A Droplet Runs into the Sea: investigation of technology in society

Pursuing cross-cultural research

2008-11-14T09:56:00.004-07:00

I have been thinking about the process of pursuing cross-cultural research. Often time, when there is a 'cross-cultural' research conducted in China, we saw 'findings' like Chinese like red, Chinese government are autocratic, Chinese are collectivists, Chinese are bonded by guan-xi, and so forth. However, these terms, rather than telling us anything, are merely a coat of paint we smeared on the same piece of paper to make it more colorful. Not knowing what drives guanxi or autocracy, we turn to the mysterious state and point figures to human rights and arcane policies. But how do we see beyond the paint and below into the acts?

First, I think it is vital to see that humanly actions are not always conscious and visible by the society at large. That is, if you were to visit a Chinese, she would bring you to nice restaurant, being very hospitable to your needs, keep you away from danger, and other Chinesey things. And perhaps you may report that Chinese are hospitable and develop guanxi through dines and politeness. However, I would like to say, still, those are too on the conscious surface of the society. They are things people are still able to TELL you, can be observed, found in everyday discourses, and thus well aware by everyone. What is more important is what is not said, assumed and unexpressed, taken for granted (bad expression here for what is not expressable cannot be 'taken'), and when someone broke these assumptions, other might react with a sense of bewilderment - a 'huh?'

I would argue that in cross-cultural research, it is vital to penetrate into this level of dynamics within a society. For instance, how do Chinesey behaviors maintain the structure of guanxi. How do people conduct themselves, without guidance from meta-perspective, in a way that builds guanxi between individuals? What are the roles within a guanxi network, what are the responsibilities, hierarchies, and outcome?

Blogs are not meant to be long so I will give one last example using American culture. US has a very open, individualistic culture, with high resistance to failure, that allows Americans to keep trying. We all know that. But why US alone? When we pay attention to the discourses between Americans, we start realizing repeated and shared, individualized, cultural notions being passed on, and reinforced between individuals. So much so that they were taken to be real, uncontestable - the holy grail. Something when broken equates to blasphemy. A common phrase people said to each other is 'such things happen,' especially when something important went wrong. A mistake is a mistake., but we learn to see it differently. I would argue that in Chinese culture, a typical discourse would be to find the culprit and get him to repent, reassuring everyone it would not happen again, questioning 为什么你没有问我就这么做 or why didn't you ask me before you do it? 'Such things happen' leaves all blames behind, just like the bankruptcy act allowing businessmen to start anew. When everyone embraces 'such things happen,' the society equips itself with a collective cognitive characteristics that allows creativity to happen. And 'why didn't you ask me before you do it' culture type embraces a consolidation and standardization behaviors.

Quality, or Suzhi, of a Society

2008-11-03T15:23:00.003-07:00

Suzhi 素质 is frequently written and described in anthropological discourses about China. It is indeed very visible in official and unofficial commentaries in China. Suzhi, or quality, is a loose term trying to point out the 'backwardness' of Chinese in today's world. However, its actual definition, e.g. pariotism, wealth, or intelligence, varied according to context (Fong, 2007).

I cannot help but think suzhi discussion is not uniquely Chinese. At least if you consider the use of similar words. For example, knowledge economy, American dream, or freedom of the society, were all similarly vague terms. Knowledge has not been well defined. American dream can means anything from wealth to hobby. Freedom can means anything from safety to free speech. All these ambiguities were meant to spur the society forward, acknowledging that every individual in a society has an important role to play.

About the Chinese suzhi, I just returned from San Francisco, and was waiting for the cable car (actually more like an old tram) at the fisherman wharf. In front of me was a caucasian family. Behind was .... ops, where did this Chinese family came from? I did not remember them being there when I first joint the line. Anyway, we waited a long time for the next car, and people were starting to whine. Finally, our car arrived. The family in front boarded first, and then it was, or supposed to be my turn, if not for the family behind me running for the front seats, shoving their way through. It was a vivid scene because I had not been in the same situation for more than a year, since I arrived in California, Irvine.

