I just arrived in Liverpool, UK from Madrid, Spain – it is the ultimate in language and cultural difference. I’ m still surprised by the lack of English speaking people in business (mainstream retail) in Spain. It made a bit more sense after reading an article written by a teacher where he explains that schools teach English as if it is a dead language where Spanish is the only real world language. Where does this leave the younger generation in a region like that? Will it isolate them more as communities form that only interact in one language…
This is the interesting thing about globalization and spillover of design practices; the airport design, vehicle design, clothes, beverages, electronics, hotels, credit cards, to only mention a few areas. The world has largely standardized the models, processes and systems to deliver on key globalized designs. Is language the last frontier of defining uniqueness in this over standardized world (Europe even has the Euro currency as a standard)? Maybe some of the next items to standardize include; language as English, power plugs and adapters, world level identity system (the passport plays this role currently). This discussion is taking us into platforms; check my post on Platform Operating Models.
Component level activity refers to the individual that uses various socially enabled methods and technologies to either enhance or restrict social integration. (cognitive event that motivates a person to want to connect; social pressures felt if person does not participate)
System level activity is the first level of interactions of human, machine and other integrated humans. This is where social networks start to make an impact as connections increase. (Disparate use of E-mail, SMS, IM, Phone, …individual use of Facebook, etc)
Eco-system level activity is the activity that describes interactions as they occur between social movements (Facebook, Myspace, Bebo, Friendster, Blogger, WordPress). Check this service to subscribe to this blog.
Eco-structure level activity occurs when an entire generation is affected by the adoption of the human-tech-social integration and where this socio-adopted attitude now also spills over onto other generations.
So, there is a generation that is active in creating content on social networks, where an entirely different generation reads and absorbs the content with (currently) completely unknown results. Politics are affected as much as business by younger people as is expressed by Wired in this article. Where is this taking us if highly opinionated youngsters rule a large portion of the socio-integrated opinion space?
Do the informal rules that apply to these networks restrict the freedom of expression amongst socio-integrated groups? Look at this comment from an author discussing Nietsche, Hagel, etc on the reasoning of freedom – “Rather, the connection is understood to be an accidental relation obtaining between mutually independent existences. Plainly put, a thing is unfree, or subject to necessity, when it is bound to something that is external to itself and thus irrelevant to making it what it is. Such an external bond prevents the thing from being self-determining, and so from being free.”
Look at this line of reasoning – One of Hegel’s examples is the planets: “all are connected in a system of orbits, but at the same time this connection does not make them what they are; each planet is the planet that it is, all by itself, and its participation in a system with other planets is an additional feature, external to that which makes it what it is.9 Mars would still be Mars, in other words, even if Venus did not exist, and thus the bond between their orbits involves the two in a relationship of necessity and external determination that restricts the independence of both.” The earth relies on the stability of the traits of moon and sun, etc for its sustained existence. What are the stabilization factors in social networks?