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the future of Connectivity, June 2009

Club of Amsterdam pdf version The Club of Amsterdam visits the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), in London Supporters LogMeIn Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) You can watch the presentations here: Egbert-Jan Sol, part 1 Billions of people using 1000 Billion connected devices and bandwidth for free https://youtu.be/RMTVzV52y58 Egbert-Jan Sol, part 2 Billions of people using 1000 Billion connected devices and bandwidth for free https://youtu.be/RMTVzV52y58 Peter Cochrane, part 1 Evolving Connectivity https://youtu.be/p25sYYDrjoY Peter Cochrane, part 2 Evolving Connectivity https://youtu.be/urc_3k-lszc Hardy F. Schloer Human Connectivity at the Event Horizon of new AI Technologies https://youtu.be/9ASNgFB2FmU The interconnectedness of the world, scarcely imaginable a generation ago, continues to fire our imagination as newer, smarter connectivity inspires and reshapes our lives. Ever increasing connectivity has been scrutinized by academics, researchers, journalists and hosts of others. Falling between the cracks is the essence of the connectivity itself. Where now for the devices, networks, software, and dynamics which define our patterns of connectivity? Smarter applications – and more of them – could soon see our social and business associations aided by processes of ever-learning connectivity, guiding us and learning from our habits and preferences. Collective intelligence directs us through the spaces we move in, defining how we negotiate and interact with our surroundings. Powerful, ever-learning search engines could deeply impact the ways in which we connect with and move in our shared spaces. These forces are not only changing our lives, but learning and adapting as we increasingly interact with them. Egbert-Jan Sol, CTO, TNO Science and Industry, co-founder/1st chairman, DSE Billions of people using 1000 Billion connected devices and bandwidth for free From 100 persons working on a mainframe computer around 1980 to one PC and one mobile per person around the year 2000, we are approaching 100 computing devices working for one person by 2020. That is 100B interconnected devices by 2020 and 1T several years later. Volume of cubic meters mainframes shrink to cubic inches sized computing devices today to intelligent push-pins and tape devices real soon. And extrapolating, not Moore’s law for silicon, but this learning curve on volume size of intelligent devices we reach a million devices of one cubic millimeter by 2040 for one person. IP protocols will stumble, Ethernet with physical MAC addresses coupled to virtual service MAC addresses might be needed. But most important how and why are we going to use this connected world of ambient embedded devices in elderly care, in manufacturing, during sports, but also in our cars. Self-driving car, real auto-automobiles, will not happen overnight. It will take 5 generations from a stupid non communicating 1G car, via driver assisted systems as ACC (adaptive cruise control) 2G car, via CCC (connected cruise control) 3G cars able to platoon in a traffic jam lane, to 4G swarm driving (platooning and changing lanes or automative, controlled low speed neighboorhood driving) to 5G cooperative driving at all speed levels. You need 100,000% reliability and that requires multiple computing devices around you in your car and connected with other cars and a smart road. It will also create a big market for off-road tracks for saturday morning driving for those frustrated they can’t race on public roads anymore. Peter Cochrane, Co-Founder, Cochrane Associates Evolving Connectivity Connectivity is one of those things we depend upon, use every day, and take for granted. Few of us stop to ask; what is it, how does it form, and will we ever have enough? In reality it is an evolutionary quality that binds all life, and increasingly all technologies, across the planet. It is fundamental to evolution and progress, and we are only just beginning to grasp its significance, but it is inherently non-linear, and can result in chaotic outcomes of the unexpected kind. In its most benign state connectivity helps humans form groups and societies, to solve problems and advance civilization, and at its worst (as we have recently witnessed) it can generate financial collapses on a global scale. And now we are in the process of progressively connecting all machines and people in a global network denoted as Web2.0, 3.0, 4.0 etc. But we are doing so without models, precedents, or any real idea of the impact on society and commerce. In this presentation we will therefore explore what happened in the past, what is happening now, and what is likely to happen in the future. Our purpose will be to search out and highlight the positives for society and the planet, but with an eye to the unexpected, and an underlying trend toward brittleness and catastrophic impacts. Hardy F. Schloer, Owner, Schloer Consulting Group Human Connectivity at the Event Horizon of new AI Technologies The ‘future of connectivity’ is not about how we connect, or for what purpose, but much rather; it is a question of, what is connecting to what; through what intelligence; and finally, at what consequence. Human cognitive abilities have long reached their limits of competitiveness to manage connectivity on any levels. In an era where the underlying intelligence of global connectivity will be managed by massive supercomputers, and where complex competitive connections are measured in milliseconds; the future of human connectivity is rapidly descending beyond the event horizon of new and powerful artificial intelligence technologies. 19:00 – 20:00 Opening welcome by Ambassador Pim Waldeck, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive, RSA Erik Driehuis, Vice President EMEA, LogMeIn Felix Bopp, Chairman, Club of Amsterdam Introduction by our Moderator James Cridland, Head of Future Media & Technology, BBC Audio & Music Interactive Part I: Egbert-Jan Sol, CTO, TNO Science and Industry, co-founder/1st chairman, DSE Billions of people using 1000 Billion connected devices and bandwidth for free Peter Cochrane, Co-Founder, Cochrane Associates Evolving Connectivity Hardy F. Schloer, Owner, Schloer Consulting Group Human Connectivity at the Event Horizon of new AI Technologies 20:00 – 20:30 Coffee break with drinks and snacks. 20:30 – 21:15 Part II: Open discussion Dr Ir Egbert-Jan Sol CTO, TNO Science and Industry, co-founder/1st chairman, DSE Born in 1956, August 21 in Sneek, Netherlands, he received his PhD Technical Sciences 1983 and his MSc Mechanical Engineering (Ir Werktuigbouwkunde) 1979 at the Eindhoven University of Technology. Since 2004 managing director of TNO Industrie in Eindhoven, and from 2005 director Knowledge (CTO) of TNO Science and Industry, a 1000+ large R&D organisation. Before joining TNO Egbert-Jan Sol was principle system architect at Ericsson. There we were shaping the future of broadband communication networks delivering 1000 times more price/performance for the same dollar a day people paid more then a century with Graham Bell on communication technology. This work is called Public Ethernet and uses a patented approach we developed in combination with programmable filtering bridges Egbert-Jan Sol was vice president technology at Ericsson Telecommunicatie BV (ETM) at Rijen, Netherlands. Initially as R&D Manager, he became board member of ETM for technology with a focus on research & development, product marketing and strategic business development at Ericsson Telecommunication in the Netherlands. Initially part-time working for LM Ericsson at Corporate Technology in Stockholm/Kista and latter 2 year as expat, while living in Sweden, he was member of the Ericsson Technology Board and the Core System Management group. Within the Dutch context Egbert-Jan Sol was member of the board the Telematica Instituut, the advisory council of TNO-FEL, and the SURF foundation, chairman of the Dutch Telecom research funding programs IOP Generic Communication (www.senter.nl) and the Towards Freeband Knowledge Impulse research program and member of the ICT-Forum of the Dutch government and the CELTIC Eureka initiative. Today he is active in the boards of DPI, NIMR, CITT, Be-linked, the SRE steering group and a few more From 1999-2002 he wrote a monthly column in the large Dutch IT weekly magazine “Computable” and some anonymous public Ericsson whitepapers. Two short versions appeared in the Dutch in the Telecommagazine (sept 2000, nov 2002). He also contributed to the “Ambient Intelligent” paper of the ISTAG commission of the EC (2000) and the ambition formulation around the 4G ambient Internet in the lePair commission of the Dutch government. Before joining Ericsson he was been software manager at Philips Industrial Electronics (PLC, Real-time Unix), latter he was consultant at BSO-AT/Origin for several large industrial firms in the area of IT-management, embedded software development and data-communication. Finally he was marketing and sales manager at Philips/Origin for Internet services. After his PhD he started to work for Hoogovens Automation Systems as project manager for robotic and industrial automation projects. From 1990-1998 Egbert-Jan Sol has been part-time professor at the Eindhoven University of Technology at Technology Management. Research topics at the university were architectures and the management of product development Beside winner of the academy award of the university in the category teacher in 1996 for his experiments with lectures on the Internet, Egbert-Jan Sol is co-founder and first chairman of the Digital City Eindhoven (Digitale Stad Eindhoven) with this web page: http://www.dse.nl/~ejsol. ‘It’s easy to make something complex, it is very difficult to make something simple. Only the most simple solution works, but what is simple and what is complexity. Why don’t we have a formula for expressing a rate of complexity or simplicity”. With the telephone system being the most complex man-made system and Ethernet is so stupid simple it is great fun to how “Ethernet always wins”. What is left over is for his family and reading magazines on developments in business, new technology and complexity theories. www.tno.nl www.dse.nl, a 15 year old digital city eindhoven Professor Peter Cochrane Co-Founder, Cochrane Associates Peter Cochrane is a graduate of Trent Polytechnic and Essex University. He has been a visiting professor to UCL, Essex, Southampton and Kent universities. He was the Collier Chair for the Public Understanding of Science & Technology from 1999 to 2000 at the University of Bristol, and is a Member of the New York Academy of Sciences. He joined BT Laboratories in 1973 and has worked on both analogue and digital switching and transmission studies. From 1988 he managed the Long Lines Division where he was involved in the development of intensity modulated and coherent optical systems, photonic amplifiers and wavelength-routed networks. In 1991 he established the Systems Research Division and during 1993 he was promoted to head the Research Department at BT laboratories with 660 staff. In 1999 he became BT’s Chief Technologist and established a new team of Communication Consultancy Group concerned with charting the long-term future of technology, society, BT and it’s customers and clients. At the end of November 2000 Peter retired from BT to join his own startup company, ConceptLabs – which he founded with a group out of Apple Computers in 1998 at Campbell CA, in Silicon Valley. In 2006 Peter left ConceptLabs and moved on to form a new virtualized global operation (Cochrane Associates) to exploit the new business freedoms and opportunities afforded by the latest technologies. Peter has published widely in all areas of IT, systems, management, and processes. He is also a regular contributor to the international paper and electronic press, radio and TV. He also joined a select group of Apple Masters in 1997. Peter currently lives in Suffolk UK, and enjoys a wide variety of activities from DIY, swimming and cycling, to sailing, fly-fishing, music and reading. He led a team that received the Queen’s Award for Innovation & Export in 1990; the Martlesham Medal for contributions to fibre optic technology in 1994; the IEE Electronics Division Premium in 1986; Computing and control Premium in 1994 and the IERE Benefactors Prize in 1994; the James Clerk Maxwell Memorial Medal in 1995; IBTE Best Paper Prize and Honorary Doctorates from Essex, Robert Gordon, Stafford, and Nottingham Trent Universities and was awarded an OBE in 1999 for his contribution to international communications. Peter was awarded an IEEE Millennium Medal in 2000 and The City & Guilds Prince Philip Medal in 2001. He also received the CNET Networks Business Technology Award for outstanding contributions to the UK technology industry in 2007. www.ca-global.org www.cochrane.org.uk Hardy F. Schloer Owner, Schloer Consulting Group Hardy F. Schloer is a strong team builder, entrepreneur, accomplished scientist and visionary theoretical thinker with extensive people and public relation skills. For three decades now Schloer has built successful global technology solutions and practical problem-solving infrastructures for clients and partners in the Americas, Europe and Asia. Schloer has extensive hands-on experience in the design and the conceptualization of successful solutions and complex technology architectures on global scale. His strong ability to view problems through their complex layers of context has enabled him to become a highly effective analyst and ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking problem solver. Schloer is founder and former CEO of RavenPack AG in Germany and RavenPack International in Spain, a world leader in computational linguistics and real-time financial applications. Schloer is also the inventor of numerous Information and Communication Technology patents and of the Quantum Relation Theory, a breakthrough concept in Artificial Intelligence. The Quantum Relation Theory has been academically reviewed and discussed (see Reviews on QRT). (Read more about the Quantum Relation Technology) In 2001 Schloer received the award of “One of 25 Best Technologies of the Future” from NetInvestor in Germany for the invention of his Quantum Relation-based technology platform, ‘RavenSpace’. Schloer made also important intellectual contributions to the field of healthcare with his groundbreaking concept ‘AlphaMedic’, a global approach to modern healthcare that envisions globally standardized, centralized and AI managed patients record keeping, combined with computer assisted real-time medical diagnostics and automated clinical trials in a global 24/7 processing approach. Schloer’s AlphaMedic concept to healthcare problems has received a European Grant and has been published and discussed in the press and online healthcare publications Schloer has developed a strong transdisciplinary and intercultural approach to problem-solving consultancy that is now leading in its field. He is an internationally acclaimed speaker and is frequently invited to international conferences, public discussion panels and other global Think Tank events. ppt SCG Company Introduction http://schloerconsulting.com James Cridland Head of Future Media & Technology, BBC Audio & Music Interactive James contributes to the development of pan-BBC non-linear and new media strategy within BBC Audio & Music. He is currently working on the BBC iPlayer for Radio, with a remit of improving both the audio experience and technical workflow. Additionally, he is helping define the product and technology behind the Radio Partnerships work with the commercial radio industry. He is also a Trustee of the pan-industry body The Radio Academy, and is Chairman of its Radio At The Edge conference. James has worked in radio since 1989 as a copywriter, presenter, and internet advisor. After working at the Metro Radio Group and Emap Radio, he left to concentrate on his own dot-com company, Media UK, for a while before joining Virgin Radio in 2001, where he was Digital Media Director. In 2007 he joined BBC Audio & Music Interactive, the division that looks after new media activities across BBC national radio networks, and music output across the BBC. James is an award-winning copywriter and radio presenter. In 2005, Virgin Radio’s website scooped both judged and people’s choice awards in the Webby Awards radio category. In September 2006, under James’s direction the station redesigned its website to boast an innovative music-based social-networking system, which delivered record traffic levels and improved audience retention. James lives in North London with a big black cat, and is a committed member of the Campaign for Real Ale. He blogs about the future of radio, and beer. http://james.cridland.net  

