Society and Information Technology in Second Life

Wednesdays, January 9 - July 30, 2008, 4-6, SLT/PT, 7-9 pm ET

on Berkman island in Second Life - http://slurl.com/secondlife/Berkman/114/70/25

Course homepage - http://socinfotech.pbwiki.com

 

Instructor: Scott MacLeod (not on Harvard's faculty) = Aphilo Aarde (in Second Life)

http://scottmacleod.com/papers.htm

 

 

Mar 19 2008 Soc and Info Tech class transcript

 

[15:49]  Luna Bliss is Online

[15:49]  Morrhys Graysmark is Online

[15:49]  Geda Hax is Online

[15:49]  Cookie Kappler is Online

[15:49]  Coene Soyuz is Online

[15:49]  Enapa Pennell is Online

[15:49]  Arawn Spitteler is Online

[15:49]  Sean18 McCarey is Online

[15:49]  SamBivalent Spork is Online

[15:49]  Shava Suntzu is Online

[15:49]  Jon Seattle is Online

[15:49]  Champler Snook is Online

[15:49]  Gwyneth Llewelyn is Online

[15:49]  Barbie Starr is Online

[15:49]  Persis Trilling is Online

[15:49]  Michele Mrigesh is Online

[15:49]  Juria Yoshikawa is Online

[15:49]  Diego Ibanez is Online

[15:49]  Mariamo Babii is Online

[15:49]  Connecting to in-world Voice Chat...

[15:49]  Connected

[15:51]  Diego Ibanez is Offline

[15:52]  Mariamo Babii is Offline

[15:53]  Crenshaw Laville: Luu

[15:53]  Luu Karas: Hello

[15:54]  Michele Mrigesh is Offline

[15:54]  Annette Paster is Online

[15:55]  You: Hello Crenshaw and Luu

[15:55]  Luu Karas: Hello

[15:55]  You: Hello Huxley

[15:55]  Luna Bliss is Offline

[15:55]  Huxley Trafalgar: yo

[15:55]  You: Hi Uncle Varriale

[15:55]  Brian Whiteberry is Online

[15:56]  Huxley Trafalgar: Aphilo - are you a Berkman owner?

[15:56]  Uncle Varriale: Howdy

[15:56]  You: We'll get started with "Society and Information Technology" in a few minutes.

[15:56]  Huxley Trafalgar: oh gosh, am I crashing?

[15:56]  You: Harvard owns Berkman

[15:56]  Huxley Trafalgar: yes, I meant are you an adminstrator

[15:56]  Krysss Galatea is Online

[15:56]  You: I'm not

[15:56]  Luu Karas: is there some music or sound, or everything muted ?

[15:57]  Huxley Trafalgar: is this an open session or for HLS only?

[15:57]  Crenshaw Laville: Events said open

[15:58]  You: At large participants are welcome here.

[15:58]  Geda Hax is Offline

[15:58]  Huxley Trafalgar: Great! I'm at the University of Hawaii.

[15:58]  You: Here's the course wiki - http://socinfotech.pbwiki.com

[15:58]  You: :)

[15:58]  You: I have posted transcripts from previous classes.

[15:58]  Claryssa Schmidt is Online

[15:59]  Michele Mrigesh is Online

[15:59]  Crenshaw Laville: This is a topic I am quite interested in, in general.

[15:59]  Crenshaw Laville: Sociology meets technology

[15:59]  Boston Hutchinson is Online

[15:59]  Huxley Trafalgar: Bill Gibson meets real life

[16:00]  Michele Mrigesh is Offline

[16:00]  You: Yes - it's timely and topical, as well.

[16:00]  Luu Karas: yeah, if someone in this society is willing to have Vista working it will be bgreat lol

[16:00]  Mondrian Lykin is Online

[16:00]  Crenshaw Laville: never happen

[16:00]  Huxley Trafalgar: you need a supercomputer to run Vista at speed

[16:00]  Crenshaw Laville: no speed to it, just to run it

[16:01]  Boston Hutchinson: Hi Aphilo

[16:01]  Huxley Trafalgar: it's too bad, I saw it in Beta when it was still Longhorn, and it looked pretty cool

[16:01]  Boston Hutchinson: Hi everybody

[16:01]  You: Hi Boston.

