The story starts in Kenya in December of 2007, when there was a disputed presidential election, and in the immediate aftermath of that election, there was an outbreak of ethnic violence. And there was a lawyer in Nairobi, Ory Okolloh -- who some of you may know from her TEDTalk -- who began blogging about it on her site, Kenyan Pundit. And shortly after the election and the outbreak of violence, the government suddenly imposed a significant media blackout. And so weblogs went from being commentary as part of the media landscape to being a critical part of the media landscape in trying to understand where the violence was. And Okolloh solicited from her commenters more information about what was going on. The comments began pouring in, and Okolloh would collate them. She would post them. And she quickly said, "It's too much. I could do this all day every day and I can't keep up. There is more information about what's going on in Kenya right now than any one person can manage. If only there was a way to automate this."
我要先從 2007年12月的肯亞說起, 當時肯亞的總統大選備受爭議。 選舉後的不久, 肯亞境內就爆發了種族暴力事件。 有位來自首都奈洛比的律師,Ory Okolloh-- 各位之中可能有人在TEDTalk聽過她演講-- 她在自己的網站寫下這次事件的感想, 這網站名為Kenyan Pundit。 在選舉和暴力事件後沒多久, 政府突然 就封鎖了所有媒體管道。 網路上的部落格文章, 目的是要嘗試探討暴力事件始末, 從原本是評論風格的媒體, 變成了大肆批評的光景。 Okolloh女士, 對部落格的讀者, 徵求更多關於此事件的資訊。 讀者的回應如排山倒海的出現了。 Okolloh將這些回應做整理後,隨之公開。 很快的她就覺得:「這些資訊實在太多了,」 「我得花上一整天做整理工作,」 「真的沒辦法一直持續下去。」 「這些有關」 「肯亞目前情形的資訊,」 「已經多到超過人所能管理的份量。」 「除非有自動化的軟體或相關設備。」
And two programmers who read her blog held their hands up and said, "We could do that," and in 72 hours, they launched Ushahidi. Ushahidi -- the name means "witness" or "testimony" in Swahili -- is a very simple way of taking reports from the field, whether it's from the web or, critically, via mobile phones and SMS, aggregating it and putting it on a map. That's all it is, but that's all that's needed because what it does is it takes the tacit information available to the whole population -- everybody knows where the violence is, but no one person knows what everyone knows -- and it takes that tacit information and it aggregates it, and it maps it and it makes it public. And that, that maneuver called "crisis mapping," was kicked off in Kenya in January of 2008.
有2個程式設計師看到了她的部落格文章, 說:「我們可以幫妳做這種程式。」 72小時後,一個名為Ushahidi網站出現了。 Ushahidi,在斯瓦希里語中(東非地區的第二語言) 這字的意思是"見證人"或"證詞", 在這裡,你能輕易的陳述任何地區的報導, 不論你是要透過網路發佈訊息,或緊急的時候, 也能透過手機或是簡訊來發佈訊息, 網站會蒐集這些資料,並將資訊呈現在地圖上。 這網站就這樣,但就足夠了。 因為這個網站將那些心照不宣的資訊 公開給大眾瀏覽, 每個人都知道暴力事件在哪發生, 但是沒人了解別人到底知道了什麼, 於是這個網站蒐集了所有隱性訊息, 整理這些訊息, 然後用地圖的方式公開呈現。 這種手法 稱為"危機製圖"(註:crisis mapping)。 網站在2008年1月 在肯亞正式上線。
And enough people looked at it and found it valuable enough that the programmers who created Ushahidi decided they were going to make it open source and turn it into a platform. It's since been deployed in Mexico to track electoral fraud. It's been deployed in Washington D.C. to track snow cleanup. And it's been used most famously in Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake. And when you look at the map now posted on the Ushahidi front page, you can see that the number of deployments in Ushahidi has gone worldwide, all right? This went from a single idea and a single implementation in East Africa in the beginning of 2008 to a global deployment in less than three years.