title journal - Club of Amsterdam

Club of Amsterdam Journal, June 2006, Issue 71

Content Introduction AfricaClub of Amsterdam blogNews about the future of Ethics in JournalismNews about the FutureNext EventSummit for the Future blogRecommended BookIf Thailand is ‘New Spain’ – is then South East Asia ‘New Europe’?The Statu(t)e of Liberty. Spatial Location as a Blueprint of EvilArchitectural Body Research Foundation Agenda Club of Amsterdam Open Business Club Club of Amsterdam SearchSubmit your articleContactSubscribe Introduction Africa Introduction Africa – Annual Report 2006by Reporters Without Borders Impunity, a continental ill In Africa, impunity is not a matter of bad luck, it is the general rule. In Burkina Faso, those who murdered journalist Norbert Zongo in 1998 spend their days in tranquility. The investigation has been stalled by the law of silence that surrounds the presidential guard and François Compaoré, the brother of the president, who has been implicated in this case. In Gambia, the killers of Deyda Hydara, gunned down in 2004, have every reason to enjoy peace of mind. They run absolutely no risk of arrest. President Yahya Jammeh is too busy sullying the memory of the victim, as well as humiliating and threatening journalists. Nothing has been heard of Guy-André Kieffer, kidnapped in Cote d’Ivoire in April 2004, since he fell into a trap set by Michel Legré, the brother-in-law of the wife of President Laurent Gbagbo. Released after 18 months in custody, Michel Legré has pointed the finger at the head of state’s entourage. But the French magistrates appointed to the case have failed to complete their investigation, in a politically poisonous climate. Even in Mozambique, where the murderers of Carlos Cardoso, who was ambushed in 2000, received heavy sentences, the wounds caused by this tragedy have still not fully healed. It is still not known whether the son of the former president Joachim Chissano, Nyimpine, has any link with the case. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Acquitté Kisembo, who worked for Agence France-Presse, is still posted as “missing”. But he was almost certainly murdered by one of the militias that operate in the east of the country. Impunity is also political. Countries systematically crack down on the press without being called to account by anyone. For more than five years, a closed and gagged Eritrea has been an open air prison. The least hint of opposition is punished by imprisonment. Thirteen journalists were sent to languish in jail, in a climate of general indifference, one week after 11 September 2001. But the threat of a new war with Ethiopia has allowed President Issaias Afeworki to escape any sanctions. As for the president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, a nationalist autocrat who brooks no discordant voices, benefits from the benevolent protection of Thabo Mbeki, president of a South Africa that has become the continent’s superpower. Rather than support democratic movements, the country of Nelson Mandela prefers to play the role of guardian to a despot in the name of African sovereignty. The Democratic Republic of Congo has experienced a wave of murders of journalists which have not caught the attention of the UN or the European Union, both busy organising elections. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, in Ethiopia, for his part, viewed demonstrations in November as an attempted armed insurrection organised by the opposition and its press. In an immediate reaction, opposition leaders and editors of some newspapers were arrested and faced with charges of extreme gravity, not to say absurdity, notwithstanding the fact that Addis Ababa is the headquarters of the African Union. In Rwanda, the government and party of Paul Kagame use and abuse draconian laws and the fear of “sedition” to hound any journalists who are too independent for their taste. The people’s gacaca courts set up to try some of those charged with genocide, are sometimes used for score-settling. No country dares challenge the government directly, relations with the international community are still marked by the horrifying memory of the 1994 genocide. As for the “hate media” of Cote d’Ivoire, they continue to bellow their message freely in a country that has been paralysed and corrupted by civil war. Moderate journalists have to rub along with intolerable colleagues. In Teodoro Obiang Nguema’s Equatorial Guinea no excuses need to be given for the desert for freedoms that the government runs. No-one talks about freedom of the press to the head of “Africa’s Kuwait”. In the small kingdom of Swaziland of the absolute monarch Mswati III, freedom of press is a fantasy. Publishing the truth is a crime and that does not appear to bother anyone. Even if Nigeria has left behind the dark years of the military juntas, journalists can only suffer in silence the state security’s beatings and heavy-handed searches. Nothing is done to oblige the police to respect press freedom, for which the government displays a sovereign indifference. To a lesser extent, police officers in Gabon and Guinea can continue to beat journalists doing their job; since these are the orders they are given. On the other side of the continent, the new government in Somalia is trying to rebuild a nation on the basis of an archipelago of domains defended by armies of the unemployed. But the clan chiefs have no hesitation in attacking journalists who inform the people despite the anarchy. At the best they are banished. At the worst they have them killed. Daily injustice African journalists are also confronted with that other form of impunity that is injustice, whereby the guilty can be rewarded and the innocent punished. In countries such Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Cameroon, Madagascar, Uganda, Malawi, Seychelles, Zambia, Lesotho, Niger, Chad and Sierra Leone, defamation or publishing false news are considered to be crimes. On the basis of one complaint and if the person lodging it should be influential or have influential allies, the police take a cunning pleasure in arresting journalists as if they were robbers. No matter that the subsequent trials prove them innocent. They will have been in prison for 24 hours or for several weeks. Where corruption is the general rule, the best way to avoid being thrown into a prison cell is to applaud ministers, officials and businessmen. Reporters Without Borders has not let up in its pleas to governments to put an end to these practices and change their laws. Togo, Angola, and the Central African Republic have done so and are better for it. The press, which regulates itself through representative bodies, has acquired responsibility and relations with government are no longer marked with rancour and the spirit of revenge. The problems that continue to beset the press are more likely to be linked to a heritage of violence and political hatreds that sometimes make journalists the targets of those who are unaccustomed to the rules of democracy. The governments of Senegal, Madagascar and Niger, have frequently made convincing sounding promises to decriminalise press offences – but only later, when they no longer feel the need to send the police to punish journalists who have crossed the “red lines”. Freedom in a few places Some governments prefer to allow the status quo to continue on the convenient pretext that they have to deal with situations in which violence can easily be stoked up. They fail to understand that it is injustice that creates the danger. Others, like Benin, Mali, Burkina Faso, Namibia, South Africa, Botswana, Tanzania, Burundi, Ghana, Liberia, the Comoros and Congo-Brazzaville, ensure a satisfactory degree of press freedom despite episodes of violence and harassment. In cases brought before the courts, the law is applied with care and relative fairness. As a result, press offences do not give rise to the international reactions provoked by the imprisonment of a journalist, who whether admirable or mediocre, automatically becomes a martyr. Prison sentences for press offences are disproportionate and counter-productive. African governments seem to have understood. The 3 August palace revolution in Mauritania brought to power a team who set their goal as creating a democracy to replace the “private domain” of ousted president Maaouiya Ould Taya. It is a mammoth task that includes justice and law reform, in which Reporters Without Borders is actively taking part, alongside journalists in a country that was one of the most repressive on the continent. The situation in Chad has opened up after a dark year for the press. Following an on-the-spot investigation, while four journalists were in prison, Reporters Without Borders suggested an amendment to the law and negotiations between the journalists’ union and the government have begun, in a political context that is nevertheless extremely dangerous. In Sudan, where guns still do the talking, the formation of a government of national unity has allowed President Omar al-Bashir to take a historic step – abolishing emergency laws and lifting censorship. Pressure produces results. But these areas of progress are rare and fragile. Solidarity with Africa is not just a question of food and money. Solidarity should also mean insistence on the rule of law. To close one’s eyes to trampled freedoms, to get used to violence, become inured to political murders, is to approve them and accept that there are people deserving of justice and others deserving of oppression. In Gambia, a Reporters Without Borders representative was told by a friend of Deyda Hydara, “If you forget us, they will do what they want with us”. Club of Amsterdam blog Club of Amsterdam blogOctober 26: Synthesis of elBulli cuisineOctober 14: The new Corinthians: How the Web is socialising journalismSeptember 20:  A Future Love Story News about the future of Ethics in Journalism State of the News Media 2006 The State of the News Media 2006 is the third in an annual effort to provide a comprehensive look each year at the state of American journalism. Scan the headlines of 2005 and one question seems inevitable: Will we recall this as the year when journalism in print began to die?The ominous announcements gathered steam as the year went on. The New York Times would cut nearly 60 people from its newsroom, the Los Angeles Times 85; Knight Ridder’s San Jose Mercury News cut 16%, the Philadelphia Inquirer 15% – and that after cutting another 15% only five years earlier. By November, investors frustrated by poor financial performance forced one of the most cost-conscious newspaper chains of all, Knight Ridder, to be put up for sale. “The study, which we believe is unique in depth and scope, breaks the news industry into nine sectors (newspapers, magazines, network television, cable television, local television, the Internet, radio, ethnic media, and alternative media) and builds off many of the findings from a year ago.” The study is the work of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, an institute affiliated with Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. The Future of News: A Challenge to Both Sides of the House Rick Edmonds, Poynter Researcher and Writer: “A bright future for newspapers depends on two things that may sound the same but are actually different: (1) Editors and newsroom staff must continue as the primary news providers in their communities, adapting and delivering reports on multiple platforms, innovating in form, voice, variety and audience-focused content. (2) As businesses, newspapers must generate new sources of income as traditional ones fade. That includes online display advertising, rich and competitive local classified, local search, other online income and multiple niche publications. They must also get the best results — discovering new lines of business and holding on to the old — in the paper edition.” News about the Future The Future of News: A Challenge to Both Sides of the House Rick Edmonds, Poynter Researcher and Writer: “A bright future for newspapers depends on two things that may sound the same but are actually different: (1) Editors and newsroom staff must continue as the primary news providers in their communities, adapting and delivering reports on multiple platforms, innovating in form, voice, variety and audience-focused content. (2) As businesses, newspapers must generate new sources of income as traditional ones fade. That includes online display advertising, rich and competitive local classified, local search, other online income and multiple niche publications. They must also get the best results — discovering new lines of business and holding on to the old — in the paper edition.” Soft Bath Soft Bath is a soft cushioned bathtub made from special materials. It’s simple: furniture and baths meant for comfort should be soft. Your couch and bed are already soft, and from now on your bathtub will be soft and comfortable! The Soft Bath is one integrated product with three layers. There is a framework from fibreglass, then a soft layer and ultimately the strong and flexible top coating. This material is strong, robust, and stays flexible. Soft Bath looks exactly like a conventional hard bath and is as easy to install. Next Event: Wednesday, June 28, 16:30-19:15 the future of Journalism – Ethics in Journalism When: Wednesday, June 28, 2006, 16:00-19:15Where: PricewaterhouseCoopers, Thomas R. Malthusstraat 5, 1066 JR Amsterdam Milverton Wallace, founder/organiser of the European Online Journalism AwardsThe new Corinthians versus the standard-bearers: How the web is socialising journalism ethics Guy Thornton, Chair, Netherlands NUJ BranchDoes and should journalism have boundaries and if so where and how should they be drawn? Neville Hobson, Accredited Communication Practitioner, ABCThe age of gatekeeper journalism is over Homme Heida, Promedia, Member of the Club of Amsterdam Round Table Summit for the Future blog    Summit for the Future bloghttp://summitforthefuture.blogspot.com July 13:  Summary of the Summit for the Future 2006May 22:  Dispatches from the Frontier Recommended Book The Vanishing Newspaper: Saving Journalism In The Information Ageby Philip Meyer For more than thirty years the newspaper industry has been losing readers at a slow but steady rate. News professionals are inclined to blame themselves, but the real culprit is technology and its competing demands on the public’s time. The Internet is just the latest in a long series of new information technologies that have scattered the mass audience that newspapers once held. By isolating and describing the factors that made journalism work as a business in the past, Meyer provides a model that will make it work with the changing technologies of the present and future. He backs his argument with empirical evidence, supporting key points with statistical assessments of the quality and influence of the journalist’s product, as well as its effects on business success. If Thailand is ‘New Spain’ – is then South East Asia ‘New Europe’? If Thailand is ‘New Spain’ – is then South East Asia ‘New Europe’?by Leif Thomas Olsen. ThailandAssistant Professor International Relations, Rushmore University In this article I will argue that Europe needs ASEAN. I will also argue that Europeans need to learn more about the societies sitting right between two future economic giants – China and India. I will finally suggest that those of us who view the Club of Amsterdam as an interesting initiative and point of exchange should try to do something about it. I will start by answering my own question. No, South East Asia never was, nor will it ever be, a New Europe. But it will be – which is the reason for asking this question – a threat to Europe’s crucial status as the closest ally to the world’s leading economy, the very same day that today’s leading economy is no longer supreme. Let me clarify this. No need to mention can Europe rest assure it will enjoy a favorable treatment by the rest of the world as long as the US is the world’s sole superpower. No doubt is the US also as dependent on European support in its role as a superpower as Europe is dependent on the US in its role as its staunchest ally. Without any superpower to support, Europe would be left to its endless internal bickering without anybody taking notice. On the same token could the US never form its so called international alliances without European support, and Europe would have virtually no role at all to play in the political power struggle if it did not piggyback on US’ economic and military supremacy. Seen from a western viewpoint this may seem as a good deal. You scratch my back and I scratch yours, even if it involves secret prisoners en route to secrets prisons (in breach of the international law these very states have agreed on), or being pushed to include US’ appointed buffer state and gatekeeper towards the Muslim world into the European Union. Making Turkey a full EU member is almost like making Mexico USA’s 51st state. Although it is probably technically possible, it is neither necessary nor likely to resolve any current issues of concern without opening up many more of far greater complexity. Full-hearted trade agreements and more generous rules for cross-border employment would be both easier to achieve and more culturally astute – unless the concept of nation states was dropped altogether by those still holding it dear. So what about Thailand and Spain? After Spain became a highly successful EU member state has its status as Europe’s pet holiday destination in general – and pet holiday home investment destination in particular – started to decline. The Euro simply made it too expensive. The strongest candidate to gain from Spain’s drop in this field is Thailand. Some prefer Brazil, some prefer South Africa, but in terms of sheer numbers is Thailand taking the lead. So what is so good about Thailand, and what does it have to do with Europe’s role vis-à-vis the US? Thailand markets itself as the ‘Country of Smiles’. For being a marketing slogan it comes exceptionally close to the truth. Although most westerners may not understand why they smile, is it still very pleasant with a society where one can meet so many smiling faces. (Some research even suggests that laugh-therapy can help fight cancer.) Thai people smile – like many other Asians – for all kinds of reasons. In fact, even embarrassment could be one. But they mainly smile because they have no reason not to. ‘Sabai’ and ‘sanuk’ are two key words in Thai society. Sabai means something like a combination of ‘peaceful’, ‘pleasant’ and ‘comfortable’, while sanuk simply means ‘fun’. Combining these two concepts into a ‘lifestyle’ is something most Europeans have little experience of, since responsibility, efficiency and profitability are the concepts running their everyday lives. There is a whole catalogue of reasons for why most foreigners coming to Thailand tend to enjoy it so much. One is that foreigners as such are not disliked. Thailand have had quite an open attitude towards foreigners for most of its history, and only one of Thailand’s past kings did deliberately reduce contact with them – and that was after he saw what the British did to China during the Opium War. The number of foreign property investors buying holiday homes in Thailand is stunning. When the wealthy post WW2 baby-boom generation of the1940’s plans for a comfortable retirement life – no matter how influential they have been in shaping their own societies – do many of them look for something entirely different. It is not only the weather and the lower cost levels (which also e.g. Kenya and Brazil can offer), but also the fact that they are treated well, crime levels are (with most international standards) low, and that the way and pace of life is far more humane here than in the profit-obsessed West. Thailand is however also a regional powerhouse. Its economic growth is as impressive as any ‘tiger’, and its role in regional politics (both past and present) cannot be missed by anyone interested in these issues. Thailand is however nowadays a part of ASEAN, a much more loosely formed grouping than EU. Although EU treats Thailand and ASEAN as countryside cousins when discussing multilateral issues, EU should, instead, be very aware of the fact that ASEAN – which started as a strict anti-communist grouping eager to stand up against influences from Mao’s China and Ho Chi Minh’s Vietnam – during the second half of the 1990’s invited, negotiated and integrated their former adversaries Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia (together with still problematic Myanmar) into its fold. If Europe is at all interested to look beyond its own nose it could here find an excellent case study for how to integrate countries like Bulgaria and Rumania into EU. But are Europe’s eyes good enough to look that far, or is Europe once again proving itself an old man – this time through its poor eyesight? Thailand is, interestingly enough, a society that appeals to westerners when they come here as individuals, but draws criticism when the very same westerners try to figure out how to streamline Thailand into yet another global sibling – from which western styled logic and efficiency is expected. But is not the irony in all this that Thailand would risk to lose exactly those attractive features that westerners enjoy so much when coming here as individuals, if it actually did streamline itself into that global sibling that their critics wish them to ‘develop’? Is not the underlying question more about which is better; a society that is good on paper (albeit not perfect, as no society is ‘perfect’), or a society that is good for its inhabitants? Is it perhaps not so that it is Europe that has painted itself into a corner, from which it cannot escape without help? And if that is the case, could Thailand and its South East Asian neighbors in any way help Europe out of there? If Europe and the US are inter-dependent for their current roles in the global family, isn’t it likely that China and ASEAN will develop a similar inter-dependence, once China is established as far more than just a potential economic superpower? Many signs suggest so, not the least the success of the “ASEAN+3” talks, which China (together with Japan and Korea) used to boost the importance of ASEAN, in order to reduce fear of unhealthy dominance among the far smaller ASEAN economies’ governments. If it is so, would not ASEAN’s future position vis-à-vis China become similar to Europe’s current position vis-à-vis the US? And if this is the case, how can Europe assume that they can retain any particular say in the world’s future power structures unless they get a pair of new glasses and look beyond the ordinary? At Club of Amsterdam’s recent ‘Summit for the Future’ did many speakers point towards Asia. But the target was mainly China and India. Britain may feel nostalgic about India, and wish this is being returned, but in reality is modern India looking towards the US – not Europe – for economic and political clout, with which it hopes it may one day become capable of competing with China. Europe should therefore nurture closer links to South East Asia, in the short term to learn more about these truly dynamic societies, in the longer term to secure a back door to the world’s future economic giants in general – and China in particular. The Club of Amsterdam (and its active as well as less active members) could help this by supporting the setting up of a Club of Bangkok. By helping to establish its own sister in the most important hub in South East Asia, it would get a direct inroad in to the region, and quickly gain real-term understanding of how these fast-growing societies think and behave, instead of relying on off-the-shelf analysis that large multinational consultancies issue, using their ‘easy-to-apply’ pre-packaged world views where only big is beautiful. The Statu(t)e of Liberty. Spatial Location as a Blueprint of Evil  The Statu(t)e of Liberty. Spatial Location as a Blueprint of Evilby Markus Miessen, architect, researcher and writer teaching at the Architectural Association “The United States became engaged in two distinct conflicts, Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) in Iraq. As a result of a Presidential determination, the Geneva Conventions did not apply to al Quaeda and Taliban combatants.” (1)– Schlesinger Report The present re-read Analysing the relationship between space and power, many questions arise about how far spatial conditions have influenced and continue to affect conscious violations of Human Rights. A few years into the 21st century, decreasing public confidence in political decision-making and its transfer has made way for an overbearing universal ethics of mediated truisms. Post 9/11 in particular, one can trace an increasing habit of politicians to convert the mis-en-scene and tools of spatial planning in order to create microclimates, which do not obey any legal framework. There is evidence that spatial planning has been used as a mechanism to convert spaces into strategic weapons of physical punishment. Simultaneously, one is witnessing the re-appropriation of issues such as representation, psychological framework and an increasingly monotheistic politics. […] Spatial enclaves and the return of radical punishment“Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light (…).” (19)Major General Antonio M. Taguba Within this imagery, there seems to be a strong link to what Michel Foucault described as the “ceremonial of punishment” (20): “some prisoners may be condemned to be hanged, (…) others, for more serious crimes, to be broken alive and to die on the wheel, after having their limbs broken; others to be broken until they die a natural death, others to be strangled and then broken, others to be burnt alive, (…) and others to have their heads broken.” (21) In Discipline & Punish, The Birth of the Prison, Foucault illustrates in how far physical punishment has become the most hidden part of the penal process and “as a result, justice no longer takes public responsibility for the violence that is bound up with its practice.” (22) As opposed to historic reference, in the 20th century – he argues – the spectacle of punishment has shifted to the trial. But if there is no trial, there is no scene. The disappearance of public punishment goes hand in hand with the decline of spectacle. Commenting on space and power, Paul Hirst subsequently defined such politics as “a much contested concept: it has many different meanings and possible spatial locations.” (23) Foucault’s treatment of the relation between a new form of power and a new class of specialist structures regarded this both as the consequence and the condition of the rise of forms of “disciplinary power” from the 18th century onwards: “power is thus conceived of a fundamentally negative, as a punitive relation between the dominant and the subordinate subject.” (24) This form of power based on surveillance, which individuates and transforms, is defined by the penitentiary prison with its cells spatially isolating its inmates, with a central structure of inspection. What Hirst describes as the essential characteristics of Bentham’s Panopticon – “an idea in architecture” (25) – that is to say the principle that the many can be governed by the few, can be traced through the history of penitentiary construction. This is probably best exemplified by Abu Ghuraib’s “Liberty Tower”, a central inspection structure overlooking the territory: a space that enables both a certain correlative perspective and power relations. Although Foucault’s writings on the Panopticon originate from the 1970’s, his work seems more relevant than ever. He dissects the relationship between space and power. In order to illustrate the effect of institutional space and its power-relations, Philip Zimbardo – professor emeritus at Stanford University – carried out an experiment in 1971 to test a simple question: what happens if you put “good” people in an “evil space”? To run the experiment, student volunteers were randomly assigned to plan the role of prisoner or guard in a simulated prison. Although all participants had been examined and were confirmed to be mentally healthy, guards soon became sadistic and prisoners showed severe signs of depression. After six days, the study had to be stopped in order to prevent further abuse. The experiment clarified how the power of social and spatial constructs distorts personal identities and values as students had internalised situated identities in their roles as prisoners and guards. When Zimbardo gave an interview to the Edge Foundation in 2005, he argued that “understanding the abuses at this Iraqi prison starts with an analysis of both the situational and systematic forces operating on those soldiers working the night shift in that little shop of horrors.” (26) According to Zimbardo, his experiment illustrated the competition between institutional powers versus the individual’s will to resist. Control through humiliation provided regular occasions for the guards to exercise control over the prisoners, illustrating that the relationship between pleasure and pain, in a territory that is spatially independent and functioning under its own set of rules, is no longer based on a framework of human reasoning. […] Both Guantanamo and Abu Ghuraib are a showcase in the failure of ethical planning and a manifesto of the powerful, creating a blend of physical and non-physical components that create an overall fabric of control-space. The question therefore needs to be: do we need a Geneva Convention for the built environment, a court of justice to persecute spatial war crimes? Somewhere between the flood of Human Rights documents, the Stanford Prison Experiment, Zacarias De La Rocha’s “is all the world jails and churches?” (34) and Salman Rushdie’s claim that “we need more teachers and fewer priests in our lives” (35), one starts to trace the failure and bitterness of geopolitics. But zooming out of the spatial enclaves, there is hope: breaking the stoic narrative that suggests the return to preenlightened vision, resisting the re-introduction of moral truisms, turning inside-out the model of the world in which religion is part of the public realm, the answer – on a larger scale – can only be the return to secular politics. This text is a short extract from an essay to be published in the forthcoming book “5 Codes – Architecture in the Age of Fear and Terror” (Birkhäuser – Basel / Boston / Berlin). Markus Miessen is an architect, researcher and writer teaching at the Architectural Association. He is the co-author of “Spaces of Uncertainty” (Mueller & Busmann, 2002) and currently acts as a spatial consultant to the European Kunsthalle Cologne. His forthcoming publication “Did someone Say Participate? An Atlas of Spatial Practice” (MIT Press/ Revolver, co-edited by Shumon Basar) will be published in June. Architectural Body Research Foundation Architectural Body Research Foundation Since 1963, artists-architects-poets Arakawa and Madeline Gins have worked in collaboration to produce visionary, boundary-defying art and architecture. Their seminal work, The Mechanism of Meaning, has been exhibited widely throughout the world. In 1987, as a means of financing the design and construction of works of procedural architecture that draw on The Mechanism of Meaning, extending its theoretical implications into the environment, Arakawa and Gins founded the Architectural Body Research Foundation. The Foundation actively collaborates with leading practitioners in a wide-range of disciplines including, but not limited to, experimental biology, neuroscience, quantum physics, experimental phenomenology, and medicine. Architectural projects have included residences (Reversible Destiny Houses, Bioscleave House, Shidami Resource Recycling Model House), parks (Site of Reversible Destiny-Yoro) and plans for housing complexes and neighborhoods (Isle of Reversible Destiny-Venice and Isle of Reversible Destiny-Fukuoka, Sensorium City, Tokyo). Reversible Destiny Lofts – Mitaka Agenda June 28..the future of Journalism.Ethics in Journalism Where: PricewaterhouseCoopers, Thomas R. Malthusstraat 5, 1066 JR Amsterdam Club of Amsterdam Open Business Club    Club of Amsterdam Open Business ClubAre you interested in networking, sharing visions, ideas about your future, the future of your industry, society, discussing issues, which are relevant for yourself as well as for the ‘global’ community? The future starts now – join our online platform …

