VogelWorks

A few months ago, I made the VogelWorks blog separate from KevinVogelsang.com .  Since then, the difference has been more thoroughly defined, so I thought I’d offer a clarification.

At VogelWorks, you’ll find my essays, as well as the essays of others.  I write essays less frequently.  They are usually longer than my blog posts at KevinVogelsang.com, less frequent, and follow a specific theme.  (I’m currently working on a set of essays on our digital future.)

At KevinVogelsang.com, the posts come about every 2 days and tend to just be random interesting and enlightening thoughts I have.  Do subscribe to both!  If you’re receiving this, that means you’re subscribed to VogelWorks.  To subscribe to KevinVogelsang.com via RSS, click here.  To subscribe via email, go to KevinVogelsang.com and put your email address in the box on the right side of the page.

You can also follow me on Twitter @KevinVogelsang .

New essays to come soon.

-Kevin
11.12.2009

The Future of the Digital Space Theme Outline:

• I. The Definition of the Digital Space.
• II. The Framework.
• III. Our Digital Spider-Sense

The Importance of Awareness

A few months ago, I was in downtown Atlanta, late on a Monday night, walking back to my car after meeting up with some friends.

Suddenly, with a screech of tires a dark blue sports car came tearing up the wrong direction of the road parallel to the sidewalk where I stood.  “Good lord, who is this nut job…,” I thought to myself.

The car came to an abrupt halt about 50 yards ahead of me near the outdoor patio of a bar where a group of people were sitting at round tables.  With music blaring,  and arms in the air, he began making erratic movements as he thrashed about in his car.

Then something happened that I’d never experienced before: I got hit with a wall of fear and angst.

I’m not sure how, but I felt it move through the crowd.  It started with the people sitting at the tables closest to the crazed driver.  I remember people craning their heads, turning nervously, some went inside.  Then it made its way to the hotel attendants standing on the sidewalk closer to me.  They looked at each other, peered down the street, and then one said, “shit, it’s the Russian” and ducked inside.

It then hit me.

I didn’t understand the situation, but in an instant, I became aware that I could be endangered, and I hurriedly exited the scene.

~

Survival demands that we be sensitive to our environment.  It’s hardwired into our bodies.  By sensing our environment, we’re able to be aware of how we should react.

Evolution says Awareness is important to us, and the desire for heightened Awareness will have vast influence on our digital future.

Our Digital Spider-Sense

Without digressing into a theory of mind, we need a simple definition of Awareness.

Awareness describes the state of being conscious of some form of “information” (an object, action, event, etc).  However, gaining Awareness does not require engaging in a conscious process–understanding of the information is not a necessary prerequisite for gaining Awareness.

Vast amounts of information fill our immediate environment that our senses and intellect detect and process.  However, we’ve created a digital atmosphere that pervades our environment and provides potential for greatly Enhanced Awareness.

When we talk about Enhanced Awareness, we imply two distinct concepts: Expanded Information and Enhanced Senses.

Expanded Information refers to an expansion in the types of information in our environment.  For instance, information regarding crime rates in your city exist on the internet that you aren’t able to sense.  The existence of more information about our environment enables greater awareness, if delivered effectively.

With expanded information sets pervading our environment, we’ll need enhanced senses in order to gain Awareness of this new information.

Enhanced Senses refers to the augmentation of our senses to perform as inputs for information from our environment.  Enhanced Senses could be an enhancement of degree (superman-like telescopic vision) or of capability (eyes that can act as an input for new types of information).

We’ll explore both sides of this coin in the forthcoming essays.

Kevin
10.8.2009

While I’ll continue to post on a variety of topics, I’ll focus my essays on three themes over the next few weeks.

1. The Future of the Digital Space. I’ve already set the stage for this theme.  The time has come to dive in.  This will be an epic set of essays.
2. Education. I graduated from college this past June, which marks the end of my formal education as far as I know.  Upon reflecting on my education, I wish many things had been different.Education is ripe for innovation–both structurally and technologically.  I hope people will begin to become more aware of the loss in potential caused by our current system and, further yet, begin to gain a vision for what it could be.Education is a complex and important topic.  It likely will remain an ongoing theme at VogelWorks (especially since understanding the world is a core value.)
3. Government 2.0.  While this term still means different things to different people,  Tim O’Reilly’s description gets it right; Gov 2.0 is about government “as a platform.”  You’ll find a primer on Tim’s views here: Gov 2.0: It’s About the Platform .  These thoughts are important, and I’ll spread these ideas, along with my own input and additions, as far as I’m able.