I am saying this because I do not think suzhi lies so much in personal qualities such as wealth, grades, or intelligence. Rather, I have seen people who are not well educated contributed tremendously to others. In world of warcraft, many of the best modders started with little programming knowledge, but worked their way deep into the nights to reach pinnacles of the trade. Moreoever, they worked so that others may benefit from the small addons they created. They share their knowledge in forums, chatrooms, and books.

I felt that the little incident I had at the cable car station in SF is not an isolation, but a microsm of a Chinese weakness, and conversely an American strength. I had a Chinese friend who worked in the US for almost 4 years. He told me that if you pit an American to a Chinese, you found that the Chinese always wins (I assume this is a scholarly competition). But if you pit a group of Americans to a group of Chinese, the Americans win. There is something about the society that I felt relationship matters more than each individual. If people care for each other more, everyone benefits. If people only care for themselves, then everyone looses. In fact, this is not even an American wisdom, because Chinese has it too, among the lately revived wisdoms of Confucius.

If that Chinese lady has not shoved me and we sat on the cable car peacefully. Perhaps we would talk. Perhaps I can share something I know about SF with her, and so can she. We may both benefit from the relationship, perhaps not. But I am sure nothing ever comes out of negative relationship. They only leads to societal segregation.

So goes my little discourse on suzhi of a society: that the links matter more than the dots.

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Fong, 2007. Morality, Cosmopolitanism, or Academic Attainment? City and Society, 19, 1.

Power of People in Tomorrow's Society

2008-10-23T13:19:00.003-06:00

I am tackling the question of the meaning of web 2.0, and information society. Web 2.0 is the technology that connects people to each other. I repeat: People, not technology.

There are many people around the world, and technology applies a web-like and invisible links so that each individual is empowered to do much more.

"$10.8 billion that we don't have to spend to get an exceptionally robust operating system. $10.8 billion that we depend upon every day when using Google, Amazon, and a dizzying array of websites, as well as many of the applications we use within our own companies. There are countless companies and services enabled by this communal, multi-billion dollar investment, none of which you and I actually pay for." According to Matt Assay, VP of Alfresco, on Linux.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10072567-16.html?part=rss

Even before I am carving out the proofs in elegant, PhD standard English and format, publishing in respected journals, I am far into believing that this is the case across all areas of Technology and Society, Human and Computers Interaction. In World of Warcraft, we saw large scale, international, collaborative efforts in improving the game. Nerdy players turned into cool producers. Creativity is empowered on all with a computer, and minimal ability to program.

In anthropology, Social Network Analysis, a method for seeing structure and patterns of human relationship, is developing to supported traditional in-person observation methods. Which is another area of my investigation. If humans are being empowered by digital media to reach out, so do an Anthropologist, who is also a human being. Such power was first proposed by Douglas White, also an Anthropologist from UC Irvine.

In all, exciting things are happening, enabled by the Internet, that is slowly shaping our society. Together with it, every human activities are being shaped by it. I don't think there is a better time for humans to be creative.

Eastern map from the Western view: When one ethnic group looks at another

2008-09-24T12:15:00.005-06:00

(from http://www.philaprintshop.com)

(from http://www.unitedstatesofasia.com)

It is strange when one try to map a foreign land. We thought Marco Polo was great navigator. Let us look at a map based on his descriptions of Asia (top map). An actual Asia map (below) in case you are not yet aware.

The top map was made in the twelve century, when probably only Marco Polo and his crew had been to Asia. A lot of traders had been to India, probably why India appeared all over Asia. This is not a problem since we know that cultural differences often color the way we look at things. However, it is a problem when we assumed what we know is true.

Today, I saw a map that reminded me of the above lesson, this time a map of communities in World of Warcraft (see below). I would not contest how the 'west' looks. But look at the 'east,' occupied by an army of GOLD FARMERS - I object!

While gold farming is part of the mechanics of gaming (a small part btw), it was amplified beyond proportion, just like how India appeared as the whole of Asia. In fact, all Chinese players I met online or in chatrooms are genuine players. They play, they make friends, they create addons, and they like to pvp. It was only a recently published that Chinese players are the best pvpers in World of Warcraft. However, one part of Chinese players that is causing all the trauma is a small number of gold selling corporations extending their reach into US and Europe.

