@ribo

Yesterday I did some digital reporting. For nearly two weeks, I’ve been collaborating with TweetyHall & FutureGov in preparation for the UK elections in May. His founder, Dominic Campbell, asked me if I could attend the first conference of local councilors in the UK C’llr10 organized by the Local Government Information Unit (LGiU) last Thursday. So armed with my iPhone and a Kodak digital camera I tweeted about it, took some pictures and recorded some interviews with councilors about their use of the web in their work.

I am very critical with the party system. I think it is based on bureaucratic and opaque principles that are not much adapted to the informational and social transformation of the last decades. When I arrived, I saw all these councilors, most of them in suit and tie, that looked, in my eyes, like political bureaucrats, just managers of mid-size organizations. This image was confirmed by the speeches in the plenary: Caroline Spelman, tory shadow secretary for local government, Julia Goldsworthy, lib-dems shadow secretary for local government and John Denham, the current secretary for local government. Nothing new under the sun, and lots of “ours is great, yours is awful” discourse.

Yet, during the day and through getting into small conversation with some of the councilors my perspective changed. There are good people in local politics doing very important stuff. Communities should thank these people for their work, for most of them feel it in their hearts, and do it for vocation. My last personal tweet after the conference was:

I am very critical with the party system, but today I’ve seen at #cllr10 how the best of it is in local politics #win

Like

Unlike

The title of this post seems counter-intuitive. Common sense tells us that battling successfully against the consequences of the financial crisis, capitalism is more alive than ever, thriving in India and China, making states tremble on their foundations. Yet I dare to say that, against this common sense and in line with Marxists, anarchists, socialists of all kinds and other anti-system movements, capitalism as we know it, i.e a socio-economic system based on the ownership and accumulation of capital, is showing its last moments of life. Yet I don’t affirm its decease for the reasons that these other ideological movements assume i.e. capitalism is failing, but because thanks to both its success and its deficiencies, it’s letting way to a new system that, like capitalism itself and contrary to communism or I would even say (paradoxically) anarchism, doesn’t need to be imposed for its popular acceptance, for it feeds from a characteristic that makes us human. In capitalism it was greed, in compartism it’s generosity.
keep reading…

Like

Unlike

My mother doesn’t know anything about computers. Nothing. Nada. I’ve tried so many times to teach her unsuccessfully how to use the computer that I’ve actually forgotten myself how to use it. So, I must agree with Ethan Nicholas when he says that the iPad is perfect for her mother for

It does exactly what she needs. It will let her watch movies and listen to music and read books on long flights. It will make using a computer fun instead of an annoying chore.

This year I struggled with my mother’s Christmas present. I ended up buying her a very useful (and not expensive) Brita water filter jug. Yes, I know it is not a conventional present, though she really liked it! But now, I know what she will totally love and change her life: an iPad. It will also change my life: I will finally be free of teaching my mother how to use a computer…if ever that’d be possible.

Like

Unlike

The whole connected world already knows. On Wednesday, Apple presented “The Book of Jobs”, also known as the iPad. The presentation of their latest creation created expectations, awesomeness and, in some, disappointment.

What do I think of it? I must admit that while following the presentation online from different sources on the web (engadget, gizmodo…), I felt disappointed. But after I saw yesterday night the keynote video, I became more positive about it, not entirely, as when the iPhone was released, but I saw its good things, for it has many.

Why do I want an iPad? This is the first question I ask to myself before buying any technology product. They need to have a function, not just being fun. When I was 13 they released in Spain a video recorder that had wonderful features: image effects, multi-image selection of channels and other eye candy functions. The ad of the device said something like “you will have so much fun with your VCR!”. I went to see it in the El Corte Inglés (a big chain of department stores in Spain). There I met a couple of 30-40-year-old guys trying it. Pretty quickly the conversation derived towards its “fun features” until one of them said “I don’t care where it does and how much ‘fun’ you can have with it, at the end what you want is to record movies. If it does it better than others, I’ll buy it, otherwise I’ll buy another one that’ll cost me half the price.” Since then, I buy technology according to my practical needs and how well they satisfy them.

