Special offers for Tuesday and Academics

A reminder, register today for MeshForum 2006. Discounts for academics and non-profit professionals are now formally available via our regular registration. As always, contact me directly if even these discount rates are outside of your budge, MeshForum's mission is to be open to all. We have also opened up the Tuesday Open Space sessions for separate registration, if you can only attend one day, this is a way for you to participate and engage, all registered attendees will receive directions and all other details, your registration includes breakfast and lunch.

Noshir Contractor on Cyberinfrastructure at Northwestern

Noshir S. Contractor, a speaker at MeshForum 2005, will talk about the effect of cyberinfrastructure -- the ability to seamlessly connect individuals with one another as well as with relevant datasets, documents, visual-analytic took and other computing resources -- on today's communities at the 23rd annual Van Zelst Lecture in Communication (image of flyer). 

The free, public event sponsored by the School of Communication will take place at 4 p.m. May 1 in the Tribune Auditorium of the James L. Allen Center. Note that RSVP is required, see flyer.

The lecture titled “From Disasters to WOW: Enabling Communities with Cyberinfrastructure” will cover the major socio-technical advances and challenges for the development and growth of digital technologies in communities. He will use examples from his research on communities involved in disaster response, environmental engineering, public health, economic resilience, educational diversity and gaming (WOW is the World of Warcraft).  
 

MeshForum 2006 - Podcast One, Shannon Clark and Howard Greenstein

Howard Greenstein interviewed me recently about MeshForum 2006, who will be there, why I started MeshForum, and why you should join us May 7-9 in San Francisco. Listen to the first MeshForum podcast at OurMedia!

The McKinsey Quarterly: Creation nets: Getting the most from open innovation

The McKinsey Quarterly has a piece on Creation nets: Getting the most from open innovation.  The abstract describes this as

• Most executives are by now familiar with open innovation: the idea that companies, by looking outside their own boundaries, can gain better access to ideas, knowledge, and technology than they would have if they relied solely on their own resources.
• Despite the attractions of open innovation—and its successes in areas such as open-source software development—few companies believe that they know the best way of creating value with the open model of innovation.
• Companies must go to the peripheries of today's commercial and scientific endeavors, where hundreds and even thousands of collaborators from diverse institutional settings are participating in innovative "networks of creation."
• Managers can use the principles and mechanisms of "creation nets" to profit from open innovation and to create more value than would be possible with the closed model of innovation.

You will need a subscription (or a library) to see the full article.

Disaster Forensics

Smart Mobs links to "Disaster Forensics", future role of sensor networks:

A paper on crisis information systems and the potential to collect large amounts of data during disasters by Anthony Townsend of the Institute for the Future and Mitchell Moss of the Graduate School of Public Service at NYU.