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Sharepoint is the collaboration model for Microsoft Office. It’s meant to save Office, because we work with teams, and teams are supposed to collaborate. But the problem is that we don’t know how to collaborate. Google has just launched Sites to provide a collaboration portal for Google’s business apps. But the fact remains, that most workers barely know how to operate the basic apps in Office. It’s one of the reasons that Google’s apps have a chance, they do less, but in many cases that’s enough.

There are many wonderful Wikis out there, but the best ones have a strong culture of collaboration. The form a social network with thier own customs. Corporate America doesn’t particularly like to collaborate in any deep sense. Sharepoint is used as just a slightly better version of email and shared network drives.

Considering all the money spent building applications in this space, you’d think it was fairly assured that the future state where we all collaborate is just around the corner. It may be a moment that never comes. Collaboration on a network is a culture, a social relation, something that requires practice. Most of the collaboration in business happens through people talking or through email, not much at all happens through the network. You’d think we’d be much better at collaborating with work than at play, but the reverse is true.

The commons and the cloud, its the direction many of us see the world of personal/corporate technology moving. We’re starting to trust the cloud to hold our data, keep it safe and secure and provide it to us where ever and when ever we need it. Although there have been some notable failures recently, we assume that things will simply get better and better. The richer the cloud and commons become the better it is for all of us. The internet itself was built to route around failures in nodes of the network.

There have been a few signals that not everyone has signed on to that dream. In particular, I’m referring to the undersea cables recently cut to eliminate internet access to whole countries. And more recently the attempts by Pakistan to censor YouTube that made the service unavailable to everyone.

As we grow more and more dependent on the commons and the cloud, we have to understand that not all cultures and political systems are compatible with the level of openness that currently exists in the network. Is it a future moment of science fiction where a war has broken out between the network and the tribes? Or is it something just around the corner.

Alain Robbe-Grillet passed away earlier this month. I first became aware of Robbe-Grillet as the writer of “Last Year at Marienbad.” I saw that film twice in one day. (At least I seem to remember it that way) There are a few movies I’ve found so compelling that I had to see them again right away. “Wings of Desire” was another one. The film lead me to the novels, and I read them one after another.

Robbe-Grillet’s writing seems very much of a particular time and place as I look back on it now. But what he accomplished was very important; it’s as though he created an element, a fundamental substance which were added to the periodic table of writing.

One of the frustrations people have with Twitter is its simplicity. Twitter is an authoring environment for hypertext limited to 140 characters and a method of publishing and subscribing to an almost unlimited combination of social graphs. It achieves some complexity through its API, which allows it to be mashed up with other applications. In this sense it adheres to David Weinberger’s idea of “small pieces loosely joined.”

Twitter’s simplicity means the barrier to getting started is very low, register an identity, type 140 characters and click “update.” Understanding the value of Twitter doesn’t come until later. Non-users and new users can’t actually experience Twitter. The public timeline is there as an example, but to generalize and form opinions based on this evidence would lead one solidly in the wrong direction. The public timeline could potentially be decoded, but it’s a task very similar to spending time with Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker, Anna Livia Plurabelle and dream logic of Finnegan’s Wake. Or as James Joyce put it: Here comes everybody.

Veteran users of Twitter experience something very different from the public timeline. And it’s those regular users who begin to long for more controls, more features to help them refine their Twitter experience. Generally this is expressed through a desire to configure and define groups within the larger pools of the followed and the followers. By concisely defining groups a Twitter user could get exactly what she wanted.

But getting “exactly what you want” is exactly what you don’t want. Fine grained controls and filters are generally used to focus on common interests and concerns. The result is pre-defining the message flow you receive, creating an echo chamber. Random and negative feedback have an important role the health and stability of any dynamic organic system. When Twitter only brings you what you expect, it loses its value.

Twitter will grow new features, all applications do. But what if, rather than think in terms of precision, exactness and clarity; we thought of coarseness, randomness and ambiguity. What kind of coarse grained filters would preserve the random in a users Twitter stream? The seed for this rumination was inspired by a conversation on @Newsgang Live about squelch as metaphor for filtering Twitter streams. Imagine filtering the stream based on frequency of tweets, or location of tweets. By tuning into quadrants of the Twitterverse with coarse-grained filters new voices could be discovered. So often we think in terms of signal versus noise, but when we think of noise perhaps we should take a lesson, and listen with the zen ears of John Cage.

I need network access. Actually I need many networks overlaid. When I’m at work, I need a secure network for business. But I also need open access to the public networks. Perhaps it’s an identity question, my business persona needs a secure business network; my non-work persona needs an open public network — I want both at once. I’d like to be able to switch from one to the other using the same device. My work computers are locked down, so the only way I get to the larger internet is with my iPhone. There’s a slight overlay of networks now, but it’s not enough. 

