Breadcrumbs
…or this is probably headed somewhere. This particular thread started with a post in IF:book ‘looking at libraries‘. Though you should keep in mind that it is thoroughly haunted my last post and Stephen Downes well taken point, "All authentication fails." Actually it may have started with Chris Mesina’s Thoughts on Data Portability over on FactoryCity. Despite the DP handle this turns out to be relatively comprehensible those of us who are code-challenged. All of it ties together under the headings of ‘Who owns what?’ and ‘Why are libraries architecturally designed to keep people out?’ Within the ownership debate there are three main camps: those who believe that they have a vested interest in owning information (and information covers a lot of ground including music, movies, and software); those who think that information (same definition) needs to be free, open, and accessible; and those don’t know that there’s a debate or don’t understand that it affects them (they also tend to define information as stuff you find in encyclopedias, bus schedules, and TV news). In all likelihood the debate is already over. WiFi trumps walls and not just the walls around books. The reality that information is no longer physical. The value of information has always been its use. Knowing which horse is going to win only helps if you bet.
Identity increasingly operates like information; for many of us identity is not just physical. Who you are is a function of who you know, what you know and how effectively you can use that knowledge. You can be Steve Jobs or you can be the Fake Steve Jobs; either will work, you get to choose, but you have to deliver. At today’s count there are 203 Shakespeares registered on MySpace. It’s easy stake a claim but writing the next Hamlet or even Troylus and Cressida may prove a little more challenging. The key phrase is ‘the next’ because ‘identity’ is different than ‘reputation’. Reputation like resume is situated in the past, a history of supposed successes and failures. Identity lives in the now, and increasingly in the future, it is a measure of capacity and competence, of what are doing and can do.
