Clay Shirky’s theme

“If I had to describe what I write about, it would be “Systems where vested interests lose out to innovation.”

Or maybe “Systems where having good participants produces better results than having good planners.”

I now recognize in my writings an interest in any systems undergoing an influx of new participants — the need to avoid mandated design standards on the web ;  the tremendous increase in internet use outside the US ;  the new voice of previously mute consumers .”


“More than once, new technologies have held out the promise of wider participation by citizens, only to be corralled by a new set of legal or economic realities, and the net, which threatens many vested interests all at once, will be no exception.

Nevertheless, despite a ‘two steps forward, one step back’ progression, we are living through a potentially enormous shift in the amount of leverage the many have over the few. It is my aim to chronicle these changes as they happen, and to provide a framework, built from observation, which aids both interpretation and prediction. ”