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Hacking Hardware at Berkman Center

Posted on by John

If Ethan Zuckerman apologizes for being three days behind in blogging his notes from a Berkman event, how much do I have to apologize for being three weeks behind?

On January 30th, Beth Kolko spoke at the Berkman Center luncheon series on “User, Hacker, Builder, Thief – Creativity and Consumerism in a Digital Age.”

You can see the video (.mov link) or download the audio (mp3) at Media Berkman.

As usual from the Berkman Center (I wish I could go every week to these talks) it opened more questions than it answered. I’m the guy asking a very rambling and not so articulate question about the simultaneous appearance of a popularized DIY ethic (Make magazine et al) and the DMCA with its tighter limits on what you can “hack” in the broadest sense.

My “notes” follow – not really notes but a series of near quotes and interesting bits – hopefully enough to pique your interest to go listen to the MP3 or (better) watch the video.
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Fair Use in User Generated Content

Posted on by John

The Center for Social Media at American University put out a report in January on the concept of “fair use” in user-generated content: “Recut, Reframe, Recycle: Quoting Copyrighted Material in User-Generated Video.”

I bookmarked it at the time, downloaded a copy to my “to read” folder (a dangerous thing to have) and then ignored it for the last month or so. You should not do the same. This may be your only chance to explain away the hours you wasted watching dramatic chipmonk videos as “work-related.”

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User Led Innovation Report from Down Under

Posted on by John

(via Smart Mobs) I came across this interesting report from Darren Sharp and Mandy Salomon at Smart Internet Technology CRC in Australia: “User-led Innovation: A New Framework for Co-creating Business and Social Value.” (PDF link).

The first half of the study results from qualitative interviews with “experts on the social, economic and legal aspects of user-led innovation”, specifically:

The second half of the study focuses on Second Life as a case study or example of the impact of user-led innovation in actual practice.
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IxDA Interaction 08

Posted on by John

Damn, wish I had been there. Interaction08, The first annual conference from IxDA, the Interaction Design Association, was held last weekend (Feb 08-10) in Savannah, at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

The videos from IxDA are being uploaded and will end up on the Interaction08 site, but for now you can preview them in this Brightcove Channel.

Here’s Alan Cooper’s Keynote video, titled “An Insurgency of Quality,” in which he argues we should focus on Best to Market, not First to market.

He makes a strong argument for the importance of “post-industrial craftsmen” in the software industry. (Though I actually liked my Archos Jukebox for many years, I can see that it wasn’t best-to-market, and it has ended up sitting on the shelf while I use the iPod instead).

I love his pointing out the artificial scarcity of time and money, and the way in which culture conflict is what leads to zero sum negotiation.