How do groups get anything done? Right? How do you organize a group of individuals so that the output of the group is something coherent and of lasting value, instead of just being chaos? And the economic framing of that problem is called coordination costs. And a coordination cost is essentially all of the financial or institutional difficulties in arranging group output. And we've had a classic answer for coordination costs, which is, if you want to coordinate the work of a group of people, you start an institution, right? You raise some resources. You found something. It can be private or public. It can be for profit or not profit. It can be large or small. But you get these resources together. You found an institution, and you use the institution to coordinate the activities of the group.
一群人究竟如何搞定事情? 你如何組織一群人, 讓這個團體的產出, 帶來某種一致性與延續性的價值。 而並非只是一團混亂? 把這個難題用經濟學的架構/術語來解釋 我們稱之為「協調成本」。 協調成本基本上是安排群體產出成果時, 所面臨到的財務與機構/組織問題。 對於協調成本有一個古典的答案來回應, 那就是:如果你想要協調一群人順利產出成果 那就發起一個組織吧。沒錯吧?你募集一些資源 找到某些東西。這個組織可以是私人的或公共的 它可以是營利或非營利組織;大機構或小型組織。 但是當你把這些資源湊在一起 你創立了一個機構,你運用這個機構來 協調一群人的活動。
More recently, because the cost of letting groups communicate with each other has fallen through the floor -- and communication costs are one of the big inputs to coordination -- there has been a second answer, which is to put the cooperation into the infrastructure, to design systems that coordinate the output of the group as a by-product of the operating of the system, without regard to institutional models. So, that's what I want to talk about today. I'm going to illustrate it with some fairly concrete examples, but always pointing to the broader themes.
而隨著近年來,形成團體彼此相互溝通 的成本下跌到不像樣的程度 溝通成本比重上佔大部分 於是協調成本的第二個答案浮現了出來 那就是將彼此的合作建置在基礎架構中, 設計出除了基本運作之外,同時能夠協調一群人 與產出成果的系統,讓一群人能夠順利地 產出成果,而不用訴諸於機構的模式。 所以這就是我今天想要談的內容。 我將會舉一些相當具體的範例來作闡述, 但是總會指向較廣的主題
So, I'm going to start by trying to answer a question that I know each of you will have asked yourself at some point or other, and which the Internet is purpose-built to answer, which is, where can I get a picture of a roller-skating mermaid? So, in New York City, on the first Saturday of every summer, Coney Island, our local, charmingly run-down amusement park, hosts the Mermaid Parade. It's an amateur parade; people come from all over the city; people get all dressed up. Some people get less dressed up. Young and old, dancing in the streets. Colorful characters, and a good time is had by all. And what I want to call your attention to is not the Mermaid Parade itself, charming though it is, but rather to these photos. I didn't take them. How did I get them? And the answer is: I got them from Flickr.
我將會從試著回答一個問題來作為開始 我知道各位在某個時刻也曾問過自己 並且網際網路就是被用來回答這個問題的。 這個問題是:我要從哪找到一張美人魚溜直排輪的照片? 在紐約市,每年夏天的第一個星期六, 康尼島,我們在地的、迷人的遊樂園區 會舉辦美人魚遊行。這是一個業餘的遊行活動 人們從紐約的四面八方湧來,盛裝打扮。 有些人盛裝打扮的比較清涼。 年輕人跟熟男熟女,在街道上跳舞。 所有人物都是色彩繽紛,大家都很享受這個時刻。 我想要讓各位注意的不是美人魚遊行本身, 雖然它很迷人,我想要專注在這些照片上。 這些照片不是我拍的。我怎麼找到這些照片的? 答案是:我從 Flickr 上面找到了這些照片。
Flickr is a photo-sharing service that allows people to take photos, upload them, share them over the Web and so forth. Recently, Flickr has added an additional function called tagging. Tagging was pioneered by Delicious and Joshua Schachter. Delicious is a social bookmarking service. Tagging is a cooperative infrastructure answer to classification. Right? If I had given this talk last year, I couldn't do what I just did, because I couldn't have found those photos. But instead of saying, we need to hire a professional class of librarians to organize these photos once they're uploaded, Flickr simply turned over to the users the ability to characterize the photos. So, I was able to go in and draw down photos that had been tagged "Mermaid Parade." There were 3,100 photos taken by 118 photographers, all aggregated and then put under this nice, neat name, shown in reverse chronological order. And I was then able to go and retrieve them to give you that little slideshow.