當網站受到的關注眼光和價值都到了一定程度後, 設計Ushahidi網站的2位程式設計師, 就決定將網站的程式碼公開 且將它轉變成一個平台。 這網站追蹤了 墨西哥的賄選事件。 它也追蹤了華盛頓的大雪清理過程。(註:2010年2月華盛頓大雪破百年紀錄) 海地大地震後的救災行動, 這網站也發揮了用處。 當你來到Ushahidi的首頁, 能看到目前的地圖資訊, 上面顯示目前Ushahidi 在世界各地的平台點,是吧? 這個網站 只不過是2008年 才從東非竄起的一個小構想和小成果, 不到3年的時間 它就成為部屬在世界各地的平台了。
Now what Okolloh did would not have been possible without digital technology. What Okolloh did would not have been possible without human generosity. And the interesting moment now, the number of environments where the social design challenge relies on both of those things being true. That is the resource that I'm talking about. I call it cognitive surplus. And it represents the ability of the world's population to volunteer and to contribute and collaborate on large, sometimes global, projects. Cognitive surplus is made up of two things. The first, obviously, is the world's free time and talents. The world has over a trillion hours a year of free time to commit to shared projects. Now, that free time existed in the 20th century, but we didn't get Ushahidi in the 20th century.
沒有數位技術, Okolloh女士 根本不可能完成資料的彙整。 而沒有群眾大方的提供資訊, Okolloh也不可能完成。 有趣的是, 這是當今 社會化設計中(註:socail design,利用網路讓人們能互相交流的行為), 必須要依賴的2個元素。 這個是我今天想跟各位談的資源。 我稱這項資源為"認知剩餘"(cognitive surplus)。 這是一種 來自全世界群眾的能力, 它是自願的,貢獻的,合作的, 並應用於大型,甚至全球性的專案。 認知剩餘由2種東西組成。 第一個,很明顯的,就是所有人的閒暇時間和才能。 全世界 一年有超過1兆小時的閒暇時間 致力於 某些共同的項目上。 20世紀人們就有自己的閒暇時間了, 但在20世紀可沒有Ushahidi這個網站。
That's the second half of cognitive surplus. The media landscape in the 20th century was very good at helping people consume, and we got, as a result, very good at consuming. But now that we've been given media tools -- the Internet, mobile phones -- that let us do more than consume, what we're seeing is that people weren't couch potatoes because we liked to be. We were couch potatoes because that was the only opportunity given to us. We still like to consume, of course. But it turns out we also like to create, and we like to share. And it's those two things together -- ancient human motivation and the modern tools to allow that motivation to be joined up in large-scale efforts -- that are the new design resource. And using cognitive surplus, we're starting to see truly incredible experiments in scientific, literary, artistic, political efforts. Designing.
接著是認知剩餘的另一半。 20世紀的媒體環境 助長了人們的消費行為。 也因此, 我們非常善於消費。 而當今我們的媒體工具, 像是網路、手機,這些促使我們做了更多消費的東西, 讓人們不再是賴在電視前的懶蟲, 因為我們想去做別的事情了。 我們會喜歡賴在電視機前,是因為 那是我們閒暇時的唯一選擇。 當然,我們還是很喜歡消費。 但是新的媒體工具讓我們想要創造東西, 甚至分享東西。 新的工具和人的閒暇時間一合併, 也就是過去人類就有的閒暇時間, 加上當今最新的媒體工具, 轉變成為一個更大規模的動力, 就成了一種新的社會性設計資源。 認知剩餘的使用, 讓我們開始在許多領域做驚人的嘗試, 像是在科學上,文學上, 藝術,政治推動。 還有設計領域。
We're also getting, of course, a lot of LOLcats. LOLcats are cute pictures of cats made cuter with the addition of cute captions. And they are also part of the abundant media landscape we're getting now. This is one of the participatory -- one of the participatory models we see coming out of that, along with Ushahidi. Now I want to stipulate, as the lawyers say, that LOLcats are the stupidest possible creative act. There are other candidates of course, but LOLcats will do as a general case. But here's the thing: The stupidest possible creative act is still a creative act. Someone who has done something like this, however mediocre and throwaway, has tried something, has put something forward in public. And once they've done it, they can do it again, and they could work on getting it better.