[16:01]  Draxtor Despres is Online

[16:01]  Huxley Trafalgar: Hi Boston, how' s the weather in Cambridge?

[16:01]  Crenshaw Laville: THank you Aphilo.

[16:01]  You: Hello Alfa

[16:01]  You: yw

[16:01]  Alfa Fall: hi

[16:01]  Crenshaw Laville: Greetings Boston

[16:01]  Michele Mrigesh is Online

[16:02]  You: Macbooks with the intel chip are fast and reliable.

[16:02]  Mariamo Babii is Online

[16:02]  You: and run windows to boot.

[16:02]  You: Hi Rain!

[16:02]  Boston Hutchinson: Hi Rain

[16:02]  Crenshaw Laville: ooh ooh sit next to me

[16:02]  Crenshaw Laville: <smile>

[16:02]  Huxley Trafalgar: hi rain

[16:02]  Rain Ninetails: hee hee HI!

[16:03]  Mondrian Lykin is Offline

[16:03]  You: In this course thus far we've been examining how the information technology revolution has developed.

[16:03]  You: We started with history, geography and actors.

[16:03]  You: Hi Claryssa!

[16:03]  Claryssa Schmidt: hi :)

[16:03]  Boston Hutchinson: Hi Claryssa

[16:03]  Crenshaw Laville: Claryssa... <knodding head>

[16:03]  Huxley Trafalgar: Can we do introductions, or does everyone know each other?

[16:04]  You: ... and you can read about this in the transcripts that I post at http://socinfotech.pbwiki.com

[16:04]  You: That sounds good - I'm particularly interested in your specific interests in the IT revolution, both generally and specifically.

[16:05]  You: Hi Apollonia.

[16:05]  Crenshaw Laville: greetings Apollonia

[16:05]  Apollonia Corleone: Hi *waves* and thanks

[16:05]  Brian Whiteberry is Offline

[16:05]  You: Type chat offers the opportunity for multiplae lines of reasoning, and I encourage you to converse and contribute when you want, although I also will type a lecture.

[16:06]  You: We aren't using sound yet, because many people's mahcines aren't yet capable, and it would exclude folks.

[16:06]  Geda Hax is Online

[16:06]  Huxley Trafalgar: good, my computer is 3 years old

[16:06]  You: Huxley - would you like to begin introducing yourself.

[16:06]  Huxley Trafalgar: Sure!

[16:06]  Crenshaw Laville: I have always been fascinated by the clearly identifiable groups within the demographic spectrum. Specifically people who aged without technology (IT) and people who learned it (middle aged) and people who know little else.

[16:06]  You: And perhaps we can go briefly around the circle.

[16:06]  Crenshaw Laville: sorry was typing

[16:06]  Huxley Trafalgar: I am in the Center for Smart Bulding and Community Design at the University of Hawaii

[16:06]  Huxley Trafalgar: BTW the weather is really nice at the moment.

[16:06]  You: Yes, Crenshaw - that's great to type

[16:07]  Huxley Trafalgar: SL has been really interesting for architects - you can design and import into SL and have people from all over look at your work

[16:07]  You: Digital nativeness is one thing John Palfrey at the Berkman center is particularly interested in.

[16:07]  Huxley Trafalgar: Is that the concept of being "born into internet"?

[16:07]  Luu Karas: ok, living in Canada, noiwing a lot right now. I travle a lot around the world, Africa, south america

[16:08]  You: and so quickly, Huxley

[16:08]  You: similar

[16:08]  You: Huxley - quick intro?

[16:08]  Uncle Varriale: I took an information theory class in 1963 and thought I could use some catching up.

[16:08]  Huxley Trafalgar: I just did

[16:08]  You: Thanks

[16:08]  You: Rain ?

[16:08]  Crenshaw Laville: lol uncle

[16:08]  You: everyone -

[16:08]  Rain Ninetails: um

[16:09]  You: (we haven't introduced ourselves yet, and you don't have to)

[16:09]  You: (Just say pass)

[16:09]  Rain Ninetails: I seem to be most interesting in the social networking and true to nature things of SL :)

[16:09]  You: thnx

[16:09]  You: :)

[16:09]  You: Claryssa?

[16:09]  You: Boston?