(from http://timhowgego.com)

In China, virtual items trading is a big part of the gaming community (contrary to bots farming or accounts stealing). Players, on top of paying for game play, also pay for gold or items. It does not appear to be a problem to them in contrast to the counterparts in US. I can understand the many US players found gold sellers' spamming to be annoying and a disruption to fair play. However, that they are all bad is a gross generalization. An advantage to gold buying and selling is similar to common trading. Players without money but a lot of time (often students) may sell their gold or items for real money, which fund their play time. Players with money but no time (often professionals who had to work overtime), may buy gold to quickly level their characters. More then often, Chinese friends whom I met online asked me to level faster so as to group with them for game play. These were social gestures less often seen in US communities.

One may disagree with me and still cry foul. However, such was one issue with culture, one perspective does not go well with the other. Nonetheless, we should not view the entire Chinese communty as 'gold farmers.' Instead, companies that sell gold using farm bots and stealing accounts are really the issues here.

A design problem worth pondering is that most games designed in US do not accommodate virtual trading, which to them is Axis of Evil to be exterminated. Why not since our economy as a whole has moved on from barter trading and thrives? Why discriminate against players who have jobs and don't have time earn all the tier 5-6 items? If virtual trading can be supported in the game, perhaps there will be less opportunities for gold trading companies to thrive. For example, money earned can proceed to paying for monthly account. Evil it maybe (at least in the Western sense), but perhaps a necessary one.

Turning users into developers

2008-09-15T22:43:00.002-06:00

Lately, I have been thinking of a problem. That many successful products have large user base. We had try to get designers to create great products. We said they made them beautiful, but not necessary usable. We got usability professionals to make them usable. We interview them once every few months to update usability guidelines. Lastly, we put users into the same room as we work. We work, they tell us how to do it. Now what?

As always, the gaming industry has pushed the knowledge envelope. For the past 15 years, they have been learning how to turn players into developers. They develop free development kit for paid users. Some were merely map editors for creating new zones for play, others were full development environment that allowed users to create a new game altogether. The resulted outcome are mods, and users who created them modders.

Modders contributed to games immersely. Most modders were passengers, who were there, and done that. A few, however, made their mark, and changed the landscape of gaming forever. Counter-Strike is a first person shooter that is played in every professional gaming tournament and developed by two modders. Counter-strike is a total conversion mod, meaning that the game is different from its parent. Other mods, such as those in World of Warcraft (WoW), the most popular online game played by 10 million worldwide, are partial conversions.

Since developers do not think like players, as we had long acknowledge, putting toolkits in the hands of users allow them to customize the product as they need it. It gets as close as what they need, only to be limited by the power of the toolkit and their knowledge of how to use it. Most modders in WoW know programming before they started modding, making the entry level for modding fairly high. Yet, we may lower this barrier by providing more usable, less powerful toolkits. For example, by making cellphones cover easier to remove and replace, we allowed the possibility of 3rd party developers creating alternative designs. By examing users who use them, we can learn about differing user tastes and cultural factors!

I felt that we have a lot to learn from modding in games. How do we decide which part of a product to open for modding? How do we attract a community of modders? How do we work with modders? What is the optimum size of modders? How do we substain modding activities? These are questions I have in mind.

Civic society and Social capital

2008-07-01T18:41:00.003-06:00

I just finished reading Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in American culture and its social structure, not to mention, its nowabout (although it was written in 2001) and future.

There is a lot of material in the book. In summation, it tells us how America was transformed into a powerful nation by means of grassroot movements, took place somewhere towards the end of 18th century and beginning 19th century. It created powerful associations such as the Red Cross, which recently helped China raising funds for quake victims. Consider others also, such as Scout and Salvation Army.

However, by end of 19th century, the society, swept by gigantic corporations, and other factors such as coming of television, fundamentally changed its members' focus. People are less interested in civic participation. People, especially the elites, travel a lot, breaking up place-based communities. Nonetheless, technology brings opportunity. Information technologies for example, can bring people together again.

