Design Spectrum* - Anna Ovchinnikova

May 31 2010 ∞

The End Of The Social

hellopanos:

The Social has no end. It regularly has means of different kinds: of conduct, of misconduct, of power, of control. Round means of these types, a series of conflicts rise. Each conflict, no matter how micro or macro it may be, involves only aspects of the Social. There never is one single conflict to comprise all conflicts in the landscape of the Social. But there are myths of conflicts that claim to do so. This mythic claim, whenever it appears, functions as the origin of conflict as such. Because it produces an aspiration of an end: an end as scope and an end as a conclusion. Through this aspiration, conflict reproduces imaginaries and desires. And by attempting to fulfill its aspiration, it acts against the constant flow of the Social: conflict tries to interrupt this vital flow, to arrest it within the imaginary conclusion that it aspires: namely, it attempts to castrate it.

Yet, this castrating force, the desire-to-reach the (double) end is the contradiction that keeps the Social in motion. Conflicts, with all their energy and their need to accumulate resources (material or conceptual), directly result to the mobilisation of the Social and its infinite flow. They reproduce a spiral movement of ideas, beliefs, hopes, struggles, power games and resolutions, all clashing at the plain of discourse, all for-themselves, all dead before we know it. This constant death keeps the Social alive. This death is the very erasure of the End that haunts the Social. Against this Real condition, all we need to know, is the means for and with which we participate in the games of conflicts. And keep participating but as knowing subjects and as subjects of knowledge.

For what we know is what we owe and what we own.

no/thinking

(3 notes)

Apr 02 2010 ∞
Lab Rat: Does A Balanced Email Diet = More Focus & Productivity? If I had to identify the single greatest offender when it comes to reactionary workflow – a passive approach to work where our priorities are ruled entirely by incoming communications – email would be the obvious choice. Empowered by the alluring goal of “Inbox Zero,” we feel a sense of accomplishment in tending to a constant stream of incoming (but not very important) requests. It’s the Inbox Hero Mentality: “I may not be making any headway on my to-do list, but I’ll be damned if there’s one message lying in wait!” It’s no longer enough to just “check” or not check your email – you need an organizational system. read more - here
Lab Rat: Does A Balanced Email Diet = More Focus & Productivity?

If I had to identify the single greatest offender when it comes to reactionary workflow – a passive approach to work where our priorities are ruled entirely by incoming communications – email would be the obvious choice. Empowered by the alluring goal of “Inbox Zero,” we feel a sense of accomplishment in tending to a constant stream of incoming (but not very important) requests. It’s the Inbox Hero Mentality: “I may not be making any headway on my to-do list, but I’ll be damned if there’s one message lying in wait!”

It’s no longer enough to just “check” or not check your email – you need an organizational system.

read more - here

(3 notes)

Apr 01 2010 ∞

The Collapse of Complex Business Models

infoneer-pulse:

When societies fail to respond to reduced circumstances through orderly downsizing, it isn’t because they don’t want to, it’s because they can’t.

In such systems, there is no way to make things a little bit simpler – the whole edifice becomes a huge, interlocking system not readily amenable to change. Tainter doesn’t regard the sudden decoherence of these societies as either a tragedy or a mistake—”[U]nder a situation of declining marginal returns collapse may be the most appropriate response”, to use his pitiless phrase. Furthermore, even when moderate adjustments could be made, they tend to be resisted, because any simplification discomfits elites.

When the value of complexity turns negative, a society plagued by an inability to react remains as complex as ever, right up to the moment where it becomes suddenly and dramatically simpler, which is to say right up to the moment of collapse. Collapse is simply the last remaining method of simplification.

» via Clay Shirky

(4 notes)

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