Kevin
10.3.2009

I moved VogelWorks because I had the feeling that it needed its own domain to grow.  It’s time that I gave VogelWorks a direction so it can begin its journey.

The Danger

We’re inundated with news stories, headlines, and the barrage of noise on the internet.  The danger is that we take our eye off the real value and don’t give proper attention to the important trends and ideas that will shape our perceivable future.

The One Value

A defining characteristic of any entity are the values it upholds, whether it be a company, an individual, or a something else.  As of now, VogelWorks only has one: understanding the world.

Real values aren’t fluff, they’re functional.  Focus on understanding the world delivers real value to the VogelWorks audience:

• Understanding the world is key for personal growth.
• Gaining a deeper understanding of the world increases appreciation for the world’s beauty.
• Understanding the world leads to heightened sense of the world, which, quite simply, creates greater opportunity to do good.  With heightened senses, you’re able to make better decisions for yourself, others, and the future.

Admittedly, understanding the world is quite broad, but for a value, I see no reason to impose narrower limits.

A particularly special implication of this value exists.  The most rigorous exercise in understanding the world is the attempt to understand the perceivable future.  Therefore by association, a perspective on the future is also valued here.

The Content

The world turns upon three pillars: institutions, technology, and people.  Each is distinct; each is its own animal.  People discover technologies that are already written into the fabric of the universe.  Institutions are not the sum of the people who comprise them.

These three pillars provide a framework; the content of VogelWorks falls within the space bounded by these pillars.  And from within this framework, specific themes will be chosen to focus on.

The VogelWorks Framework

VogelWorks is here to key in on significant issues, trends, and ideas–things that matter.

The Methodology

While this provides a conceptual framework, unless reduced to practice, this all means nothing.  VogelWorks needs a methodology for understanding the world to be effective.

An epidemiology professor once told me, “There’s a big difference between someone who just teaches thermodynamics, and someone who does research in thermodynamics.”  He knew what he was talking about. If you want to become educated deeply on a subject, you should tune into the community of people who are as intimately involved as you can find.

If you want to study the world, you should go to the people at the forefront of the world’s bleeding edge–people who are passionate about a subject, that ponder it deeply, that are involved, that push forward in spite of the risks, and that understand their responsibility to share their insight with the rest of us.

The Coda

I think this provides a clear understanding of the purpose of VogelWorks:

Provide a platform to further understanding  of the world.  Publish content and incite discussion on things that matter.  Engage the people intimately involved with defining the future.

Kevin
9.30.2009

Please disregard the previous email.  None of it is new content.  It looks like the entire history of the posts just got mailed out in an email due to the changes I’ve been making.  Thankfully, it won’t happen again.

-Kevin
9.19.2009

If you’re a subscriber, you don’t need to re-subscribe to VogelWorks.  I’ve setup the feeds so that if you were previously a subscriber, you’re still a subscriber.

You’ll continue to see posts and essays on things that matter at VogelWorks.  Topics include education, technology, government, and, of course, human theory.  However, expect to see some new writers participating.  If you yourself are interested in doing a “guest essay,” definitely shoot an email to KVogelsang11 [at] gmail.com .  That address will work until I get the VogelWorks mail servers setup.

You can also now follow VogelWorks on Twitter, if you’d like to get updates that way.

KevinVogelsang.com is now my more personal blog with various updates on me and my other projects.  If you’re interested in that, you can subscribe by going there.

Let me know if you experience any issues due to the migration.

Kevin
9.18.2009

A few months ago, when I started the VogelWorks blog, it was largely an experiment to help me learn more about digital media and the tools content creators use.  While I’ve always had plenty of thoughts to talk about, it was simply a side project for my learning.

Eventually, I started getting a few comments from close friends and family.   Then, a  few readers started asking me about certain subjects.  Soon enough, I started getting real visitors; my post To Be Relentless got over 300 visits.  And then, one reader told me that a post had inspired her and given her hope that going back to school was the right decision for her.

I quickly learned that VogelWorks was bigger than just an experiment.  I guess you could say that I learned VogelWorks is bigger than me.

And for that reason, VogelWorks is moving on from KevinVogelsang.com .  And by the time your eyes dance across these words, VogelWorks will have moved to VogelWorks.com .

To build something great, you have to let it grow beyond yourself.  That’s the only way anything can reach it’s full potential.

Over the next few months, we’ll see many developments on the VogelWorks blog.  One thing is certain, it’ll be interesting to see where it goes.

Kevin
9.17.2009