Flickr 是一個照片分享的服務 讓人們拍照、上傳照片, 在網路上彼此分享這些照片。 最近 Flickr 增加了一個新功能:標籤(tagging)。 標籤首先由Del.icio.us/Joshua Schachter所帶動 Del.icio.us 是一個社會書籤服務。 標籤是一種回答分類問題的答案:合作基礎架構。 如果我去年就做這場演講的話, 我將無法展示那些剛剛秀的照片, 因為我找不到這些照片。 如果真的要作的話, 我們需要雇一組專業的圖書館館員 來組織這些上傳的許多照片, Flickr簡單地讓使用者自己來管理 它把標示照片的功能提供給了使用者。 所以我能在其中找到夠多上面標有我要的標籤的照片 「美人魚遊行」。共有 118 位攝影者,拍攝了 3100 張照片, 所有這些照片都被整理起來,放在簡潔有力的名稱底下, 以相反的時間順序來顯示。 於是我可以搜尋、找到這些照片 來作一場小小的照片展示。
Now, what hard problem is being solved here? And it's -- in the most schematic possible view, it's a coordination problem, right? There are a large number of people on the Internet, a very small fraction of them have photos of the Mermaid Parade. How do we get those people together to contribute that work? The classic answer is to form an institution, right? To draw those people into some prearranged structure that has explicit goals. And I want to call your attention to some of the side effects of going the institutional route.
我們現在正在解決的,是什麼樣的問題? 從最概略的可能觀點來檢視, 這是一個協調的問題。 在網際網路上有非常多的人, 其中一小群的人擁有美人魚遊行的照片。 我們要如何讓那些人一起貢獻這個作品? 傳統的答案會是,成立一個組織吧? 為了要吸引人們加入某些預先設計好的結構, 這些結構擁有明確的目標。 請注意: 機構這種作法有一些副作用。
First of all, when you form an institution, you take on a management problem, right? No good just hiring employees, you also have to hire other employees to manage those employees and to enforce the goals of the institution and so forth. Secondly, you have to bring structure into place. Right? You have to have economic structure. You have to have legal structure. You have to have physical structure. And that creates additional costs. Third, forming an institution is inherently exclusionary. You notice we haven't got everybody who has a photo. You can't hire everyone in a company, right? You can't recruit everyone into a governmental organization. You have to exclude some people. And fourth, as a result of that exclusion, you end up with a professional class. Look at the change here. We've gone from people with photos to photographers. Right? We've created a professional class of photographers whose goal is to go out and photograph the Mermaid Parade, or whatever else they're sent out to photograph.
首先,當你組成一個機構/組織時, 你馬上就有管理上的問題。 不只是聘僱員工而已。 你還需要聘僱另外一些員工來管理這些員工 並且強迫執行機構的目標...等等。 再來,你必需要把結構放到實際的空間當中。 你還必需要有經濟結構。 你必需要有法律結構。 你必需要有實體結構。 這些都造成了額外的成本。 第三,形成機構/組織天生就會排除異己。 你注意到不是所有有照片的人都被納進組織中。 你沒有辦法在一個公司中僱用每一個人!對吧? 你也沒有辦法把所有人都僱用到政府裡。 你總是得排除某些人。 第四,作為排除的結果, 你將製造出一個專業階級。看看這個改變。 我們從有照片的人們,變成了攝影師。 我們創造了一個攝影師的專業階級 其目的是為了要去拍攝美人魚遊行 或其他任何指定要拍的東西。
When you build cooperation into the infrastructure, which is the Flickr answer, you can leave the people where they are and you take the problem to the individuals, rather than moving the individuals to the problem. You arrange the coordination in the group, and by doing that you get the same outcome, without the institutional difficulties. You lose the institutional imperative. You lose the right to shape people's work when it's volunteer effort, but you also shed the institutional cost, which gives you greater flexibility. What Flickr does is it replaces planning with coordination. And this is a general aspect of these cooperative systems.