[16:10]  Boston Hutchinson: I'm one of those who grew up without computers

[16:10]  Luu Karas: Ifind interesting to see how people use or misise internet, acording to culture and langages

[16:10]  Boston Hutchinson: got through college with a slide rule

[16:10]  You: Yes

[16:10]  You: Uncle? Crenshaw?

[16:10]  jek Criss is Online

[16:10]  You: Alfa?

[16:10]  Boston Hutchinson: But developed a career in software: aerospace, financial, networking and system architecture

[16:10]  You: Apolloni?

[16:11]  Uncle Varriale: Scroll up for my intro.

[16:11]  Apollonia Corleone: I have been involved in Information Technology for about 25 years,

[16:11]  You: Thnx.

[16:11]  jek Criss is Offline

[16:11]  Apollonia Corleone: and have held classes on the internet for 5 years on creativity and communication. I am IT Project Manager for a high tech company

[16:11]  You: Thnx.

[16:12]  You: So I'd just like to recapitulate some guiding themes of this course - that a paradigm shift is occuring

[16:12]  You: as significant as the previous (two) industrial revolutions

[16:13]  Daisyblue Hefferman is Online

[16:13]  You: And there are 5 key aspects to these new processes

[16:13]  You: 1. this IT revolution is about information generation and processing

[16:14]  You: (Prvious industrail revolutions have focused upon synergies of technologies around energy, in the first, for example

[16:14]  You: and chemicals, metals and telecommunications in the second).

[16:14]  You: The second key aspect of this paradigm shift in IT

[16:14]  You: is 2. it's pervasive, invades, and influences every domain of socioeconomic action

[16:14]  Morrhys Graysmark is Offline

[16:15]  You: affecting almost every aspect of society and the economy.

[16:15]  You: What's unique about it is that

[16:15]  You: 3. it's characterized by networking, of companies, people, and mentalities

[16:15]  Krysss Galatea is Offline

[16:16]  You: By contrast, for example -

[16:16]  Juria Yoshikawa is Online

[16:16]  You: on the east cost, companies were much more hierarchical in this past century

[16:17]  You: coast*

[16:17]  You: What happened in Silicon Valley starting in the 1950s shaped itself around a networking mentality.

[16:17]  You: 4. it's main quailty is flexibility, where the system is such that it can reorganize and reprogram components without disintergration

[16:18]  You: The internet itself is infinitely extensible, and new software and technologies can be added as they develop.

[16:18]  You: This is very different from almost all previous technologies.

[16:18]  You: so and 5. technological convergence occurs in an intergrated system, which is opening, not closing, and which is only bound by technological development

[16:19]  You: So innovation will continue to transform this distributed network.

[16:19]  You: These changes emerged in 3 main areas

[16:19]  jek Criss is Online

[16:19]  You: starting in the 1950s

[16:20]  You: microelectronics, computers, and telecommunications

[16:20]  You: and gave rise to this paradigm shift

[16:20]  You: (as well as genetic engineering, which we touch on only a little in this course)

[16:21]  You: all informing new approaches to knowledge generation and production

[16:21]  SamBivalent Spork is Offline

[16:21]  You: That's a little background to this course

[16:21]  Krysss Galatea is Online

[16:21]  You: And I will post the transcripts to the course wiki - http://socinfotech.pbwiki.com

[16:21]  You: as I have in the past

[16:22]  You: Tonight we'll continue to examine spatial changes that have occurred as a consequence of the IT revolution

[16:22]  You: We examined this last week as well

[16:23]  You: What's significant about cities, however, in the next 50 years

[16:23]  You: is their projected great growth.

[16:24]  You: Conurbation and mega metropoles will become very signficant

[16:24]  You: Core edge cities will become a significant mode

[16:25]  You: Today suburbs in the US are where 70% of th eUS population lives

[16:25]  Crenshaw Laville: But in effect does it really matter? Doesn't the technology effectively bring everyone together?

[16:25]  You: So cities are made up of edges now

[16:25]  You: and can be difined as we saw last week by commuting units

[16:26]  You: The reason why cities will continue to grow rapidly and enormously is that cities offer jobs, benefits and

[16:26]  You: infrastructure

[16:26]  You: So we now have a city made up of edges, rather than a city and edges

[16:27]  You: In more rigorous terms

[16:27]  You: regions are becoming signficant, due to fast trasnportation sytstems,

[16:27]  You: and telecommunications are becmong the nerve system.

