Media review
A look back at 2013 and 2014 as the world started to ask questions about our role with technology.
Art
THE NEXT FAMILIAR
Using a speculative design foresight approach, this study explores the rapidly developing area of wearable, implantable, and ingestible technologies, exploring how they might influence us over the next several decades. The authors have combined traditional research methods (literature review and expert interviews), foresight methods (environmental scanning, trends analysis, and scenario creation), along with narrative and imagery conjecture to produce an evocative account of future possibilities in the realm of the tools we use outside and inside our bodies.
A collaborative project by Karen Maxwell and Shannah Segal
Christory
From 2011 to 2016 Chris has been documenting not only his data, but also his relationship to technology through a series of photo shoots around the world. Full resolution photos are available for download here.
MINDFUL CYBORGS
Mindful cyborgs is a movement to help people place themselves--not their devices--on "airplane mode." The movement, which is supported by a podcast and local meetups, aims to create a dialog focusing on contemplative technology, critiquing the status quo, and creating mindful spaces, spaces where practitioners can use technology in safety and in kindness while they support their meditation practice.
Podcast
Our podcast focuses on contemplative living in the age of quantification, augmentation, and acceleration. Simply put, we take a mindful look at alternative technological awareness.
Meetups
Our meetups are two hours long and involve meditation, technology, and kindness. Our guiding question is “How can we be mindful in a such a hyper-connected world?” Each session begins with group meditation, followed by a device contemplation topic or a reading and discussion. Gadgets are welcome!
Workshops
Mindful Cyborg workshops are between 3-5 hours. They include 10 skills based team exercises. Workshops have been given from Chicago to Paris.1
COMPASS APP
Compass brings new insights on how you spend your time with a revolutionary patent created by Chris Dancy.
Learn more about what makes you tick, get insights, and replay your day. Connect instantly to friends, family, and support. Applications should be as kind as they are "smart."
CASA STUART
The goal of the truly smart home is that it be a place of beauty and respite where technology, nature, and dwellers work cooperatively. Technology paradoxically enhances the space while disappearing. This has been the goal with Casa Stuart, Chris Dancy’s Nashville home which has been designed so that the house, the seasons, and the cyberworld create a kinder environment for people and machines alike.
CONTEMPLATIVE TECHNOLOGY
What if we designed technology to reflect our values? In the Information Age can we start to filter data and return wisdom to users in a way that creates feelings of peace and purpose. Contemplative Technology encompasses a set of principles, filters, and data techniques that helps humans focus on their basic goodness.
Mindful Cyborg Network
Below is a list of speakers I have heard, worked with and endorse their messages about humans and technology. These remarkable people would be a great value to any event.
Featured
Keynote TOPICS
Each year Chris creates new content to help keep participants engaged and informed. Keynote topics all include a short version of his journey to "World's Most Connected Man" and have a unique slant on the topic at hand.
2017
End Times
Life in the age of "the relentless now"
Technology has has twisted our relationship with time beyond recognition. What started as a 24 hour news cycle has morphed into a perpetual now, relentlessly grinding away at our civility. Humans are evolving our first new sense as cyborgs, chronoception. Just as real as sight, taste, touch, sound and smell, this new visceral time sense is abruptly stunting our ability to communicate with each other. We prefer to talk to humans on the phone and machines in real life. Time is also being stripped away from physical objects, systems and cultural celebrations. 24 hour breakfast at McDonalds, bing watching entire seasons of television, vaping, black Friday that starts on Wednesday or release dates that start at midnight, everything is earlier and faster.
Life after privacy
Addicted To Convenience In A World Filled With Big Data And Little Wisdom
The internet is now covering people, homes, cars and families.
As developers, corporations, media outlets and governments race toward the most intimate parts of our lives, behavior and biology how can we start to live in a world after privacy has vanished.
Time and attention create a new definition for privacy and our tolerance for inconvenience is the gold standard for which services are defined and delivered.
This presentation and the five steps action plan for creating a world where people are not "populations" and messages are not "targeted" without the hype of soft talk or the bull of emotional storytelling.
From Edward Snowden to software defined Dharma, welcome to life after privacy.
DESIGNING for Wisdom
Designing contemplative systems for extraordinarily busy times.
What if we designed applications that worry less about "where you are" and more about "how you are?"
What if we designed applications, systems, services, and devices to create "T.A.S.K"-worthy computing (Trusted, Aware, Safe, and Kind)?
The internet is filled with processes that steal our attention and take us away from our present moment.
In this session we will discover the five ways we can filter information and the three keys that will help us return that as wisdom to consumers.
2015
What happens when the internet disappears?
Creating services after apps and interface disappear.