這些圖片都是來自「LoLcats」網站。 LoLcats網站上都是可愛的小貓圖片, 然後再搭配逗趣的文字(註:圖和文字都是由網友自行上傳設計)。 而這正是 我們目前豐沛的媒體成果之一。 這是一種與他人合作的案例。 而另一種與他人合作的模式 就是剛介紹的Ushahidi。 若從一個正經八百的律師的立場來看, LOLcats可能是個很蠢的 創意成果。 當然我們還有很多類似的網站, 但是LOLcats是可以作為一個通例。 但其中有一點, 就算可能是最蠢的創意成果, 它依舊是一個創意。 曾經做過類似網站的人, 不論成果是平庸還是已被遺忘, 這些人都嘗試過,嘗試這把這些東西散播給大眾。 只要有人做過一次,就會有人就會再做一次。 而且他們會越做越好。
There is a spectrum between mediocre work and good work, and as anybody who's worked as an artist or a creator knows, it's a spectrum you're constantly struggling to get on top of. The gap is between doing anything and doing nothing. And someone who makes a LOLcat has already crossed over that gap. Now it's tempting to want to get the Ushahidis without the LOLcats, right, to get the serious stuff without the throwaway stuff. But media abundance never works that way. Freedom to experiment means freedom to experiment with anything. Even with the sacred printing press, we got erotic novels 150 years before we got scientific journals.
平庸的作品和很棒的作品之間有個空間。 不管是藝術家或是創意工作者都知道, 這是你努力向上,爬到頂端之前的 一個空間。 這個缺口介乎於 有點成果和一事無成的二者之間。 所以創建LOLcats網站的人 就是已經跨越了這個缺口。 但如果說我們比較需要Ushahidis, 並非LOLcats, 或說我們比較想要嚴肅的產物,而非偏廣告消費性質的。 媒體的多樣性並不會導致這種情形。 自由實驗,意思就是你能自由的針對任何事情做嘗試。 即使有了偉大的印刷機, 在科學期刊問世以前, 我們還不是先用印刷機印了150年的色情小說。
So before I talk about what is, I think, the critical difference between LOLcats and Ushahidi, I want to talk about their shared source. And that source is design for generosity. It is one of the curiosities of our historical era that even as cognitive surplus is becoming a resource we can design around, social sciences are also starting to explain how important our intrinsic motivations are to us, how much we do things because we like to do them rather than because our boss told us to do them, or because we're being paid to do them.
在我說明Ushahidi和LOLcats 這2個網站的差異之前, 我想先談談 這2個網站 它們所分享的資源。 這種資源來自大眾的慷慨。 在歷史上,目前是我們好奇心最強的時代, 認知剩餘 變成一項被我們利用的資源, 社會學家開始去解釋 我們的內在動機 對我們是多麼重要, 我們會做多少事,完全仰賴我們有多喜歡這件事, 並非是老闆叫我們去做, 或是為了酬勞。
This is a graph from a paper by Uri Gneezy and Aldo Rustichini, who set out to test, at the beginning of this decade, what they called "deterrence theory." And deterrence theory is a very simple theory of human behavior: If you want somebody to do less of something, add a punishment and they'll do less of it. Simple, straightforward, commonsensical -- also, largely untested. And so they went and studied 10 daycare centers in Haifa, Israel. They studied those daycare centers at the time of highest tension, which is pick-up time. At pick-up time the teachers, who have been with your children all day, would like you to be there at the appointed hour to take your children back. Meanwhile, the parents -- perhaps a little busy at work, running late, running errands -- want a little slack to pick the kids up late.
畫面上的圖表 是從Uri Gneezy和Aldo Rustichini這2位學者合著的論文而來, 這個實驗從10年前就開始進行, 稱之「嚇阻理論」(deterrence theory)。 嚇阻理論是一個非常簡易的人類行為理論。 若你想要某人事情做少一點, 利用懲罰就能達到效果。 這種想法非常簡單,直覺,也是常識, 但根本沒做過實驗證明。 所以他們2位 針對在以色列海法城的10個托兒所進行實驗。 他們針對這10間托兒所 一天中最忙的時刻做研究, 也就是下課後的家長接送時間。 在這段接送時間裡, 托兒所的老師已經和孩子們相處了一整天, 因此他們會希望家長能準時把小孩接走。 但這個時候,這些父母也許因為工作, 會稍微晚於指定的時間。
So Gneezy and Rustichini said, "How many instances of late pick-ups are there at these 10 daycare centers?" Now they saw -- and this is what the graph is, these are the number of weeks and these are the number of late arrivals -- that there were between six and 10 instances of late pick-ups on average in these 10 daycare centers. So they divided the daycare centers into two groups. The white group there is the control group; they change nothing. But the group of daycare centers represented by the black line, they said, "We are changing this bargain as of right now. If you pick your kid up more than 10 minutes late, we're going to add a 10 shekel fine to your bill. Boom. No ifs, ands or buts."