I listen to this daily radio show that suddenly appeared on the network. It was unannounced in any general media, but has already developed a national and international following in its short life. Its topics range from technology and product strategy, to the latest gadgets, to politics, comedy, and even some occasional drama. It’s not part of a national syndicated media network, it doesn’t seem to have venture capital backing, and it only accidentally has advertising. Actually it’s not even broadcast over the airwaves— although one can listen to it live. I get it through iTunes and listen on my iPhone, although the other day I listened by clicking on an MP3 file on a web page. It’s compelling radio, I try not to miss a day.

This show has a roundtable format more common to television political commentary shows, or technical conferences. It’s pundit talk, or as they sometimes call it “reckless punditry.” Because the show has no advertisers and isn’t part of any network, it’s an open forum. The guests aren’t compensated, they show up because they want to be part of the conversation about what’s going on right now. A point of reference would be Bill Maher’s HBO talk show, Real Time. Although the differences between Maher’s show and this one are significant, the show is unscripted, improvisational, really more of a jam session. The show’s host often compares the structure of the show to a small jazz ensemble. In this sense, it’s a new form of editorial composition.

Initially the show’s roundtable was composed solely of well-known technology industry figures. The conversation occurs over a conference call with the participants scattered all over the country. They call in from airports, their cars, while on an exercise treadmills, in their home or regular offices, or just out walking around. The show’s format changed profoundly during a particularly chaotic episode. One of the participants in the panel posted the call in number and conference code to Twitter, and uninvited participants started calling in. Imagine watching an episode of Washington Week In Review where interested members of the audience simply joined the panel at will. This potentially destructive moment became the seed of something new. It connected a filtered live social web, via Twitter, to the show’s jazz-based conversation. To extend the metaphor, some unknown out-of-town musicians were sitting in. There’s an etiquette to jamming and sitting in, and it’s up to the band leader to make it all work and blend.

The show was transformed and a new format emerged where some of the regular pundits were joined by members of the audience in a new kind of conversation. There’s a distinction between this and traditional call-in newstalk radio. Let’s go back to the jazz metaphor, when an audience member is called on to solo, they’re expected to jump in and wail. A point of reference here would be Dave Winer’s idea of the “unconference.” In technology conferences, the sum total of knowledge in the audience exceeds that of the panel of speakers. The unconference attempts to surface the knowledge, ideas and opinions of an interested group through a moderator. The composition of the group and the skill of the moderator are determining factors in the quality of the output.

There are a lot of interesting threads generated by the format of this daily radio show. But the starting point for my thoughts was connecting the show’s low-cost mashup production methodology with a phrase used by the musician Robert Fripp. After disbanding King Crimson in 1974, Fripp wanted to create music within “small, mobile, independent, intelligent units.” Working with Brian Eno, Fripp had created a performing and recording technique called Frippertronics that he believed would allow him to do significant work outside of the big rock band / recording industry context. The idea of small, mobile, independent, intelligent units is also linked to the ideas of E.F. Schumacher and his book “Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered.”

Schumacher also referred to his thinking as “Buddhist Economics.” Here’s a quote that explains what that might mean:

It is clear, therefore, that Buddhist economics must be very different from the economics of modern materialism, since the Buddhist sees the essence of civilization not in the multiplication of wants but in the purification of human character.

All economic systems are built on fundamental metaphysical ideas about what a person should want and achieve in this life. The concept of Buddhist economics came from studying economies of small villages in Burma in 1955. Schumacher published his essay “Buddhist Economics” in 1966.

This radio program doesn’t have any visible economics which is a constant source of concern for the show’s participants and its audience. While its production costs are low, with no revenue generated, a negative cash flow situation is implied. This is conjecture based on an external view with no inside knowledge. In the culture and economics of Silicon Valley small isn’t beautiful, scalability is beautiful. The venture capitalists on Sand Hill Road don’t fund small. This begs the question: Is there a global, networked, small village Buddhist economics that could support this radio show so that it could continue to thrive? And can something like this show thrive, not in abundance, but in enoughness?

The other question that surfaces is that of sustainability. Is it actually of any importance for this radio show to continue on for years and years? The after-hours jam sessions at Minton’s didn’t go on forever. Those who witnessed Bird, Monk and Pres engaging in late night cutting contests heard the sound of lightning in a bottle. Perhaps it’s enough that this kind of a radio show can emerge when we need it, a kind of “just-in-time” culture.

By the way, the host of this show? He’s the guy who said “links are dead.”