the future of BioMed, May 2009

Club of Amsterdam pdf version Supporter Syntens Presentations by Arjen Brinkman, Director, Personal Space Technologies Using Virtual Reality (VR) to improve human health click here Jeanine van de Wiel, Global Regulatory Affairs Manager, DSM Food Specialties Personalized Nutrition, an emerging business area click here Biomedicine is booming. Recent advances in Genomics, Systems Biology, Nanomedicine, Tissue Engineering, Biophotonics and other disciplines have not only raised hopes for new drugs and diagnostics, but have also made it more likely than ever that real innovative products for improving Human Health will be available within 3-8 years. The announcement on March 6 of this year that US president Obama ends Bush’s ban on embryo stem cell research will allow US researchers to catch up with their EU and Far-East colleagues, who were restricted in finding good stem cell sources for purposes of Tissue Engineering. Microarray technology makes it possible and feasible to quickly monitor thousands of potentially active compounds in their ability to bind to receptors or affect cell metabolism, leading to new drugs. Through genomics the expression of countless genes can be measured and the results can be used to develop personalized medicine, probiotics or functional foods.Biophotonics has become an extremely sensitive tool to support medical imaging on a molecular scale, leading to earlier diagnostics in cancer research, allowing for earlier intervention. The presentations will focus on the above developments and their role in maintaining and improving human health. Event concept: Gerhard Mulder, Senior Consultant, Syntens Arjen Brinkman, Director, Personal Space Technologies Using Virtual Reality (VR) to improve human health The amount of 3D and 4D data generated by CT, Ultrasound and MRI scanning equipment is exploding. However, the tools to analyze these complex volumetric datasets in a fast, easy and effective manner are virtually non existent. By using the Personal Space Station (or PSS), a physician can now analyze the generated data without the use of a VR specialist, by simply holding the data, e.g. a scanned human hart, in his hands, resulting in a better and faster diagnosis. Michael Münker, STEP 2 B.V. Inventions to Innovation: Lessons from Medical Devices The convergence of biology and engineering is supposed to turn health care into an information industry that promises significant advances. Yet in spite of a rapidly rising share of economic activity dedicated to health care, life expectancy in rich countries was fairly stable in recent decades. Innovation remains a tedious process that involves humans and regulations as much as inventions involve science. Michael Münker reflects on experiences with bringing novel medical devices to market and possible lessons they hold for future innovations. Jeanine van de Wiel, Global Regulatory Affairs Manager, DSM Food Specialties Personalized Nutrition, an emerging business area The personalized Nutrition Emerging Business Area builds on DSM’s strengths in nutrition, food and biotechnology. Based on scientific evidence Personalized Nutrition addresses certain health risks by offering tailor-made and specially developed nutritional products that fit individual consumers’ genetic profiles and other factors, such as age and life style. This way health and wellness can be promoted, whereas the risk of certain health problems may be reduced. DSM also participates in a US start-up which develops and commercializes genetic tests for personalized health and wellness advice. 19:00 – 20:00 Introduction by our Moderator Gerhard Mulder, Senior Consultant, Syntens Part I: Arjen Brinkman, Director, Personal Space Technologies Using Virtual Reality (VR) to improve human health Michael Münker, STEP 2 B.V. Inventions to Innovation: Lessons from Medical Devices Jeanine van de Wiel, Global Regulatory Affairs Manager, DSM Food Specialties Personalized Nutrition, an emerging business area 20:00 – 20:30 Coffee break with drinks and snacks. 20:30 – 21:15 Part II: Open discussion Arjen Brinkman Director, Personal Space Technologies Arjen (1965) is an economist (UvA, 1989) and Dutch CPA (UvA, 1993). From 1991 till 1997 he worked as a CPA and management consultant. In 1997 his career took an entrepreneurial turn, when he immigrated to California. Besides activities in software development he was co-founder and general manager of EasyFlower.com a fresh product platform and internet spin-off of KLM, Royal Dutch Airlines. Upon his return to the Netherlands in 2004 he founded GalliumEurope with his business partner Marc Lausberg. Gallium assists scientists in the commercialization of their ideas/scientific findings. Personal Space Technologies founded in 2005, based on CWI research (Centrum Wiskunde en Informatica) is one of the ongoing projects of Gallium. Personal Space Technologies brings complete turnkey 3D interaction and 3D imaging solutions to the hospital, lab, office and museum. www.ps-tech.com Michael Münker STEP 2 B.V. Michael studied in Munich (TU) and Zurich (ETH) and holds a MSc diploma in physics. He worked for ABB in Europe and India, and as a volunteer for Artsen zonder Grenzen in Africa. From 1999 to 2004 he was responsible for medical products and business development at a Munich laser company. In 2004 he moved to The Netherlands to become a partner at Elana bv, where he brought to market the devices required for a novel way to create bypasses developed by neurosurgeon Dr. Tulleken at UMC Utrecht. In 2008, after these products had successfully been sold and used in Europe and the US, Michael founded STEP2innovation. He focuses on turning inventions for new medical devices into innovations by starting companies together with the inventors. www.step2innovation.com Jeanine van de Wiel Global Regulatory Affairs Manager DSM Food Specialties Jeanine van de Wiel (1960) contributed to such different parts of society as media, science, government and industry. She started her career during her MSc Biology as a free lance journalist in scientific popular magazines like Technovisie. During her PhD research project in Toxicology she designed and executed a new course for Health Sciences students at Radboud University Nijmegen. Her first governmental advisory role focused on science based exposure limits of persistent environmental contaminants. Her second job at the Health Council of the Netherlands had an additional international diplomatic dimension through participation in EU and OECD task forces on the safety of novel foods like the genetically modified soy and corn that was imported to Europe at that time. Also the first novel functional foods emerged like restructured fats and carbohydrates. This raised her interest for the promising contribution of functional food products to public health and she joined the DSM Nutrition Cluster in 2004. Now she is responsible for the global compliance regarding safety and efficacy of functional food ingredients like probiotics, protein hydrolysates for blood pressure and blood sugar management and a satiating palm and oat oil emulsion. www.dsm.com Gerhard Mulder Senior Consultant, Syntens The career of Gerhard Mulder (1945) is an example of a scientist gone into business. Educated as a classical biochemist he earned a PhD in Medicine with a thesis on stress-adaptation. Following a 3-year stint as Visiting Research Associate Professor at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York he was asked to set up an R&D program at the Dept. of Ob/Gyn of the VUmc in Amsterdam to study the endocrine role of the placenta during human pregnancy. The switch to business came in 1990 when Mulder became consultant at Organon Teknika, followed by various appointments at TNO, Unilever, Crucell and Syntens. In all these roles his focus is on turning science into successful business. www.syntens.nl

