Carlos Miranda Levy's blog

The "Best Society" is not the one made by the best individuals, but that which makes individuals better and enables them to achieve their best.

Society, understood as the shared physical, legal, cultural, geographical, ideological, real and virtual space where this enigma we call Humanity exists, should not be a restrictive framework which defines, directs and picks the best individuals according to pre-existing rules.

In order for us to advance towards a Humanity 2.0 conducive society, we must aim to build an open environment where freedom, diversity, change, experimentation, problem solving and innovation are encouraged through enabling mechanisms and realms based on accountability and acknowledgement of true merits supported by opportunities and options available to all without restrictions or exclusion.

For such Utopia to happen, we need both worlds, our old institution-based, rules-supported and certification-enabled world and this new unrestricted, community-ruled, transparent and accountable open world where merits, knowledge, content, actions and thoughts can be made instantly available to all and everyone.

A student entering college merely 10 years ago might have read a handful of books, probably borrowed from friends, available at the family's bookshelf, bought them at the local bookstore or received them as a present by an old-fashioned, well-intentioned relative.

In contrast, most students at college today, have browsed thousands of websites, downloaded hundreds of music files, pictures and movies and might have even bought some content on-line from iTunes, Amazon or other digital content stores. Legal or not, he or she would have gained access to this content almost instantly (or after the delay involved in downloading files) and with very few exceptions in digital format. Most students don't care for CD's or other physical media and are as used to downloading files as to share them with their peers. USB sticks, mobile phones, mp3 players, e-readers and computers are the closest they ever get to physically handling content.

If all the knowledge in the world is freely available, can I include it as an asset in my resume? If all information is owned by anyone and we end up being measured by our capacity to solve problems, how can we demonstrate which problems have been solved by us and how we have contributed to the solution of other problems? Being master editor at Wikipedia, collaborator "deity" on a virtual community or having a Twitter reputation of 100 on Klout.com is hardly going to get most people hired or secure income and career advancement for anyone. Or maybe it will. Many positions are now being created related to social media and all things 2.0, from "Chief Listener" to "Digital Reputation Manager".

While it is true that great value can be achieved through the process of "crowd sourcing", or massive participation of individuals, regardless their formal education, level of experience or any type of distinction of the participants, we must be aware that this is a case where individual value and social value can be quite different.

The argument goes that the shortcomings of some individuals are overcome by the advantages of others, and as long as we have a critical mass of participants, enough diversity and value can be achieved. There are many existing experiences which back this statement, from modern day Wikipedia to the XIX century origins of the Oxford dictionary, where even a mad man in an asylum was able to largely contribute to the definite reference publication of the English language. Whatever shortcomings or tricks his mind could have played were overcome by the massive participation of others and the review and structured process implemented by a formal body governing the creation of the dictionary.

Having made the statements above, let us make very clear that they do not dare to suggest that an uneducated mind, un-experienced or effort-lacking individual  can or will achieve life-changing breakthroughs. For a mind to be able to see great solutions, come up with great ideas, it must have certainly been exercised in research, critical thinking, reasoning, problem solving, experienced in dealing with complex systems, seasoned from field and practical work or even in the mysterious field of simplified thinking.

To criticize formal education and institutions is not to advocate for laziness or random attempts at problem solving, but to suggest that good problem-solving, visionary skills can be achieved through alternative mechanisms and environments than those provided by formal institutions.

Out of the many kinds of innovation, let us focus our attention on a rather simple categorization: Innovation from within and Innovation from beyond.

Innovation is often pursued by institutions and academia within the deep core of a body of knowledge, within a formal structure of accumulated knowledge accessible only to experts with formal and long years of education in specific field whose work is the only means to advance even deeper into this deep core.

Quite often, however, life, market and industry changing innovation takes place at the frontier of bodies of knowledge and is brought forward either by outsiders or people able to think outside the restrictive framework and paradigms of a formal body of knowledge.
Both kinds of innovation are equally important and necessary for our advancement as a society. And while Innovation from within is ideal for formal institutions and academia, Innovation from outside can thrive in open, unstructured and distributed environments and ecosystems.

(or why we can't have the 2.0 without 1.0)

Last week I attended an interesting panel on Humanity 2.0 featuring distinguished of Asia's innovation ecosystem. At some point in the interaction with the public, the discussion turned to a dead-end where some professors argued about the value of formal education and formal institutions and some members of the panel counter-argued about the irrelevance of current institutions and their innovation promotion mechanisms. As extreme and opposite as both positions were and how adamantly they were being argued, it was clear to me that both sides were 100% right and that we needed both in order to advance towards a true inclusive, innovative, participative, wealth-generating society.

Here's why and how expressed in 5 simple arguments…

Bogost, Ian. Persuasive Games - The Expressive Power of Videogames. London: The MIT Press, 2007.

Brown, Harry J. Videogames and Education. Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe, 2008.

J. Patrick Williams, Sean Q. Hendricks and W. Keith Winkler, ed. Gaming as Culture: Essays on Reality, Identity and Experience in Fantasy Games. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2006.

Joseph Kahne, Ellen Middaugh and Chris Evans. The Civic Potential of Video Games. Edited by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Reports on Digital Media and Learning. Cambridge, Massachussets: The MIT Press, 2009.

Peuter, Nick Dyer-Whiteford and Greig de. Games of Empire - Global Capitalism and Video Games. Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2009.

Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen, Jonas Heide Smith and Susana Pajares Tosca. Understanding Video Games: The essential introduction. New York, NY: Routledge, 2008.

Such a massive amount of attention, hours devoted by players and apparent fidelity or regularity of play by individuals from all walks of life and regions in the planet (FarmVille, with over 90 million registered users, has been effectively played by 1% of the global population), the question of this being an opportunity for something more than gaming and profit-making is only natural.

Now that we have got the attention of around 5% of the world's population in something interactive, quite different from the TV/radio/movies scenario, how can we enable them to become engaged with impact generating actions or leverage their efforts to support change making causes?

Playing games has always been an important part of not just human culture but of most moderately evolved animal species. Lion cubs, tigers, wolves, dolphins, monkeys, dogs, cats learn their most basic survival skills, from hunting to social interaction through intensive long hours and days of playing in the early months and years of their existence.
Humans learn to hide-and-seek, to run, jump, search, find, hit, work as a team, compete, be better than others, achieve a specific goal, communicate and even to create strategies through the common practice of playing games and sports.

Games engage important parts of our brain and aspects of a behavior such as stimulation through ever increasing challenges, penalization for failure, incentives to try again, harder and usually facing harder or different challenges as we advance into the game. Most games are social by nature in the sense that we play them in teams with other individuals and usually against other individuals, immersing us in communication, observation and learning from others practices without even being aware.