The word of a possible Yahoo + Murdoch deal is strange indeed. That merger would be the final transition of Yahoo from a technology company to a media company. The core values of Yahoo would undergo a fundamental transformation. In a sense, it would be a betrayal of the promise of the internet. One of the least interesting developments in the history of the internet has been the advent of regular old display advertising—and better targeting only makes it worse. Is the internet just another way to bundle up eyeballs and sell them to advertisers? That’s a one-way transaction in a medium built for multi-part two-way transactions.On the other hand, Microsoft and Yahoo is an explosive mixture that might actually result in something interesting. If Microsoft can accept a mixed operating system environment, which really means moving on to the web-based operating system, Yahoo could put its foot on the accelerator and really start to innovate.Everything comes to an end some time. Perhaps it’s Yahoo’s time. It’s the reason that personal data should be portable. Yahoo may end, but for the time being, you haven’t ended.

The soundtrack to Fortunes of War has inspired a life long quest to find a certain kind of gypsy music. The latest stop on my journey is a very satisfying one. If you don’t know about A Hawk & a Hacksaw, click on the video above and listen. NPR’s The World also ran a nice story on the group. They hail from Albuquerque, but the music is in the tradition of the Hungary and Romania.

We tend to think that certain things will be around forever. Brands we love, bull markets and governments all act as though they will continue indefinitely. Dominance intends that its dominance persist, but everything comes to an end. If all your personal data lived in Google’s cloud, what happens when Google goes out of business? How are you going to get your data out? Is cloud-based computing being built with the assumption that all of the players will exist forever? The more locked in your data is to proprietary formats, the less liquid it is.

Money, cash in particular, has become data; and the speed with which it can move and transform defines its liquidity. How liquid is our personal data? Those financial institutions that custody our financial assets cooperate so that we can move our holdings from one institution to another. How do the web institutions that custody our personal data measure up?

Marc Canter has talked about having a “DeBabelizer” for personal data. That’s a tool we used in the old days to translate graphic file formats to work with our local platform and toolset. It was essential in the days before consolidation and cross-platform graphic software. The prospect of having to unscramble my personal data is not comforting. The only reason to have a DeBabelizer is that one is surrounded by Babel.

Movements like data portability are largely a matter of metaphors and memes. The technology has to be very simple to actually work. The extent to which the meme is highly contagious within the general user population is the extent of the movement’s success. My contribution to the conversation is to measure the liquidity of personal data. For instance, I can imagine trading liquidity for higher value. But I’d like to know when I’m entering into that contract.

As someone trapped in the locked down world of enterprise software during the working day, I often think about the nature and rationale for the lock. Generally, people adapt to whatever environment they’re in, and I’ve adapted to the limited, crippled environment in which I have to get work done.

More and more, applications that used to be written in-house are being brought in from the outside, particularly around employee benefits, expense tracking and performance reviews. These are general business functions where outside shops always provide a better software solution than the in-house one. All of these vendor provided solutions are Web-based and are integrated into corporate network identity management systems. In many cases, employee data is stored with the outside vendor. This is a trend that will only accelerate.

One of the locks on the corporate desktop is Microsoft. MS Office rules the roost, it’s the conduit through which all work and communication occurs. A consequence of the lockdown is that change and innovation happens at a very slow rate. In part, this is due to the installed software model of most corporate desktops. Managing tens of thousands of geographically dispersed desktop computers is a highly complex task. Complexity is reduced by simplifying the systems, and eliminating outside influences.

Imagine how much cost and complexity could be reduced if all enterprise applications were delivered via the web. The economics dictate that installed corporate applications must migrate to the web. Or to quote Steve Gillmor from 2005, Office is dead. Some version of this story is at the bottom of the business case for Ray Ozzie’s Office Live. Many have made the case that this software delivery model only makes sense for the SOHO market. Actually it makes even more sense for very large corporations.

So how does this relate to Yahoo? Years of operating in the highly constrained enterprise environment has drawn the boundaries of Microsoft’s imagination. Microsoft needs Yahoo to teach it how to dance to that crazy new music all the kids dig. Once enterprise applications are delivered via the web, the speed of innovation will increase. The surrounding web-based consumer application space is already filled with more powerful tools than the enterprise, particularly in the area of collaboration and knowledge management. Flickr and Delicious are tremendous knowledge management tools. Ray Ozzie sees the change is gonna come, and makes the big move that will help them get ready.

Nicholas Carr’s Big Switch makes the case for the move from the hard drive to the cloud and Matt Ritchtel’s piece in today’s NY Times summarizes. Can Microsoft trade in its lead boots for a new set of led boots? Perhaps Curtis Mayfield and Sam Cooke said it best: People get ready, a change is gonna come.