[16:27]  You: The main different between urban areas and regional areas is that

[16:28]  You: a region is defined in terms of production systems

[16:28]  You: and this happens fundamentally to be defined territorially

[16:28]  You: The Bay Area - continuing to examine it -

[16:28]  You: has no one institution or govt.

[16:29]  You: no cultural homogeneity, and no common institutions

[16:29]  You: Why do people live ina specific location?

[16:30]  Venla Hutchence is Online

[16:30]  You: In fact what makes it a unit is the job market - a job marketthen comes to define a terratorial compex.

[16:30]  You: So the way we produce and manage production determines our habits.

[16:30]  Huxley Trafalgar: not the other way around?

[16:30]  You: Next question -

[16:31]  You: What we looked at last week was ways in which new infomration systems came to

[16:31]  You: decenter cities, so that cities have become much more chaotic

[16:31]  You: good question

[16:32]  You: So why have all these production systems become so concentrated?

[16:32]  You: 1 for technological reasons -

[16:32]  You: the ability of technology for communication and computer allow companies and individuals the possibility of locating in one area and still sell

[16:33]  You: around the world.

[16:33]  You: These systems give the capacity to diffuse and reach out.

[16:33]  You: They offer the technological capacity to connect througout the world?

[16:33]  You: Why? How does this capacity emerge?

[16:34]  You: Due to aMILIEU OF INNOVATION

[16:34]  You: where synergies occur such that 2+2=5

[16:34]  You: due to the interaction between a few elements

[16:35]  You: And this miliu of innovation emerged even as early as the 1950s in Silicon Valley.

[16:35]  You: Empirical studies have shown this

[16:36]  You: E.g. Hollywood - why did it emerge - we don't need it?

[16:36]  You: Why, then? Becuae to be a system, you have to be ina place.

[16:36]  Boston Hutchinson: If broadband reaches every village on Earth, will innovation still be focused on cities? Will people still move to cities for socialreasons anyway?

[16:37]  You: We'll have to see Boston - almosst all demographers are predicting rapidly growing and very large cities

[16:38]  You: people get benefits out of being situation in proximity to one another - then IT offers ways to extend this.

[16:38]  Apollonia Corleone: What was it you said about technology in cities promoting a more chaotic centeredness

[16:38]  Sean18 McCarey is Offline

[16:39]  You: (Reference - see Sir Peter Hall - "Cities as Civlization"

[16:40]  You: He shows that hese patterns occur throughout history , from Rome to Silicon Valley, and that cities are sources of creativity.

[16:40]  Huxley Trafalgar: Does he talk about the endpoint?

[16:40]  You: Yes Apollonia - the nature of the city itself changes and it is becoming more choatic

[16:40]  Huxley Trafalgar: By that I mean resource constraints.

[16:41]  You: There are limiting resources, but they tend to be specific to areas

[16:41]  Diego Ibanez is Online

[16:42]  Huxley Trafalgar: I was thinking specifically energy, which is a ubiquitous problem

[16:42]  You: Fossil fuels are a limiting factor, but ciies have continued to grow and expand in these patterns for 10,000 years

[16:43]  Huxley Trafalgar: but not coninuously. Rome, after all, did go through a contraction.

[16:43]  You: True . . .

[16:44]  You: for a variety of reasons,

[16:44]  You: To recap my line of argument

[16:44]  You: A fundametnal dimension of technological and social change

[16:44]  You: is the transformation of spatial forms, our built environment.

[16:45]  You: What characterizes these technolgical and social changes?

[16:45]  You: Large scale urbanization - belying predictions about the end of cities.

[16:45]  You: So now we are in the age of super cities

[16:45]  You: And the predominant form is large scale metropoltical regions.

[16:46]  You: Where spatial and social diversity inside regions are linked together around the planet by technological and telecommincation capabilites.

[16:46]  You: The geography involves a network of nodes

[16:46]  Champler Snook is Online

[16:47]  You: and within each node, there are people and institutions connected to other nodes wher others aren't

[16:47]  You: Global cities is a concept which journalists have recently adopted to explain global dominance

[16:47]  Brian Whiteberry is Online

[16:48]  You: But the data shows that certain key functions in cities have global connections, but not all.

