Comments on: Shirky at NFAIS: How Abundance Breaks Everything

By: Historietime: Fildelerne – musikkbransjens mareritt

Historietime: Fildelerne – musikkbransjens mareritt — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 11:55:15 +0000

[...] Clay Shirky, i keynote på NFAIS NRKbeta har skrevet mer om dette sakskomplekset, blant annet i; Nowhere Man (om artister som ikke ønsker å være tilgjengelig på dagens plattformer) Gratulerer med våte bukser (om The Pirate Bay-dommen) Overlever musikken CD’ens død? del 1 Gjesteblogg: I anledning CD’ens død Historietime: Musikkbransjen på ti minutter og Historietime: Slik fikk CD’en fotfeste [...]

By: Journalism: Winning the battle for attention

Journalism: Winning the battle for attention — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 20:32:01 +0000

[...] high capital costs usually led to monopolies. Digital media of all kinds has ended scarcity, and as Clay Shirky says: Abundance breaks more things than scarcity [...]

By: Richardhg

Richardhg — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 22:32:22 +0000

I think there are fundamental problems with the logic here, because it confuses technological change abundance with ceteris paribus (all else remaining the same) abundance.

So the printing press had unforeseen consequences, which is a common experience with technological change.

An example of ceteris paribus abundance would be an exceptionally good crop, or growing season. The consequences of this are well known, because the topic has been studied at depth, because it happens cyclically.

In a free market, abundance creates a roller-coaster pricing scenario. In times of abundance, prices fall. In times of scarcity, prices rise.

The market response to this has been corporate farming. McDonald’s want stable beef prices, so they avoid the market and intensively farm their own beef.

So technology may be implemented in an organized manner to stabilize prices and innovate money-saving practices, in which case, its effects are to destroy the competition and effect social change that way.

But abundance? Not coping with? Nah.

By: They hate us for our freedoms 4 « FoundOnWeb

They hate us for our freedoms 4 « FoundOnWeb — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:11:16 +0000

[...] Their refusal to adapt, I think, is logical and understandable. This week there have been a number of blogs on Clay Shirky’s keynote at NFAIS. While he apparently said a lot of insightful [...]

By: Links 12/3/2010: Mandriva Focus, Simon Phipps the OSI Director | Boycott Novell

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:43:47 +0000

[...] Shirky at NFAIS: How Abundance Breaks Everything Clay Shirky was the opening keynote at the NFAIS Annual Conference this weekend. According to Shirky, the fact that our customers are connected matters, but the fact that they’re networked matters even more. [...]

By: Once More unto the Breach

Once More unto the Breach — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 07:05:51 +0000

The Future of Book Publishing Business Models…

Tim O’Reilly tweeted a great article from the New York Times on the math of publishing traditional print versus eBooks. If you publish print books, and aren’t as aggressive as O’Reilly Media at experimenting with new forms, or looking over……

By: Journalism: What next?

Journalism: What next? — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:41:44 +0000

[...] for the last few years. From a keynote at the National Federation of Advanced Information Services, Clay says: Abundance breaks more things than scarcity does. Society knows how to react to [...]

By: How do we cope with abundance? « flowing motion

How do we cope with abundance? « flowing motion — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 08:09:41 +0000

[...] that in the back of my mind, this morning I was reading the reports on Clay Shirky’s opening address to NFAIS. We know what to do about scarcity. But abundance confuses [...]

By: reBlog from Ann Michael under: The Scholarly Kitchen « Electronic Notes

reBlog from Ann Michael under: The Scholarly Kitchen « Electronic Notes — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 02:26:01 +0000

[...] It is part of Clay Shirky Keynote at NFAIS annual conference as it was told by Ann Michael under “The Scholarly Kitchen” [...]

By: Alix Vance

Alix Vance — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 21:37:10 +0000

Ann, Thanks for posting from NFAIS.

Shirky’s comments remind me of a Feb 1 piece from Fortune, “Why doing good is good for business” (http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/01/news/companies/dov_seidman_lrn.fortune/index.htm).

A couple of outtakes:

“The world has changed, Seidman argues, and winner-take-all strategies are obsolete. He contends that the rise of information technology has made good behavior more important because it has become increasingly hard to hide bad behavior.”

The article also cites Thomas Friedman’s Hot, Flat, and Crowded:

“Today people can see into your life farther, faster, and cheaper than ever before. Dov really helped me understand the behavioral implications of that: You are on Candid Camera, so be good.”

It is very interesting to note the latent, harnessable power of individuals in the Web community to observe, react to, and profoundly impact major businesses. Managers trainied in traditional ‘red ocean’ business are quickly losing ground. The new potency lies with those who have the vision to connect the dots and mobilize the teeming masses–individual collaborators.