In my research, World of Warcraft (WoW) is one technology that breaks the normal way of gaming - which is alone. In WoW, people play together, form teams, and associations in the gaming environment. A lot of players hang out because there are others in the gaming world. These associations create communities, even if they mainly for play.

These gathering of people also enabled the formation of other communities, only indirectly related to play. One is the modding communities. Mods are programs that basically change part of the gaming experience. They modify the user interface or add functionalities. They are approved by the gaming company - Blizzard. Modding communities comprise of generally young programmers, who hang out in chatrooms and also create mods. They exchange experience and educate the new modders.

Blizzard learnt a lot from modders. Modders participate in the forums actively and they are quick to discover bugs in the game. A few employers of Blizzard also participate in these chatrooms. These are great mechanisms for Blizzard to improve on the game consistently.

Reflecting on WoW, the players, the modders, and Blizzard, virtual environment can really enable people to connect and become whole again. By virtual environment, I also mean things such as facebook, which is another place for you to put up what you like others to know about you. They are fundamentally different, but in the aspects of community building and participation - the same.

Socially connected wisdom

2008-06-24T10:56:00.003-06:00

It is indeed hard to comprehend impact of technologies on society. It is even harder to write about them. When we have an insight, even if we are certain about it, writing requires additional efforts. Efforts such as gathering data and knowing what people has found out. Such as knowing who are the audience, and what do they know now. And how do we impress the knowledge upon them.

A droplet is a piece of information. It is very small but indispensable. The society is essentially made up of a lot of information. Information in use are knowledge. When information comes together they, more than often, develops into something new.

Because there are so much information and wisdom about them, one person cannot hold on to any critical mass required for large scale endeavors. Therefore, we are now so reliant on professions working in groups. These professionals are socially connected. None of them know everything, but each of them knew something. Together, they work as a system - a system of knowledge. They share a collective goal, with distributed efforts.

Facilitating these exchange is an infrastructure. The technical ones may be called Enterprise Infrastructure, a computer system used to manage information repositories and facilitates exchanges. The social ones may be called Community of Practice, where people grouped to exchange vital information and share/improve practices.

Beyond computer systems and social network, I think we are still missing something. One is the cultural infrastructure, of how people historically works together. Two is the relationship between them.

Cultural infrastructure is the foundation of all societies, and they are not going away in at least 10-20 years (It is as long as it needs to reeducate an entire generation). They are our languages, gender roles, work ethics, and so forth. They set the primary goals of our life - to be somebody, to be rich, or to be a good parent. They also shape the way we form alliances and climb the social ladder. In some cultures, the older you are the better you look. In others, it is eloquence that counts.

Relationships between these infrastructure are important. People use computer systems, and it is the primary way they network. They network with both colleagues in the company or expertise outside the computer. Not all computer systems can be governed internally. Some are public features, and community of practice do extend outside of the company. Culture too, permeate within and outside of the company. Companies with longer history in a country do have deeper reach into its communities. These have to be considered as part of its wisdom as well.

Ubicomp

2008-06-01T23:26:00.001-06:00

Ubiquitous computing is everywhere... in my school at least. Around every corners, you can see palmtop on the walls, aiming to display some sort of information. At its core, Ubicomp aims to make computer 'disappear' from the 'box' that I am using to type my blog right now.

A more important question is, what is the role of ubicomp in our society? First, ubicomp technologies, such as those that help you cook breakfast, and 'scrap pieces' of touchscreens, have unforeseeable purposes. Second, you never really know if they will become cheap enough to replace what we have now. Third, you don't really know if they will ever be technologically viable.

Despite these difficulties, I appreciate ubicomp. First and foremost, they help to push technological envelope, and we do not really need a stage gate to passe every ideas. Ideas are cheaper when the team do not need to employ a 3 months study to evaluate its use. Except of course when the implementation will affect a lot of people. Furthermore, when an idea cannot be proven wrong, we might as well give it a shot.