[16:48]  You: e.g. New York -

[16:48]  You: what is global is wall street

[16:48]  You: the media industry,

[16:48]  You: Silicon Valley, etc.

[16:49]  You: but not all of Manhattan, for example midtown, etc.

[16:49]  You: Many palyers are also connected globally but not all - and these are truly cosmopolitcan

[16:49]  You: In the bronx, and Queens, you have enormous popultiaons

[16:50]  You: with local daily life

[16:50]  You: but they are global in terms of imigration

[16:50]  You: But the city of NY lives on highly connected business centers

[16:50]  You: Take Johannesburg, South Africa

[16:51]  You: as a center it is highly connected and most of South Africa depends on it - mostly white South Afric) but Soweto is very local.

[16:51]  You: This networking geogrpahy splits nodes

[16:51]  You: So in a GLOBAL CITY

[16:51]  You: there is large scale urbanization

[16:51]  You: a mega metropolitan area

[16:52]  You: they are diverse

[16:52]  You: and networking geography exists between key nodes

[16:52]  You: The technical possibility of concentrating population and activity doesn't have to disperse banking as business

[16:52]  You: Teh technoical capacity creates

[16:53]  You: concentration and decentralization of the area simultaneously

[16:53]  You: This geography works at the level of the city and the planet.

[16:54]  You: Why do we have the capacity to create technoligcal megacities?

[16:54]  You: Because of the milieu of innovation

[16:54]  You: that is the ability to generate synergies between teh different componenets.

[16:54]  You: e.g. movie making

[16:55]  You: requires a high level of information processing activities, that then determines this milieu of innovation.

[16:55]  You: Additional reasons

[16:55]  You decline The Justice Commons, The Justice Commons (105, 101, 28) from A group member named In Kenzo.

[16:56]  You: - one argument - the most dynamic cities are those that offer attractions of urban life to young professionals who drive this urban life

[16:57]  You: it's also argued that the revival of cities is linked to the existence of attractive urban life and these indivduals become carriers of this new idea

[16:57]  You: They create a fun place to live that attracts entrepreneurial talent, that in turn generates new ideas and businesses.

[16:58]  You: Tourism - this occrus in Europe too

[16:58]  You: e.g. in Amsterdam, the city invests in cultural activiteis to focus on providing public amenities and quality of life that makes it easier for businesses to attract this talent.

[16:58]  You: This is controversial - because this attraction means dislocaiton and gentrification

[16:59]  You: But interesting becuase we're seeing a revival of downtown areas

[16:59]  jek Criss is Offline

[16:59]  You: e.g. Fashion is an industry of innovation

[16:59]  You: which atracts such talent

[17:00]  You: Let's stop here for ten minutes, for a break, and return about 5:10 SLT

[17:01]  You: At the end of class we'll have time for questions and conversation, in addition to during class.

[17:01]  You: See you in 10 minutes.

[17:01]  Apollonia Corleone: ok

[17:01]  You: :)

[17:03]  Geda Hax: Hi there guys , sorry didnt want to disturb the class when I landed

[17:03]  Claryssa Schmidt: hi Geda :)

[17:03]  Boston Hutchinson: Hi Geda. Nice to see you in class this week!

[17:04]  Geda Hax: I missed lots of classes :( , rl working is keeping me really really busy

[17:04]  Geda Hax: Nice to see you too Boston

[17:04]  Draxtor Despres is Offline

[17:04]  Boston Hutchinson: Sorry you have so much work, but maybe that's not all bad.

[17:05]  Geda Hax: nah its just some role change and I am also no longer homeoffice so you picture it

[17:05]  Draxtor Despres is Online

[17:05]  Jon Seattle is Offline

[17:06]  Boston Hutchinson: So you're commuting to work instead of working at home?

[17:06]  Geda Hax: traffic here is getting worse day by day ... economy is getting better so LOTS of cars being sold .... totally hell

[17:06]  Geda Hax: and its hard to get used to it after 3 years being honeoffice ..

[17:06]  Geda Hax: *hoMeoffice even

[17:07]  Brian Whiteberry is Offline

[17:07]  Huxley Trafalgar: Gotta run guys.