當你把合作建置在基礎架構中的時候, 這也是 Flickr 的答案, 你可以讓人們留在原地 或將這個問題帶到他們面前,讓每個人自己來解決, 而不是叫每個人移動來遷就這個問題。 藉由這種安排,你在團體中設計協調的進行 讓你省去承擔機構的困擾、得到相同的產出。 你失去了機構的命令力量。 當大家都是志工,你失去了型塑人們產出的權利, 但是你同時也減少了機構的成本, 讓你擁有了更大的彈性。 Flickr 所作的是,它以協調取代了規劃。 這是在這些合作系統中的一種普遍面向。
Right. You'll have experienced this in your life whenever you bought your first mobile phone, and you stopped making plans. You just said, "I'll call you when I get there." "Call me when you get off work." Right? That is a point-to-point replacement of coordination with planning. Right. We're now able to do that kind of thing with groups. To say instead of, we must make an advance plan, we must have a five-year projection of where the Wikipedia is going to be, or whatever, you can just say, let's coordinate the group effort, and let's deal with it as we go, because we're now well-enough coordinated that we don't have to take on the problems of deciding in advance what to do.
在生活中你一定經歷過類似的片刻: 當你買了第一隻手機, 你便不再作規劃或計畫。 你只是說,「我到了再撥電話給你」。 「當你下班的時候 call 我」對吧? 那就是一種取代了規劃的、點對點的協調行動。 我們現在能夠跟一群人進行那樣子的協調。 不用再說,我們一定要作一個多先進的計畫、 我們必須要往後規劃五年的未來, 或維基百科將會被帶往何處等等。 你可以只是說,我們一起來協調看看吧, 我們邊做邊看好了, 因為我們現在可以充分地彼此協調 不用再頭痛預先設想要做什麼。
So here's another example. This one's somewhat more somber. These are photos on Flickr tagged "Iraq." And everything that was hard about the coordination cost with the Mermaid Parade is even harder here. There are more pictures. There are more photographers. It's taken over a wider geographic area. The photos are spread out over a longer period of time. And worst of all, that figure at the bottom, approximately ten photos per photographer, is a lie. It's mathematically true, but it doesn't really talk about anything important -- because in these systems, the average isn't really what matters.
這裡是另外一個例子:這個例子更為陰暗。 這些是 Flickr 網站上標註 Iraq 的照片。 以協調成本來說,一切都非常困難 比美人魚遊行還要困難的多。 有更多的照片,更多的攝影者。 照片涵蓋範圍包括更多地理區域。 拍攝時間跨越更長的一段時間。 而且更糟糕的是,看看底下的數字, 「每個攝影者平均貢獻10張照片」這是假的。 數學上來說是真的, 但是沒有任何重要的意義 因為這些系統中,平均數並不重要。
What matters is this. This is a graph of photographs tagged Iraq as taken by the 529 photographers who contributed the 5,445 photos. And it's ranked in order of number of photos taken per photographer. You can see here, over at the end, our most prolific photographer has taken around 350 photos, and you can see there's a few people who have taken hundreds of photos. Then there's dozens of people who've taken dozens of photos. And by the time we get around here, we get ten or fewer photos, and then there's this long, flat tail. And by the time you get to the middle, you've got hundreds of people who have contributed only one photo each.
真正重要的是: 這是所有有標註 Iraq 的照片的貢獻數據圖 是由529名攝影者,貢獻了5,445張照片。 依照攝影者貢獻照片數目來加以排序。 你可以看到在一端, 貢獻最多的攝影者拍攝了350張照片, 一些人拍了將近數百張照片。 數十位攝影者拍攝上傳了數十張照片。 我們現在來看這裡, 我們看到十張或更少的照片貢獻者很多,有很長、平坦的尾部分佈。 接著我們走到圖表中間, 看到有數百人 每個人只有貢獻一張照片。
This is called a power-law distribution. It appears often in unconstrained social systems where people are allowed to contribute as much or as little as they like -- this is often what you get. Right? The math behind the power-law distribution is that whatever's in the nth position is doing about one-nth of whatever's being measured, relative to the person in the first position. So, we'd expect the tenth most prolific photographer to have contributed about a tenth of the photos, and the hundredth most prolific photographer to have contributed only about a hundred as many photos as the most prolific photographer did. So, the head of the curve can be sharper or flatter. But that basic math accounts both for the steep slope and for the long, flat tail.