What about the iPad then? I travel frequently. And when I travel I need 7 essential things from my computer: web, email, books, music, video, word processor and presentation software. A 250 GB hard disk, 4 gb RAM, 13-inch screen, 2 kg Macbook is far too much for my mobile needs. A 8 GB, slow processor, 3.5-inch screen, 150 gr iPhone is far too little. So for some time, I’ve been wishing to have a device that’s between a Macbook and an iPhone that frees me from the weight and cumbersomeness of a laptop and the limitations of an iPhone. The iPad seems to be a great answer to my needs.

Why then did I feel disappointed when I saw it?
keep reading…

1 person likes this post.

Unlike

Pilar Juárez was the head of the political section in the European Union delegation in Haiti. She was trapped in the collapse of the United Nations building in last week’s earthquake. On Sunday, 17 January, the Commission received news of the confirmation of her death, with High Representative Cathy Ashton releasing a press release, after her body was found the day before…but was it?

Today, we know that the body claimed as Pilar’s is not hers (in English). Apparently, the United Nations Police, UNPOL, made a mistake in the recognition of her body. The Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs discovered the truth after checking the fingerprints. Her furious husband said that he was “disgusted” by this “very serious mistake.” He accused international organizations and donors of lack of proper channels of information and coordination among them.

Meanwhile, a relatively small organization called Ushahidi was mounting an impressive network of people to gather information on the field to help the coordination of aid assistance and rescue missions, which has been translated into a website (haiti.ushahidi.com) gathering all the reports they receive via SMS and web apps. On the Ushahidi Situation Room, Patrick Philippe Meier, one of the persons behind this effort of humanitarian crowdsourcing and writer of the blog iRevolution, tells us about a

live Skype chat between Anna here in the Sit Room and Eric Rasmussen (InSTEDD and former Chief Medical Officer of the US Navy). Eric skyping from tarmac of PoP airport asking for GPS coordinates of the most obscure addresses, sites, locations and Anna providing these in record time. She has wowed the entire team in PaP including military, UN, etc. Incredible to witness all this real time networking and collaboration.

Witness the gap between an international organization that is trapped in old bureaucratic, unnecessary and expensive procedures and the agility, low-cost efforts of a network of people sharing information. The gap is how they treat and respect information. One understands information as a secondary element of “action”, whatever the latter means. Ushahidi is born with information at its core. We need to understand that information is not what is written on a paper, stored in a computer or in a book, information is alive and it is the most essential element for action. Without information one is blinded. Information is not what an expert knows, it is what everybody knows and shares. The arrogance of bureaucratic organizations is their own nemesis, for they think they know, when they don’t. They thought they knew where Pilar was. The truth was unfortunately not theirs.

Like

Unlike

Naturally, most newspapers’ front pages are dominated by Monday’s Haiti’s earthquake. Watching Euronews this morning, I was especially struck by the headlines of three outlets: The Independent (UK), Libération (France) and La Stampa (Italy). The three of them used explicitly Christian terms. ‘Hell in Haiti’ on The Independent, ‘Terre maudite’ says the Libération and ‘Haiti, il giorno dell’Apocalisse’ on the front page of La Stampa: hell, apocalypse and damnation.

Why did it strike me? Because they give the idea that what happened in Haiti is mostly the fault of God, of forces beyond our control. And this, I reckon, is not entirely true. keep reading…

3 people like this post.

Unlike

© ?

Young Europeans do not want political parties in their lives. Only 4% of young people (15-29 year olds) participate in a political party or trade union (on Euronews (2:02 mark) from Eurostat statistics). This is a clear figure of what young people want or do no want. Political party politicians and their acolytes would quickly blame the education system, capitalism, the television or even the Playstation for the lack of interest in politics of young people. They are blinded by their group thinking and narrow perspective of what politics is. Politics is not only, and not even mainly, about what political parties and their representatives (the so-called “politicians”) do. This fact, many people, including young people, know very well. I recommend the party people to go one night around bars in any city or town in Europe, to listen to what people are talking about. They talk about politics beyond political parties and their captive public institutions. They will be surprised to hear that there is political life outside the party. For politics is mainly about people and what they do, and not about organisations of any kind. That is why we need to reform the system to give chances to those who want to talk and participate in politics, but do not want to be captive of an organisation that has its own interests, often different than the interests of the rest of us.

