and Life of Pi author Yann Martel.

Social activist Vandana Shiva, Grammy winning singer-songwriter Arooj Aftab, and Little Mosque on the Prairie creator Zarqa Nawaz are among many others who’ve been part of an Indian Summer Festival.

“We built a home twelve years ago and called it Indian Summer,” Rao said. “Nothing makes us happier than to know the home we have loved so dearly will be cared for by those that have helped to build it. Our thanks to our dedicated board of directors, who have demonstrated an exceptional level of care in this time of transition, and to our brilliant colleagues who take on the task of building into the future.”

Follow Pancouver editor Charlie Smith on Twitter @charliesmithvcr. Follow Pancouver on Twitter @PancouverMedia.

The post Anoushka Ratnarajah becomes lead curator, Devyani Saltzman and Jarrett Martineau named guest curators at Indian Summer fest appeared first on Pancouver.

This is probably the best thing OpenAI could have done to make sure ChatGPT had access to a treasure trove of curated scientific data.

Might be overkill for fixing its issues with simple addition and multiplication, but will definitely limit factual hallucination and make many kinds of answers more trustworthy.

Seit Monaten warte ich auf dieses Release, das es bisher nicht im deutschen Store gab. Heute habe ich zufällig gefunden.

mkalus shared this story from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow.

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Today's links

• Mass tech worker layoffs and the soft landing: Finally, the non-tech sector can hire technical workers.
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• This day in history: 2003, 2013, 2018, 2022
• Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading

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Mass tech worker layoffs and the soft landing (permalink)

As tech giants reach terminal enshittification, hollowed out to the point where they are barely able to keep their end-users or business customers locked in, the capital classes are ready for the final rug-pull, where all the value is transfered from people who make things for a living to people who own things for a living.

"Activist investors" have triggered massive waves of tech layoffs, firing so many tech workers so quickly that it's hard to even come up with an accurate count. The total is somewhere around 280,000 workers:

https://layoffs.fyi/

These layoffs have nothing to do with "trimming the fat" or correcting the hiring excesses of the lockdown. They're a project to transfer value from workers, customers and users to shareholders. Google's layoff of 12,000 workers followed fast on the heels of gargantuan stock buyback where the company pissed away enough money to pay those 12,000 salaries…for the next 27 years.

The equation is simple: the more companies invest in maintenance, research, development, moderation, anti-fraud, customer service and all the other essential functions of the business, the less money there is to remit to people who do nothing and own everything.

The tech sector has grown and grown since the first days of the PC – which were also the first days of neoliberalism (literally: the Apple ][+ went on sale the same year Ronald Reagan hit the campaign trail). But despite a long-run tight labor market for tech workers, there have been two other periods of mass layoffs – the 2001 dotcom collapse and the Great Financial Crisis of 2008.

Both of those were mass extinction events for startups and the workers who depended on them. The mass dislocations of those times were traumatic, and each one had its own aftermath. The dotcom collapse freed up tons of workers, servers, offices and furniture, and a massive surge in useful, user-centric technologies. The Great Financial Crisis created the gig economy and a series of exploitative, scammy "bro" startups, from cryptocurrency grifts to services like Airbnb, bent on converting the world's housing stock into unlicensed hotel rooms filled with hidden cameras.

Likewise, the post-lockdown layoffs have their own character: as Eira May writes on StackOverflow, many in the vast cohort of laid-off tech workers is finding it relatively easy to find new tech jobs, outside of the tech sector:

https://stackoverflow.blog/2023/03/19/whats-different-about-these-layoffs/

May cites a Ziprecruiter analysis that claims that 80% of laid-off tech workers found tech jobs within 3 months, and that there are 375,000 open tech roles in American firms today (and that figure is growing):

https://www.ziprecruiter.com/blog/laid-off-tech-workers/

There are plenty of tech jobs – just not in tech companies. They're in "energy and climate technology, healthcare, retail, finance, agriculture, and more" – firms with intensely technical needs and no technical staff. Historically, many of these firms would have outsourced their technological back-ends to the Big Tech firms that just destroyed so many jobs to further enrich the richest people on Earth. Now, those companies are hiring ex-Big Tech employees to run their own services.

The Big Tech firms are locked in a race to see who can eat their seed corn the fastest. Spreading tech expertise out of the tech firms is a good thing, on balance. Big Tech's vast profits come from smaller businesses in the real economy who couldn't outbid the tech giants for tech talent – until now.

