Cognitive Surplus
Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age
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Narrated by:
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Kevin Foley
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By:
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Clay Shirky
About this listen
For decades, technology encouraged people to squander their time and intellect as passive consumers. Today, technology has finally caught up with human potential. In Cognitive Surplus, Internet guru Clay Shirky forecasts the thrilling changes we will all enjoy as new digital technology puts our untapped resources of talent and goodwill to use at last.
Since we Americans were suburbanized and educated by the postwar boom, we've had a surfeit of intellect, energy, and time - what Shirky calls a cognitive surplus. But this abundance had little impact on the common good because television consumed the lion's share of it - and we consume TV passively, in isolation from one another. Now, for the first time, people are embracing new media that allow us to pool our efforts at vanishingly low cost.
The results of this aggregated effort range from mind expanding - reference tools like Wikipedia - to lifesaving, such as Ushahidi.com, which has allowed Kenyans to sidestep government censorship and report on acts of violence in real time. Shirky argues persuasively that this cognitive surplus, ather than being some strange new departure from normal behavior, actually returns our society to forms of collaboration that were natural to us up through the early 20th century. He also charts the vast effects that our cognitive surplus---aided by new technologies---will have on 21-century society, and how we can best exploit those effects. Shirky envisions an era of lower creative quality on average but greater innovation, an increase in transparency in all areas of society, and a dramatic rise in productivity that will transform our civilization.
The potential impact of cognitive surplus is enormous. As Shirky points out, Wikipedia was built out of roughly 1 percent of the man-hours that Americans spend watching TV every year. Wikipedia and other current products of cognitive surplus are only the iceberg's tip. Shirky shows how society and our daily lives will be improved dramatically as we learn to exploit our goodwill and free time like never before.
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Today, not only is everything digital getting faster, cheaper, and smaller at an exponential rate, we also have the Internet. When these two revolutions - one in technology and the other in communications - joined, an explosive force was unleashed that changed the very nature of innovation. And with any change, we have seen many strategic blunders and extraordinary learning curves along the way.
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Just general advice on how to survive
- By A. Yoshida on 09-01-17
By: Joi Ito, and others
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Technically Wrong
- Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech
- By: Sara Wachter-Boettcher
- Narrated by: Andrea Emmes
- Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Buying groceries, tracking our health, finding a date: whatever we want to do, odds are that we can now do it online. But few of us ask how all these digital products are designed, or why. It's time we change that. Many of the services we rely on are full of oversights, biases, and downright ethical nightmares. Chatbots that harass women. Signup forms that fail anyone who's not straight. Social media sites that send peppy messages about dead relatives. Algorithms that put more black people behind bars.
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Pretty good but not complete
- By Casey on 10-29-17
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Superminds
- The Surprising Power of People and Computers Thinking Together
- By: Thomas W. Malone
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Many people today are so dazzled by the long-term potential for artificial intelligence that they overlook the much clearer and more immediate potential for a new form of "collective intelligence": the intelligence of groups of people and computers working together. In Superminds, Thomas Malone explains what we need to do to take advantage of this potential. Groundbreaking and utterly fascinating, Superminds will change the way you work - both with others and with computers - for the better.
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"Why did a Kenyan immigrant win the 2008 election"
- By RealTruth on 07-11-18
By: Thomas W. Malone
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Twitter and Tear Gas
- The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest
- By: Zeynep Tufekci
- Narrated by: Carly Robins
- Length: 13 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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An incisive observer, writer, and participant in today's social movements, Zeynep Tufekci explains in this accessible and compelling book the nuanced trajectories of modern protests - how they form, how they operate differently from past protests, and why they have difficulty persisting in their long-term quests for change.
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Insightful but frustrating
- By James on 03-11-18
By: Zeynep Tufekci
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Disruptive Marketing
- What Growth Hackers, Data Punks, and Other Hybrid Thinkers Can Teach Us About Navigating the New Normal
- By: Geoffrey Colon
- Narrated by: Geoffrey Colon
- Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Now that 75 percent of screen time is spent on connected devices, digital strategies have moved front and center of most marketing plans. But what if that's not enough? What if most people ignore company messages? What if consumer engagement never goes further than the "like" button? A sobering reality is hitting marketers. Technology hasn't just reshaped mass media, it's altering behavior as well. And getting through to customers will take some radical rethinking.
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Needed. Valuable. Welcome contribution.