the future of Games, April 2009

Club of Amsterdam pdf version Supporter University of Applied Sciences, School for Design and Communication Gaming in 2020 – how gaming is influencing everybody. Games for business development training fun mobile phones relation management etc The development of the technological tools has made it possible to make computer games and in the past decades games have conquered the world. What started with simple games like ‘space invaders’ and ‘pong’ seems to be influencing far more than our free time. And not just kids play games anymore. Through the development of games we now are getting new perceptions of our world. By creating new technology and in using new tools we recreate ourselves, and the world around us. It is an undemocratic process; there is no legislative body, no scientific council, nor a political one which has a blueprint how this will influence our world, how this process should play out. Like nobody ever voted for printing, for steam engines, penicillin, telephones, televisions or the internet. But they happened and changed our lives. This evening you will be confronted with different outlooks on the future of games. You are confronted with ideas about a future, based on the knowledge the speakers now have and the expectations of their development and influence. You are invited to join the discussion how the future of games will change your live. Event concept by Carla Hoekendijk Jeroen Elfferich, CEO, Ex Machina Crossplatform & Social Gaming Games have the potential to become the ultimate social objects of the digital age, including more people than ever before. But it takes more than just a high score and a friends list to get there. This presentation will address some of the highlights (and challenges) facing the games and entertainment industries within the social media eco system. Key topics will be the rise and integration of new gaming platforms (web, mobile, broadcast/TV) and an introduction into social gaming (communities, multiplayer, social networks) David Nieborg, PhD researcher, Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA) More of the same? – The future implications of a game industry oligopoly In terms of ownership the game industry is not that different from other sectors in the cultural industries. The big game publishers get bigger up to a point where we might see even a smaller set of publishers than we see today. Insights from research on the concentration of ownership in the film and television industry shows a decreasing diversity of cultural production as a result of ongoing mergers. How real is this threat and what will it mean for playing games in 2020? Kars Alfrink, Interaction Designer, Leapfrog Better living through urban play In the near future, we’ll design games that use the ‘new’ streets as a platform. As they play these games, people will ‘grok’ the complex organism that is the real-time city. We can create ‘serious’ urban games that facilitate speculative modelling, so that people can improve their living environment, or at least express what they would change about it, in a playful way. GAF van Baalen, Co-owner, Concept and art direction, Ranj Serious Games Serious games and ubiquitous play Ranj has been successfully developing serious games for over ten years. We are convinced that using game technology outside the domain of entertainment can make education and communication processes more efficient, more profound and provide a much more natural way of learning. The development of serious games is still in its infancy. Dominant designs are yet to be discovered but play and gaming will be incorporated in every aspect of everybody’s lives within the next 10 years. It will be as normal as video was and e-mail is now. Learning while playing and gaming. Serious games and Ubiquitous Play. Ellen de Lange-Ros, Owner, Faxion The gamer attitude: the prerequisite for success in 2020 Since several years, I’m playing games quite fanatically. While I started playing games, I noticed some important changes in my attitude towards the world. For example my learning strategy changed dramatically. Now I notice that this ‘game’s attitude’ helps me greatly in doing my work. It helped me while I founded my company Faxion and it gives me specific advantages in projects for my customers. Around me, I see many friends struggling with the demands of the 21st century-internet-age. They find it hard to adapt to the quickly changing world around them. However, the solution to play the game of the 21st century successful is easy: play games! The gamers attitude is just what’s needed to become successful in 2020. 19:00 – 20:00 Introduction by our Moderator Matthijs Dierckx Kuijper, Publisher, het Redactielokaal Part I: Jeroen Elfferich, CEO, Ex Machina Crossplatform & Social Gaming David Nieborg, PhD researcher, Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA) More of the same? – The future implications of a game industry oligopoly Kars Alfrink, Interaction Designer, Leapfrog Better living through urban play GAF van Baalen, Co-owner, Concept and artdirection, Ranj Serious Games Serious games and ubiquitous play Ellen de Lange-Ros, Owner, Faxion The gamer attitude: the prerequisite for success in 2020 20:00 – 20:30 Coffee break with drinks and snacks. 20:30 – 21:15 Part II: Open discussion Jeroen Elfferich CEO, Ex Machina Jeroen Elfferich is founder and CEO at Ex Machina, the independent, Amsterdam-based company that enables social gaming across mobile, web and broadcast. Jeroen’s passion is extending the social context of technology and believes online gaming is its cutting edge. Jeroen has a background in Artificial Intelligence and Sociology and founded several successful online and technology ventures since 1996. He’s been working on online gaming technology since 1998. Julius, Ex Machina’s proven and robust cross-platform connected games management system, is in use at leading media companies, publishers and operators around the world. www.exmachina.nl David Nieborg PhD researcher, Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA), Lecturer at the University of Amsterdam His research focuses on the interaction among participatory culture, game technology and the political economy of the game industry. He contributes to discussions surrounding game culture in various journals, (online) magazines and national newspapers. www.gamespace.nl home.medewerker.uva.nl/d.b.nieborg Kars Alfrink Interaction Designer, Leapfrog In his independent practice, Kars Alfrink straddles the line between interaction- and game design. He thinks play is a crucial characteristic of any meaningful user experience and pursues projects that help him test this belief. Kars has designed social web applications, casual mobile games and multi-touch systems. Besides designing, Kars enjoys teaching at the Utrecht School of the Arts. Currently, he is coaching a group of students who are pursuing a European Media Master of Arts in game design. Kars is the initiator and co organizer of This happened – Utrecht, a series of lectures dedicated to the stories behind interaction design. In his spare time, Kars practices a traditional Japanese martial art, and tries to keep up with geek culture. http://leapfrog.nl GAF van Baalen Co-owner, Concept and artdirection, Ranj Serious Games Since 1999 Ranj Serious Games applies game technology to “serious” industries. Using advanced technology and powerful game principles, Ranj makes education and communication processes more efficient and profound, but also more entertaining. Ranj is IP holder of an elaborate online serious and casual games portfolio and has developed an unique online browser based isometric engine. For the past 10 years Ranj has fine tuned its sophisticated serious games development, in which field experts and the game development teams translate problem solving challenges in appealing and entertaining gameplay. The underlying strength of this unique development process is best explained by an example: SharkWorld With SharkWorld aspiring project managers gain experience with project management. It covers both economic aspects and social aspects of project. The game is propelled by an underlying suspense story. It deliberately blurs the line between reality and fiction, to form a lifelike test case. The player interacts through websites, cut scenes, e-mail, newspaper articles, chat, voice-mails and text messages on a real life phone. It can be played independently as a standalone application or embedded in a learning or training program. SharkWorld and other Award winning products: http://gdc.ranj.nl www.ranj.nl Ellen de Lange-Ros Owner, Faxion Ellen de Lange-Ros is owner of Faxion, a company inspiring and advising organisations on customer satisfaction, market research and customer orientation. In line with it’s motto ‘Facts in Action’, Faxion focuses on getting the facts of customer research into actions in organisations. Ellen started Faxion at the 1st of October 2006. Until then, she worked at KPN where she worked at KPN Research since 1999 on several innovation projects. From 2002 until 2005, Ellen was responsible for the customer satisfaction measurements within KPN´s division Fixed. In this period, improving customer orientation was one of the strategic goals of KPN. A corporate improvement process was started to improve customer satisfaction & loyalty and during the next years, many improvements were realised. The customer satisfaction measurements were an important accelerator for the whole process and the improvements realised. Since 2005, Ellen worked on Customer Care in the consumer market. Further, she worked on innovation projects on chat in a business context and opportunities in the gaming market. Before Ellen started at KPN, she worked at Twente University for five years on quality management and she has written a PhD thesis on Continuous Improvement in Teams (1999). www.Faxion.nl Matthijs Dierckx Kuijper Publisher, het Redactielokaal Matthijs Dierckx Kuijper is co-founder and publisher of Control, the Dutch industry magazine for game developers. In the past he was the founding editor and later publisher of some well known Dutch game magazines such as PC Zone, GameQuest and PlayNation. Dierckx Kuijper recently initiated a couple of game development projects in cooperation with a well-known game studio. www.redactielokaal.nl