這就是所謂的冪次分佈。 常常在沒有設限的社會系統中出現 當人們被允許貢獻多少都沒有關係時, 這常常是我們所得到的結果。 冪次定律後面的數學原理就是:無論什麼在第 n 個位置 其測量的結果是 1/n, 相對於第 1 個位置的測量結果。 所以我們期待第十位貢獻最多的攝影者 他所貢獻的照片數量是第一名的 1/10, 而第 100 名的貢獻者 貢獻結果是 1/100 相較於貢獻最多的攝影者。 所以這個曲線的頭部可以變得更為尖銳或平坦。 但是基本數學說明了斜率 以及長長的、平坦的尾部。
And curiously, in these systems, as they grow larger, the systems don't converge; they diverge more. In bigger systems, the head gets bigger and the tail gets longer, so the imbalance increases. You can see the curve is obviously heavily left-weighted. Here's how heavily: if you take the top 10 percent of photographers contributing to this system, they account for three quarters of the photos taken -- just the top 10 percent most prolific photographers. If you go down to five percent, you're still accounting for 60 percent of the photos. If you go down to one percent, exclude 99 percent of the group effort, you're still accounting for almost a quarter of the photos. And because of this left weighting, the average is actually here, way to the left. And that sounds strange to our ears, but what ends up happening is that 80 percent of the contributors have contributed a below-average amount. That sounds strange because we expect average and middle to be about the same, but they're not at all.
令人覺得有趣的是,在這些系統中,當他們規模成長, 系統並不會收斂,反而更為發散。 在較大的系統中,頭部變得更大 尾部則變得更長。不平衡的狀況更為增加。 你可以看到曲線很明顯地嚴重左傾;我們來看程度有多嚴重。 如果你取前 10% 的攝影者的貢獻作品, 它們佔了約 ¾ 的照片總數 僅僅只有前 10% 的攝影者的貢獻而已。 如果你取前 5% 的貢獻成果, 你就涵蓋了 60% 的照片。 如果你取 1% 的成果,排除眾人 99% 的努力成果, 你仍然涵蓋了幾乎 ¼ 的照片總數。 而且因為這樣的左傾, 平均數實際就落在左側。 即便聽起來很怪, 最終實際的狀況是,80%的貢獻者 只有低於平均數的貢獻。 這聽起來很怪,因為我們期待平均數與中數 應該是相同的;但是並不如此。
This is the math underlying the 80/20 rule. Right? Whenever you hear anybody talking about the 80/20 rule, this is what's going on. Right? 20 percent of the merchandise accounts for 80 percent of the revenue, 20 percent of the users use 80 percent of the resources -- this is the shape people are talking about when that happens. Institutions only have two tools: carrots and sticks. And the 80 percent zone is a no-carrot and no-stick zone. The costs of running the institution mean that you cannot take on the work of those people easily in an institutional frame. The institutional model always pushes leftwards, treating these people as employees. The institutional response is, I can get 75 percent of the value for 10 percent of the hires -- great, that's what I'll do. The cooperative infrastructure model says, why do you want to give up a quarter of the value? If your system is designed so that you have to give up a quarter of the value, re-engineer the system. Don't take on the cost that prevents you from getting to the contributions of these people. Build the system so that anybody can contribute at any amount.
這就是 80/20 法則後面的數學邏輯。 每當你聽到有人談到 80/20 法則, 這就是實際的情形。 20%的商品帶來 80% 的利潤, 20% 的使用者使用著 80% 的系統資源, 這就是人們在討論時實際發生的資料形狀。 機構只有兩種工具:胡蘿蔔跟棍子。 80% 的區域都是沒有胡蘿蔔跟棍子的地方。 運作機構的成本,意味著你沒有辦法 將那些人們的成果簡易地用機構的框架來取得。 機構模型總是會往左邊推擠, 希望將這些頭部的人們當作員工。 機構的反應是 我可以從所僱用的人們當中的10%取得75%的價值的話...太棒了。 我就會這樣作。 合作架構的模型則是問: 為什麼你希望放棄 ¼ 的價值? 如果你的系統被設計 成你必需要放棄 ¼ 的價值, 那麼趕快去改造它吧。 別讓成本阻礙了你 不讓你從人們的貢獻中獲得成果; 打造這個系統,讓任何人都能夠隨意貢獻
So the coordination response asks not, how are these people as employees, but rather, what is their contribution like? Right? We have over here Psycho Milt, a Flickr user, who has contributed one, and only one, photo titled "Iraq." And here's the photo. Right. Labeled, "Bad Day at Work." Right? So the question is, do you want that photo? Yes or no. The question is not, is Psycho Milt a good employee?