Nonetheless, the reality is most ubicomp applications will fail. PCs are great because they have something ubicomp applications do not have -- flexibility. They are hard to use, as ubicomp would argue. Yes, but users are free to download new application and modify their 'boxes.' At some point though, there will be tasks that we repeat so many times that its time for them to fade into the background.

Such are the functions we wanted to become invisible, and to me, its where ubicomp enters the picture. For example, my friends who come to my place would like to see our wedding album. My media center in the living room fits into this purpose. However, I do not really want to see my World of Warcraft becomes an XBox application. If that happens, I would not be able to update or experiment with new mods.

Therefore, ubicomp is essentially our supplementary computers. They represent tasks that crystallized in our lives, and that becomes sufficiently understood and stable. And ubicomp applications will always work hand-in-hand with computers in a box.

Academics, industry, and our society: Looking back to three quarters of academic study

2008-06-01T22:50:00.002-06:00

I have done three quarters of academic studies. It was not the first time, for I had done my masters, but it was a much more systematic one.

We discuss, critique, and write a lot. Almost several times weekly. Writing becomes almost second nature for any academics to function. Its a sin, an abnormality, for an academic who do not write well. Therefore, writing is fundamental and very important. Writing aside, I felt that it is secondary to be able to think. In the academic world, there are many disciplines. And its likely for anyone to find one which suit one's interests and orientations, any types of orientation including those remotely useful. Also theories abound. It is very common to be talking to a contemporary academic who would tell you, "There are many theories and you should pick those that are useful to you." If we replace 'theories' with 'truths,' "There are many truths and you should pick those that are useful to you," and you sounds like a lawyer.

Yes, I think to some extend, academics need to have a flair for intelligent debates, much like a lawyer did. And perhaps also with a touch of charm. It is inevitable thus that academics may not always be telling things that are useful, though the best ones make them sound useful. But nevertheless, academics are not god. Their ideas are not flawless. But they have a special function in our society. That of speaking for, writing for, recording events, critique events, and setup an environment for healthy (gentlemanly, logically, and rigorous) debate. While most academics treat publications as the final step for any research, its really just at the beginning of a lengthy and on going process of discovery - what is the truth?

Industries need not read scientific papers. But if they do not, and still able to function, there are two possibilities: (1) They work is repetitive and requires little innovations, (2) Their work is so fast and complicated that writings are not the best way to develop ideas. (1) is more akin traditional work such as textile and restaurant. (2) is more akin to art production such as movie making. However, most fields require to keep in touch with other people outside their immediate circle of contacts to continually develop ideas. Academic conferences, workshops, and publications, which keep up with a healthy amount of rant on relevant topics is a good place to start. One, academics are notoriously vicious and stringent when it comes to how to perform and write about research. Some circles always require numbers, some requires qualitative studies, some vast amount of data, others a lot of theories. It depends on what you need.

However, being in the industry for several years, I do not see innovation as a one-way traffic from the academics into the industry. Rather, its a two-way exchange. Industries loosing interests in a particular research circle is one clear indication of disconnectedness. Industries attending any conferences, or being part of any research is a clear sign of birth of innovativeness. It makes academics look good.

However, industries are still very different from academics. For one, industries are extremely practical and motives is clear, often to earn money out of an investment. Therefore, they are looking at good ideas that fit. If they have a strong infrastructure of programmers, they will be interested in how to best organize them, but not perhaps interested in hardware design techniques. An idea manifest in the real world infrastructure: they merge, interact, and become tangible.

In order for the symphony of academics and industries to perform well, we need both to be present and take part in the performance. A stage to be had, and pieces to perform. Looking back at my country, it is not clear how this will happen in Singapore. But in the US, industries are active in the academics circle. They attend workshops and conferences, sacrificing their weekends. Academics as well, require such fundings to further their research, such as funding their students. It takes two hands clapping, and they are.

Moving forward, it is indeed a reflection within myself, on how I should make the best of my academics years. Writing is utmost in my agenda, and I need to understand my audiences. Much like selling. Last three quarters, I have written a great deal of short passages. In the coming weeks, I will put up the ones I like onto this blog. It is a way to put forward my thinking, and for me to trace my own thoughts and development.

