Some of the brilliant minds I connected with at re:create thought it would be a good idea to do a blog to blog book review/conversation on Cognitive Surplus. I like the book so much I’m always down for reading it again. I’m currently re-reading Here Comes Everybody, also by Clay Shirky, so it’s fitting to dig into Cognitive Surplus again.
Wednesday, 15 February 2012 14:47Written by Vince
6 Comments
I just watched the documentary; Best Worst Movie. The doc takes a look at the phenomenon of the rise of, what some consider to be, the worst movie ever made to cult status 20+ years after its release. Best Worst Movie documents the actors from the film as they discover that people all over the country have mysteriously fallen in love with, what they themselves considered to be a horrible movie, that they were embarrassed to have been in. Somewhere around 2007 people started to gather in large groups to view the film and throw parties themed after Troll 2. This escalated into screenings at sold out theaters that had to turn people away because the demand was so high.
Monday, 13 February 2012 18:35Written by Vince
1 Comment
I’ve had a dream that is the Prayer Labyrinth the last few years and as we explore what it will be we have realized that it is best built in an open source way. Watch the video for details.
Wednesday, 01 February 2012 14:35Written by Vince
2 Comments
The sermon…it’s come quite far since Jesus stood on the ‘mount’ and delivered a timeless message. I believe the current format in which we execute a ‘sermon’ is fairly well broken. The job a pastor hires a sermon to perform in 2012 is the same as in 1912 or 1812 yet the sermon format is having less and less effect on culture. Jesus could more or less start a riot with an eight minute illustration yet the average pastor can’t get 100 people to change their behavior after 40 minutes of multi-media supported exposition.
Maybe 40 minutes isn’t long enough? Earlier this month my ‘sermon’ at Gateway Church was a week long! Let me break it down for you.
Wednesday, 25 January 2012 14:53Written by Vince
8 Comments
As I’ve said in past posts here and on other blogs; the time and place experience that is Sunday morning church is losing value in the face of new realities that we face in part because of new media…and I think there is more opportunity here than there are things to be scared of.
Last year I discovered Top Gear on the BBC while perusing Netflix for something to watch. I’m not that into cars; after all I drive a Kia. But I was quickly drawn into the show. The format was refreshing. The personalities were magnetic and so was their chemistry. The dialogue was witty and the overall quality of the content was phenomenal. It also captivated me because in 2009 we piloted a similar format for 4 weeks at Gateway Church as we explored what it would take to do church on the internet. So my immediate reaction to seeing an episode of Top Gear was: this is the future of church! A short time later I realized that Top Gear was garnering 350 million viewers weekly with 300 million more watching later via the web making it essentially the most watched english speaking television program in the world at more than half a billion viewers.
Monday, 23 January 2012 15:31Written by Vince
7 Comments
Last Thursday January 18th we saw a revolution. We saw the internet reach out of the wires that contain it and effect real change in the United States in real time. The internet collectively rose up against two bills that threatened to destroy it; SOPA and PIPA. The best look at what PIPA and SOPA are comes from (not surprisingly) Clay Shirky on TED. Do yourself a favor and watch that video and push it on your social networks to everyone.
We have seen the internet have real world impact in places like China, Haiti, North Africa and the like but I don’t think we have had anywhere near that kind impact in the United States until now. Until now the internet has been a catalyst for business and for cat videos but it had not made significant waves in the political arena in our country. Maybe this is because, for all it’s failings, the major news outlets do a fairly good job at informing the public. It didn’t take an economic genius to see that the news media was not going to tell the American public the whole story on PIPA and SOPA as they clearly had skin in the game; we all know how their bread is buttered.
January 18th, 2012 will be marked as the day that the internet crossed the line from peanut gallery in the public discussion to a force of change.
The next move for would be censors is the do one of two things:
Sneak the bill into some other random legislation. This happens all the time; a bill is created to say…spend a certain amount of money to feed starving children and an amendment will be added that has nothing to do with it that effectively does what SOPA and PIPA were to do.
In this new age of the interent they may not be able to sneak that by so they have to go with option two: protect kids from child predators. I expect a bill to come up in the next year or so that is sold as an initiative to protect our kids from predators and porn but it will grant the same powers to corporations and lump the cost of executing said policing to companies that threaten old media and this will put them out of business because they can’t afford it.
Please. Please. Please educate yourself on this these issues. The news media’s hands are tied on such issues. The open internet is one of the greatest and most unifying things to happen to our species and if the cost of that is a few pirates than I am okay with that.
If reading isn’t your thing then please watch these videos:
Clay Shirky: Why Sopa is a Bad Idea
Cory Doctorow: The Coming War on General Computing
By Open Source Book Club | Cognitive Surplus | Context and Voice
By adam herod
By Chris
By Vince
By Chris