[17:07]  Huxley Trafalgar: See you next time.

[17:07]  Boston Hutchinson: Bye Huxley

[17:07]  Geda Hax: Bye Huxley

[17:07]  Rain Ninetails: bye!

[17:07]  You: Bye Huxley

[17:08]  You: Thanks for coming.

[17:08]  Huxley Trafalgar: I was hoping to stick around and ask awkward questions, but I'm at work, and I have to do that :)

[17:08]  Geda Hax: Ap I need to run in 10 m , sorry ..will try to stay longer next time

[17:09]  You: Bye Geda -

[17:09]  You: Nice to see you

[17:09]  Geda Hax: hehe in 10 minutes not now

[17:09]  You: Come back next week

[17:09]  Geda Hax: will do my best

[17:09]  You decline Backintyme Bookstore from A group member named Raymond Frog.

[17:09]  Jagger Valeeva is Online

[17:09]  Brian Whiteberry is Online

[17:10]  You: Observations, questions thus far?

[17:11]  Mariamo Babii is Offline

[17:11]  You: Let's continue then with examining

[17:12]  You: how a milieu of innovaiton affects cities with specific examples.

[17:12]  You: Content is important

[17:13]  You: Added value which occurs in a mileu of innovation is linked to content provision

[17:13]  You: and is the cultural ability to add value

[17:13]  You: through content.

[17:13]  You: These kinds of industries are some of the highest value added businesses today.

[17:13]  You: CONTENT

[17:14]  You: is somehting culturally attractive

[17:14]  You: that is content that is culturally attractive and in an agreeable, natural environment are big attractions.

[17:15]  You: e.g. Museums are most popular for investment, especially those that beocme architectural landmakrs.

[17:15]  You: For example, the Biblao -

[17:15]  You: Bilbao*

[17:15]  You: 20 years ago, Bilbao was declining industrial town in Spain

[17:15]  You: It was at risk for terrorism from Basque separatists,

[17:16]  You: and was a bad investment

[17:16]  You: Bilbao decided to make a big investment in buildings.

[17:16]  You: 1) They hired the most expensive desinger in the world who had built a museum in L.A.

[17:18]  You: which Frank Gehry built

[17:18]  You: and 2) was connected with the Guggenheim

[17:18]  You: Today all European tourists stop in Bilbao - and terrorism only occasionally kills policemen

[17:18]  You: Bilbao has rebounded

[17:19]  You: Oakland, California in the SF Bay Area, is trying to do the other thing

[17:19]  You: They planned for a Cathedral of Christ the Ligh Christain architectural Bldg - to mark the revival of the Oakland musuem - and this

[17:19]  You: museum displacement is very controversial

[17:19]  Champler Snook is Online

[17:20]  You: But cultural development is key here.

[17:20]  You: What's new about museums since they've been around for so long?

[17:20]  You: Historically, the elite have built museums as a public service

[17:21]  You: What is new is an investment in museums as an engine of economic development, rather

[17:21]  You: than as a produce of economical development to attract new talent.

[17:21]  You: E.g Paris did this in the 1990s

[17:21]  You: 3) element of interpretation

[17:21]  You: concerning metropolitcan growth

[17:22]  Patrio Graysmark is Online

[17:22]  You: There's a concentration of business and directional centers for business - to add value to finance

[17:22]  You: The heart of the new economy is stock market evaluation where things become tighter on a basis of finance

[17:23]  You: Lawyers, accountants and health care workers all work in big cluers in which high level functions work together,a nd lower levels go to outlying regions

[17:23]  You: What's the largest industry as part of GDP?

[17:24]  You: A service industry

[17:24]  You: Health care

[17:24]  Coene Soyuz is Offline

[17:24]  You: The U.S GDP is about 10 trillion US dollars.

[17:24]  You: And heaalth represents about 1.7 trillion and is growing

[17:24]  You: at 10% a year

[17:25]  You: How is the health industry organized?

[17:25]  Geda Hax: Need to run , bye all ....see you soon , thanks AP !

[17:25]  Claryssa Schmidt: bye Geda

[17:25]  You: Aroudn big complexes which are hosptials - labs, flower shops.