所以協調並非這樣地回應提問, 這些人如何可以被雇為己用,而是換個方式提問: 他們的貢獻長什麼樣子? 以這張 Flickr 使用者 Psycho Milt 的照片為例, 他只有貢獻一張照片,只有一張照片標註著 Iraq。 就是這張照片。名稱寫著:工作不順的一天。 所以問題是: 你想要這張照片嗎?或許想,或許不想。 這個問題不是,Psycho Milt 是不是一個好的員工?
And the tension here is between institution as enabler and institution as obstacle. When you're dealing with the left-hand edge of one of these distributions, when you're dealing with the people who spend a lot of time producing a lot of the material you want, that's an institution-as-enabler world. You can hire those people as employees, you can coordinate their work and you can get some output. But when you're down here, where the Psycho Milts of the world are adding one photo at a time, that's institution as obstacle.
緊張關係就存在於,機構到底是一個促成者, 還是一個阻礙者。 當你在處理左側邊緣的這些資料 這些分佈當中的其中一筆資料時, 當你在跟花了很多時間的這些人們 他們生產一大堆你所需要的素材, 那就是機構作為促成者的世界。 你可以把那些人都聘作員工,你可以協調他們的工作 而且你可以得到某些產出。 但是當你在這,當世界一隅的 Psycho Milts 一次上傳一張照片時 機構就變成了一個阻礙者。
Institutions hate being told they're obstacles. One of the first things that happens when you institutionalize a problem is that the first goal of the institution immediately shifts from whatever the nominal goal was to self-preservation. And the actual goal of the institution goes to two through n. Right? So, when institutions are told they are obstacles, and that there are other ways of coordinating the value, they go through something a little bit like the Kubler-Ross stages -- (Laughter) -- of reaction, being told you have a fatal illness: denial, anger, bargaining, acceptance. Most of the cooperative systems we've seen haven't been around long enough to have gotten to the acceptance phase.
機構討厭被人家稱為阻礙。 最初會發生的事情之一是 當你把一個問題透過機構來解決 這個機構的第一個目標 馬上從任何正常的目標 變成自我保存:這個機構的生存。 這機構本來的實際目標,馬上變成第二或更後面去了。 所以當機構被告知他們自己是阻礙, 而且有其他的方法來協調價值時, 他們於是便經歷了有點像是 Kubler-Ross 的反應階段說: (笑聲) 當你被告知你罹患絕症時的反應階段 拒絕接受、憤怒、討價還價、到接受, 大部分我們所見的合作系統 都出現迄今還不夠久 沒有讓機構走到接受的階段。
Many, many institutions are still in denial, but we're seeing recently a lot of both anger and bargaining. There's a wonderful, small example going on right now. In France, a bus company is suing people for forming a carpool, right, because the fact that they have coordinated themselves to create cooperative value is depriving them of revenue. You can follow this in the Guardian. It's actually quite entertaining.
許多許多的機構還在否認的階段, 但是我們正在看到近來許多憤怒與討價還價的行動。 現在有一個很棒的小例子。 在法國,一個巴士公司正控告人們推動汽車共乘制度。 因為人們彼此互相協調 來創造合作的價值這件事情,讓巴士沒有利潤。 你可以從衛報上面追蹤這則新聞的發展。 還真的是蠻有娛樂效果的。
The bigger question is, what do you do about the value down here? Right? How do you capture that? And institutions, as I've said, are prevented from capturing that. Steve Ballmer, now CEO of Microsoft, was criticizing Linux a couple of years ago, and he said, "Oh, this business of thousands of programmers contributing to Linux, this is a myth. We've looked at who's contributed to Linux, and most of the patches have been produced by programmers who've only done one thing." Right? You can hear this distribution under that complaint. And you can see why, from Ballmer's point of view, that's a bad idea, right? We hired this programmer, he came in, he drank our Cokes and played Foosball for three years and he had one idea. (Laughter) Right? Bad hire. Right? (Laughter)
更大的問題是, 你對這裡所反映的價值有什麼看法? 你如何掌握它? 而且機構被限制無法掌握這樣的事實。 微軟現在的執行長 Steve Ballmer, 幾年前他曾經批評 Linux,他說, 幾千名程式設計師對 Linux 有所貢獻 這其實是一種迷思啊。 我們仔細檢視 Linux 的程式貢獻者, 大部分修補程式都是被 只有貢獻一件事情的程式設計師所提供的 你可以聽到抱怨 Linux 的這種說法。 你可以了解,為什麼從 Ballmer 的觀點, Linux 是一個很蠢的想法, 我們花錢請了這個程式設計師,他進到我們公司、喝了我們的可樂 玩桌上足球玩了三年,然後他什麼想法都沒有? (笑聲) 找錯人啦。 (笑聲)
The Psycho Milt question is, was it a good idea? What if it was a security patch? What if it was a security patch for a buffer overflow exploit, of which Windows has not some, [but] several? Do you want that patch, right? The fact that a single programmer can, without having to move into a professional relation to an institution, improve Linux once and never be seen from again, should terrify Ballmer. Because this kind of value is unreachable in classic institutional frameworks, but is part of cooperative systems of open-source software, of file sharing,