- By Oliver Nielsen on 04-26-17
By: Geoffrey Colon
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Average is Over
- Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation
- By: Tyler Cowen
- Narrated by: Andrew Garman
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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The widening gap between rich and poor means dealing with one big, uncomfortable truth: If you're not at the top, you're at the bottom. The global labor market is changing radically thanks to growth at the high end and the low. About three quarters of the jobs created in the United States since the great recession pay only a bit more than minimum wage. Still, the United States has more millionaires and billionaires than any country ever, and we continue to mint them.
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Disappointing analysis of future
- By JKBart on 12-10-13
By: Tyler Cowen
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The Future of the Professions
- How Technology Will Transform the Work of Human Experts
- By: Richard Susskind, Daniel Susskind
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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This book predicts the decline of today's professions and describes the people and systems that will replace them. In an Internet society, according to Richard Susskind and Daniel Susskind, we will neither need nor want doctors, teachers, accountants, architects, the clergy, consultants, lawyers, and many others to work as they did in the 20th century.
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I Hope It's Not All True
- By John on 05-01-16
By: Richard Susskind, and others
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Smarter Than You Think
- How Technology Is Changing Our Minds for the Better
- By: Clive Thompson
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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In Smarter Than You Think, Thompson documents how every technological innovation - from the printing press to the telegraph - has provoked the very same anxieties that plague us today. We panic that life will never be the same, that our attentions are eroding, that culture is being trivialized. But as in the past, we adapt, learning to use the new and retaining what’s good of the old.
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Title should be Getting Smarter Through Technology
- By A. Yoshida on 03-10-17
By: Clive Thompson
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What's Mine Is Yours
- The Rise of Collaborative Consumption
- By: Roo Rogers, Rachel Botsman
- Narrated by: Kevin Foley
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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The recent changes in our economic landscape have only exposed and intensified a phenomenon: an explosion in sharing, bartering, lending, trading, renting, gifting, and swapping. From enormous marketplaces such as eBay and Craigslist to emerging sectors such as peer-to-peer lending (Zopa), "swap trading" (Swaptree), and car sharing (Zipcar), Collaborative Consumption is disrupting outdated modes of business and reinventing not only what we consume but how we consume.
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An Important Topic
- By Roy on 11-06-10
By: Roo Rogers, and others
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Becoming Facebook
- The 10 Challenges That Defined the Company That's Disrupting the World
- By: Mike Hoefflinger
- Narrated by: Nicholas Techosky
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Facebook's founding is legend: In a Harvard dorm, wunderkind Mark Zuckerberg invented a new way to connect with friends...and the rest is history. But for the people who actually molded this great idea into a game-changing $300 billion company, the experience was far more tumultuous and uncertain than we might expect. Mike Hoefflinger was one of those Facebook insiders.
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mainly a tribute to the success of FB
- By Anonymous User on 10-07-18
By: Mike Hoefflinger
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Friend of a Friend...
- Understanding the Hidden Networks That Can Transform Your Life and Your Career
- By: David Burkus
- Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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What if the best way to grow your network isn't by introducing yourself to strangers at cocktail parties, handing out business cards, or signing up for the latest online tool, but by developing a better understanding of the existing network that's already around you? We know that it's essential to reach out and build your network. But did you know that it's actually your weaker or former contacts who will be the most helpful to you? Or that many of our best efforts at meeting new people simply serve up the same old opportunities we already have?
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The reality of human networks - How to Navigate, Create & Use them!
- By T.Om on 11-07-18
By: David Burkus
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Thinking Machines
- The Quest for Artificial Intelligence - and Where It's Taking Us Next
- By: Luke Dormehl
- Narrated by: Gus Brown
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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When most of us think about artificial intelligence, our minds go straight to cyborgs, robots, and sci-fi thrillers where machines take over the world. But the truth is that artificial intelligence is already among us. It exists in our smartphones, fitness trackers, and refrigerators that tell us when the milk will expire. In some ways the future people dreamed of at the World's Fair in the 1960s is already here. We're teaching our machines how to think like humans, and they're learning at an incredible rate.
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Mostly platitudes with no depth
- By Gary on 03-24-17
By: Luke Dormehl
What listeners say about Cognitive Surplus
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Sean
- 07-11-10
How the internet is changing the world
I liked this book. I liked it a lot more than I thought I should have, given what it was about.
Yeah, the internet has changed things, blah blah blah. Somehow, though, this book manages to really nail down how and why the internet and social media is changing things, beyond the surface level.