MMOGs and our Societies

2008-06-01T17:24:00.002-06:00

I have recently found my thesis topic.

MMOGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Games) are becoming popular in our societies. In the process, they affect our infrastructure. From learning to providing a place for socializing, participants change their life patterns, and carry out daily activities such as work, play, and relationships in different ways. Since these infrastructure build into our social fabrics, we may see it as a form of knowledge: in words, in practice, or as artifacts.

A stable society requires one type of knowledge that is well-embedded: culture. I see culture is a set of well accepted rules and practices that are self-governed by its members. Emergence of MMOGs such as World of Warcraft (WoW) challenged some of the existing cultural rules, and China saw WoW evolving into a different form. For example, skeletons were banned in the virtual environment, monthly subscription transformed into a pay-as-you-go gaming card system, and Internet cafes become an integral part of play. Therefore, when technology was adopted by a society, a co-evolution takes place. Each transforming the other.

In my research, I intended to probe deeper than Internet cafes, banning skeletons, and change of payment methods. The influence WoW has on societies have to emerge out of social confrontations, between the existing and the emergent, the local and the foreign. We saw mods in World of Warcraft as providing such opportunity to observe them. Mods are the short form for software modifications – players developed addons that modify part of the gaming interface and increase functionalities. All players use some kind of mods depending on their current tasks. Mods lie at the intersection of virtual environment, players, players-developers, and the game development company. Mods situate our research at the intersection of their confrontations.

Knowledge Work or just Scribe?

2008-02-25T16:22:00.004-07:00

I was asked today: isn't HCI common sense? I replied "Yes its."
"Then why do we have to theorise?"
"Because common sense is not common," I reflected on what Martin Helander would say.

Science is not everything. Scientists do not hold all our knowledge. But science dominates our discourses. What they do not control are the practices and technologies.

Therefore, knowledge are far beyond just books we have written. It is about building excellent monuments, war machines, brilliant policies, and way of happiness. Much of which is written, yet between the lines, we act and we tool it.

Therefore, there are people who are extreme. One, someone who rejects all discourses as useless. Two, someone who thinks discourses hold all knowledge. The former is likely to be an engineer. The latter a scientist.

Rather, I like to think that both scientists and engineers should work together. The only difference is scientists' job is to write and record down all that's happening, reasoning the fundamentals, and spread them far and wide. Engineers deepen the fundamentals in practice. They shape things within their context, and make them real.

Turns out a lot of what scientists do are scribing, but good inscriptions turns out to change how people do things.

Jennifer part 2

2007-12-16T14:54:00.000-07:00

Jennifer is now at the new traffic junction which reported a lot of accidents. She decided to make another count.

"Hmm.... 0.4% accident when turning left, 1.1% if going straight, 0.05 when turning right," she noted and wondered, "This is confounding!" Comparing to part 1, why is it confounding?

She thinks about the theories that she had known, and thought, "Vision theories can explains," continuing, "There is a mountain on the left side of the road, which blocks out sunlight most time of the day. The lack of light is probably the culprit." Is vision theory appropriate?

She took some readings of illumination and found the right side of the road is indeed brighter. She did statistics and found correlation between brightness and accident is positive at 95% confidence. Is this the result we wanted?

Jennifer Part 1

2007-12-15T19:07:00.000-07:00

Jennifer is a researcher, and someone from the traffic department approaches her. A particular junction is found to be hazardous.

She took the job and investigated the junction. She made a count, that cars that turn right have 1% chance of meeting an accident. Going straight is 0.5% and left is 0.2%. So her theory goes that 'right turn causes accident.' True?

Jennifer subsequently measured the hardness and gradient of the right turn. Models of the car that came by. And radius of the turn. Has she come closer to reality?

Soon, people starts to loose interests in the junction, but yet another one caught attention. Now, she being an expert in traffic accident investigation, is tasked to look at that junction too. Is she going to do better because of her experience?

How much are we a researcher like Jennifer? What's wrong with her approach?

