The cult of the “professional”
Miss N and I went to hear a debate featuring Andrew Keen, author of the “Cult of the Amateur” at the RSA. Keen is a critic of Web 2.0, claiming that its radical democratization is undermining real quality.
He was joined by Tim Montgomerie of the Conservative Home website, a pro web 2.0 guy.
The debate was lively with Keen using Huxley’s infinite monkey’s theorem as a parallel to what’s happening online today. He went on to bash You Tube (paraphrasing: where is our culture, what about the professionals) and Wikipedia (paraphrasing: no editors, just a bunch of good for nothings with time on their hands) He also talked about the suffering of mainstream media, and the lack of a gatekeeper and blah blah blah.
Montgomerie and Matthew Taylor of the RSA did a good job of rebutting Keen, Taylor particularly was a great moderator. Their points about the relative youth of the medium and the fact checking phenomenon the web has fostered, not to mention the empowerment of the masses, were all excellent points. And it was clear the majority of people were behind this side of the debate, mind you there was a clear age difference in the way people tended to feel about the internet.
One of the highlights for me was when the MD of Encyclopedia Britannica – a self proclaimed silver surfer himself and sitting a row behind me and Miss N – took Montgomery’s side and said that Wikipedia had actually helped Britannica up it’s game, and that competition was a good thing.
Miss N made a great point about the fact that this debate is not new and that it happens with every technical innovation (dating back to the move from hand written manuscripts to print in the 15 century). I’m sure she’ll make the point and have a great review when she get’s around to blogging about it – but she’s got a job now so her blogging has to wait 
My opinion is that Keen is a bit of a sensationalist, doesn’t really believe the excrement he’s pedaling, and is just looking to make a quick buck or two off of book sales. The fact that he himself blogs confirms it in my opinion!
Nevertheless, I think the debate is important, I just think Keen is the wrong person to make it. The wife did a much better job when I got home; her point was that it’s difficult for the misinformed and the young to distinguish between the valid, true and right content and the crap that’s out there. That there’s so much information now, how do you ensure that people are going to the right sources.
I still believe that the community acts as a gatekeeper and that if a blog post or a video or whatever doesn’t have anyone reading it or anyone linking to it or engaging with the content then it doesn’t really exist – kind of like the proverbial tree falling in the forest with no one around.
The one point that Keen made that I did see some validity in was that we’re all spending too much time talking and not doing enough listening. But with me and Miss N having a good 500 news feeds between us, I’d say there are some of us who are listening more then talking… hmmm guess I didn’t agree with him on that point either.
UPDATE : the RSA has the mp3 from last nights session on it’s audio page now.
sensationalist this man might be….but he has a kernel of an idea, i think. there is a lot of crap on the internet….kind of like a sea that was blue and now has a lot of stuff that just shouldn’t be there. not sure what the solution is, but i know that i don’t want my kids (the ones i teach) reading about how to become anorexic or writing on a teacher bashing website. freedom of speech is important, but so is protecting our younger generation. i want them to have access to information on the internet, but i want them to be safe as well (and i don’t mean just adding one of those baby sitting programs that block certain sites). its the principle of it. of course, now this opens up the whole censorship issue and stuff…but that is for another day when i am not sleepy….
September 9th, 2007 at 11:52 pmThanks for sharing Farhan! I was so sad of not being able to make it, and your blog curbs my misery. This guy sounds lame (pardon my not-so-academic prose). I am sick and tired of people pouring criticisms over Wikipedia when they themselves have not tried and tested the community peer-to-peer mechanism. I am equally critical of the project, but I agree with you two (Miss N) that the significance is not on the accuracy of WP’s content alone, but a new form of information production.
Time to share with you my muse, Yochai Benkler’s book ‘The Wealth of Networks’:
‘At the heart of the economic engine, of the world’s most advanced economies, we are beginning to notice a persistent and quite amazing phenomenon.
A new model of production has taken root; one that should not be there, at least according to our most widely held beliefs about economic behavior.
It should not, the intuitions of the late-twentieth-century American would say, be the case that thousands of volunteers will come together to collaborate on a complex economic project.
It certainly should not be that these volunteers will beat the largest and best-financed business enterprises in the world at their own game.
And yet, this is precisely what is happening in the software world. ‘
September 11th, 2007 at 1:37 pmhttp://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/index.php?title=1._Introduction:_A_Moment_of_Opportunity_and_Challenge