title journal - Club of Amsterdam

Club of Amsterdam Journal, July 2006, Issue 72

Content Q&A with Igor van GemertClub of Amsterdam blogNews about the FuturePicks from the Summit for the FutureSummit for the Future blogRecommended BookThe Biology of Business: Key to a Sustainable FutureSummary of the Summit for the Future 2006Newtown – South Africa Agenda Club of Amsterdam Open Business Club Club of Amsterdam SearchSubmit your articleContactSubscribe Q&A with Igor van Gemert Igor van GemertDirector, FounderInnergy Creations BV Club of Amsterdam: We now just launched the Jukebox, which allows users to download and listen to mp3 files with our lectures – a great new feature, which will certainly be appreciated by our global community. How do you see the coming development of services like this? Igor van Gemert: I think this small application adds value to the website. We added some extra meta data to every lecture audio file. So you can search on topics, speakers etc. and listen to a preview without the downloading mumbo jumbo. We will also include a new release of the jukebox with RSS feeds and email alerts. This means you can simply subscribe to a specific field of interest. Also we will include specific author links to online user community’s like openbc.com. The next step would be streaming TV channels for all topics within clubofamsterdam.com ! I personally think that these small applications are the first steps in the development of clubofamsterdam communication platform which enables the user to speak out and enable them to harvest the insights in other disciplines. The next version of Internet or Web 2.0 is going to have a deep impact on online communication. Can you give some outstanding examples? Igor van Gemert: This is a hard question. So for the people do are not familiar with the term see this definition “Web 2.0 is a term often applied to a perceived ongoing transition of the World Wide Web from a collection of websites to a full-fledged computing platform serving web applications to end users. Ultimately Web 2.0 services are expected to replace desktop computing applications for many purposes.” The web is so huge so I will give 3 examples and explain a bit why I like them. www.thinkfree.com/common/main.tfo ThinkFree Desktop is the compatible alternative to Microsoft® Office. It includes Write (word processing), spreadsheet (Calc), and presentation (Show) applications that let users create, edit, and perfect their documents. This revolutionary software is platform independent and compatible with Windows, Linux and Macintosh systems; enabling almost anyone to use it-no matter what operating system they’re running. It’s a new way to create you documents and work online with other people. www.last.fm/join Your ticket to the social music revolution! With Last.fm on your computer you can scrobble your tracks, share your music taste, listen to personalized radio streams, and discover new music and people. Why do I like this ? It’s completely logic that these applications are evolved on the internet. Music is about communication and sharing emotions. It is very interesting to see how your music taste is “unique” related to other people. Music dating events are the next step I guess. It would be fun to meet people IRL who share almost the same music taste as you. www.Youtube.com Why ? It’s about enabling people to become famous in 5 minutes and it’s a excellent example how IPTV will hit the web. It’s also interesting to see how community’s interact with the published media. What will it replace ? Your TV in 5 years. Who will be in charge ? In my opinion GoogleTV will be visible in every household in 2016 or even faster. Personally I’m a lover of radio plays and am quite happy that the introduction of ipod, ebooks etc now gives us the tools to listen to this new version of radio whilst driving in a car, traveling by train, plane etc, jogging … “Mobile” content seems to be high in demand. What developments can we expect? Igor van Gemert: More integrated (location based) streaming media services like; you are listening to “The police” would you like to get 20% discount ? Go to the nearest Free Record Shop and show your personal discount coupon code with your mobile. It’s only valid for 1 hour… Integration of RFID in phones for (payment) services. So you enter the shop hold you mobile phone to a rfid reader. Show me something I like. The system automatically selects new titles based on my previous purchases. So the mobile becomes a smart internet browser, media player, communication and transaction/tracking tool. The mobiles phones are becoming more advanced every day. This means in a while you just buy and download your high quality track at your local telephone operator. Upload it in your pc, your hifi set etc. Club of Amsterdam blog Club of Amsterdam blogOctober 26: Synthesis of elBulli cuisineOctober 14: The new Corinthians: How the Web is socialising journalismSeptember 20:  A Future Love Story News about the Future Paint-on semiconductor outperforms chips Researchers at the University of Toronto have created a semiconductor device that outperforms today’s conventional chips — and they made it simply by painting a liquid onto a piece of glass.“Traditional ways of making computer chips, fibre-optic lasers, digital camera image sensors – the building blocks of the information age – are costly in time, money, and energy,” says Professor Ted Sargent of the Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and leader of the research group. The Toronto team instead cooked up semiconductor particles in a flask containing extra-pure oleic acid, the main ingredient in olive oil. The particles are just a few nanometres (one billionth of a metre) across. The team then placed a drop of solution on a glass slide patterned with gold electrodes and forced the drop to spread out into a smooth, continuous semiconductor film using a process called spin-coating. They then gave their film a two-hour bath in methanol. Once the solvent evaporated, it left an 800 nanometre-thick layer of the light-sensitive nanoparticles. Soft Bath Soft Bath is a soft cushioned bathtub made from special materials. It’s simple: furniture and baths meant for comfort should be soft. Your couch and bed are already soft, and from now on your bathtub will be soft and comfortable! The Soft Bath is one integrated product with three layers. There is a framework from fibreglass, then a soft layer and ultimately the strong and flexible top coating. This material is strong, robust, and stays flexible. Soft Bath looks exactly like a conventional hard bath and is as easy to install. Picks from the Summit for the Future 2006   Marc Canter: Lifestyle Leadership Both the music and film business is having to take on the reality that they can no longer be followers. They must now grasp destiny in their own hands, or give the future away to Apple and Microsoft. For the new breed of publishers, using blogs and podcasts. there are no real risks, only opportunities. Lifestyle will always remain the driver these industries. Canter rejects long-term scenarios – he prefers real world solutions bridging now and the next five years.   Madanmohan Rao: Risk: Asia’s Winning Card South Korea hopes to become the gaming capital of the world. Bangalore is becoming a leading software development hub. Goodness knows what exactly China is becoming, but already the mobile market in China is the world’s largest. Has this happened because Asia countries are willing to take risks by nature? Or is their business culture fundamentally different from the rest? Yet while some countries are willing to take risks in the IT business, their media remain very closed and conservative – by some “Western” standards. What are some of the scenarios for the preferred futures for media and entertainment in Asia, home to 2/3rds of the world’s population? We also know that groups that isolate themselves from the rest of society quickly radicalize. What does media need to do to keep them in the conversation?   Summit for the Future blog    Summit for the Future bloghttp://summitforthefuture.blogspot.com July 13:  Summary of the Summit for the Future 2006May 22:  Dispatches from the Frontier Recommended Book The World Cafeby Juanita Brown, David Isaacs, World Cafe Community, Margaret J. Wheatley, Peter Senge The World Café:Introduces readers to a simple, yet powerful conversational process for thinking together and creating actionable knowledge that has been used successfully with organizations and communities on six continents. Includes actual stories from widely varied settings-such as Hewlett-Packard, American Society for Quality, the nation of Singapore, the University of Texas, and many, many others-to show the World Café process and results. Clearly articulates seven key World Café design principles that create the conditions for accessing collective intelligence and breakthrough thinking. The Biology of Business: Key to a Sustainable Future The Biology of Business: Key to a Sustainable FutureElisabet SahtourisEvolution Biologist, Futurist, Living Systems Design Introduction As an evolution biologist, it is obvious to me that we humans are part of Nature and that Nature has been doing business for billions of years, if we take a broad definition of business to be the economy of making a living, of transforming resources into useful products that are exchanged, distributed, consumed and/or recycled. So, to talk about the biology of human businesses, I could simply point out that all our businesses are systems made up of people, who are living beings, and that therefore businesses are living systems or biological entities. QED. However, to say something more useful I need to go back through history to show why most human businesses, despite being made up of people, do not function like living systems, at least not like healthy living systems. Those few that do are swimming upstream against the norm, usually with great difficulty, and that just should not be, need not be and must not continue to be. Our businesses, unlike those of other species, are organized and run in a socio-political cultural context, and that context has a history. Historical context has a great deal to do with what we believe about ourselves and our world, and when I sort through that socio-political history looking for the most salient influences on contemporary business from my own perspective, I am naturally drawn to the history of science. Four very important publications by two great 19th century scientists have so strongly shaped our beliefs about our world that they affect everything about human culture including our definition of human nature and the way we do business. They are: 1850, Rudolph Clausius’ On the Motive Power of Heat, and on the Laws which can be Deduced from it for the Theory of Heat1859, Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species1865, Clausius’ paper on Thermodynamics reformulating the fundamental laws of the Universe as energy constancy and entropy1871, Darwin’s The Descent of Man I will argue that Clausius’ model of a universe running down by entropy and the Darwinian model of biological evolution as an endless competitive struggle for scarce resources both give us half-truths about Nature that seemed appropriate in their historical context but are now seen to be fundamentally flawed, thereby seriously mis-leading us and holding up our own natural evolution. The full truth – including the other half of a more holistic view in physics and biology respectively – reveals that Na-ture is on our side in role-modeling the evolutionary leap that would rapidly bring about an energy efficient and globally beneficial human economy that functions like a truly healthy living system. The bottom line of human experience is that … Read the full article in the  Summit for the Future 2006 Report Summary of the Summit for the Future 2006 Summary of the Summit for the Future 2006by Patrick CrehanChairman, Summit for the Future 2006CEO and Founder, Crehan, Kusano & Associates We’ve been looking at the issue of risk, through many different lenses and we started out with many, many questions. In listening to the conversations today, a couple of threads have emerged – this is my personal sense-making, and I want to share that with you as a conclusion. Starting out with one of the negative ideas; we’ve been looking at death, and that somehow led to a discussion about health. The prevailing approach is ‘curing the disease’, a kind of response to when things are going wrong. What people seem to be saying is that we should think more about a proactive way of looking at these things, ‘from curing to caring’. Looking beyond the body – and looking at the being. Going from a fragmented view of healthcare to a more integrated view of the individual, that combines the physical health with the psychological, mental and emotional health of the patient. We had discussions on entrepreneurship, innovation; these are all part of the human experience everywhere in the world. People have needs, and parts of those needs are to plan, to care for their families, to build and construct, to change the world. Our most basic biology demonstrates the fact that we are driven to embrace change, and to be vectors and factors of change. This is how we are anticipating the world’s development. The downside of our investment is that we are fighting these changes as if they were dangerous risks. Another thread was the ‘politics of fear’ as associated with risk. People manipulate people. Communication is a form of manipulation, and one of the things we do is invite force. It’s a form of violence, the way that we propagate politics of fear to influence how people behave. We need to understand what is real in terms of our perception of risk. Risks to business, risks to the environment, risks to the planet, risks to ourselves. And in terms of reality, one point was that money is not a map of the world, but it is certainly a partial one. And if it is the only one we use we will not navigate this landscape of risk very well. So the idea is to move beyond money towards something that is more value-based and includes money. After all it is one of the most powerful tools ever invented, and it is the most powerful cause for change in the world, but so is communication, and knowledge. In that sense, like for instance in any diet, it needs to be balanced or we break out in spots. So this whole idea of money, scarcity, fragmentation again, another thread leading to values and the idea that there are scarcities but other things that you value exist in abundance. Looking at the whole area of media and entertainment, the experience economy – it’s interesting, young musicians tend to look at the media business as a great evil, but well, you know, nothing is simple and with success and other things those views will change. But what is also interesting is how the world in media and entertainment is driving communication, connectivity, and the diffusion of knowledge, thus creating new forms of the economy. Peer to Peer sharing, Open Source, all of those things are already movements beyond a mere money-driven society towards a broader, more value-based economy. So it is quite interesting that in this area, there are already models emerging of different methods, and these are very positive images for the future. It shows that it is possible to go beyond money. The thing is not to say to people ‘oh you shouldn’t do this because no money is coming out, you should give them directions to go. Business has been a creative force in that, entrepreneurs, and small businesses, and some of the people speaking of entrepreneurship spoke about the role of small companies and the fact that small companies can co-exist with large companies and compete, not necessarily in a nasty way, but in a healthy, evolutionary, Darwinian way that is never personal. Another thread is the whole idea of systems. It is so easy to blame the system. On the other hand, it’s not easy to make changes. So if you feel the need to blame, you can instead look at the system and recognize that part of the way the world is today is in the system, so to speak. But you mustn’t forget that it does come down to individuals – individuals matter, they can make a difference. But they must want to make a difference, they need to know that they matter, and they need to give themselves the freedom to participate in the world in that way. There is movement from the system, where you delegate responsibility away from yourself towards the individual, which has led towards those wonderful emerging ideas about the collective ideas, a collective consciousness, collective intelligence, and the idea that the system as such is a form of life. Part of the evolution occurs in this early phase of thinking, where the system changes and then moves on. But this emerging collective consciousness is a very positive image, the idea that we are part of that system that decisions do come down to individuals and they can make a difference. So our attitude to governance and leadership – we all are leaders in some way – changes in the way people lead. People become more affluent, more educated, more free. Leadership and governance systems are changing. So there are a lot of interesting concepts emerging from this. In terms of our perception and the meaning of risk, rather than seeing risk as something evil, unnecessary, and the basis of the politics of fear, to see risk as something corresponding to opportunity, see it as a challenge, see it as a force for good. Instead of thinking in terms of problems, give yourself the freedom to do something about it. Maybe having a new view on risk, on your life, on health, happiness, the meaning of money and so forth, this would give you a new freedom to undertake risks and to live with the consequences. This is where I want to end; it has really been a fantastic meeting. You are an incredibly stimulating and wonderful bunch of people and I am truly happy that we came together. Newtown – South Africa Newtown – South AfricaHistoryAt the turn of the 20th century, the Newtown Precinct was originally known as the Brickfields. This area was rich in clay, brick making became the most popular form of generating income, and even better if an individual had their own clay mixer for making bricks. By 1896, about 7 000 people of all races lived in the Brickfields area, later named Burghersdorp. As this land was close to the centre of Johannesburg and the railway line, many businesses and immigrants coming from overseas bought stands in Burghersdorp. Soon, trading companies, banks, brick companies, a brewery, and fisheries moved into the area. Many Indians set up shops and eateries along Locatie (now known as Carr Street), which led to the station. In April 1904, the fire brigade set the area alight destroying everything in the inferno – a measure to combat the bubonic plague that had broken out. The area was surveyed, re-planned in unbecoming haste and renamed Newtown by October 1904. A commercial area where vast fortunes in milling, production of sugar and food merchandising would come to existence. Newtown has now become synonymous with the heritage and culture of South Africa and especially Johannesburg. Hence it is universally known as the Cultural Precinct. NowAs with most major cities around the world, Johannesburg’s city centre has been through a period of stagnation and degeneration. However, in the past few years a number of initiatives have been adopted to reverse these trends. One of the most important of these is the Greater Newtown Development. Newtown is being developed into a vibrant, mixed-use area with a unique character based on existing cultural facilities – the indelible Kippies, the world renowned Market Theatre, Moyo Restaurant at the Market, the buzz of Nikki’s Oasis, the numerous international artists who have graced the Newtown Music Centre and not forgetting the unique shopping experience of the Oriental Plaza just around the corner from Newtown. Agenda Our next events start after the summer break. Club of Amsterdam Open Business Club    Club of Amsterdam Open Business ClubAre you interested in networking, sharing visions, ideas about your future, the future of your industry, society, discussing issues, which are relevant for yourself as well as for the ‘global’ community? The future starts now – join our online platform …

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Club of Amsterdam Journal, August 2006, Issue 73

