[From 3. Joi Ito]

"The Japanese government once asked me to be on a committee about taxes and information technology. The first thing I said was, 'Let's figure out a way to use resources more efficiently to lower taxes.' And they said, 'No, no, no--this committee is about using computers to collect more tax.' So I asked, 'How do we reduce costs?' And they said, 'Oh, there's no committee for that.' [Laughs] That's the problem with large organizations. They create roles and constraints, and sometimes people forget why they're there."

"I just wrapped up a final project for an aesthetics course this semester, the assignment being to create a “Database of the Self.” I chose to make the database as a representation of the roles we play in terms of how we interact with information online. The roles are overlaid on a panarchy, which shows a visualization of adaptive lifecycles. Though the evolution of every idea or meme won’t necessarily follow this specific path, (it may in fact be rhizomatic, with multiple feedback loops), this begins to flesh out what we become as nodes within an enmeshed series of networks." [via: http://bettyann.tumblr.com/post/905732940]

"The nature of our conversations determines the quality of the ideas we share, and therefore it’s worth reflecting on the ways that we talk to each other – check out this infographic on dialogue by Peter Stoyko:"

"common wisdom that teenage boys either can't express or don't possess strong feelings about friends...[but] boys in early teens can be downright sentimental when discussing their friendships...boys frequently said: "They [best friends] won't laugh at me when I talk about serious things." What has emerged from research is portrait of emotionally intelligent boys...might not sound revolutionary, but what boys told her & fellow researchers...runs counter to often one-dimensional portrayal of boys in popular culture. "They were resisting norms of masculinity,"...Note the past tense. At some point in high school, expressiveness vanishes, replaced with more defensive, closed-off posture, perhaps as boys give in to messages about what it means to be a man. Still, her research undermines the stereotype that boys are somehow incapable of discussing their feelings. "And yet this notion of this emotionally illiterate, sex-obsessed, sports-playing boy just keeps getting spit out again & again."

"We in the main split the work of the company in half. Matt Jones looks after client services, and Schulze looks after new product development. It’s not clear cut, of course, because we’re small and so much is shared. But I think that general wellbeing, agency, the development of unconscious expertise, and structure without management are rooted in areas of responsibility that belong to individuals, are clearly demarcated and known by the group. It took me a while to come to this – Schulze noticed it first – but I’m a believer in roles now."