Psycho Milt 式的問題是,這是一個好的想法嗎? 如果這是一個系統安全的修補程式? 如果這是一個緩衝區溢位攻擊的安全修補程式, Windows 視窗所沒有的修補程式跟幾個漏洞的話, 你想要這樣的修補程式嗎? 事實上一個程式設計師可以, 不用進入跟機構之間的專業關係 就能夠修補 Linux 程式 而且以後再也不會出現。這個事實應該會嚇壞我們的 Ballmer。 因為這種價值在傳統機構架構中是無法迄及的 但是卻是合作型系統的一部分 例如開放源碼軟體系統、檔案分享系統,
of the Wikipedia. I've used a lot of examples from Flickr, but there are actually stories about this from all over. Meetup, a service founded so that users could find people in their local area who share their interests and affinities and actually have a real-world meeting offline in a cafe or a pub or what have you. When Scott Heiferman founded Meetup, he thought it would be used for, you know, train spotters and cat fanciers -- classic affinity groups. The inventors don't know what the invention is. Number one group on Meetup right now, most chapters in most cities with most members, most active? Stay-at-home moms. Right? In the suburbanized, dual-income United States, stay-at-home moms are actually missing the social infrastructure that comes from extended family and local, small-scale neighborhoods. So they're reinventing it, using these tools. Meetup is the platform, but the value here is in social infrastructure. If you want to know what technology is going to change the world, don't pay attention to 13-year-old boys -- pay attention to young mothers, because they have got not an ounce of support for technology that doesn't materially make their lives better. This is so much more important than Xbox, but it's a lot less glitzy.
維基百科系統等。我已經用了很多 Flickr 上的例子, 但還有實際的完整故事。 Meetup 是一種使用者可以找到其他人的服務 在他們自己的在地區域,分享著共同的興趣與相近的個性, 在現實中的咖啡廳中有一個真實的聚會 或 pub 或其他的任何地方。 當 Scott Heiferman 創辦了 Meetup 時, 他認為它會被用來, 聚集猜火車的人或愛貓人士 --- 也就是傳統的分享團體。 發明者沒有想到他創造出什麼樣的東西。 現在在 Meetup 上面第一名的團體, 在大部分的城市中擁有最多會員、最活躍的團體是? 家庭主婦/媽媽們。 在這個都市化、雙薪的美國, 家庭主婦/媽媽們喪失、失去了 來自延伸家庭的支持社會基礎架構 與在地的小規模鄰居網絡。 所以他們運用了這些工具,重新發明了他們。 Meetup 就是這樣的平台, 但是傳遞的價值卻是在社會基礎架構中。 如果你想要知道哪一種科技將會改變世界, 別關注 13 歲的小男生們 注意那些年輕的媽媽, 因為他們沒有任何一點點的科技來支持她們 這些科技沒有讓她們的生活變得更好。 有比 Xbox 更重要的東西, 這些東西沒有那麼誇張。
I think this is a revolution. I think that this is a really profound change in the way human affairs are arranged. And I use that word advisedly. It's a revolution in that it's a change in equilibrium. It's a whole new way of doing things, which includes new downsides. In the United States right now, a woman named Judith Miller is in jail for not having given to a Federal Grand Jury her sources -- she's a reporter for the New York Times -- her sources, in a very abstract and hard-to-follow case. And journalists are in the street rallying to improve the shield laws. The shield laws are our laws -- pretty much a patchwork of state laws -- that prevent a journalist from having to betray a source. This is happening, however, against the background of the rise of Web logging. Web logging is a classic example of mass amateurization. It has de-professionalized publishing. Want to publish globally anything you think today? It is a one-button operation that you can do for free. That has sent the professional class of publishing down into the ranks of mass amateurization. And so the shield law, as much as we want it -- we want a professional class of truth-tellers -- it is becoming increasingly incoherent, because the institution is becoming incoherent. There are people in the States right now tying themselves into knots, trying to figure out whether or not bloggers are journalists. And the answer to that question is, it doesn't matter, because that's not the right question. Journalism was an answer to an even more important question, which is, how will society be informed? How will they share ideas and opinions? And if there is an answer to that that happens outside the professional framework of journalism, it makes no sense to take a professional metaphor and apply it to this distributed class. So as much as we want the shield laws, the background -- the institution to which they were attached -- is becoming incoherent.
