We are local animals, with neural pathways laid down as infants to relate through microexpression, tone of voice and touch. But we make tools too, which extend that interaction over a distance. Distant interactions are weaker. But they can be amplified if we are talking about something important.
Like changing the world.
A tool we've made is the global social media and web infrastructure, primarily built for commerce. How can it become an amplifier for our distributed worldwide brilliance, to change the world?
That's the idea of Google Ideas.
Korea leads the United States in mobile internet culture evolution. The United States has a relatively established internet culture. Social networks in China are evolving the culture very rapidly. The interesting places in the world are developing countries with a population skewed towards youth. Many have Internet cafes with low cost Internet access. Text messaging is established, and mobile Internet access is expanding exponentially.
For many new Internet participants, the mobile phone may be their first and only connection to the Internet. Voice interaction on a feature phone may reduce the need for the most expensive smartphones, and enable participation in the Internet by people who don't read or write a dominant language.
Social Internet technologies have already had crucial impacts in how citizens and governments relate in the Arab Spring الربيع العربي. Egypt and Iran are noted examples where events were organized and the results publicized internationally by mobile and internet technologies. Key activists were released as a result of texts, Twitter and Facebook pressures. Governments changed for the first time in generations.
When each of us was introduced to the Internet, we found use cases which satisfied our needs. How can we ensure that apps and platforms are available to enable worldchanging in every country, specific to local culture, and relevant to each demographic? We need as many people as possible working together on the great problems facing our species and the planet on which we travel together. We can make an Internet that does more than entertain, or lubricate commerce, and we must.
One of the world's great challenges is the mismatch between elements of society that want change, and those who are comfortable with the status quo. Social Internet tools accelerate change, intensifying that conflict. Can social Internet applications also support resolving those conflicts within a society?
People interested in topics like this might be interested in a talk by Jared Cohen, founder of Google Ideas. Google Ideas continues the work of Google.org in projects worldwide that facilitate work on our greatest challenges. Cohen, formerly at the State Department, has been an advisor to the past two secretaries. He is noted for not recommending that Twitter be shut down for maintenance in Iran during the June 2009 post election protests.
For more background here is a talk by Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen at the Council on Foreign Relations. There is an interview here too.
Hear Jared Cohen of Google Ideas http://twitter.com/#!/googleideas hosted by Mercy Corps www.mercycorps.org at the First Congressional Church 1126 SW Park 7PM $20, $12.50 students
