my flickr feed has been a bit constipated until now. here are a few picts that i finally uploaded...

as some of you may know, i'm currently addicted to flickr. beyond it's status as the best voyeur site on the internet, i'm trying to track down the history of "gatorman," a graffiti artist who paints the same 'gators in damn near perfect fashion. today, to much my delight, i got the following message...

...and just when i thought we'd be unmasking gatorman... google translates the text into the following...

"hello, I see gatorman in Geneva everywhere, but does it is what the history, caption… related to this drawing? can you eclaisir me? : D thank you"

AHHH!! the mystery continues...

<!-- technorati tags start -->

Technorati Tags: geneva, graffiti

<!-- technorati tags end -->

i really don't want to even think about putting up a blog post digesting today's notes.

a few reasons...

one - i spent the day running around thinking, and getting ready for the open stage...
two - most of today's content really doesn't even come close to yesterday's presentations... though, i did enjoy Sugata Mitra's and David Galipeau's comments in facing the digital divide...
three - some jerkoff, called me an idiot and said yesterday's notes were useless...

in the meantime, check out my flickr photostream while a find some q-tips, clean out my head, and get tanked... btw, keep you eye on the space below... i will be twittering.

<!-- technorati tags start -->

Technorati Tags: lift conference, lift07, david galipeau, Sugata Mitra

<!-- technorati tags end -->

it's hard to think of all that has happened yesterday when yesterday's second to the last speaker is reverberating through your head. i'm absolutely impressed with the quality of speakers and the diversity of ideas. there is one theme that seems to be more prevalent than most...

we need to build ecologies, not systems.

speaker by speaker we have been introduced to the ubiquity of data, communication methods and it's impact to everything around us. most importantly, many of yesterday's coversations focused on the envroment, and how we don't take physical impact into consideration. rarely, before today, have i ever heard the concept of the physical world discussed in such dire and unforgettable ways.

lee bryant's morning presentation spoke on ways we need to rethink our intelligence inside the enterprise. while he waxed on collective intelligence, his statement "we need to feed our minds, not our machines..." stood out. from my personal view point he is correct, we have entered a point were our focus is too much on products and not on practice. after lunch, sugata mitra extendisng this concept when he spoke on reengineering primary education. he focused on peer education and how children from small improvised towns across india, cambodia, and south africa can teach them self to learn new languages and technology.

after lunch, julian bleecker spoke susinctly on his research on the affects of second life on our first life. mind you this is just surface research... we are now living in a world where our desire to participate in a "second life" has highly expensive, and non-sustainable costs. best quote - "there is no way to reboot our first life if it crashes..."

BUT that doesn't mean we should stop...

mr. bleecker's comments were mirrored in a similar presination by Suren Erkman and Paola Chillani who solely focused their conversations on sustanable develoment. both reiterated the fact, we must start thinking of everything as an ecosystem. slide after slide and from two different vantage points - humanity and industry - we see the systemic fallacy of our consumption. no penguins army here... just plain thought into how we can increase efficiency and design a better world at the same time.

then, my brain exploded. i had lunch with Ben Cerveny and he mentioned that his presentation would be on metaphors, but little did i know that his presentation would be the keystone of all other conversations. eloquently, mr. cerveny linked every digital action to a biological term. through this synthesis of actions, we have shaped information to be the proteins of the digital age.

these proteins, like in biology, are the building blocks of life... it's hard for me to even attempt to be so eloquent as mr. cerveny. needless to say, the world we live in now is like a school of fish, and as mr. cerveny reiterated "a fish does not know what the school looks like..."

that's day one of lift!

<!-- technorati tags start -->

Technorati Tags: ben cerveny, hole in the wall experiment, Julian Bleecker, Lee Bryant, lift conference, lift07, Paola Ghillani
Paola Ghillani, digital ecology, second life, Sugata Mitra, Suren Erkman, sustainable development, technology, web 2.0

<!-- technorati tags end -->

BIG, big day... ahhh, i am now living under dire consequences. i'm stuffed with hot cheese fondue, and contrary to everyone's warning i am drinking a cold beer and will polish off a 1.5l of water.

later tonight, i'm going to summarize my thoughts in a separate post, and toss them up here tomorrow morning. my new hostel (really same old hostel, just a different room, a single room no less...) doesn't have wee-fee so my online activities are confined the hostel's bomb shelter. I AM NOT KIDDING. You'll see a few pictures of the door tomorrow. until then, these are my running thoughts from today's sessions. i have to apologies to all the speakers whom i couldn't attend... don't worry, i'll watch your videos and comment on them later... ;)

many kisses goodnight!

full notes after jump...

while i'm sitting here listening to Stowe Boyd educate Eurpoeans and a few North Americans, Justin from Blogads passes along a complementary YouTube video. for the past few hours, Stowe has torn into every social media app of the past few years. i'm so happy to hear him provide commonsense advice for the future.

And if you disagree with him, check out Web 2.0 - The Machine is Us/ing Us. it's hard to argue with Digital Ethnography @ KSU and Stowe.

this article was cross posed at lift's attendants blog..

<!-- technorati tags start -->

Technorati Tags: blogs, geneva, lift conference, Stowe Boyd, technology, web 2.0, youtube

<!-- technorati tags end -->

click on here to see my photos from geneva!

i'm normally not a huge fan of the super bowl. consistently, i'm sitting in a room of people too immersed in the statistics to have a sustainable conversation on the weather. this year, i found my self in an interesting predicament.

tired and exhausted, i limped though the day. finally, after a tea and drinks with florian, a buddy from last year's lift, and a heavy couscous dinner with laurent, the head organizer for lift, we headed back to the same Irish pub i had breakfast. after laurent's departure, i met up with my alabama breakfast mates and we watched don johnson get smoked and prince rock the house!

in the past 48 hours, i've had to ask my self the following questions...

1. why in the hell did sky sports put don johnson as a sports announcer?

2. is "gatorman" geneva's serial graffiti artist as prevalent as neckface?

3. do you know what's a intersquat? they have a great logo

4. how comical is it to see stencil artist copyright their logo.

<!-- technorati tags start -->

Technorati Tags: funny, geneva, hipsters, neckface, graffiti

<!-- technorati tags end -->