(Mar 18, 2008 at  the Royal Society for the encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce (RSA))

Chair:  Mico MacDonald, Principal, SPY

Clay Shirky’s lucid and penetrating analysis will steer us through the online social explosion and ask what happens when people are given the tools to do things together, without needing traditional organisational structures.

Clay Shirky is one of the new culture’s wisest observers. He will argue that the dramatic improvement in our social tools makes our control over them much like steering a kayak; we are being pushed rapidly down a route largely determined by the technological environment. We have a small degree of control over the spread of these tools, but that control does not extend to being able to reverse, stop, or even radically alter the direction we’re moving in. The question now is therefore not whether the spread of these social tools is good or bad, but rather what the impact will be, for better or for worse.

Clay Shirky writes, teaches, and consults on the social and economic effects of the internet, especially on places where our social and technological networks overlap. His goal is to describe the intersection of social tools and social life, helping people both to understand what’s happening around them, and how tools could be designed that better support social activity. A professor at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, he has consulted for Nokia, Procter and Gamble, News Corp., the BBC, the US Navy, and Lego. Over the years, his writings have appeared in The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Harvard Business Review, Wired, and IEEE Computer. A regular keynote speaker at tech conferences, he has never believed that technology is an end unto itself; rather it is our use of technology that matters.

Find out more about Clay on his website http://www.shirky.com/