Technology is seeping into every area of our lives. Privacy is a flimsy throwback to a bygone age. How are organizations today creating services for a world with two million apps? Take a look at how the interface for our personal experience has shifted from a command line through Windows, to browsers, applications, and wearables. This session explores the history of the user interface, software, and digital services and catapults audiences into 2030, when personalization drives experience and we download "habits" and "environments.
Quantifying Well-Being
BIG MOTHER vs BIG BROTHER
Well-being isn’t only about the absence of sickness. Today, it’s about purpose, social support, community, financial security, and physical health. But is it possible to quantify your own personal well-being? And if so, what does the data mean and what should we do with it? This session brings one of the world’s most well-known leaders in personal data to explore the convergence of forces that combine high tech personal health tracking with fundamental lifestyle changes. The goal of this is to empower people to achieve their optimal well-being. This interactive session will feature a demonstration of "smart phone palmistry," where we will look at how we are embedding our lives into our devices.
2014
Facebook of the Dead
Assets, IP, and Celebration of the first immortal generation
We are immortal! Each day we see people organically cease to function, whereas their digital footprint remains very active. As the first fully-digitized species starts to retire or expire from corporate culture, how will we deal with their technological legacy?
The Egyptian "Book of the Dead," circa 1550 BCE, chronicled the magic spells and rituals assisting the passage of the dead to another plane by way of understanding preservation, the afterlife, and judgment. Chris Dancy translates these ancient ideas into our own information-rich culture of storage, security, access, and algorithms.
In this age of information and ephemeral data, how do we protect, celebrate, and respect this transition?
It's Not Self-Service
(...If It Actually Empowers People)
Self-service is an ever-evolving term, one that begs constant redefinition. In 2016, people have a different relationship with technology. In 2016, people will be enabled by technology--it will be an extension of their nature and personality. Stop building portals, and start empowering contemplative technology!
You will learn:
- How to use Technical Experience over features to change culture
- Five features which define an information relationship
- Steps to create a data assistive reality for your organization
- Five mistakes most self service projects make
- Elements defining self-service empowerment experiences for the next two years
Ephemeral Knowledge
The Shift to a Disposable Culture
In 1870, Harper's Bazaar was filled with information from cover to cover, each page overflowing with photos, text, and diagrams. In the early 1900s, the shift to white space in periodicals radically changed not only the printed page, but also our very culture. Plummeting printing prices had allowed designers to remove content, and the age of white space was upon us. Culturally, white spaces say to the world that we are wealthy, we are abundant in resources, and we can literally throw away precious space and information.
In a further cultural evolution, the 2000s brought us the constrained knowledge culture: shorts from blogs, character limited messaging, even videos that only last six seconds.
Fast forward to the 2010s. Today’s information consumer is presented with something radically different - ephemeral media. It marks a shift in how we create, consume, and respect knowledge.
For 30 years, IT has been struggling with knowledge management. In an information-rich age, this struggle has led us to the age of the disposables, from Snapchat and Workshifting to URLs that expire. This talk explores the evolution and asks the pertinent questions regarding our technological impermanence.
2013
The Human Information System
BYOD, Wearable Computing, and Imperceptible Electronics
You are the greatest information system that you will ever know, and technology is only making that clearer. BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) entered the cultural lexicon sometime in the 2000s. While most pundits will give hours of debate on BYOD, it's pointless babble. BYOD was the cultural canary in the digital coal mine. In 2016, wearable computing is invading the workplace. Our cubes are surveillance workspaces both from above and from within. As we move quickly through wearable devices to a future of imperceptible devices, how do we create the greatest value for our organization given the way data affects our personal lives and culture?
We will answer the following in this session:
- What is a wearable and how will wearables transition to imperceptibles?
- How do we use responsible bi-directional surveillance in the workplace?
- What are cases for wearable computing in knowledge work?
Citizen Scientist
N of 1, the Me in Little Data
What if you were given information about your health and habits in the same way it was given to a world class researcher or scientist? How would mountains of actionable data change your life improve how you live?
What started with life logging and the quantified self has led to a culture of data-driven health prosumers. From measuring the decay of DNA to adjusting the humidity in their homes, the citizen-scientist of this decade will radically redefine healthcare as we understand it.
We will explore:
- How the role of clinician, physician, and facility will change in this world
- The role of data collection in understanding future health
- How to correlate environmental conditions to biological systems
- How emerging trends in genetics and home health will change the world in the next two years
- The top five things a family can do to start taking charge of their health
I'm ready for my closeup, Mr. Jobs
How contextually aware information systems are changing support.
Technology today is enabling a new breed of services, bringing data, tools, and metrics that dramatically change the world of support. IT has evolved to become IS, and with this change information systems have become contextually aware. Context is based on many factors that change the support dynamic. The most aggressive case of IS context is location. Location changes the types of FAQ's a user may ask, and changes the way a field tech carry's out his/her daily routine.