These mass layoff speak volumes about the ethos of Silicon Valley. The same investors who rent their garments demanding a bailout for Silicon Valley Bank to "help the everyday workers" are also the loudest voices for mass layoffs and transfers to shareholders. The self-styled "angel investor" who spent the weekend of SVB's collapse all-caps tweeting dire warnings about the impact on "the middle class" and "Main Street" also gleefully DM'ed Elon Musk in the runup to his takeover of Twitter:

Day zero

Sharpen your blades boys

2 day a week Office requirement = 20% voluntary departures.

https://newsletter.mollywhite.net/p/the-venture-capitalists-dilemma

For many technologists, the allure of digital tools is the possibility of emancipation, a world where we can collaborate to make things without bosses or masters. But for the bosses and masters, automation's allure is the possibility of getting rid of workers, shattering their power, and replacing them with meeker, cheaper, more easily replaced labor.

That means that workers who go from tech firms to firms in the real economy might be getting lucky – escaping the grasp of bosses who dream of a world where technology lets them pit workers against each other in a race to the bottom on wages, benefits and working conditions, to employers who are glad to have them as partners in their drive to escape Big Tech's grasp.

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Hey look at this (permalink)

• The venture capitalist's dilemma https://newsletter.mollywhite.net/p/the-venture-capitalists-dilemma

• The Incredible Tantrum Venture Capitalists Threw Over Silicon Valley Bank https://slate.com/technology/2023/03/silicon-valley-bank-rescue-venture-capital-calacanis-sacks-ackman-tantrum.html

• The hierarchy of excuses https://crookedtimber.org/2023/03/20/the-hierarchy-of-excuses/

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This day in history (permalink)

#20yrsago Talk radio is the province of lying demagogues, bigots and fools https://web.archive.org/web/20030402131244/http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/079/oped/Outrageous_times_for_talk_radio+.shtml

#10yrsago Bruce Sterling’s closing SXSW keynote: disruption and destruction https://soundcloud.com/officialsxsw/bruce-sterling-closing-remarks

#10yrsago How the Digital Millennium Copyright Act punishes people with disabilities https://slate.com/technology/2013/03/dmca-copyright-reform-u-s-law-makes-digital-media-inaccessible.html

#10yrsago Supercut of all the alternate endings to the Animaniacs theme https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCM0jBrEfPw

#10yrsago EFF blasts plans to build DRM into HTML5 https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/03/defend-open-web-keep-drm-out-w3c-standards

#10yrsago You know who does creepier stuff with your data than Cambridge Analytica? Your ISP https://www.techdirt.com/2018/03/21/if-youre-pissed-about-facebooks-privacy-abuses-you-should-be-four-times-as-angry-broadband-industry/

#5yrsago Police say the Austin bomber killed himself as they closed in on him https://web.archive.org/web/20180321085839/https://www.statesman.com/news/breaking-austin-bombing-suspect-dies-police-close-official-says/KZmUAGvKlNazDr31EzeUzI/

#5yrsago To save the Earth, stack humans in green cities and leave the wilderness for other animals https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/mar/20/save-the-planet-half-earth-kim-stanley-robinson

#5yrsago Teen’s devastating bug-report on a “tamper-proof” cryptocurrency wallet shows why companies can’t be left in charge of bad news about their products https://saleemrashid.com/2018/03/20/breaking-ledger-security-model/

#5yrsago In Chicago primaries, a string of defeats for the Democratic establishment at the hands of progressive Democrats https://theintercept.com/2018/03/20/fritz-kaegi-chicago-the-democratic-machine-is-defeated-by-an-insurgent-candidate-battling-municipal-inequality/

#1yrago Brazil's "Remuneration Right" will strengthen Big Tech and Big Media https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/21/jeffersonian-v-hamiltonian/#dinheiro-fala

#1yrago To make Big Tech better, make it smaller https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/21/jeffersonian-v-hamiltonian/#fits-in-a-bathtub

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Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources: Slashdot (https://slashdot.org/).