Content IPTV – a different televisionClub of Amsterdam blogNews about Cross MediaNews about the FutureNext EventPicks from the Summit for the FutureRecommended BookEuropean BioplasticsBELUX Agenda Club of Amsterdam Open Business Club Club of Amsterdam SearchSubmit your articleContactSubscribe Welcome to the  Club of Amsterdam Journal. Madanmohan Rao: “India is now the world’s fastest growing mobile market; CDMA and GSM subscriptions are finally taking off, and the traditional regulatory mess regarding licensing seems to have been finally sorted out. Interesting initiatives have been launched to bridge the digital divide via wireless access, but much more scalability is called for; the market for WiFi is also only slowly opening up. Research funding for wireless technologies is pouring into Indian R&D labs, numerous wireless startups have emerged, and outsourcing of enterprise wireless application development is playing to India’s strengths as a software power-house.” IPTV – a different television Source: European Broadcasting UnionBy Franc Kozamernik, Senior Engineer, EBU Technical Department IPTV will change television – viewers will decide when, where and how to enjoy it “IPTV” is a relatively recent buzzword having emerged only three or four years ago. In a nutshell, it means the delivery of television over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. But for the telecommunication industry, which drives it to the market, IPTV means much more. For them, IPTV is an “entirely new multimedia experience” extending the borders of conventional “broadcast” television; it is an integrated, ‘all-embracing’ media platform offering a bundle of diverse content and communication services from a single provider over a single network to a single user device – all with a single payment.IPTV deployments Currently, the size of the IPTV market is still relatively small compared to the broadcast market. The total number of IPTV subscribers worldwide is currently estimated at around two million, with Korea, Hong Kong and Japan as the main markets. Subject to realistic market predictions, by 2010 IPTV could reach 34 million households (3). The leading country in Europe in rolling out IPTV services is France. At the end of 2005, 281,000 subscribers to the three main IPTV services (Maligne, Free and Neuf) were registered. The Free IPTV service in France is an example of a successful IPTV service. It began in December 2003 and is a subsidiary of the Iliad Group. It currently offers a wide choice of broadcast and telecom services bundled together: 200 television channels (including EPG and pay bouquets), 30 radio channels, video on demand, HDTV, “multi-post” viewing, mediacentre with the FreePlayer, telephone services and broadband internet. It is interesting that the Free set-top box includes a DTT tuner to allow for reception of content available on the Digital Terrestrial Television platform from M6 and TF1, which are not available on Free IPTV platform. Up until March 2005, about 200,000 Free boxes were distributed. Subscribers only pay for phone and internet charges (€29.99/month) while the basic IPTV service (including the Free box) is free of charge. Another successful project is Fastweb in Italy. Italy is a country with practically no cable TV, so IPTV found fertile ground. Fastweb is the first triple play operator in Italy and is operated by e.Biscom. Video on Demand (VoD) trials started from 2000 onwards, jointly operated by e.BisMedia and RAI Click. In August 2003, multicast TV broadcasting started, providing several football (calcio) channels to some 60,000 subscribers. Today, IPTV services are available in 250,000 homes and the total number of Fastweb customers is more than half a million in eight major Italian cities: Bari, Bologna, Turin, Genoa, Rome, Naples, Milan and Venice. Both fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) and ADSL are used. The former accounts for 20% of customers and the latter, 80%. The commercial service offer is very diverse and includes triple play. Phoning between Fastweb clients is free of charge. Fast Internet has a speed of 10 Mbit/s if a fibre connection is available. Live television channels (4 Mbit/s) include all the national channels (RAI, Mediaset, MTV, La7) and a selection of thematic and international channels (e.g. Music Box, Bloomberg, RaiNews 24, RaiSatSport, BBC World, TVE Internacional, TV 5 Europe, Disney, CNN and Cartoon Network). Pay-TV options include Cinema Sky, Sport Sky and Calcio Sky. Due to the huge popularity of football in Italy, there are thematic channels dedicated to three famous Italian football clubs: Milan, Inter and Roma (each costing €8 per month). Since 2002, Fastweb has been offering VoD services with over 5000 titles. The OnTV on-demand service contains family-type programmes covering films, sports, children’s programmes, music, lifestyle and documentaries, as well as games, T-commerce, interactive areas and interactive advertising. Another on-demand service is Rai Click. The EPG service offers a picture-in-picture preview and scheduling information. Some interactive TV services are also included: GiveMe5 Quiz game, Mini BMW and interactive films. Fastweb uses extensive customer profiling services such as targeted banners and videos. Detailed data reports on service usage are obtained in order to design a better product. Fastweb has also created a customer care online service. Among the Fastweb communications services, we should mention TVcam, multi-party video conferencing, video messages, video galleries and chat & forums. The above two examples show that IPTV is more than just conventional linear television. It may be an attractive package of very diverse innovative services likely to appeal to users. Club of Amsterdam blog Club of Amsterdam blogOctober 26: Synthesis of elBulli cuisineOctober 14: The new Corinthians: How the Web is socialising journalismSeptember 20:  A Future Love Story News about Cross Media Future of Media Report 2006by Future Exploration Network Five ideas transforming media: ShiftingMedia in every form will be shifted by users to suit them. For example, video-on-demand (or mobile video) is transforming the way people watch TV much in the same way that podcasting is changing the way that people listen to radio. Both put the audience squarely in charge of programming. In the future people will seek to watch, read and listen to what they want, when they want, on any device they want. Time compressionOne of the most powerful trends today is that people are busier and have less time. They are increasingly stressed and sleep deprived. If you want to connect with people you need to make it easy and make it fast. This does not necessarily mean the death of the two-hour movie or the 120-page magazine, but it will have to be good. Infinite contentThe supply of content will become effectively infinite. The “million channel universe” will include not just traditional media delivery and the Internet, but also a whole set of new devices and delivery platforms. Production tools in the hands of the masses will tap new talent – and lack of talent. It will be increasingly challenging to attract audiences’ attention and build brand loyalty against infinite choice. Generational changeThe media is run by ageing baby boomers that still think wearing a pair of Levi 501s is cool. Many of these traditional media companies will fi nd it difficult to adjust to the new media landscape of mobile platforms and customer created content due to their investments in old-media infrastructure and business models. Most innovation will therefore come from the outside, either from young people, or from companies outside the existing media establishment. Media is everywhereIn the future everything from walls and table-tops to cereal packets and clothes will be screens and video will be everywhere. E-paper will add video and audio functionality to the formerly static pages of newspapers, and books will play commercials for the author’s latest novel. If the advertisers have their way, there will be no respite outside your front door. Best Practices: Media, Broadcast & EntertainmentA collection of White Papers & Case Studies”2006 will go down in streaming media history as the year that broadband entertainment entered the mainstream. That’s due in large part to the kinds of products and services described in Best Practices: Media, Broadcast & Entertainment, which make it easier than ever to publish, deliver, track, and – most importantly – monetize audio and video content on the internet. From content delivery networks to ad insertion technology, from full-screen video players to multilingual translation services, the vendors presented here offer practical solutions for the online media and entertainment space. Whether you’ve got downloadable music, streaming movies, or interactive online games, these solutions can help you turn your content into profitable product.” News about the Future Invasion of the clonesby Kerstin Bergman, a researcher at Lund University, Sweden She discusses how positive images of human clones are infiltrating our entertainment media and slowly shifting our perception. “After the birth of Dolly the sheep in 1997, however, cloning people became, once again, a distinct possibility. In parallel, films and novels about clones began to multiply, and today critics speak about “clone lit” as a well-established genre. Renowned recent examples include Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go (2005), Kevin Guilfoile’s novel Cast of Shadows (2005), and Michael Bay’s film The Island (2005). […] What consequences will these contemporary fictional depictions have for the future of human cloning? Surveying the historical evolution of cloning in 2000, Peter N. Poon concluded that “Science fiction and science nonfiction have increasingly become one and the same.” According to Poon, science and fiction influence each other when it comes to both technological developments and attitudes towards cloning people. From this, it follows that contemporary clone fiction will both predict and inspire future scientific developments.” Research and Development Leading to a Revolution in Technology and Industryby NNI (National Nanotechnology Initiative) Annual Report Highlights Programs and Activities This report, Research and Development Leading to a Revolution in Technology and Industry, provides information on the collaborations and work in nanotechnology of the 25 participating Federal agencies. These agencies are maximizing individual and joint investments by participating in the NNI collaboration, now in its sixth year. Next Event     Cross Media CEO Breakfast September 27, 2006, 08:30 – 10:00 Location: Westergasfabriek, Oostelijke Meterhuis, Haarlemmerweg 8-10, 1014 BE AmsterdamEntertainment, content, advertising, video, wireless, media rights, news, movies, TV, games, blogging, SMS …Meet the Experts:Gabriele Gresta, Deputy Chairman, Digital Magics Group (Italy)Madanmohan Rao,Consultant and prolific writer from Bangalore, Research Director, Asian Media Information and Communication centre (AMIC), SingaporeSylvia Paull, Founder, Berkeley Cybersalon (United States)Mary Hodder, CEO, Dabble (United States) Igor van Gemert, Founder & CEO, Innergy Creations BV Jonathan Marks, Director, Critical Distance BVArnold Smeulders, Intelligent Systems Lab Amsterdam (ISLA)Simon Jones, Director, Human-Computer Studies Laboratory, University of Amsterdam Moderated by Bob Stumpel,  Result Strategy, Cellspace, OpenBC, Ideabroker, LBI, GetMobile, TCS, Mendix, FON For decision makers in industry, government, science and education. There are only a few seats left! Picks from the Summit for the Future 2006   Elisabet Sahtouris, Evolution Biologist, Futurist, Living Systems Design The Biology of Business: Key to a Sustainable Future The way we do business is closely related to our scientific/cultural understanding of an inevitable Darwinian struggle in scarcity. Historical perspective, however shows that this theory was rooted more in the political economy of Darwin’s day than in scientific observation. An updated scientific story of evolution shows this mode to be obsolete, inefficient, expensive and dangerous. The biology of sustainable natural systems, from our bodies to rainforests, has direct application to governance systems and how business will function in the future to everyone’s benefit.   Chris De Bruijn, Chairman, Foundation, International Molecular Medicine Forum – IMMF“My Genes, My Health” This approach combines the analysis of genetic predisposition by means of gene variant testing (“genotyping”) with an in depth analysis of the functioning of the immune system / brain network and metabolic profiles (“phenotyping”). This approach allows the establishment of an integral picture of an individual´s personal health situation and makes it possible to – on the molecular level – design a personalised anti-aging and wellness strategy. Recommended Book Turning the Future Into Revenue: What Business and Individuals Need to Know to Shape Their Futuresby Glen Hiemstra With the world running out of oil, what new business opportunities will arise to fill the world’s energy needs? As the world heads into population decline, how will business be affected when there are fewer customers every year? In Turning the Future into Revenue, Glen Hiemstra, founder of Futurist.com and noted expert on the future of business, explores how our changing world will change business and how individual people can take advantage of these changes to create new business opportunities. This book reframes the great challenges the world faces as individual and business opportunities, and looks at what people can do to shape the future they want. Glen Hiemstra is the founder of Futurist.com, an Internationally respected consultant, and a speaker for business, government, and professional associations. A former award winning educator, he is now a full time futurist, and a Visiting Scholar at the Human Interface Technology Lab at the University of Washington. His past and present clients include Microsoft, Adobe Systems, Boeing, Northern Telecom, and Apax Partners. European Bioplastics Bioplastics at a GlanceBioplastics represent a relatively new class of materials which have much in common with conventional plastics. What differentiates them isa) the use of renewable resources in their manufacture andb) the biodegradability and compostability of many bioplastics products. Environmental AspectsPlastics in general can be considered to perform well with respect to their environmental impact: These light weight materials make efficient use of resources and energy during their manufacture, transport and application. After use they provide a high energy that can be exploited in thermal recovery. Other recovery options can be applied too. Bioplastics have the additional advantage of using renewable resources. This does not necessarily go along with an advantage over conventional plastics, but it has often proven advantageous when the criterias “consumption of fossil resources” and “reduction of CO2 emissions” are being assessed. Using agricultural resources also allows a regional closed loop management. The environmental performance however should be proven by standardised assessment criteria. Especially in countries with lack of humus (arid-zones) the compostability of many of the products offers an additional advantage. They allow the production of compost, which can be used as fertiliser and substrate to improve the soil quality. Even if many bioplastics are biodegradable they are not intended to be disposed of in nature. They must be recovered in a controlled and eco-efficient way. European Bioplastics has a clear anti-littering position. Resource: The Association “European Bioplastics” is the European branch association representing industrial manufacturers, processors and users of bioplastics and biodegradable polymers (BDP) and their derivative products. Belux BELUX develops and produces lamps and lighting systems, and regards light as a fundamental element of spatial design. BELUX works closely with internationally renowned designers and architects. The idea behind this collaboration is the development of innovative lighting solutions and new kinds of lighting concepts. CLOUD is the first lamp designed for serial production by master architect Frank O. Gehry. As both a sculptural lamp and a lamp sculpture, CLOUD is a design concept in which the user becomes co-designer. The design is convincing because of its uncommonly poetic and richly associative visual language, its simple construction and its many applications. Each lamp has an individual note in spite of all lamps having the same structure and the same predetermined shape. The idea is that the fold structure of the shade, which is shaped more or less by accident during production, can be changed by bulging it out or pressing it in. In doing so, Gehry makes users into co-designers who can repeatedly change the shape of the lamp if they so wish. Agenda Cross Media CEO BreakfastSeptember 27, 2006, 08:30 – 10:00Location: Westergasfabriek, Oostelijke Meterhuis, Haarlemmerweg 8-10, 1014 BE Amsterdam Entertainment, content, advertising, video, wireless, media rights, news, movies, TV, games, blogging, SMS … Meet the Experts! the future of Business MeetingsOctober 5, 2006, 18:30 – 21:15 the future of Food Design November 23, 2006, 18:30 – 21:15   the future of ConsciousnessJanuary 25, 2007, 18:30 – 21:15 the future of Ambient IntelligenceFebruary 22, 2007, 18:30 – 21:15 the future of Global WorkplaceMarch 29, 2007, 18:30 – 21:15 the future of SuccessApril 26, 2007, 18:30 – 21:15 the future of TourismMay 31, 2007, 18:30 – 21:15 Taste of DiversityJune 28, 2007, 18:30 – 21:15 Club of Amsterdam Open Business Club    Club of Amsterdam Open Business ClubAre you interested in networking, sharing visions, ideas about your future, the future of your industry, society, discussing issues, which are relevant for yourself as well as for the ‘global’ community? The future starts now – join our online platform …