我認為這是一場革命。 我認為這是一個相當深刻的改變 人類的情形被安排了。 我非常謹慎地使用這個字。 它是一場改變平衡關係的革命。 它既是全新的做事方式,也包含了新的陰暗面。 現在在美國一位 Judith Miller 女士 因為拒絕提供聯邦大陪審團她的新聞來源而被囚禁起來, 她是紐約時報的記者, 在一個非常抽象、很難追蹤的個案中的新聞來源。 新聞記者在街頭抗議修改保護法案。 保護法案是我們的法律,一種對國家法律的修補法案, 這種修補讓一個新聞記者不用背叛新聞來源。 然而相對於這個背景資料,目前正在發生中的 就是部落格/網誌的興起。 部落格/網誌是大規模業餘化的一個經典範例。 它將出版去專業化了。 你想要在今日、在全球出版你的想法與看法? 只需要按下一個按鈕你就可以免費做到。 這讓出版的專業階級沒落了 變成大眾業餘化的排名中。 就好像保護法案,我們多麼地想要它, 我們希望有一個真相告白者的專業階級, 然而現況卻變得越來越不一致 因為機構變得不一致了。 現在有人們在美國 將他們綁得很緊,試圖要指出 部落客到底是不是新聞記者。 那個問題的答案是 一點都不重要了,因為那不是正確的問題。 新聞曾經是回應更重要問題的一種答案, 這個問題是:社會將怎麼被告知資訊? 人們如何分享想法與意見? 如果答案出現在 新聞專業架構的外面的時候, 這時再使用一個專業的譬喻就變得一點都沒有意義, 並且它運用在散佈的階級成員中。 所以當我們很想要保護法案, 背景是:他們所被連結的機構 已經變得不一致了。
Here's another example. Pro-ana, the pro-ana groups. These are groups of teenage girls who have taken on Web logs, bulletin boards, other kinds of cooperative infrastructure, and have used it to set up support groups for remaining anorexic by choice. They post pictures of thin models, which they call "thinspiration." They have little slogans, like "Salvation through Starvation." They even have Lance Armstrong-style bracelets, these red bracelets, which signify, in the small group, I am trying to maintain my eating disorder. They trade tips, like, if you feel like eating something, clean a toilet or the litter box. The feeling will pass.
我們有另外一個例子。 Pro-ana 支持 ana 的團體。 有一群十幾歲的青少女 寫部落格、留言板, 運用其他種合作的基礎架構, 用它來成立支持團體 支持自願的厭食。 他們張貼超瘦模特兒的照片,把它稱為 瘦啟發(Thinspiration)。 他們有一些口號標語,像是「餓是救贖」, 他們甚至有類似 Lance Armstrong 風格的手環, 在這個小團體中,紅色的手環代表著 我要努力維持繼續厭食。 他們交換小技巧,例如如果你想要吃某些東西, 就去清廁所或整理垃圾桶。餓的感覺就會過去。
We're used to support groups being beneficial. We have an attitude that support groups are inherently beneficial. But it turns out that the logic of the support group is value neutral. A support group is simply a small group that wants to maintain a way of living in the context of a larger group. Now, when the larger group is a bunch of drunks, and the small group wants to stay sober, then we think, that's a great support group. But when the small group is teenage girls who want to stay anorexic by choice, then we're horrified. What's happened is that the normative goals of the support groups that we're used to, came from the institutions that were framing them, and not from the infrastructure. Once the infrastructure becomes generically available, the logic of the support group has been revealed to be accessible to anyone, including people pursuing these kinds of goals.