[17:25]  Boston Hutchinson: See you next time

[17:25]  Persis Trilling is Offline

[17:25]  You: Bye Geda

[17:25]  You: Usually a good doctor lives in the vicinity of the big institution

[17:26]  You: Doctors are dispatchers

[17:26]  You: And hospitals are production companies

[17:26]  You: The raw material are peole and the outcome health

[17:26]  You: Direct service - pharmacies, etc. - are less concentrated

[17:27]  You: So why do people have to meet together?

[17:27]  You: Why are businesses concentrated? -to get back to your question Boston.

[17:28]  You: Univ of Chicago Professor, Saskia Sassen who has studied the Global City - did some NY research in terms of firms and finance?

[17:28]  You: Why do they have to meet?

[17:29]  You: Saskia said analysts in international banking - "big profits are in transactions that are marginally illegal"

[17:29]  Boston Hutchinson: Interesting observation

[17:30]  You: - you have to risk things, and need personal contacts - not illegal - but which don't follow a familiar pattern - but these aren't crimes, but would be a crime if the SEC found out.

[17:30]  Boston Hutchinson: A lot of financial activity is still trading by voice

[17:30]  You: Walking this borderline - perhaps supporting this resaerch, Boston - requires personal contacts

[17:30]  You: ... trust and an interpersonal network

[17:31]  You: based on personal knowledge developed over time

[17:31]  Boston Hutchinson: But the entertainment is substantial, and sometimes goes beyond what is legal

[17:31]  You: e.g. Alumnae associations are very important for this - someone will take care of you - Yes, Boston

[17:31]  You: ad also for example, golf,

[17:32]  You: all top managers need to learn gold - in Japan

[17:32]  You: playing golf they thought was where deals are made

[17:33]  You: but this wasn't true, but playing golf was improtant for retirement.

[17:33]  You: Personal interaction and face-to-face relationships at the topare critical

[17:33]  You: Another factor leading to social and physical concentration

[17:34]  You: Doing so provides auxiliary services, which are key

[17:34]  Thurgood Collas is Online

[17:34]  You: e.g. immigration lawyers depend on lawyers in main corporate centers, and have to explain their cases personally

[17:35]  You: e.g. accountants - corporations have to meet with acountants in person - it's akey compenetn of the business service network.

[17:35]  You: e.g. copy houses - reprodcution facilities -

[17:35]  Beyers Sellers is Online

[17:35]  You: a company doesn't have to respatialize every time you have a cluster around which develop an auxiliary servce.

[17:36]  You: The nucleus of concetnration becomes a hub, where everything relates to everything else.

[17:36]  You: And they couldn't unless they mvoe all together -

[17:36]  You: it's difficult to actually move to another location

[17:37]  Brian Whiteberry is Offline

[17:37]  You: so the more one invests in a cluster, the more the real estate

[17:37]  You: becomes valuable

[17:37]  You: If a corporation moved out of downtown, they would destroy the value of real estate, and face staggering losses of value

[17:38]  You: e.g. Cleveland, Buffalo, Detroit all became devalued after key corporations moved out.

[17:38]  You: Moving out in these cases meant a loss to both city and corporation.

[17:39]  You: Another major example of the inability to move from a cluster - a major urban university -

[17:39]  Annette Paster is Offline

[17:39]  Beyers Sellers is Offline

[17:39]  You: because they early located in a nice area, people became preoccupeid with the living area

[17:39]  Annette Paster is Online

[17:40]  You: E.g. the Univ of chicago, as early as 1955 say location as a problem - it was on nice lakefront

[17:40]  Diego Ibanez is Offline

[17:40]  You: so they developed a new plan - a kind of protected island within a ghetto.

[17:41]  You: This defined a boundary that then became protected

[17:41]  You: with poice dogs within this area

[17:41]  You: so there was a progressive policy of subsidizing housing of

[17:41]  You: faculty, students, and professionals that was highly integrated

[17:42]  You: and it worked, creating a city within a city

[17:42]  You: Columbia tried to do something similarly, but teh plan was bloked in the 1960s by students.

[17:42]  You: Johns Hopkins in Baltimmore Maryland in the 1970s

[17:42]  You: follows a similar pattern

[17:43]  You: why was the medical criticized by blacks?

