Clay Shirky at the RSA
The RSA has just launched a new website and one of the new features are videos online of the great lectures they run in London. Earlier this year I went to see Clay Shirky talking about his book Here Comes Everybody, that was launched a few months ago. It’s great to see a video of this talk online here.
If you haven’t read Shirky’s new book I really recommend reading it. It takes a look at how groups are using the internet, from students and graduates in the UK forcing HSBC to reinstate their interest-free overdraft, to flash-mobs combating the secret police in Belarus, or businesses in Pisa taking on the Mafia together.
If you’d ever thought that twitter or flash mobs or Facebook groups had now purpose and no power then Shirky shows you how they do. How groups can organise each other online in a way that they couldn’t previously and how this can be used by them to further their aims.
In all of his examples, he shows how the Internet has meant that the imbalance of power between a small, well-organised core and a large dispersed society has been changed. A group of students could take on HSBC, businesses and customers in Pisa could take on the Mafia.
The book’s a good read, and thanks the the RSA’s new site you can see Shirky’s lecture earlier this year in London.
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