通常成立支持團體是用來支持對我們有益的事情。 我們的態度是支持團體總是有益的。 但是卻變成支持團體變成一種價值中立的工具。 一個支持團體只是一個想要維繫某些生活方式 的小團體,同時生活在一個更大團體的脈絡當中。 現在當大團體是酒鬼時, 小團體是要保持不喝酒,於是我們認為 這是一個很好的支持團體。 但是當小團體是青少女 想要有意識維持他們的厭食症行為,於是我們就受不了了。 常規的目標 我們所習慣的支持團體 來自於畫出框框的機構, 而不是來自於基礎架構。 一旦基礎架構變得可以讓所有人運用, 支持團體的邏輯也變得顯露出來 對任何人都可以運用,包括追尋這種目標的人們。
So, there are significant downsides to these changes as well as upsides. And of course, in the current environment, one need allude only lightly to the work of non-state actors trying to influence global affairs, and taking advantage of these. This is a social map of the hijackers and their associates who perpetrated the 9/11 attack. It was produced by analyzing their communications patterns using a lot of these tools. And doubtless the intelligence communities of the world are doing the same work today for the attacks of last week.
所以這些改變有明顯的陰暗面 就像他們有光明面一樣。當然,在現今的環境中, 人們需要輕輕地對非國家的角色暗示 這些非國家的機構組織試圖影響全球事務、並且獲得好處。 這是一個劫機者與他們有關人士的社會地圖 這些人犯下了 911 的罪行。 藉由分析他們的溝通模式 得出他們使用許多這些工具,並且毫無疑問地全球的情報社群 對上週的恐怖攻擊,今日也在作相同的事情。
Now, this is the part of the talk where I tell you what's going to come as a result of all of this, but I'm running out of time, which is good, because I don't know. (Laughter) Right. As with the printing press, if it's really a revolution, it doesn't take us from Point A to Point B. It takes us from Point A to chaos. The printing press precipitated 200 years of chaos, moving from a world where the Catholic Church was the sort of organizing political force to the Treaty of Westphalia, when we finally knew what the new unit was: the nation state.
現在我們講到這裡,我要說的是 即將浮現的是這一切的結果, 但是我已經沒有時間了,這非常的好, 因為我也不知道。 (笑聲) 對於印刷出版來說,如果這真的是一場革命的話, 它將不會把我們從 A 點帶往 B 點。 它將把我們從 A 點帶往混亂。 印刷出版促成了兩百多年的混亂, 從一個天主教會的世界 從天主教會作為一種管理的政治力量,到西伐利亞條約, 到那時我們終於知道,世界的新組成單元是民族國家。
Now, I'm not predicting 200 years of chaos as a result of this. 50. 50 years in which loosely coordinated groups are going to be given increasingly high leverage, and the more those groups forego traditional institutional imperatives -- like deciding in advance what's going to happen, or the profit motive -- the more leverage they'll get. And institutions are going to come under an increasing degree of pressure, and the more rigidly managed, and the more they rely on information monopolies, the greater the pressure is going to be. And that's going to happen one arena at a time, one institution at a time. The forces are general, but the results are going to be specific.
現在,我並非在預測未來 200 年的混亂是現在的結果。50年。 50年中,這些鬆散地相互協調的團體 將被賦予更高的影響力, 以及更多這樣的團體超越傳統機構的命令力量, 就像預先決定什麼事情將會發生, 或者利益的動機,他們也將獲得更多的影響力。 而且機構即將面臨到 處在更大程度的壓力下, 以及更多嚴格地被治理的、更多依賴於 資訊壟斷的組織,他們將面臨更大的壓力。 那些將一個戰場一個戰場接連發生, 一次發生在一個機構上。力量是一般的力量 但是結果則將是特殊的結果。
And so the point here is not, "This is wonderful," or "We're going to see a transition from only institutions to only cooperative framework." It's going to be much more complicated than that. But the point is that it's going to be a massive readjustment. And since we can see it in advance and know it's coming, my argument is essentially: we might as well get good at it. Thank you very much. (Applause)
所以重點不是, 「這太棒了」或「我們將看到一種轉變 從只有機構完全轉變到只有合作的架構」。 事情將會變得更為複雜。 但是重點是,這會是一個大規模調整的運動。 既然我們可以預見它,了解它即將來臨, 我的論點是:基本上我們有可能可以搞定它。 謝謝各位。 (鼓掌)