[17:43]  You: There was a lot of hostility toward it - the Medical School was claled a plantation - because blacks weren't served there.

[17:44]  You: So business have to protect their space because it's difficult to move, and they would lose their investment.

[17:44]  You: One last factor

[17:44]  You: concerning how spatialization occurs

[17:45]  You: 4) the location of high value adding activities depends on easy access to government

[17:45]  You: In most countries, being in capitalism is a plus

[17:46]  You: Finally, once one has a dominant position, you get a territorial complex of production - a spatialy rooted system that produces goods and services

[17:46]  You: and this happens in Silicon Valley, Wall street, and Hollywood

[17:46]  You: The old terms is industrial district

[17:47]  You: Once this is formed, it starts adding value and generating wealth in terms of education, health, et.

[17:47]  You: So high value attrctions attract most talented part of the population

[17:47]  You: and creats a system in which everytihing is drwans into this system

[17:48]  You: Boston - how might you envison this view of IT and

[17:48]  You: spatiality changing ahead, if these patterns are not

[17:48]  You: what emerges?

[17:48]  Boston Hutchinson: Well, I agree with what you're describing. I'm wondering if the same sort of concentration could happen in the virtual worlds

[17:49]  You: Good question

[17:49]  Andromeda Mesmer is Online

[17:49]  You: I'll begin to look for research about this, especially vis-a-vis Second Life entrepreneuraialism

[17:50]  Boston Hutchinson: Presumably concentrations of virtual talent, equipment, capital, culture will be more fluid, changing more rapidly.

[17:50]  You: Virutal worlds are non spatial - but representations of spatiality still obtains

[17:50]  Boston Hutchinson: Hi Andromeda

[17:50]  You: yes, and not so placed based, potentially.

[17:50]  You: Hi Andromeda!

[17:50]  Claryssa Schmidt: hi Andromeda

[17:51]  Andromeda Mesmer: Hi folks - RL delays.

[17:51]  Boston Hutchinson: It will be necessary to concentrate aatars in a single sim for many purposes

[17:51]  Brian Whiteberry is Online

[17:51]  You: But I think face to face networks and synergies among programmers are still very significant, as among traders.

[17:52]  Sean18 McCarey is Online

[17:52]  Boston Hutchinson: Yes, I wonder how many years before over the counter trading starts to happen in virtual worlds.

[17:52]  Boston Hutchinson: I mean trading RL assets in virtual worlds

[17:52]  You: And perhaps one could construe SL as a mega city, but I don't know of multiple megacities emerging as nodes in SL.

[17:53]  You: (Security is key, apart from spatiality).

[17:53]  Boston Hutchinson: There will apparently be off-network sims running in various places and connected to SL.

[17:53]  You: To some degree that happens with the Linden dollar, which is then potentially exchanged with US dollars.

[17:53]  Boston Hutchinson: Security could be a feature of some of the privately-hosted sims

[17:54]  Andromeda Mesmer: I re3member reading that Anshe Chung is involved in building cross-synthetic-world transactions

[17:54]  You: SL certainly could certainly be like an offshore island with its own trading laws, perhaps more than comprising a mega city

[17:54]  You: Hello Luu

[17:55]  You: given better security

[17:55]  Luu Karas: Hello back...

[17:55]  You: google terranova blog for a rich resource on virtual world research.

[17:55]  Robyn Proto is Online

[17:55]  You: So, before we close, are ther other questions?

[17:55]  You: observations?

[17:56]  You: I'm visiting a friend and need to leave at 6 SLT.

[17:56]  matrix05 Infinity is Online

[17:56]  You: I'll post this transcript here - http://socinfotech.pbwiki.com

[17:56]  Rain Ninetails: :)

[17:56]  You: Let's stop here then.

[17:57]  You: Next week well look at some alternative views of technologies impact on spatiality, and then change themes to begin to examine noopolitic.

[17:57]  You: Thank you for coming!

[17:57]  You: And see you next week!

[17:57]  Boston Hutchinson: Thanks, Aphilo

[17:57]  You: :)

[17:58]  You: There is a SL group for this class -

[17:58]  Claryssa Schmidt: thanks Aphilo :)

[17:58]  01 Hifeng: thanks

[17:59]  You: you're welcome

[18:00]  You: :)

[18:00]  You: ciao