Currently writing:

• Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. Yesterday's progress: 776 words (118237 words total). FIRST DRAFT COMPLETE

• The Bezzle, a Martin Hench noir thriller novel about the prison-tech industry. FIRST DRAFT COMPLETE, WAITING FOR EDITORIAL REVIEW

• A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

• Vigilant, Little Brother short story about remote invigilation. ON SUBMISSION

• Moral Hazard, a short story for MIT Tech Review's 12 Tomorrows. FIRST DRAFT COMPLETE, ACCEPTED FOR PUBLICATION

• Spill, a Little Brother short story about pipeline protests. ON SUBMISSION

Latest podcast: Gig Work is the Opposite of Steampunk https://craphound.com/news/2023/03/19/gig-work-is-the-opposite-of-steampunk/

Upcoming appearances:

• IFTF Changing the Register, Mar 22
  https://iftf.zoom.us/webinar/register/5916783211142/WN_0YsPkGH8Tk6RZ9eec_VVpg

• Antitrust and Competition Conference – Beyond the Consumer Welfare Standard (Chicago), Apr 20-21
  https://www.chicagobooth.edu/research/stigler/events/2023-antitrust

• Red Team Blues at Mysterious Galaxy (San Diego), Apr 25
  https://www.mystgalaxy.com/event/42523Doctorow

• Wordfest (Calgary), May 11
  https://wordfest.com/2023/event/wordfest-presents-cory-doctorow/

• Red Team Blues event with Tim Harford (Oxford), May 29
  https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cory-doctorow-red-team-blues-with-tim-harford-tickets-574673793787

• UCL Peter Kirstein Lecture, Jun 1 (London):
  https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/peter-kirstein-lecture-2023-featuring-cory-doctorow-registration-539205788027

Recent appearances:

• Roskom Svoboda Privacy Day
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VBXU4HVFs0

• Factually With Adam Conover:
  https://www.stitcher.com/show/factually-with-adam-conover/episode/choke-point-capitalism-with-cory-doctorow-300308750

• Making Big Tech Better vs Making it Smaller (Brussels Antitrust Conference):
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjE-RpOR5FU&t=2744s

Latest books:

• "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com

• "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Post called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html

• "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59 (print edition: https://bookshop.org/books/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism/9781736205907) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html)

• "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html

• "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/.

Upcoming books:

• Red Team Blues: "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books, April 2023

• The Internet Con: A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech, Verso, September 2023

• The Lost Cause: a post-Green New Deal eco-topian novel about truth and reconciliation with white nationalist militias, Tor Books, November 2023

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Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

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https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic

"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla

	mkalus shared this story :
	Here's an idea: Stop tearing down all the venues and "redevelop" them into yet another glass tower for investors to snatch up.

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Radi Cho, GitHub, Mar 23, 2023

This is "curated list of prompts, tools, and resources regarding the GPT-4 language model," including open source examples and community demos, and product integrations. Related: Bryan Alexander shares a conversation with Ruben Puentedura to explore the implications of large language model artificial intelligence; he adds some other interesting items, including authoring a 300-page text in one day with chatGPT, Microsoft's introduction to Copilot, and the Socratic Tutor system. I also ran across a Marcus Aurelius AI, which is a neat concept. Finally, the usual suspects from the music industry form a coalition to make sure publishers' copyrights aren't violated (but be careful - if new rules are created that apply to computers, including limits to fair use, they will definitely be extended to humans - imagine being told you can't record because your voice sounds too similar to someone else's).

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Shri Khalpada, PerThirtySix, Mar 23, 2023

I like this interactive visualization because it shows the advantage of working with connected data rather than raw lists or quantified data. Wordle is a game where you guess a five-letter word; you get five guesses, and it tells you when you've found correct letters. It's a always a question: where do you start, when you have no information about the word? Where next, when you have one of two letters? Suggestions abound, usually based on how frequently a letter appears. A graph analysis enables a better suggestion. But playing with the graph, you come to see you don't want to select letters that leave too many possibilities (which is what you get if you're vowel-heavy) or too few (which is what you get is you select infrequently used consonants). Anyhow, have fun with it.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

On the surface, Vancouver writer-director Sophie Jarvis’s film Until Branches Bend is not about Indigenous issues. To a casual observer, it revolves around a pregnant white cannery worker named Robin, played by Grace Glowicki, who’s looking after her sister.

Early on, a controversy erupts in the unnamed fruit-growing region when Robin discovers what appears to be an invasive species inside a peach. The town is called Montague and it relies on the orchards for its economic livelihood.

But there is a deeper Indigenous undercurrent seeping through the storyline. In a Zoom call with Pancouver, Jarvis says that the original title was Invasions because this theme runs through her cinematic psychological drama in three key respects.

“In one way, of course, it’s obvious with the bug,” Jarvis says. “Another way is more personal, like with Robin’s unwanted pregnancy. And the other way is with the colonial history of Canada and North America.”

