Public Intelligence Blog

Douglas Rushkoff

Douglas Rushkoff has been an authority on the intersection of technology and culture since before the word “google” was anything more than baby talk. He predicted the coming centrality of the Internet (CYBERIA, 1992 – a book initially canceled by a publisher who feared the net would be over by the time it came out); he coined the terms “viral media” (MEDIA VIRUS, 1994) and “social currency” (Upside Magazine, 1996); he forecasted the collapse of the dotcom bubble (SXSW, 1997) and the most recent recession in a 2004 column that later became his book, LIFE INC; he even inspired today’s code literacy movement (PROGRAM OR BE PROGRAMMED, 2010). He is the author of a total of twelve bestsellers (translated to over thirty languages), the host of three award-winning documentaries, an award-winning educator and frequent media commentator.

Robert Steele Comment and Present Shock Book Information Below the Line

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Daniel Pinchbeck

Daniel Pinchbeck (born June 15, 1966) is an author living in New York’s East Village, where he is editorial director of Reality Sandwich, a blog website centered around New Age philosophy and activism.^[1] H

In his own words:

I grew up in the New York counterculture of the 1970s and ’80s. My father, Peter Pinchbeck, was an abstract painter, and my mother, Joyce Johnson, is a writer who participated in the Beat Generation. She was dating Jack Kerouac when On the Road hit the bestseller lists in 1957 (chronicled in her book, Minor Characters: A Beat Memoir). As a journalist, I have written for Esquire, Magazine,The New York Times Magazine,  the Village Voice, Rolling Stone, etcetera. I am currently the editorial director of the Evolver Project (www.evolver.net).

In my late twenties, I fell into a deep spiritual crisis that led me to the study of shamanism and psychedelic susbtances. My first book, Breaking Open the Head, recounted my initiation into several tribal cultures that use hallucinogens in their rituals. Over time, I became convinced of the legitimacy of the shamanic and mystical worldview held by indigenous peoples around the world. This led me to my most recent book, 2012, a study of prophecy.

DuckDuckGo for Daniel Pinckbeck

2007 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl

2003 Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism

Joshua Kilbourn

Josh Kilbourn is a native and lifelong resident of the San Francisco Bay Area. He comes from a working class family; his father and grandfather were both U.S. Navy career veterans. As a teenager and young adult, he experienced and participated in the burgeoning Bay Area independent music scene of the 90s.

An auto-didact, Joshua is self-educated through eclectic reading both off and online, and lively discussions with knowledgeable people from diverse backgrounds.

He is a contributing author to West Memphis Witch Hunt, an anthology of modern poetry collected to raise awareness about the injustice suffered by Jason Baldwin, Damien Echols, and Jessie Misskelley Jr., known collectively as the West Memphis 3.  The book is available on Amazon.com.

In general, Joshua is an advocate of Open Source everything for We The People.  Specifically, he is currently focusing on promoting the Electoral Reform Act of 2012 and arranged for the volunteer filming of the New York presentation that went viral on Reddit.  He maintains a blog at http://guerrillasurvival.net/.

        The Small Wars Journal Blog has a post previewing a new book by Andrew Mackay and Steve Tatham. Behavioural Conflict: Why Understanding People and Their Motives Will Prove Decisive in Future Conflict considers how the West’s Post Cold War conflicts have been fought amongst people rather than between armies. From publisher’s description:

“These people, amongst others, have been Mendes, Kissis and Konos (and the 13 other tribes of Sierra Leone), they have been Serbo-Croats, Bosnians, Kosovars, Albanians, Unizzahs, al-Ribads, al-Zobaids, Kurds, al-Montifig (and the other tribal groups of the nearly 40 that make up Iraq), Pashtuns, Hazaras, Uzbecks (and the other 6 ethnic groupings that make up Afghanistan’s rich tapestry of population), they have been Sunni, Shia, Orthodox, Agnostic, Christian, Catholic; they have been farmers, politicians, police, administrators, businessmen, narco khans, war lords, men, women and children. In fact you can divide them in any one of a hundred or so different ways but the only certainty is that all of these groups and people will exhibit behaviour, that may appear utterly irrational but for better or worse will have profound effects upon the manner in which military missions are conducted.” 

The book is based on a paper written in 2009 for the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom. The tale of the lone Afghan farmer sowing seeds in a field near the Kajaki Dam should be a warning to those from the developed world who underestimate the intelligence of people just because they don’t speak English or have grown up without electricity and running water.

This book will have utility for anyone working in military, peacekeeping, policing or any other other cross cultural situation.

Nathan Allen

Nathan Allen is an independent historian and president of a skin care company and an education charity.