- Club of Amsterdam

Club of Amsterdam Journal, September 2006, Issue 74

Content The Future of Business Meetings: Applications for AMI TechnologiesClub of Amsterdam blogNews about Business MeetingsNews about the FutureSpecial EventInnovation and Risk: The New Media PerspectiveRecommended BookEvent ‘the future of Business Meetings’The Tarot Garden by Niki de Saint Phalle Agenda Club of Amsterdam Open Business Club Club of Amsterdam SearchSubmit your articleContactSubscribe Welcome to the  Club of Amsterdam Journal. Des Leach, Research Fellow, Institute of Work Psychology, University of Sheffield : “Work meetings are fundamentally a communication tool with which to accomplish a range of organisational goals. Despite this practical importance, the meeting has been largely overlooked as a topic of inquiry in organisational research. In this talk, I will present recent research findings on the effects of meetings on employee well-being and factors associated with meeting effectiveness.” .. and don’t miss our  Cross Media CEO Breakfast on September 27! The Future of Business Meetings: Applications for AMI Technologies Christine PereyAMI technology transfer specialist People, processes and technologies we use in business meetings are continuously changing in order to increase efficiency in the workplace, or enhance meeting productivity. How can the addition of more technology help more than it hurts? The goal of this article is to take what is currently known about meetings and to overlay a vision of the future, to see how the addition of new technologies based on advanced signal processing and information analysis can have a positive impact on meetings. The reader will also learn about the AMI Project and explore how moving beyond the analysis of simple verbal communications – adding non-verbal communications – can reveal deeper trends and patterns. Applications using AMI technology could give people the ability: to prepare better for upcoming meetings,to review parts of meetings in progress or past meetings missed,to analyze behaviors and positions taken by individuals or groups, andto attend multiple meetings without missing critical elements in either. At a management level, having technologies, which analyze verbal and non-verbal content and communications, could be integrated with other enterprise managements systems to: be the basis of meeting behavior/methods training programs, even permitting self-analysis by participants,improve team construction based on team members’ past meeting behaviors,reduce risk of disclosures and delays caused by underlying conflicts, andrecommend strategies for human resource utilization across multiple projects and teams. […] Detecting PatternsSummaries are, in some ways, the detection and compression of patterns into smaller, more accessible chunks. Patterns can come in any shape and size. They may consist of the utilization of a word or expression, a gesture or non-verbal type of communication such as nodding to indicate agreement or nodding when a person is drowsy. These are subtle differences, which the human brain can distinguish and, in time, the algorithms on which AMI is working will also be able to detect and flag or enter in the database for use by meeting applications.In some scenarios for AMI technology use, a meeting participant’s gestures or position relative to others can be the cue, which causes a response in a virtual representation of a remote participant. For example, as illustrated in figure 3, when all the participants are in the meeting are turned towards a white board, the virtual participant is expected to turn similarly. Figure 3. In the AMI-assisted Virtual Meeting Room, the focus of attention of the meeting participants is detected and helps an agent to behave according to meeting norms. Source: AMI Project Detecting patterns could also help decisions in rendering agent actions (body language). If during a meeting everyone has their arms folded, would the remote participant also seek to assume this posture as well? These are other examples of how using AMI technology to detect patterns will be potentially valuable during meetings. Support during meetingsIn much the same manner as archives can be resources to people between meetings, or that AMI can help the late meeting participant get “caught up,” the recordings of past meetings should also serve as resources to participants during a meeting. Suppose participants in a meeting wish to answer a question about a previous meeting. Features similar to those accessible between meetings should be available but would also take into account the participants of the live meeting and the sensitivity of the sources or contents of past meetings. […] Meeting AgentsFrequently it is necessary for the success of multiple projects for a person to be assigned responsibilities with overlapping time requirements. Another scenario for AMI technologies includes a system which helps knowledge workers “attend” two or more meetings simultaneously. The individual may participate in one meeting in person or by telephone and request to have an agent monitor one or more meetings. Provided participants in another meeting agree, the monitoring agent can be configured to detect real time events such as changes in the agenda, discussion of a particular item on the agenda which concerns the employee directly, a new person entering the meeting or someone who is known to be important leaving a meeting. This could optimize the use of limited human resources. Figure 4. The AMI technology-based remote meeting assistant can help those who cannot attend a meeting to send their agents to monitor a meeting in progress. Source: AMI ProjectIn the AMI demonstration of this scenario, the Remote Meeting Assistant (RMA) will detect events (e.g., keywords, entry or exit, change in dialog, debates) which it has been configured to monitor and alert the user. These could be real time alerts (via a pop up or toaster like an Instant Message) and they could be compiled for later review. Taking action based on information provided by a RMA would require first gaining the context for the alert, perhaps by way of an accelerated playback of recent remarks or discussion. […] To read the full article:  click here  Christine Perey is a speaker at our Season Event about the future of Business Meetings on October 5th. Club of Amsterdam blog Club of Amsterdam blogOctober 26: Synthesis of elBulli cuisineOctober 14: The new Corinthians: How the Web is socialising journalismSeptember 20:  A Future Love Story News about Business Meetings The Mind-Reading Robot Honda Motor and the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR) have jointly developed new technology that enables a robot to mimic the movements of a person by reading the patterns of activity in the person’s brain. Clench your fist, and the robot does the same; hold two fingers up, and the robot does likewise. Researchers in the West have already developed technology in which devices can be operated by implanting electrodes in the brain or controlling blood flow through special exercises, but this is the first system in the world to achieve robotic movement using changes in the natural blood flow caused by brain activity. eyescreen “Based on breakthrough, super-fast P-OLED technology, eyescreens offer spectacular blur-free video using almost zero power to deliver continuous video entertainment to a new generation of wirelessly connected, lightweight, low cost and stylish video glasses.” News about the Future Taxis without drivers At London’s Heathrow Airport, starting in summer of 2008, 19-computer steered electric cars will go into operation. The automated taxis will be used to connect Heathrow’s Terminal 5 with a parking lot. The technology, which has been named “ULTra,” has been developed by the British firm ATS and is already being tested. The driverless vehicles pick up passengers after they are ordered and deliver them to their destination. Magnets or sensors on the ground direct the vehicles along their route. bCODE-DrinksA pervasive web application debuts In pubs and clubs in Sydney. Users of this web portal are able to buy “wireless drinks” for friends and colleagues — which are sent as encoded SMS messages — as well as being able to create and customise multimedia messages appearing on the video screens at bar venues upon scanning and redemption. Next Event   Cross Media CEO Breakfast September 27, 2006, 08:30 – 10:00 Location: Westergasfabriek, Oostelijke Meterhuis, Haarlemmerweg 8-10, 1014 BE AmsterdamEntertainment, content, advertising, video, wireless, media rights, news, movies, TV, games, blogging, SMS …Meet the Experts:Gabriele Gresta, Deputy Chairman, Digital Magics Group (Italy)Madanmohan Rao,Consultant and prolific writer from Bangalore, Research Director, Asian Media Information and Communication centre (AMIC), SingaporeSylvia Paull, Founder, Berkeley Cybersalon (United States)Mary Hodder, CEO, Dabble (United States) Igor van Gemert, Founder & CEO, Innergy Creations BV Jonathan Marks, Director, Critical Distance BVArnold Smeulders, Intelligent Systems Lab Amsterdam (ISLA)Simon Jones, Director, Human-Computer Studies Laboratory, University of Amsterdam Moderated by Bob Stumpel,  Result Strategy, Cellspace, OpenBC, Ideabroker, LBI, GetMobile, TCS, Mendix, FON For decision makers in industry, government, science and education. There are only a few seats left! Innovation and Risk: The New Media Perspective   Simon JonesDirector, HCS, University of Amsterdamformer Managing Director, M.I.T. Media Lab Europe INTRODUCTION Most people are in favour of innovation. Fewer are in favour of risk, unless it is with someone else’s money or time. New Media is an area where innovation is particularly fruitful and fortunes and reputations can be won and lost in a matter of months. New Media is therefore a useful area to study when seeking to understand the rules and rituals associated with successful innovation in high-tech and the management of its associated risks. This paper gives an overview of my own perspective in New Media innovation arising out of my time leading the MIT Media Lab’s European operations and from founding Ictinos Innovation Ltd, a company that assists regions and SME’s and corporations in making innovation work. WHY INNOVATE? So why should we innovate? After all if something is not broken why try to fix it? Shouldn’t we maximise our return on the investment? Shouldn’t we ‘sweat the assets’ or ‘stick to the knitting’ or a hundred similar phrases heard routinely in meeting places all across the developed world? Well it is reasonably well agreed that an approach based on innovation offers the best opportunity for maximising the use of resources both old and new. Furthermore, in the high-tech and consumer world where product life-spans are short and consumer interest is increasingly fickle, an approach based on innovation may be the only effective strategy for long term prosperity. Globalisation adds its voice to the need to constantly innovate. China is rapidly becoming the world’s factory and India its’ services centre. For Europeans, like me, who have become accustomed to an agreeably affluent and secure lifestyle, working for low wages under difficult conditions is an unattractive and politically infeasible approach to countering this challenge. Specifically in New Media, if we are to avoid a future of US content playing on Chinese technology we will need to be more innovative than our competitors. And remember, the Chinese and Indians are not going to be content with the poor-paying jobs; they too are trying to climb up the innovation ladder as quickly as they can. Perhaps our best hope for a prosperous future is to rely on the culturally rich, design-centric and highly-educated characteristics of European society and ally it to processes and infrastructures that permit continual change, flux and interaction between technologies, networks, consumers and content. This is a major economic and political challenge indeed. Already the ‘creative’ sector (to use an already inexact term rather loosely) accounts for 10% of the EU economy. As factories ship out to China and software centres relocate to India, the creative sector is likely to assume an ever-growing importance to our financial well-being. While in the high-tech internet-enabled consumer sector there are agreeably low barriers to entry and markets are world wide, this applies to the competition as well. In this sector there is always a start-up waiting to invent a new market (www.youtube.com for video sharing, for example) or steal an existing one away from established competitors (www.skype.com, taking away significant voice traffic from the Telco’s). So whatever current innovation you have, you better have a subsequent one as well before the first one gets taken away or bettered. NEW MEDIA We live in a world where generating new forms of content, for entertainment, business or a social aspect is increasingly important. The generic term for this is New Media. It’s more than TV or Radio Programs. It’s more than Web pages and SMS. It is fundamentally about interaction and a move away from the old, single sender, multiple receiver models of TV/Radio and a move towards a world where most people contribute as well as receive content and where multi-person real-time interaction is omnipresent. Already significant activity exists in this area, with blogs (57% of US teenagers have uploaded material to the web) gaming (5M subscribers to World of Warcraft), video sharing, interactive services, a plethora of ‘adult’ applications (curiously, the porn industry has been responsible for many more application advances than the music industry), interactive massively-multi player games. These are all delivered using the Internet Protocol for transmission, a mixture of cable/glass fixed networks and UMTS (3G) mobile networks. In conjunction with the diversity of delivery mechanisms, this material can be received on TV screens, PC’s, laptops, PDA’s and mobile phones. The hackneyed words of ubiquity, personalisation and asynchronicity all describe well an emerging world in which where and when you are on-line is not an obstacle to accessing the world of New Media content. […] Read the full article in the Summit for the Future Report 2006!You can listen to his presentation and download it as an mp3 file in our Jukebox Simon Jones is a speaker at the Cross Media CEO Breakfast, September 27 Recommended Book Asia Unplugged: The Wireless and Mobile Media Boom in the Asia-Pacific (Asia-Pacific Internet Handbook)by Madanmohan Rao, Lunita Mendoza This detailed and analytical handbook is a major source of reference for those with an interest in the wireless explosion in the Asia-Pacific region. It includes thematic papers on WiFi//WLL, wireless content, portals, m-commerce, permission marketing, LBS, wireless development centres, enterprise wireless strategies, capacity-building, corporate policy, legal issues, hybrid models, regulation, and venture capital. The volume also includes detailed country profiles. Madanmohan Rao is a speaker at the Cross Media CEO Breakfast, September 27 October 5: the future of Business Meetings   the future of Business MeetingsThursday, October 5, 2006Registration: 18:30-19:00, Conference: 19:00-21:15Where: Syntens, De Ruyterkade 5, 1013 AA Amsterdam [Building of the Chamber of Commerce] In the future, there will be many new processes and technologies to help participants and organizers prepare and manage meetings for superior communications and outcomes. Christine Perey, AMI technology transfer specialist:Introduction Des Leach, Research Fellow, Institute of Work Psychology, University of Sheffield: Meetings and their Participants – the Balancing Act between Business and Personal Factors Pierre Wellner, Senior Scientist, IDIAP Research Institute, Martigny, Switzerland: The Whole Meeting in Half the Time Wilfried Post, Researcher, TNO Human Factors: Join Multiple Simultaneous Meetings Without Neglecting Your Personal Priorities moderated by John Grüter, Digital Knowledge The Tarot Garden by Niki de Saint Phalle The Tarot Garden by Niki de Saint Phalle Influenced by Gaudí´s Parc Güell in Barcelona, and the garden in Bomarzo, de Saint Phalle decided that she wanted to make something similar; a monumental sculpture park created by a woman. In 1979, she acquired some land in Garavicchio, Tuscany, about 100 km north-west of Rome along the coast. The garden, called Giardino dei Tarocchi in Italian, contains sculptures of the symbols found on Tarot cards. The garden took many years, and a considerable sum of money, to complete. It opened in 1998, after more than 20 years of work. Agenda Cross Media CEO BreakfastSeptember 27, 2006, 08:30 – 10:00Location: Westergasfabriek, Oostelijke Meterhuis, Haarlemmerweg 8-10, 1014 BE Amsterdam Entertainment, content, advertising, video, wireless, media rights, news, movies, TV, games, blogging, SMS … Meet the Experts! The future of Business MeetingsOctober 5, 2006, 18:30 – 21:15 the future of Food DesignNovember 23, 2006, 18:30 – 21:15  the future of ConsciousnessJanuary 25, 2007, 18:30 – 21:15 the future of Ambient IntelligenceFebruary 22, 2007, 18:30 – 21:15 the future of Global WorkplaceMarch 29, 2007, 18:30 – 21:15 the future of SuccessApril 26, 2007, 18:30 – 21:15 the future of TourismMay 31, 2007, 18:30 – 21:15 Taste of DiversityJune 28, 2007, 18:30 – 21:15 Club of Amsterdam Open Business Club    Club of Amsterdam Open Business ClubAre you interested in networking, sharing visions, ideas about your future, the future of your industry, society, discussing issues, which are relevant for yourself as well as for the ‘global’ community? The future starts now – join our online platform …

