Last week I attended the Sharism Forum at the "Get It Louder" Festival in Shanghai. Get It Louder is one of these events why I love living in Shanghai: a showcase of creativity.
I learned of the Sharism Forum only very late, and due to other appointments I only had time for a few sessions.
The first talk was the introduction to set the overall context of the forum. Isaac Mao gave an overview on Sharism. 40 minutes later I still had trouble understanding what Sharism precisely is. Isaac's talk was in Chinese, and I guess that quite a lot of meaning was lost in the very good simultaneous translation (a big thanks to the organizers for that) due to the many different areas that were touched upon in the talk.
After the talk I tried to explain Sharism to a colleague who missed the talk, but wasn't able to.
One axiom of Sharism is "the more you give the more you get". But there are millions of blogs out there, that only have a handful of readers. There are thousands of pictures on Flickr that have less than three views. So, I wonder, how could these people make the step from sharing to sharism (so that they become not Shamans, but Sharemans)? Having such suggestions would help to clarify the concept. I also wonder how to reconcile the fact that on the one hand according to Isaac in his talk we can only manage networks with about 150 people and on the other hand the massive amount of content that will come from a Sharism world? Can we really devote shared content the necessary time it deserves?
I have to admit I found some of the example given by Isaac not particularly relevant (assuming I have understood them correctly). According to Isaac, one recent campaign by Nike (the shoe manufacturer) could count as an example in Sharism as the public was able to influence the design of the shoes. Well, for me this sounds like a rather cheap and socially irrelevant ad campaign. Changing the design doesn't do any good. I want to be able to influence where and under which conditions the shoes are produced, not choose the colors of a shoe. But maybe in the world of advertisement this is a small step forward and in the future companies will embrace Sharim enough to be courageous to let their buyers determine important things.
The second talk by Hu Yong on "Citizen Jounalism and the Revolutionary Scene of the Netizen". A very interesting presentation, explaining the current state and problems of citizen journalism. I tried to memorize the three most pressing problems of citizen journalism in China, but I fear I already forgot. One point was that the traditional media opposes citizen journalism. Another point might have been that there is no support. And the third one, I don't remember. Guys, upload your slides somewhere, then people can continue thinking about your topics.
After the lunch break, Mike Linksvayer continued with a talk about Creative Commons. It was a good introduction into the principles and ideas of Creative Commons. I think such talks are tremendously important to increase awareness in this area in China.
Sadly I had to leave afterwards and missed quite a lot of promising talks. A big thanks to rejon (Jon Phillips) and the other organizers. I'm looking forward to the next Sharism Forum.