Ideas Transforming Society

2007-11-05T10:40:00.001-07:00

We need Ideas to transform society. But what are Ideas? A new technology? A new theory? A new perspective?

TED.com provides many examples of fantastic Ideas. Maybe we can draw some examples from there to illustrate What an Idea is and Why it is so powerful.

In an enlightening demonstration by Hans Rosling (see video), he used a new dynamic visualization to show why third world countries are no longer the same as we are still seeing them -- big families and high mortality. That the world is becoming more homogeneous. Its not easy to digest this fact in words. But if you see the changes as the visualization depicted over time, the Idea struck you like lightning, giving you new insights when planning relationships with third world countries.

Matthew Ricard, using scientific techniques, convincingly presented the importance of happiness and its differentiation with pleasure (see video). Happiness is peace and long-lasting, where pleasure is exciting but short-live. Using meditation as an example, he showed how one can be trained to be happier. This Idea gives you a direction to which you may choose to live your life.

There are at least three important characteristics between these two and other Ted Talks. (1) They modifies what we already know, (2) They provide you with a Perspective, and (3) They can be put into practice.

One, good Ideas have to be a worthy modification to what we already know. Our knowledge is so ingrained with what we do. It makes no sense to introduce a totally new array of vocabularies. But modification has to be made progressively to improve our lives.

Two, the addition to what we already know has to provide you with a new Perspective -- a new way of thinking. The idea that third world countries are no longer poor, may alter the suggestions created by our thoughts. If I am a business man, I may start seeing them as partners. As a social entrepreneur, I may have to relook at whether my work is contributing to the right places.

Three, good Ideas are practical. They are not so abstract that I cannot explain them in terms of physical objects and apply in my life. This is in line with Confucius:

博学之，审问之，慎思之，明辨之，笃行之.

It represents the progression as a wholesome person: (1) Learning, (2) Asking, (3) Contemplating, (4) Debating, and (5) Acting. In the Chinese culture, knowledge that cannot be acted upon is useless day-dreaming. This actionable characteristic is an important aspect of knowledge.

We may confuse Ideas with information. Ideas are a type of information, but not all. Because ultimately, Ideas provide with us a Perspective: a modified value/principle/motivation. Its not entirely new per say. Rather it changes a part of our thoughts framework, like a wave that our associated thoughts stream is also affected. Information, such as a data on birthrate of third world countries over the years, may not have such effects. But putting all together in a frame, an Idea is born.

The fascinating aspect of Ideas is how they are integrated into our knowledge which tell us what actions to take in our life. Both Hans and Matthew did not tell us how to act. But we KNEW it from their Ideas. The Idea is like a magnet that drawn in bits of relevant knowledge, and reformat them in the thoughts stream. It literally does not inform you a lot, yet it tells you a great deal. This is how it becomes actionable.

When the Idea begins to draw in our knowledge and re-sewn its framework, new course of actions become obvious. There is no need to learn new vocabulary or theory, the Idea merely interacts with existing practices and transforms them into something new.

So said, Ideas will only make sense to matured recipients. Take the example of the Idea of computer gaming as a profession. This Idea takes twenty years of computer gaming to become a matured one. In the early 1980s, when are are playing Space Invaders, Pac Man, and Heroes of the Lance, gaming was merely an interaction between the gamer and the pc. Gamers do not talk to each other while gaming. We exchange clues and codes, and there are some brighter students who helped us hack parts of the code. But the community was never beyond the bound of our school. Today, gamers talk to each other much more. Clues, codes, and hacks, were available from the Internet. Gamers, who do not know each other, met and compete in Internet cafes, and quite recently in global gaming competitions. With development of more sophisticated games and Internet, Idea of professional gaming met the conditions to ripen. Once seeded, it germinates healthily in a matured environment.

I would like to argue that its not easy to pick the right time and right place to seed an Idea. Many good Ideas were rejected because they were not ready to be absorbed by most people. Today, if we grab someone and tell him that gamers are going professionals, I bet they will give you a skeptical smile and say, "Wow, interesting!" In ten years perhaps, they may tell you, "Yeah, it was on TV yesterday." How mercurial!