- Club of Amsterdam

Club of Amsterdam Journal, September 2006, Issue 75

Content A Future Love StoryClub of Amsterdam blogNews about Business MeetingsNews about the FutureSpecial Event”My Genes, My Health”Recommended BookEvent ‘the future of Business Meetings’The Auroville Earth InstituteVDA Design Award: Future Road Transport 2020 Agenda Club of Amsterdam Open Business Club Club of Amsterdam SearchSubmit your articleContactSubscribe Welcome to the  Club of Amsterdam Journal.A public consultation on ways to stimulate the growth of a true EU single market for online digital content, such as films, music and games, was launched by the European Commission. The deadline for replies to the consultation questionnaire is 13 October 2006.  click here Felix Bopp, editor-in-chief Join our   Cross Media CEO Breakfast, September 27.. and our first Season Event about  the future of Business Meetings, October 5! A Future Love Story By Marcel van der Drift Twenty years from now, a cell phone gently sinks to the bottom of the river. It’s one of the latest models. The clever design, trendy colours and nifty features make our cell phones look ancient. Everything about it is new. Cell phone isn’t even the right name for it. It’s hard to describe exactly what it is. So I won’t. Anyway, this phone, for lack of a better word, belongs to Steve, who is on the bridge, feeling generally depressed, but for the moment happy to be rid of his phone. It was a powerful gesture.Steve got wired up only half a year ago, after everyone else had been wired up for years. People used to ask: “Are you wired up?” That question was soon followed by: “Why aren’t you wired up? Are you religious? Aren’t you curious?” They looked at him suspiciously and you could hear them think: “he must be suppressing something. Definitely some sort of denial.” Getting wired up means having all sorts of sensors either implanted or attached to your clothes. They’re connected to your cell phone to monitor heart rate, temperature, the sound of your voice, the position of shoulders, hands and feet, chemicals in the blood and what not. These sensors have been around for decades, even small portable ones. Their first use was medical: monitoring health and medication, correcting bad posture and compensating all sorts of disabilities. They had also been used successfully in psychology: monitoring body language, metabolism and chemicals in the brain. Data was gathered from many patients over time, giving new insights into psychological disorders. But it only took off when some clever marketing guy, later to become yet another trillionaire, realized their combined potential for the consumer market. When people started using their game consoles to train their memories and concentration, he thought: “Maybe they’d like to know about their emotions.” By then, sensors and software could read people like a book. This marketing whiz quickly teamed up with academic researchers and major producers of sensors. And suddenly there was this huge company selling “insight, one-ness and emotional connectivity.” It started an industry of self-reflection, mood blogging, mood matching, real-time automated flirt coaching and some embarrassing employment relation strategies. Steve, however, was reluctant. He didn’t need any software to tell him how he felt. He was depressed. Three years after losing his job as a garbage collector to some smart-ass system, he was definitely depressed. But he was determined to handle it on his own, as he always had. Then Steve got even more depressed. When he finally decided to get help, he skipped the on-line forums and arranged a face-to-face talk with an old fashioned trained expert: R.L. Steinberg, MD, psychiatrist. Doctor Steinbergs first question to Steve was: “Are you wired up?”– “No, I’m not,” he sighed.“Is there any particular reason you’re not wired up?” At this point he used to express his concern about privacy and security, but that argument didn’t seem to convince anyone anymore.– “I don’t need it. I know how I feel.”“I see. Of course self-reflection is the best tool. And I’m sure we canunderstand your situation by discussing it here. But some data would be very useful. You see, the way we see ourselves is often different from the way we actually behave. When a child is frustrated, it doesn’t say ‘I’m frustrated.’ It just starts kicking things over. It needs to be taught then and there, by adults who understand this behavior, that what he is feeling is frustration and it can be expressed in different ways. Even adults have difficulty understanding their emotions at some point in their lives. They mostly need feedback from others, but they also gain insight into themselves from a higher perspective, so to say, from objective long-term observation of their behavior. It’s no magic, but a useful tool.”-“I see.”“I suggest you get wired up without any interpretation software. You’ll just get the sensors and leave the rest to me. All that software just oversimplifies everything anyway. We can look at some of the data during our meetings, if need be.”So Steve got wired up. He met doctor Steinberg every Tuesday and promised to follow his advice on exercise, sleep, diet, etc. But he couldn’t get himself to actually do all those things. The meetings with doctor Steinberg, who confronted him with data to prove his lack of motivation, got more and more embarrassing. Eventually he stopped seeing him. Instead, he downloaded the latest interpretation software.During the installation he opted for ‘brutally honest’ instead of ‘constructive’ or ‘positive’. Now he wasn’t depressed. He was “lethargic, unconcentrated and easily agitated.” “So be it,” he thought to himself as he scrolled through the diagnosis on his cell phone. It also said “hungry”. “Am I hungry? Well, come to think of it, I am.” And he told his phone “I’d like to order a chicken curry, anywhere.” It replied “Chicken curry has been ordered at Phonsawan, located ten minutes from here.” His left shoe started vibrating, so he turned left. As he walked to Phonsawan restaurant for the first time in his life, he thought: “Funny how quickly you get used to this stuff. Three months ago, when my shoes first started vibrating, my first impulse was to kick them off. Now I’m not even aware of them. I just turn left or right because that’s where I need to go.” He read somewhere that shopping malls are installing vibrating floors just to lure customers into expensive stores. He even checked to see if it was a hoax. One site strongly denied these claims, but it seemed to be sponsored by the same shopping mall. That didn’t have to mean anything though, because those ads are placed anywhere automatically, or so he thought. He didn’t feel like digging any deeper. True or not, he decided vibrating floors in shopping malls were very unlikely. Right then, both his shoes vibrated shortly, indicating he had arrived at the restaurant, just as planned. He wasn’t at some expensive store and this somehow proved his point.The rest of the evening was spent eating curry, staring at the waitress, ordering beer, staring at the waitress and ordering one or two more beers while staring at the waitress. In the end Steve felt better than after any meeting with doctor Steinberg. As he walked out of the restaurant … Read the full story click here Visit our event about the future of Food Design’Thursday, November 23, 2006Registration: 18:30-19:00, Conference: 19:00-21:15Where: ROC, Hotelschool, Da Costastraat 64, Amsterdam Club of Amsterdam blog Club of Amsterdam blogOctober 26: Synthesis of elBulli cuisineOctober 14: The new Corinthians: How the Web is socialising journalismSeptember 20:  A Future Love Story News about Business Meetings Pro-active Meeting Assistants: Attention Please! […] There is also evidence that technology-enabled processes can positively impact meeting performance. Studies reported by De Vreede and Nunamaker show a significant reduction in labor cost and overall project duration when Group Support Systems or Electronic Meeting Systems are used. […] Virtual Meeting Rooms: From Observation to Simulation Virtual meeting rooms are used for simulation of real meeting behavior and can show how people behave, how they gesture, move their heads, bodies, their gaze behavior during conversations. They are used for visualising models of meeting behavior, and they can be used for the evaluation of these models. They are also used to show the effects of controlling certain parameters on the behavior and in experiments to see what the effect is on communication when various channels of information – speech, gaze, gesture, posture – are switched off or manipulated in other ways. The paper presents the various stages in the development of a virtual meeting room as well and illustrates its uses by presenting some results of experiments to see whether human judges can induce conversational roles in a virtual meeting situation when they only see the head movements of participants in the meeting. News about the Future Transatlantic21 “SUN21” is a 14-meter-long catamaran powered exclusively by solar energy. In the fall of 2006, the ship will undertake the first motorized crossing of the Atlantic without using a drop of gasoline. This new world record will demonstrate the great potential of the solar technique for ocean navigation. Energy Research Council MIT has established the Energy Research Council to spearhead efforts to address the world’s mounting energy problems. MIT President Susan Hockfield has announced the establishment of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI), in line with the recommendations of an Institute-wide group of faculty convened in June 2005 to help MIT understand how best to tackle the world’s energy crisis. Hockfield thanked the members of the Energy Research Council (ERC) for articulating recommendations that will allow MIT, with its unique talents and capabilities, to address what she called “one of the most urgent challenges of our time.” Next Event   Cross Media CEO Breakfast September 27, 2006, 08:30 – 10:00 Location: Westergasfabriek, Oostelijke Meterhuis, Haarlemmerweg 8-10, 1014 BE AmsterdamEntertainment, content, advertising, video, wireless, media rights, news, movies, TV, games, blogging, SMS …Meet the Experts:Gabriele Gresta, Deputy Chairman, Digital Magics Group (Italy)Madanmohan Rao,Consultant and prolific writer from Bangalore, Research Director, Asian Media Information and Communication centre (AMIC), SingaporeSylvia Paull, Founder, Berkeley Cybersalon (United States)Mary Hodder, CEO, Dabble (United States) Igor van Gemert, Founder & CEO, Innergy Creations BV Jonathan Marks, Director, Critical Distance BVArnold Smeulders, Intelligent Systems Lab Amsterdam (ISLA)Simon Jones, Director, Human-Computer Studies Laboratory, University of Amsterdam Moderated by Bob Stumpel,  Result Strategy, Cellspace, OpenBC, Ideabroker, LBI, GetMobile, TCS, Mendix, FON For decision makers in industry, government, science and education. There are only a few seats left! ”My Genes, My Health”   Chris De BruijnChairman International Molecular Medicine Foundation, Breda, The NetherlandsScientific Director, Institute of Personalised Preventive Medicine, Velen, Germany Aging and chronic dege-nerative diseases are logic consequences of life. Our genes and our life style determine the pace at which we age and the individual health risks that come with aging. Modern molecular medicine offers options to use this knowledge, especially in view of individual health risk reduction (= pre-vention). Evolution and gene-compatibilityAging is a normal biological process. It is the logic consequence of the fact, that we can only exist and survive thanks to the use of the oxygen that we breath and thanks to the interaction between our genes and triggers coming from abroad (e.g. food). During the several million years of evolution of Homo sapiens, a delicate pattern of gene-environment interactions has developed that made our species so succesfull.Succesfull (healthy) survival has a lot to do with “living up to your genes”, which means that there must be a certain degree of compatibility between the life-style pattern “dictated” by evolution and an individual´s life-style. It has become clear, that the dietary and life-style habits in the industrialised countries are far from “gene compatible”. The majority of today´s nutritional ingredients ingredients are “not known” to our genes, as is the lack of adequate physical activity. As a result, many body functions suffer from this incompatibilty, which is always characterised by the occurrence of chronic inflammatory processes. Genetic individualityRecent research from several disciplines (molecular biology, nutritional sciences, pharmacology) shows that the effects of identical external triggers (food, alcohol, pharmaceutical drugs etc.) can have widely varying effects on different individuals. It has been demonstrated that among the human population genes are present in variant forms. These variants have very small structural differences, for instance just one single nucleotide out of the several hundred nucleotides that form a gene.Such variant forms (single nucleotide polymorphisms; SNP’s) give rise to proteins with a slightly different structure. A variant protein may work satisfactorily under normal conditions, but when it gets under pressure (for instance, in case of a chronic infection or during the metabolism of certain food components or medicaments), it might perform less adequately and cause an imbalance in the regulating mechanisms of the homeostatic “maintaining system” of the body. If not brought back …Read the full article in the  Summit for the Future Report 2006! Recommended Book Business Communication Design: Creativity, Strategies, and Solutionsby Pamela Angell and Teeanna Rizkallah Business Communication Design: Creativity, Strategies, Solutions by Pamela Angell emphasizes the role of critical and creative thinking in the communication process. Students learn a systematic approach to designing messages for every business communication situation. The authors offer a simple yet effective model for message design that focuses on the needs of the people involved in the communication and the circumstances of the message. Business Communication Design addresses the variety of communication options that modern workers face. October 5: the future of Business Meetings   the future of Business MeetingsThursday, October 5, 2006Registration: 18:30-19:00, Conference: 19:00-21:15Where: Syntens, De Ruyterkade 5, 1013 AA Amsterdam [Building of the Chamber of Commerce] In the future, there will be many new processes and technologies to help participants and organizers prepare and manage meetings for superior communications and outcomes. Christine Perey, AMI technology transfer specialist:Introduction Des Leach, Research Fellow, Institute of Work Psychology, University of Sheffield: Meetings and their Participants – the Balancing Act between Business and Personal Factors Pierre Wellner, Senior Scientist, IDIAP Research Institute, Martigny, Switzerland: The Whole Meeting in Half the Time Wilfried Post, Researcher, TNO Human Factors: Join Multiple Simultaneous Meetings Without Neglecting Your Personal Priorities moderated by John Grüter, Digital Knowledge The Auroville Earth Institute The  Auroville Earth Institute was previously named the Auroville Building Centre/Earth Unit, which had been founded by HUDCO, Government of India, in 1989. The Auroville Earth Institute is researching, developing, promoting and transferring earth-based technologies, which are cost and energy effective. These technologies are disseminated through training courses, seminars, workshops, manuals and documents. The Institute is also offering various services, and provides consultancy within and outside India. TOWARDS THE FUTURE Building with earth has a great past, but also a promising future, especially in Auroville. It is definitely an appropriate, cost and energy-efficient, and eco-friendly technology which can promote a sustainable future. Obviously, one has to master the material the techniques so as to obtain the optimum possibilities for a harmonious, durable, agreeable and efficient architecture. One can note these advantages of earth as a building material: The earth is a local material, contributing to sustainable development.The production of the building components demands a lot of semi-skilled manpower.The technology is easily adaptable and transferable.The monetary and environmental costs are much lower than that of most other materials.The thermal comfort and vibratory atmosphere are very positive. One has also to master the disadvantages of the material which, normally, are variations in the soil quality, and hence the block quality and the production of blocks on site. These reductive aspects can be underlined: Mechanical qualities are less regular.Sensible building details are required.The constraints of organizing and managing the production of one’s own building material on site. Despite the possibilities and advantages offered by stabilised earth materials, building with earth in Auroville is still not the common practice. Either people don’t want to acknowledge the advantage of this material or they don’t want to get the burden to organise the block production on their site and manage everything themselves.The generalised use in Auroville of compressed stabilised earth blocks and other earth techniques needs a centralised production of blocks and a coordinated management of resources – physical and human. This development step would insure a controlled and more regular quality of raw materials and finished products. This is one of the aims for the next years to come. The challenge in front of usHow to realize architecture full of light, suppleness, simplicity, imagination and beauty with a heavy and formless mud? This is what we are trying to achieve in Auroville and what we are proposing to the World. VDA Design Award: Future Road Transport 2020 VDA Design Award Since 2005 the VDA Design Award is offered by the Verband der Automobilindustrie (VDA), Frankfurt (Main) and the German Design Council. The competition intends to energize younger people to argue more visionary with the subjects mobility and individual traffic. The competition is open to people all over the world and is aimed at students of all design areas and artistic disciplines i.e. industrial and product design, visual communication, interior design, architecture, art and media studies courses. All students who are registered for a specific course of study at university level or equivalent and who have not yet finished their studies are entitled to participate. Some contributions: Agenda Cross Media CEO BreakfastSeptember 27, 2006, 08:30 – 10:00Location: Westergasfabriek, Oostelijke Meterhuis, Haarlemmerweg 8-10, 1014 BE Amsterdam Entertainment, content, advertising, video, wireless, media rights, news, movies, TV, games, blogging, SMS … Meet the Experts! The future of Business MeetingsOctober 5, 2006, 18:30 – 21:15 the future of Food DesignNovember 23, 2006, 18:30 – 21:15  the future of ConsciousnessJanuary 25, 2007, 18:30 – 21:15 the future of Ambient IntelligenceFebruary 22, 2007, 18:30 – 21:15 the future of Global WorkplaceMarch 29, 2007, 18:30 – 21:15 the future of SuccessApril 26, 2007, 18:30 – 21:15 the future of TourismMay 31, 2007, 18:30 – 21:15 Taste of DiversityJune 28, 2007, 18:30 – 21:15   Club of Amsterdam Open Business Club    Club of Amsterdam Open Business ClubAre you interested in networking, sharing visions, ideas about your future, the future of your industry, society, discussing issues, which are relevant for yourself as well as for the ‘global’ community? The future starts now – join our online platform …   .