Ildhavet

Stødte netop ind i een af disse årsager til at jeg ikke længere bør benytte walled gardens som Facebook og LinkedIn. Jeg ville blot redigere min profil-beskrivelse på LinkedIn hvilket ikke burde tage mere end et par minutter. Men et bump på vejen indtrådte – da følgende tekst med småt og med rød farve viste sig under indtastningsfeltet :

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Så gik jeg i stå. Det der skulle have taget mig få minutter blev pludselig en øvelse i at fatte mig i korthed. Naturligvis til min store irritation – som jeg ihærdigt prøver at styre og holde i ørerne. Men hvorfor disse kunstige grænser? Hvorfor skal LinkedIn opsætte arbitrære grænser for hvor mange karakterer jeg skal bruge til at beskrive mig selv med?

Det er mig efterhånden så inderligt ligegyldigt og unødvendigt. Men heldigvis skal de heller ikke det. Det står naturligvis LinkedIn (og andre online tjenester som f.eks. Facebook og FriendFeed) frit hvilke kunstige grænser de skaber og ønsker at skabe på denne måde for deres brugeres netadfærd. Men det står også undertegnede frit hvorvidt og i hvilket omfang jeg ønsker at danse efter deres pibe. Så derfor citerer jeg teksten i sin fulde længde her – indenfor rammerne af min egen frie arkitektur – takket være WordPress, frit, åbent, tilgængeligt under GPL:

I’ve been working with film, theatre, video and digital media platforms for the last 10 years.

On the side, I’ve managed to complete two university degrees, in History and Applied Visual Communications respectively. I’ve built wikis, board and computer games and abstract academic systems. I’ve juggled with texts, code, images, video and other kinds of material in a plethora of genres, setups and technological platforms. I’ve also written a thesis on the introduction of the Maxim Gun in colonial Africa.

As of August 2009 I employ a position as teacher at Aabenraa Statsskole in history and media, a school with a strong film & media tradition and a creative environment which attracts students from all over southern Denmark. I look forward to a new experience of learning for me, and to find ways to share my experience in history as well as media with my students – as well as help enable my students to become great information sharers themselves, of their own experience, building their own architectures, stories and identities.

In recent years, I’ve increasingly been preoccupied with the opportunities and challenges of the internet, first as a web master at the university and as a hobby producer of historical computer game scenarios – later as a founder and CEO of my own company Kaplak, seeking to find new solutions for the specific problem of connecting niche producers with their distant markets.

The internet connects us in new ways, and allows us to filter our own information streams, rather than rely on the editorial filters of others. This changes and challenges markets, our economy, politics, education, culture and almost every other information-related or social aspect of our lives and societies.

What is important, is that we resist the temptation of creating big proprietary systems which ultimately also are systems of control – and embrace the opportunity of change, of decentralized information distribution and filtering, of individual choice and freedom, and of a new global diversity over the comfort and conformity of what we’ve known so far.

Den kortfattede pointe : lad dette være en blandt mange aha-oplevelser og markeringer af en tilbagevenden til rødderne – til teksten, bloggen og de frie arkitekturer, som vi selv skaber – med gode værktøjer som WordPress, copyleft-licenser og alt andet godt der kommer med fri software. Glem Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook, LinkedIn – og kom tilbage til hvad nettet egentlig handler om – at forbinde mennesker med hinanden, at bringe os i kontakt med hinanden.