Her script weaves these threads together, sometimes in subtle ways. Musqueam actor Quelemia Sparrow plays Isabelle, the wife of Robin’s boss, Dennis (Lochlyn Munro). Dennis is reluctant to shut down operations over a single bug just as peaches are being harvested.

“Everyone is actually trying to do what they think is best,” Jarvis explains. “Dennis’s job is to protect the growers and to protect the season, which is short because peaches are really only in season for a few weeks every summer. So, anything that throws that off has really bad effects.”

Meanwhile, Robin is coping with the pregnancy and taking care of her sister, Laney (Alexandra Roberts), while trying to be a responsible citizen.

Until Branches Bend earns CSA nominations

All of this is happening in the midst of a furor over an insect.

“We worked with a bug called the darkling beetle, which is fairly common,” the writer-director reveals. “But we also had a concept artist design the markings we put on the shell. Then our visual-effects team would place those on the bug itself in post [production].”

Jarvis points out that the visual-effects team took tremendous care in this area. According to her, this bug needed to be memorable because it was a critically important component of the film.

In this regard, their efforts paid off. Landon Bootsma, Dexter Davey, Ashley Hampton, Milton Muller, and Dmitry Vinnik were all nominated for a 2023 Canadian Screen Award for achievement in visual effects.

In addition, Jarvis scored Until Branches Bend a second Canadian Screen Award nomination for her original screenplay. The winners will be announced on CBC TV on April 16.

The Swiss-Canadian co-production also won the award for best B.C. film at the 2022 Vancouver International Film Festival. Until Branches Bend will be screened at the VIFF Centre in Vancouver, starting on Friday (March 24). Jarvis will speak at screenings on the first two days of its run.

This is Jarvis’s first feature film as a director, but she’s no newcomer to the industry. She also worked as a production designer on The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, which addressed urban Indigenous issues.

Set in Vancouver, the multiple-award-winning film was co-directed and co-written by Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and Kathleen Hepburn.

They returned as story editors on Until Branches Bend, which was produced by The Body Remembers producer Tyler Hagan. He’s of Michif and Canadian ancestry.

Watch a clip from Until Branches Bend.

Indigenizing the script

For The Body Remembers, Fort Nelson and Saulteau First Nations in Treaty 8 territory member Sarah Robinson offered insights into Indigenous issues to the cast and crew.

“She did a wonderful, amazing job,” Hagan says. “It was tailored to the project and tailored to the subject matter.”

Sadly, Robinson died at the age of 35 in 2021 after a battle with cancer.

For Until Branches Bend, Hagan and Jarvis initially sought input from IndigenEYEZ program director Kelly Terbasket, who grew up on Similkameen territory.

“We got to a certain point with the script where it’s a story about this woman, Robin, and her sister at its core,” Hagan says. “But we knew that this world doesn’t exist without Indigenous people. And to just ignore that element of the community in the story would have been such a huge erasure.”

So they set about incorporating Indigenous aspects, adding another element of tension to the story.

“We were lucky to have Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and Kathleen Hepburn both as story editors on the script,” Hagan emphasizes.

Jarvis praises Terbasket for offering valuable perspective on the impact of monoculture-based agricultural practices.

“A lot of my questions for her were the same as they were for everyone: what would be the impact on you or your community if this were to actually happen,” Jarvis recalls. “And the one thing that Kelly said that really stuck out with me is the impact wouldn’t be too huge.”

That’s because she felt that invasion of a bug, as described in the script, might actually give the land a chance to return to its original state before the settlers arrived.

“My understanding, from what Kelly told me, is there’s not a lot of people in her community who actually benefit directly from the industry,” Jarvis adds.

Investing in the cast and crew

Hagan echoes that point, declaring that Terbasket was quite blunt about how little her people received from monoculture-based agriculture in the region..

After seeking Terbasket’s advice, the filmmakers then invited Skayu Louis from the Syilx Okanagan Nation to speak to the cast and crew. Louis was joined by his uncle, Cewelna, to share their perspectives on the impact of monoculture.

Hagan acknowledges that there’s a cost to doing workshops like this just as a film is about to be made. But he adds that there are also tremendous benefits.

“One of the ideas behind doing this kind of stuff is trying to position ourselves and the work we do in the film industry as being less extractive,” he states.

In addition, Hagan says, this is an investment in the crew and cast’s general knowledge. And that can pay dividends down the road on future film projects.