Gneezy和Rustichini就好奇: 「在這10個托兒所中,」 「會有多少人在接送時間遲到的?」 他們的實驗成果就如這張圖所示, 橫座標是實驗的週數,縱座標是遲到的人數。 平均來說, 一間托兒所中會遲到的家長數量, 大約是在6到10位之間。 於是他們將這幾間托兒所分成2組。 白色線的部分 是對照組,不會有任何改變。 黑線是實驗組, 實驗組會跟父母說: 「讓我們改變一下目前的協議,」 「若各位晚10分鐘來接小孩,」 「我們就被需酌收10謝克爾(約台幣82元)。」 「就這樣,不能有任何藉口。」
And the minute they did that, the behavior in those daycare centers changed. Late pick-ups went up every week for the next four weeks until they topped out at triple the pre-fine average, and then they fluctuated at between double and triple the pre-fine average for the life of the fine. And you can see immediately what happened, right? The fine broke the culture of the daycare center. By adding a fine, what they did was communicate to the parents that their entire debt to the teachers had been discharged with the payment of 10 shekels, and that there was no residue of guilt or social concern that the parents owed the teachers. And so the parents, quite sensibly, said, "10 shekels to pick my kid up late? What could be bad?" (Laughter)
於是實驗就開始了, 托兒所也開始有了轉變。 在接下來的4週中 實驗組遲到的人數節節上升, 直到罰金數字達到了3倍才緩下來, 之後遲到的人數 就是徘徊在 2倍罰金和3倍罰金之間。 沒錯,各位能請楚的看到圖表變化。 罰金 破壞了托兒所固有的文化。 如果有罰金, 等於是跟這些父母說 你們因遲到欠老師的人情 只要付10謝克爾 就可以獲得清償, 而這也可以免除 家長心中的罪惡感和社會觀感。 這些父母明智的認為: 「用10謝克爾換晚一點接小孩?」 「何樂而不為?」 (笑)
The explanation of human behavior that we inherited in the 20th century was that we are all rational, self-maximizing actors, and in that explanation -- the daycare center had no contract -- should have been operating without any constraints. But that's not right. They were operating with social constraints rather than contractual ones. And critically, the social constraints created a culture that was more generous than the contractual constraints did. So Gneezy and Rustichini run this experiment for a dozen weeks -- run the fine for a dozen weeks -- and then they say, "Okay, that's it. All done; fine." And then a really interesting thing happens: Nothing changes. The culture that got broken by the fine stayed broken when the fine was removed. Not only are economic motivations and intrinsic motivations incompatible, that incompatibility can persist over long periods. So the trick in designing these kinds of situations is to understand where you're relying on the economic part of the bargain -- as with the parents paying the teachers -- and when you're relying on the social part of the bargain, when you're really designing for generosity.
這說明了我們從20世紀 遺留下來的人類行為, 就是理性和自利行為極大化。 托兒所並沒有和家長立定正式契約, 所以在理性和自利行為下, 應該不需要任何條件,人都會選擇晚一點接小孩。 但結果並不是這樣。 父母甘願交錢換晚一點接小孩是因為「社會約束」所致, 而非「文件契約」所致。 關鍵點在於, 社會約束比文件契約 創造了更多樣的文化。 Gneezy和Rustichini將這個實驗做了12週, 執行了12週的罰金制度, 然後他們想:「好吧,罰金制度就到此為止。」 更有趣的事情發生了。 遲到的人沒有變少。 固有的托兒所文化被罰金所破壞, 在取消罰金後,這固有的文化就無法恢復了。 不僅是經濟動機 和內在動機 2者之間的不相容(遲到罰錢造成更多人遲到), 而且這種不相容 還會持續一段很長的時間。 這種手法 設計了一種情境, 這讓你了解到, 什麼時候要用經濟來與人做交易,像父母會付10元給老師, 什麼時候用社會行為與人做交易, 像是有人無償的設計出共享的網路資源。
This brings me back to the LOLcats and to Ushahidi. This is, I think, the range that matters. Both of these rely on cognitive surplus. Both of these design for the assumption that people like to create and we want to share. Here is the critical difference between these: LOLcats is communal value. It's value created by the participants for each other. Communal value on the networks we have is everywhere -- every time you see a large aggregate of shared, publicly available data, whether it's photos on Flickr or videos on Youtube or whatever. This is good. I like LOLcats as much as the next guy, maybe a little more even, but this is also a largely solved problem. I have a hard time envisioning a future in which someone is saying, "Where, oh where, can I find a picture of a cute cat?"