1 person likes this post.

Unlike

Ulysses and the Sirens (Herbert James Draper)

Ulysses knew how to pass safely by the coast of the Sirens. In the Odyssey, we are told how he instructed his sailors to put wax in their ears, bind him tightly to the mast, and by no means release him until they had passed the Sirens’ island. Ulysses knew that the Sirens’ temptation was such that he won’t be able to resist it without restraint. He knew that the wonderful Sirens’ song meant in truth destruction. It had, therefore, to be resisted.

Technology has a sweet, melodic and very attractive singing. It promises humans to do, make and achieve the impossible. It wonders us at all ages, and we fall quickly for its wonders. We imagine new perfect worlds that will bring us happiness and plenty, all thanks to our technological advances. Yet the Sirens of technology, if not resisted, can easily bring us to destruction. History is witness of this danger.

Technology and ethics are intimately related. How we approach and use technology is very much conditioned by our ethical values. Therefore, the construction of a society based solely on technological disruption is a dangerous evolution. For our behaviours, as individuals, groups and as society as whole are transformed unknowingly by these new technologies without the restraint of ethical principles that would, otherwise, guide our conduct in more beneficial directions. When Ulysses ordered its sailors to bind him to the mast and keep him there, he was imposing on himself an ethical principle to resist the temptation of the Sirens. He was telling his sailors not to follow his orders in any circumstances; he was innovating to resist a path he knew will bring him destruction.

Since the enlightenment and particularly since the XIX century, Western civilization has based great part of its social, economic, scientific and political development on technological advance. Despite all technological revolutions it has gone through, there hasn’t been an equivalent ethical revolution to help us cope with the transformations that they implied. Instead, we are now living in-between a conservative Christian ethic, which did indeed suffer a great transformation during the Reformation, and a materialist ethic based on external impulses of consumption and accumulation, ignoring other principles and values that form the complex nature of a human being, creating therefore what Durkheim called “anomie“: a lack of social ethics that produces “moral deregulation and an absence of legitimate aspiration.”

The Internet is the technological revolution of our era. At the same time, it is by and IN itself a social revolution. There are those, many, that want to see mainly its positive aspects. Or those that mostly focus on its negative consequences. Yet the nature of the disruption and revolution of the Internet depends not in the technology itself, but in the context where it is immersed, and how this context changes accordingly or not. A very important part of this environment is our ethics. If we use the Internet within our current ethics, I am afraid it won’t be as good as the optimists want us to believe. It is urgent, I believe, that we discuss seriously our values and principles that should drive our lives, and that we spread them in dialogue with the people. And it is in this need where we see the complexity of social phenomena; for the Internet is, at the same time, the perfect instrument and space to do so. In fact, I think it’s already happening at a small scale. How successful this ethical disruption and revolution in the making can be won’t be determined by a technological feat, but by many other factors that organize our human lives, among them our own will to bind ourselves to the mast.

Like

Unlike

When I left Barcelona for the first time in 1998 to go to Paris, Catalunya was rarely known as a place where identitarian feeling was strong and culture thriving. Very often, my language, Catalan, was known as a Spanish dialect and our claims of autonomy taken lightly, as part of our folklore, in comparison to the violent separatist movement in Basque country.

In all this time since I left my country, more than 10 years, things have changed. News about what Jose Ortega y Gasset called “the Catalan problem” (el problema catalán) have regularly appeared in international media. Something I was not accustomed to. At the same time, a Catalan government more assertive in claiming the position of the Catalan language, and in extending the presence of Catalunya around the world came into power in 2003.

keep reading…

5 people like this post.

Unlike

Today 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency.

Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past 14 years have been the warmest on record, the Arctic ice-cap is melting and last year’s inflamed oil and food prices provide a foretaste of future havoc. In scientific journals the question is no longer whether humans are to blame, but how little time we have got left to limit the damage. Yet so far the world’s response has been feeble and half-hearted.

keep reading…

Like

Unlike