Not long to propose a workshop for #Mozfest’s things on the web

This space could be yours!

Last month I talked about what we’re doing for Mozilla Fest 2014. Some people have mentioned how vague the whole call for participation thing sounds.

Its deliberately vague because we don’t want to be restrictive as this is a new area we’re exploring.

If somebody had to tie me down, I would describe like this…

Taking a humanistic and ethical approach to the new experiences and tension points of 6 billion people and 2^128 things on an open web.

There are massive challenges and drives to give access to everyone of the current 6 billion humans. But there equally a massive challenge for the 2 to the power of 128 potential things to also sit on the same web. Its not good enough to just sit on the web, they need to act and behave in ethical and humanistic  ways.

Its not really fair to just create things which talk to the web and not consider its place in the grand ecosystem of the web. It would be like unleashing a new parasite into our oceans, without consideration about whats it role, is it going to kill everything else off, feast on coral reef, increase the number of jelly fish in the ocean?

Yes its just a ardunio and some loose code but where does it fit? Whats its role? Whats its ethics?

When we built the Perceptive Radio, we thought long and hard about this and decided it was just the tip of something far bigger. The balance between what things can do in the real world crossed with what they can do online really is almost like magic. Magic which can and will be easily abused. For example can you imagine the incredible things we could do if there was a wifi sniffer on board. Can you imagine the incredible experiences we could create and the terrifying experiences others with far less ethics or concern could do without your consent.

Theres been a little news following Facebook messenger permissions and some people talking about the actual permission systems of Android vs iOS. This is a scratch of the surface again…

As somebody said to me, yeah yeah so what this has been a long running problem for 20 years! Yes I know but things we carry around with us, plus the reliance on the network and these things strikes myself as something Jonathan Zittrain was talking about over 10 years ago.Back to Mozilla Festival – Its not all about being negative, honestly! We want to get away from..

Hey cool man, here’s my 3D printed thing I created…

Oh right, where does that fit in the world? Have you thought about where?

How does this forward human potential? How does it empower somebody? Myself, Jon and Jasmine feel it should empower and if it doesn’t, why does it exist? Maybe to enslave?

We’re pass the stage of novelty, lets think about how these things exist and work along side us.

Agree or disagree, we want to hear it…

Sign up to do a workshop, session or special performance in our cafe/bar we’re planning for Mozfest. And to be clear it doesn’t matter where you live in the world, if its that good, Mozila will find a way to get you over to London on the weekend of the 24-26th October. Not sure how to get started… go to the live coaching or just get in touch to ask more questions… You got till the Friday 22nd August…