This is getting a bit better now. Hopefully a bit cleaI cut out some of the electrical garbage. I gave this at Fabel Kommunikation's brilliant Truly Yours conference in Sweden earlier this week.

1. We Are Electric.
CHARLIE TIMS / MARCH 2011 / TRULY YOURS / STOCKHOLM

3. I often get distracted by the ʻinternet for beginnersʼ class
that happens through the glass window.

5. A teacher, following a sheet of instructions, prompts the
class through a series of exercises. She explains what a
search engine is, what google is, what wikipedia is,
what directgov is...

7. The people taking the class sit at their computer
terminals, fingers hovering over their keyboards,
staring at the prompt-sheet, squinting at the screen.
Everything is so alien to them.
Itʼs hard to imagine quite what it must be like to do
these things for the first time.

8. And somehow that doesnʼt seem fair. Mostly
theyʼre just learning a new way of doing what
they already do.
A new way to pick up yellow pages, make a
phone call and order a book. A new version of
buying a magazine, looking at an advert in a
newspaper, picking up the telephone and calling
a shop. A new way to telephone the grocers and
ask them to make a home delivery.
Itʼs the interface thatʼs alienating.
Not what they are doing.

10. So, when I was watching this a few weeks
ago, I was thinking - why not just give them
an interface thatʼs a bit more familiar.

12. Have a button for Eggs. One for a TV license.
chocolate biscuits. saucy magazines. wikipedia
button.

13. wikipedia button.
a button for Eggs.
One for a TV license.
saucy mag button
chocolate biscuits

14. Then I thought, well maybe that already exists.

16. Internet looks like a phone.
Phone that looks like the internet.

17. Actually, theyʼre not different.
Itʼs just that my ʻinternet phoneʼ is a shit internet phone.

18. The point being. All this stuff with computers,
and mice and browsers - it created an idea that
there was a different digital world, when actually
what has been happening is the gradual
electrification of our relationships. Now we are
electric.

21. An evolution in our ability to make telephone
calls to

22. people

23. knowledge

24. things

25. and people and their things

26. & people and their knowledge

27. This means that itʼs increasingly ridiculous to
think about the ʻonlineʼ and the ʻofflineʼ worlds.
The web canʼt be divided from real-life. Itʼs like
talking about the ʻstreet lit worldʼ and the ʻnon-
street lit world.ʼ Everyone seems to accept that
we are now in a:

28. Singular Electronic Environment

30. We know this because

32. Electric Communities

33. So what is an electric community?
Itʼs a community that needs
electricity to come together.
Electric communities are not ʻnew communitiesʼ. They
just tend to be easier to bring together, because they
are powered by electricity.
Here are some;

38. The Impulse:
ʻI didnʼt know there were people like me..ʼ
is key here.

39. The consequences of
this in on the street &
in the city can be
summed up by the
following statement.

40. We can
see more
niche things
less predictably.

41. We can
see more

42. 4.
The economics of infinite shelf space
probably applies to electric communities
in cities in the same way as they apply to
electric books on amazon. Think of the
city as a shelf. And communities as
books. Amazon can fit more books on
their shelf. We can fit more electric
communities into the city.
So you could probably say that the
ʻeconomics of infinite shelf spaceʼ apply
to electric communities in cities in the
same way as they apply to electric books
on amazon. Think of the city as a shelf.
And communities as books. Amazon can
fit more books on their shelf. We can fit
more electric communities into the city. Its
the same logic.

43. We can
see more
Niche Things

44. Electric communities tend to be more spatially
efficient. And they can come together around more
specialized tasks. They only exist for as long as they
have to - which means there is more space for ʻnicheʼ
communities in the same place.

45. We can
see more
niche things
less predictably.

46. when communities can rehearse online
they can appear on the stage anywhere.

48. Here some ʻolderʼ more traditional sources of
community from some research I did a few
years ago, looking for the public life of cities.

50. A shift in the
balance from
communities that
choose you
to
communities that
you choose.

51. no shared interests
can be presumed.

52. The Electric Anxieties

53. If we can see more of ourselves,
then who are we?
Electric people are destabilize the way we
recognise ourselves. When more things are
visible - how do we know who we are? What
is a trend? When is a trend a trend? If itʼs
easier to mobilize 10,000 people - how do we
know whether 10,000 people are significant
or not. How do we know who to listen too?

54. If communities are niche,
what are we sharing?
Electric communities enable more ways to
share with other people, more deliberately.
Some of these are more surgical, some of
these are more instrumental, some of these
are transactional, some of these are more
random. But we call them all sharing. Am I
sharing my car with you, or selling it to you
when Iʼm not using it? Am I sharing
information with you, or broadcasting it at
you? Sharing, if thatʼs what it is, doesnʼt seem
as intimate as it once was. We share with
people we donʼt know. More like doggers,
than inuits.

55. If where something happens
is less predictable,
what do we have in common?
Electric communities make it easier to transcend
physical places and local districts. They also make
it easier to live within the people and things we
already know. Do electric communities drive the
fragmentation and Balkanisation of society into
different class and interest communities? Do they
help us to reach out beyond ourselves, to our
neighbours and to our friends. Do they create or
do they erode social solidarity?

58. Invent Places of
Democracy

59. Electric communities
concentrate values.

60. Which is
Great for more freedom.
Great for niche collaboration
and inter-dependency.
Great for being less
predictable, routing around,
undermining disposing of
illegitimate governments and
big bureaucracies and
businesses.

61. But we are left with a
deficit of places that can
hybridise values

62. Healthy democracies have
always had these.

63. We need to start looking for them.
Looking for public spaces is a good way to start.

65. Define Public Spaces as those that can
be ʻaccessed, shared and governed by
different groups of peopleʼ.

66. Defend
Shared
Places

69. Design
Shared
Spaces

73. Make
Shared
Decisions

76. Shared Places Designed Sharing Shared Decisions

78. Hybridised Values
Collaborative Design
We Think
Rival Social Action
Electric Liberty

79. We Are Electric.
CHARLIE TIMS / MARCH 2011 / TRULY YOURS / STOCKHOLM