讓我們回到LoLcats 和Ushahidi。 我認為,這2個網站跟剛才說的息息相關。 這2個網站都需要認知剩餘。 這2者的設計原理是建立在某種假設上, 假設人們喜歡創造和分享。 但這2者最不同的關鍵點是, LoLcats是集體的價值(communal value)。 這個網站的價值 是參與者互相參與交流所建立的。 這種人與人互相建立起的集體價值, 網路上到處都是。 你很容易找到一大堆、 或是可以分享、公開的可用資料, 不論是在Flickr上的相片 或是在Youtube上的影片等等。 這種集體價值是很棒的。我跟大家一樣都喜歡LOLcats這個網站, 搞不好喜歡的程度還比較高。 這種網站 同時也解決了一個很大的問題。 因為在未來的日子裡 我很難再遇見這樣講的人: 「我要到哪裡才能找到」 「可愛的貓咪照片阿?」
Ushahidi, by contrast, is civic value. It's value created by the participants but enjoyed by society as a whole. The goals set out by Ushahidi are not just to make life better for the participants, but to make life better for everyone in the society in which Ushahidi is operating. And that kind of civic value is not just a side effect of opening up to human motivation. It really is going to be a side effect of what we, collectively, make of these kinds of efforts. There are a trillion hours a year of participatory value up for grabs. That will be true year-in and year-out. The number of people who are going to be able to participate in these kinds of projects is going to grow, and we can see that organizations designed around a culture of generosity can achieve incredible effects without an enormous amount of contractual overhead -- a very different model than our default model for large-scale group action in the 20th century.
相對的,Ushahidi 是一種公民的價值(civic value)。 這網站的價值同樣來自參與者, 但整體上來看,它的價值是整個社會所享有的。 Ushahidi的創立目的 不只是為了讓參與者 有更好的生活, 所有生活在Ushahidi服務範圍的人, 生活都變得更好。 這種公民價值 並不僅僅只是 人類需求拓展下的副產物。 而應該是一種 由我們全體 共同致力於某件事下的延伸產物。 這一年的1兆小時 是來自 參與者產生的價值, 且這價值是供人任意使用的。 這些時間每年都會有。 願意參與 類似這些專案的人 會越來越多。 我們會發現 具有這種慷慨奉獻文化的組織, 往往能達到許多不可思議的成就, 而且不需要龐大的管理開銷。 這種模式是非常不同於 我們在20世紀的行為模式。
What's going to make the difference here is what Dean Kamen said, the inventor and entrepreneur. Kamen said, "Free cultures get what they celebrate." We've got a choice before us. We've got this trillion hours a year. We can use it to crack each other up, and we're going to do that. That, we get for free. But we can also celebrate and support and reward the people trying to use cognitive surplus to create civic value. And to the degree we're going to do that, to the degree we're able to do that, we'll be able to change society.
這種不同點 就像Dean Kamen(兩輪電車Segway的發明者) 這位發明家與創業家所說的: 「讓我們讚揚這免費的文化吧。」 現在我們眼前有個選擇。 現在我們一年有1兆小時可以用。 我們可以把這些時間拆散來自己使用, 或是用來創造更多共享的東西。 我們應該也要讚揚、 協助、獎勵那些 試著將認知剩餘 轉變成公民價值的人。 若我們都願意這樣做,都有能力這樣做, 我們就能改變這個社會。
Thank you very much.
謝謝各位。