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"thinkers" via Steve Rubel

A conversation with Howard Bloom about collective learning, group selectionism, and the global brainToday

My guest for this week’s Innovators podcast is Howard Bloom. He’s written several books, one of which — Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century — is the main topic of our conversation.

There’s no easy way to summarize this show, but here are some notes that I took while reading the book, and used to guide the discussion:

global data sharing among bacteria

complex adaptive system

imitative learning

individual vs group selection

passion for gathering in cities

raven roosts are data collection centers

elements of a collective learning machine:

1. conformity enforcers (genome, social norms)
2. diversity generators (curiosity, deviance)
3. inner judges
4. resource shifters
5. intergroup tournaments

apoptosis / cell suicide

behavioral vs verbal memes

the group influences individual perception

each node in the collective brain represents a different approach available to the mesh of mind

individuals and subgroups are disposable rovers, sensors for an interlaced intelligence

pumphouse gang shows how individuals and groups can become test pilots for speculative strategies

team hunters, crop thieves, garbage raiders: each a separate “hypothes

The PR Police – Keeping an Eye on the BlogosphereToday

Last week I wrote an article about Trion World Gaming in which I made reference to their impressive venture capital backing. More importantly, I made an error. I said that Peacock Equity was an NBC venture when, in fact, it was a joint venture between NBC and GE Commercial Finance - Media, Communications & Entertainment.

So I was wrong and a good reader pointed it out, and the mistake was promptly corrected. That’s one of my favourite aspects of the blogosphere: many eyes can spot even small mistakes. So after the favour, I wanted to see if the commenter had a blog of their own I could check out their handiwork. The poster left their email address when they posted the comment so I googled them.

Turns out that the domain it came from was actually a communications firm with a decidedly corporate focus. After reading more closely, it turns out that GE Commercial Finance is one of their clients. So it seems like the kind poster didn’t stumble upon this site looking for Trion, Wikinomics, or another interesting posting from yours truly. So with my slightly bruised ego, I did some further looking about the business of “policing” the blogosphere for corporate mentions, and ensuring people get their facts straight.

So what do these firms do? Shift Communications is on

Where is 3M in the Conversation About the Post-It Note Promotion?Today

This could not be defined news in any way at this point. The conversation around how 3M copied what could have been viral marketing created by customers for a promotional campaign is now two years old. [hat tip to Joe Jaffe]

Dozens of bloggers and media outlets documented the snafu. I searched on 3M's site for an official response to the posts, to the comments, to the conversation. Maybe I did not search properly, because I came up empty - and it is difficult for me to believe that everyone at 3M would stand behind a wall of silence on something that could have been such an amazing opportunity for their Post-it Note brand.

Look at the photos by Scott Ableman and then take a glance at the official 3M YouTube video and tell me if I'm not seeing double. Well, they did

Making it real by making it closerToday

Items in the future are closer than they appear.

If you're going across town, you're very specific: "188 Fifth Avenue, on the east side of the street please."

On the other hand, when you go on vacation, you tell people, "I'm going to Paris," not "we're going to 8 rue du Cherche-Midi." And if you're going even farther than that, you skip the city and country altogether and just say, "we're going to Africa." One day, Richard Branson will take you all the way to Mars--all you get is the name of the planet.

This makes sense, of course. We don't need to know which crater you're going to, just that it's far away.

Marketers spend a lot of time describing a future and making it real. The more general you are in describing it, the farther away people imagine it is. "We're going to launch a new product next year" sounds a lot more distant than handing someone a prototype and saying, "this launches on January 3rd at 2 pm at CES."

Short version: If you want people to embrace your version of the future, talk about it like it's right around the corner, not on another planet.

Four Social Media Questions You Must Answer During an Economic DownturnToday

Most of my readers are interactive marketing professioanals, they are experimenting, using, or living in the social media world –for some, it’s part of their very being and defines them professionally, and personally.

Social Media (which has gained popularity in the last few years) has never stared down an economic downturn, My CEO sees at least three to four quarters of reduced technology spending, and Chris Kenton sees even a more dire situation.

Four Social Media Questions You Must Answer During an Economic Downturn Whether you’re a CEO of a social media company, a professional blogger, or a community manager at a large corporation, you’d better be able to answer the following questions.

1) Is social media usage going to increase or decrease during a recession by consumers?
In the last tech bust, I remember many tech professsionals going back to school, becoming real estate agents, or fleeing silicon valley, will migratory usage patterns evolve in social media? Yet even if usage of these tools increases, yet do these consumers have buying power?

2) Will brands and marketers increase spending on media that is generally unproven?
Blog network Gawker recently laid off staff in anticipation of advertising dollars dried up, the key word here