What is it that makes people engage with the internet so much, and just what can people accomplish when they use their "cognitive surplus" to accomplish something using new media tools? This book discusses the answers to this question.
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3 people found this helpful
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- SB Price
- 01-23-12
True Tales of a Bold New World
By now I'm familiar with the impact of social media on our lives. But not everyone who uses it "gets" it. Too many people tack "social media" onto their marketing plans and every interaction is a sales pitch. Clay Shirkey helps us understand the heartbeat of our growing interconnectedness. His book is most compelling when he reviews the research from behavioral economics -- what are our intrinsic motivators? At our most creative and generous online, we are driven by our love of being both autonomous and competent.
Overall, the book encourages us to get involved, to pitch in -- whether it's relaxing games with friends or a project to unite folks for a great cause. Where do we find the time? By turning off the TV, of course.
The reader was fine -- a real pro.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- Andy
- 06-17-10
Stop Watching TV!
This book brings home he value we waste watching TV. Through social media we are reconnecting and producing value for society. Finally, a reason for Facebook and Twitter! I believe such a book is important as one of the first to point out a new trend that could be of paramount importance to our species. "Find the time" to do what is important to you. It is easy, stop watching TV and engage through social media.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Al
- 01-13-12
Excellent book on social media
This is an excellent book on people who are working on social media applications. It tells us that how to utilize and attract peoples times and offers many many wonderful successfull stories and pitfalls to avoid.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- Roy
- 06-26-10
Many Helpful Insights
This is a book about social networking, media, and the internet. Essentially, it sets out to tell us the impact of the web on creativity and productivity in the aggregate - how society is changed by the media and is changing the media.
The book is really an eyeopener when Shirky puts the current electronic media in historical context. His discussions of the pre-internet era and how we interacted breaks the reader out of any illusions that the old days were better.
Well written and fine reading by Kevin Foley make this a worth while book. I am always interested in books that are outside my area of interest and knowledge. This one will inform and excite everyone - with a background or not.
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5 people found this helpful
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- A. Manel
- 03-05-16
Voice puts me to sleep! Couldn't pay attention to the book!
I'm sure the content is very good, and very interesting, but every time I try to listen to this book, the voice takes me to another place, often one where I fall asleep. I've even tried listening to it while being active- walking or even running! While I don't fall asleep on my feet, I do zone out and start thinking about other things. I've since realized this voice actor is in many other books I want to read (ok, listen to), and I want to cry because I know the same thing will happen. (I know I should probably go old school and just read the book- but my active lifestyle and long commutes make this more challenging). Please casting agents- reserve this book only for books meant to help sleep.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- G. Forde
- 10-08-10
Great book
If you want to understand how media consumption has evolved into participation read this book. Great examples and background.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- David
- 07-03-10
A Social Entrepreneur's Handbook
Great read for entrepreneurs trying to figure out social enterprise in our shifting technology environment.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Bill at Torg Stories
- 05-28-12
Bought the Paperback Too!
Would you consider the audio edition of Cognitive Surplus to be better than the print version?
No. The print and audio versions worked different for me, both in a good way.
Who was your favorite character and why?
This isn't a book with characters, really. Not sure I think much of these questions to review books. Let me decide on my own content and structure for a review.
Which scene was your favorite?
The idea of all this free time that could be used to do public good.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
It made me want to buy the paperback so I could look more closely and use in the writing courses I teach.
Any additional comments?
I plan to write more later. Choose "Golden Lines" and publish to Goodreads and Wordpress. I'm "Prof. Torg"
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3 people found this helpful
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- Joshua Kim
- 06-10-12
Excellent
Thinking back on the hours of I invested watching Hogan's Heroes, Hawaii Five-O, Cheers, Magnum PI etc. etc. is always depressing. Shirky calls TV watching our unpaid second-job. According to Nielsen, the average American spends 34.5 hours a week watching TV. That is about 1,800 a year. Among young people, however, the time spent watching TV is going down - replaced by time spent creating and interacting on the Web. The best decision my family ever made was to decide not to have cable, satellite or broadcast TV in our home. TV is simply too tempting. If I had TV I'd probably be watching now instead of writing this book review. My brain loves to relax into TV - so does yours. Shirky argues that by allowing us all to create, to push the "publish" button, the Web is making us smarter and more connected. My hope is that Shirky turns his attention next to the implications of the cognitive surplus on higher education.
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4 people found this helpful