Cooperation (2): The road to hell is paved with good intentions

To paraphrase French writer Gide, bad cooperation is done with beautiful feeling. More exactly, cooperation is not in the realm of sentiment. The example of the software tournaments organized by Axelrod proves it well enough: programmed robots with no emotions can demonstrate cooperative behavior. We will even see in a future paper that passion can thwart cooperation. Nevertheless, man is made of passion as much if not more than of reason. Whether we are delighted or must resign ourselves to it, it is that way. Thus the emotive dimension has necessarily an impact on cooperation. If cooperation is not about intentions, it is about communication of intentions. It is not only a matter of cooperating by acts but also of making known one’s intention to cooperate.

The plot thickens when we consider that cooperating with someone consists in carrying out an action favorable to his/her interests and that, conversely, a hostile behavior must be punished immediately by a hostile behavior of the same intensity. The problem is that everything is a matter of judgment:

how can I know the interests of my partner?

am I even always aware of my own interests?

if I punish a behavior which I consider hostile whereas it was neutral in my partner’s mind (error of judgment), my punishment is likely to be misunderstood

does there exist a scale which makes it possible to compare the intensity of the cooperative or unfavorable acts?

When we try to function in a cooperative mode with our partners, we should act in such a way that our actions are as understandable as possible. That requires certain competences in psychology and communication, to convey the right message: I acted in such way with you and I explain why to you.

Bored with Facebook ?

Is the increasing usage of Facebook in the workplace a sign that the network is more and more used for career-oriented purposes or just a sign that people are also bored…with their job ?

clipped from www.smartmobs.com Is Facebook Doomed? Always-On Panopticon…or Cooperation Amplifier Robert Scoble just wrote a post that says his Facebook usage has been going down and he asks Is Facebook doomed? On the other hand, I did some research of my own using comScore MyMetrix and was able to see that Facebook and MySpace usage is down for home usage and at universities, but NOT AT WORK – Facebook Traffic is leveling off, at other Social Networks too – are people losing interest? But like I said over at The Analytics Guru – Usage of Facebook and MySpace is sharply UP at work! This comes from my own data pull right out of comScore: comScore Trend Report – 1 year – usage of MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn at WORK So while overall usage is down – as reported in the US and UK (according to comScore) the use of Social Networks is UP, according to comScore – for use in your carrier.

Is the increasing usage of Facebook in the workplace a sign that the network is more and more used for career-oriented purposes or just a sign that people are also bored…with their job ?

Social networks made real. Internet of objects or people as objects ?

Via Smartmobs

clipped from uwnews.washington.edu If you need information, the Internet offers a wealth of resources. But if you’re hunting down a person or a thing, a computer’s not much help. That may soon change. Electronic tags promise to create what some call the “Internet of things,” in which objects and people are connected through a virtual network. To see what this future world would be like, a pilot project involving dozens of volunteers in the University of Washington’s computer science building provides the next step in social networking, wirelessly monitoring people and things in a closed environment. Beginning in March, volunteer students, engineers and staff will wear electronic tags on their clothing and belongings to sense their location every five seconds throughout much of the six-story building. The information will be saved to a database, published to Web pages and used in various custom tools. The project is one of the largest experiments looking at wireless tags in a social setting. clipped from rfid.cs.washington.edu Watch Video

Multiple profiles or multiple personnalities online ?

Via Smartmobs

clipped from www.technologyreview.com Maintaining Multiple Personas Online A new site lets users create profiles for the different sides of their personality. Facing the online world: Moli, a recently launched social-networking site, allows users to make profiles to represent different aspects of their personality. In the image above, a Roman coin depicts Janus, the Roman god of gates and doors, whose two faces, pointed in opposite directions, represent the transition between two times or places. Credit: Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien Now Moli, a recently launched social-networking site, aims to win over concerned users. President and COO Judy Balint says that the site is intended for a more mature audience than the teenagers targeted by many social-networking websites. Directed at users who are trying to balance personal and professional networks, Moli offers multiple profiles–with different privacy settings–within one account.

Cooperation (1) : tit-for-tat

This paper is the first of a series of three articles originally published in French on cooperation and its issues in everyday life. In the present article, we will reconsider cooperation theory as brilliantly studied by
Robert Axelrod . Among other achievements, Robert Axelrod is the author of the book The Evolution of Cooperation.

The book reviews various strategies of interaction between members of a group. Among these strategies, there is the model called “tit-for-tat”. The principle of tit-for-tat cooperation consists in interacting in a cooperative mode with a partner as long as he/she does the same. At the first defection, the model suggests reacting immediately and with the same intensity; then, at the next turn, re-proposing cooperation. In any event, with this model, one never attacks first, one reacts to the first aggression and then starts again in a cooperative mode.

In his book, Robert Axelrod showed that this strategy was effective and could be essential, even in absence of friendship or love, on the sole strength of interests well understood by both parties. This model brings a long-term value and lasting benefit to human groups.

Axelrod describes and analyzes tournaments organized in the 1980s between artificial agents (small software), each having its own strategy. Some always cooperated, whatever the other’s behavior. To some extent, even when they were hit, they turned the other cheek; others always cooperated to a certain point where they deserted, “betraying” their partners; still others had a random behavior, etc. In the end, the model known as tit-for-tat proved to be one of the most robust.

As human beings, we can choose this strategy consciously, without being programmed. But is it so simple? Of course not. Next week, we will start surveying limits which hinder us in our willingness to cooperate.

The Web as a platform: meaning?

Preparing my latest intervention for the MSTM Master’s degree at Ecole Centrale in Paris, I decided to analyze Tim O’ Reilly’s seminal text
“What Is Web 2.0″.

Today I will address one of the dimensions of Web 2.0 described by O’Reilly: the Web as a platform. What does that really mean?

Considering the computer science meaning of the term, I would retain two definitions of a platform:

” Combination of a type of computer (material, hardware) and a software operating system (software)” allowing applications to function
(Wordnet)

“Infrastructure allowing any software to function” (Whatis)

Thus, as an example we will speak about “software running on a Windows platform.” To that effect, Web 2.0 can be seen as a platform, “on which we execute” applications.

These applications can be of various types:

Messaging services: Gmail, Yahoo ! Mail

Maps: Google Maps

Office automation: Google (encore) Apps, suite Zoho

Applications for companies: Zoho CRM

etc.

The virtual operating systems or WebOS is another interesting example. The idea is to make available a workspace such as that which we find on our personal computer (office) on the Web. For example, we can mention
Exoplatform or more recently, mybooo.

The innovation is that the Web becomes a place where we can use real “software” without installing anything on our computer. It is no longer a space for information or communication only.

And you, how do you interpret the expression “the Web as a platform”?