“The most impressive thing with doing these [workshops] was that the crew and the cast—and the people that are in attendance—engage in it,” Hagan says. “It’s not just like a ‘Sit down and eat your vegetables’ thing. Everybody is asking questions.”

Until Branches Bend will be screened at the VIFF Centre in Vancouver, starting on Friday (March 24). For more information and to buy tickets, visit the website. Follow Pancouver editor Charlie Smith on Twitter @charliesmithvcr. Follow Pancouver on Twitter @PancouverMedia.

The post <i>Until Branches Bend</i> filmmakers incorporate Indigenous viewpoints into dramatic feature about an invasive species appeared first on Pancouver.

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ChatGPT plugins

ChatGPT is getting a plugins mechanism, which will allow developers to provide extra capabilities to ChatGPT, like looking up restaurants on OpenTable or fetching data from APIs. This feels like the kind of feature that could obsolete - or launch - a thousand startups. It also makes ChatGPT much more interesting as a general purpose tool, as opposed to something that only works as an interface to a language model.

ChatGPT Retrieval Plugin

"The ChatGPT Retrieval Plugin repository provides a flexible solution for semantic search and retrieval of personal or organizational documents using natural language queries." How many existing startups were building this I wonder?

I was talking with someone today who reflected that Open Badges effectively lost its theoretical underpinnings when Mozilla handed over stewardship of the standard in 2017. I think this is true, which is why Open Recognition is a much more interesting space to be now than the monoculture than is microcredentialing.

This post outlines some of what I think has been lost in terms of the extremely fertile period of time from 2011 until 2016. For those not aware, I was involved in the Mozilla community around badges from mid-2011, went to work on the Mozilla Open Badges team, became their Web Literacy Lead, and then have consulted on badge-related projects since leaving Mozilla in 2015.

Here’s my list of how microcredentialing has taken us away from the original vision, especially compared to the Open Badges white paper and subsequent work by Mozilla, HASTAC, and the Connected Learning Alliance:

1. Centralisation — the Open Badges ecosystem was designed to be a decentralised system based on ‘backpacks’. An zeal for control has led to centralised control over the issuing, validation, and management of badges. This has had a negative impact on the diversity of issuers and issuing platforms.
2. Limited interoperability — despite interoperability being baked into the Open Badges standard, some of the more corporate and large-scale badge issuing platforms have gone out of their way to reduce the value this feature. .
3. Narrow focus on job skills — Open Badges were supposed to recognise that learning happens everywhere, particularly outside traditional formal education settings. However, microcredentials are earned almost exclusively for skills which may be useful in the world of work, and issued by institutions and companies. This undervalues the importance of informal learning experiences and overlooks other important aspects of personal and professional growth.
4. Commercialisation — some organisations have taken a profit-driven approach to microcredentials, emphasising ‘brand value’ and revenue generation over accessibility and openness. This not only limits the availability of free or low-cost learning opportunities, but undermines the original intent of the Open Badges system.
5. Barrier to entry — the original vision was that anyone could create, issue, and share badges. However, some microcredential platforms have established barriers to entry, such as fees or partnership requirements, which can make it difficult for smaller organisations or individuals educators to participate in the ecosystem.

The people remaining loyal to the original, revolutionary vision of badges are all talking about Open Recognition these days. Microcredentials are ‘dead metaphors‘ which lack power in terms of human agency and individuals and communities being able to tell their story.

I’m looking forward to continuing to fight the good fight.

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Image: cropped screenshot taken from homonym.ca

The post 5 reasons why microcredentials are not Open Badges in name, spirit, or ethos first appeared on Open Thinkering.

Joseph Planta @Planta
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Tartans @alltartans
A Tartan for the Generous but Forsaken pic.twitter.com/XhZWU0W9hm

DaveO @uncleweed
Rolling in to hospital looking like _____. #tracksuit #tartan #beastvan #eyepatch #greybeard #peace… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

Joseph Planta @Planta
I had about 200 tabs open on my phone’s browser. I hadn’t closed any for about a year. I finally closed them all a… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

DaveO @uncleweed
Regarding beards, here’s me and Kris Krūg (his photo) at #Sxsw, some years back “stress testing”our beards pic.twitter.com/mepFE19uDI

You can quickly respond to text messages you receive with a brief reply using Google’s Smart Reply feature in the Messages app. While it’s convenient to reply with “Yes” or “sounds good?” to some messages, what if you want to send a text that requires a proper response? The big G might be working on […]