Week 3- Ted Talks

In the preparation for class this week I  watched a number of Ted Talk videos in relation to 'The rise of Collaboration'.

I watched Linda Hill on - how to manage for collective creativity.
She spoke about tools and tactics companies use in order to keep great ideas flowing!

I also ended up getting a bit carried away and watched quite a few more talks, all which are relevant to our coursework.

I particularly enjoyed Eli Pariser’s talk on ‘The Filter Bubble’

Eli Parisers speech on the ‘Filter bubble’ was extremely effective and gave me a further insight into the access we have to information today. Throughout this talk Eli is putting across how web companies today adjust news and search results based on a number of factors including our personal tastes. However, we are now suffering from one unforeseen consequence of getting trapped in a ‘filter bubble’. This invisible shift of information flow online and not being exposed to certain news is stopping us from broadening our worldview. In some ways it is frightening to think of the power that Google has, being the search engine that the majority of people use and the influence they have on forming opinion by being able to shape the news effectively any way they want.

I found it very striking to see that there are 57 signals Google looks at when it comes to attuning results to your personal preferences. A quote from Eric Schmidt in the video stated that: “it will be very hard for people to watch or consume information that has not in some sense been tailored for them.” Although this is true, the web is giving us what we want to see but this isn’t necessarily a good thing as we are being shown more of what algorithms think we want to see and not what we should see. It is essential that Google isn’t allowed monopolise

Another Ted Talk that i found very interesting was Laurence Lessig who was speaking about 'Laws that choke creativity'. This was in relation to the issues surrounding copyright.