His book Arsonist: The Most Dangerous Man in America by Nathan A. Allen is published 4 July 2011.

Ito is the CEO of Creative Commons. He is on the board of Digital Garage, Culture Convenience Club (CCC), Tucows, Machinima.com, EPIC, Technorati, WITNESS and Global Voices Online. He is the founder and CEO of the venture capital firm Neoteny Co., Ltd. In October 2004, he was named to the board of ICANN for a three-year term starting December 2004. In August 2005, he joined the board of the Mozilla Foundation. He served on the board of the Open Source Initiative (OSI) from March 2005 until April 2007. He currently serves as a Board Emeritus for OSI. He was a founding board member of Expression College for Digital Arts as well as the Zero One Art and Technology Network. In 1999, he served as the Associate to Mr. Mount (the executive producer) on the film The Indian Runner. Ito also served as a Board Member of Energy Conversion Devices from 1995 to 2000.

Structured Hits

Ito is a venture capitalist and angel investor and was an early stage investor in Kickstarter, Twitter, Six Apart, Technorati, Flickr, SocialText, Dopplr, Last.fm, Rupture, Kongregate, etology Inc, Fotopedia and other Internet companies. A vocal advocate of emergent democracy and the sharing economy, Ito is a doctoral candidate in Business Administration focusing on the sharing economy at the Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy, Hitotsubashi University. He is the author of Emergent Democracy. Ito is Senior Visiting Researcher of Keio Research Institute at SFC.” — Wikipedia:

Recent Headline:

Timothy Leary’s godson Joi Ito to head MIT Media Lab, projo.com, 5:23 AM Tue, Apr 26, 2011

(2009/2010) Anil Gupta is on the hunt for the developing world’s unsung inventors — indigenous entrepreneurs whose ingenuity, hidden by poverty, could change many people’s lives. He shows how the Honey Bee Network helps them build the connections they need — and gain the recognition they deserve.  See video here.

About Anil Gupta

Anil Gupta created the Honey Bee Network to support grassroots innovators who are rich in knowledge, but not in resources. Full bio and more links

Comment: Anil Gupta’s “database” was mentioned in the book “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid.”
A few interesting pieces mentioned in the video:

• “Freedom is to look in the mirror & learn.”
• Curiosity, Creativity, Compassion, Collaboration (CCCC)
• “Desperation made me an innovator,” and “Even love needs help from technology” (70 yr old man who invented an amphibious bicycle)
• “With no one to fund my studies, I scaled new heights” (from a man who invented a coconut tree climber)
• G2G model (Grassroots to Global)
• Creativity counts, knowledge matters,  innovations transform, incentives inspire..and incentives are not just material, but non-material incentives.

Related:

Design for the Other 90% Exhibit + “Micro-Giving” Global Needs Index to Connect Rich to Poor/Fullfill Global-to-Local Requests

Sam Rose

Samuel Rose created Socialsynergyweb.com to help people deal with the complexities of knowledge, understanding, change, human systems, evolution, foresight, cooperation and collaboration, and technology. This business is now integrated into both Forward Foundation and Future Forward Institute.

He is a principal contributor to the Autonomous Internet Road Map.

He is interested in effective knowledge synthesis, and in exploring and developing the concepts of open knowledge, open design, and open business.

He is involved in a growing list of blogs, wikis, social software experiments and developings, including CoummunityWiki, Meatball Wiki, Cooperation Commons Weblog, Smartmobs Weblog.

Past clients have included Howard Rheingold, MacArthur Foundation, MIT Press, Stanford University, USDA, David Korten and People Centered Development Forum, and the Cooperation Commons and Social Media Classroom community.

twitter: @SamRose

Venessa Miemis

Structured Web Hits

Venessa Miemis is a futurist and digital ethnographer, researching the impacts of social technologies on society and culture and designing systems to facilitate innovation and the evolution of consciousness. She is currently pursuing a Masters in Media Studies at the New School in NYC.

She is the principal organizer with Doug Rushkoff of CONTACT, a new event.

Douglas Rushkoff

Structured Web Hits

Douglas Rushkoff (born 18 February 1961) is an American media theorist, writer, columnist, lecturer, graphic novelist and documentarian. He is best known for his association with the early cyberpunk culture, and his advocacy of open source solutions to social problems.

Rushkoff is most frequently regarded as a media theorist, and known for coining terms and concepts including viral media (or media virus), digital native, and social currency.

Wikipedia Page (Especially Well Done)

An Interview With Douglas Rushkoff, Author of Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age

Douglas Rushkoff: ‘I Would Do It for Arianna. I Won’t Do It for AOL’

Digital Nation Documentary & Commentary

Internet as Easy Prey for Government (Facebook & Twitter as Crutches)