We will explore:
- Five key drivers to location aware support
- The metrics that drive knowledge workers when assisted by contextual aware devices and data
- The top 10 ways to use location in support organizations today
Dave, I'm Afraid I have to place you on hold
Robotics and IT Support.
You can't manage it until you measure it. This mantra has lead to an era of automation, self-service, and consolidation. We are always looking for ways to do more with less, and then to do less with less. The IT department is birthing robots faster than an alien invasion. Are these robots are here to take our jobs away, or are they here to save us? What are the moral and ethical issues that coming generations will face? While many herald the coming revolution in IT, we should pause and give thought to what we will do with the millions of displaced workers in 2020.
This talk will allow us to:
- Review a history of robotics that have displaced human jobs
- Look forward toward the trends in automation that are disrupting information technology and information systems
- Discover the skills that will be desirable for knowledge workers as "automation" becomes commonplace
- Understand the five employees you meet in heaven: augmented, AI, Robot, human, and post carbon
2012
Existence as a platform - Quantified Self meets the internet of Things
The Knowledge Worker of 2015
We are empowered with god-like technology yet beholden to a system of measurement that can only be described as a wooden ruler. In this provocative session, we will explore both the metrics of today and tomorrow’s knowledge worker. Rooted deeply in quantified self, today’s humans are not just carrying devices, they are actual moving data factories. In this very intimate tour we will see how the work of moving knowledge, recording bio-activity, archiving our social habits, and monitoring our domestic lives all add up to create an astounding image of the last generation.
Here we will:
- Review today’s automation tools for recording activity based on knowledge work, social sharing, biology, and home automation
- Analyze data and make decisions based on trends in our lives
- Peer into the next 7 years of knowledge work, asking how we will move to measurements that meet and exceed our technology
- Learn more about Chris Dancy than anyone is probably comfortable with
Born enslaved: the evolution DNA-based customer service
Genetics: the last information system.
For the first time in the history of organic life, our ever-evolving species has the ability to influence it's own evolution via technology, DNA, and augmentation. We've been living with such an influence for the past twenty years, from 508 compliance to pharmacologically-enhanced humans to incoming freshman using body hacks as they enter college. The future of human support is biological, and service levels should reflect this.
This talk will:
- Review a history of human technological evolution and its effect on enterprise
- Learn how augmented knowledge workers are changing enterprise today
- Explore the genetics of human evolution post species-schism
If Buddha had an iPad
Mindfulness: the ultimate body hack for today's knowledge worker.
Today knowledge workers are slammed with information from millions of different sources: from emails, TV, and social media, to nature, intuition, and their own five senses. The sensory overload has led to many people either disconnecting, shutting down, or slowly killing themselves trying to keep up.
Being human in 2016 means accepting change at an emotional level so that we can ride the waves of data all around us. Digital Information Emotional Surfing (yep--DIES) is the one of the easiest ways knowledge work can be accomplished today. The roots are found in the eastern tradition of "Mindfulness."
Here we will explore:
- The tools of staying connected without being connected
- The practices of inevitability management and how to successfully ride the peace within a data driven life
- The five traits of highly adaptable knowledge workers
2011
The Cult of enterprise celebrity
What happens when employees eclipse products and services
What happens when your employees become bigger "brands" than your organization? Welcome to the age of the Enterprise Celebrity. Your 15 minutes of fame has been outsourced to the temporary clerical worker in accounting. With today's influx of hyper-connected knowledge workers, we are suddenly faced with managing not only employees with current skill sets, but employees with bigger egos. How do you discipline an employee with 10,000 LinkedIn connections, 1 million followers and 2,500 "friends"? Can you enable teams of celebrities to innovate and steer a company when "senior leadership" is out to lunch? These answers and many more questions will be explored.
Knowledge Workers and the Reputation Index Economy
Welcome to the Reputation Economy Part One: Rise of the Knowledge Agent.
Measuring performance is never easy. Fortunately, in 2016, we have ways of measuring engagement of our teams with algorithms that will start to rival Google. When page rank turns to people rank, understanding the metrics that define effective collaboration will be key. Knowledge work is based on the ability to create, consume, and curate information that benefits teams, organizations, and communities. When "first call resolution" becomes "solution virility index," we start to envision a world of workers who are not tied to information technology, but instead enable information systems.
2010
Social ITSM: Rise of the DNA-based RESPONSE System
2014-2051
Autonomous. Heads Up. Biotech. Precognitive information systems. Interactive Emotional Response Gestures. These any many other items are going to dramatically impact the service desk of 2017 and beyond. Discover the tools, skills, and metrics that will drive the next generation of connected employees back to support.
Social ITSM: Rise of the Community-Based Help Desk
2008-2016
The idea of Facebook as a support platform was a nice way to pretend we understood the connected enterprise, but in 2016 we actually need to start looking at how connected enterprises work. From 2008-2020 we cover not just the beginning of this collaborative decade but with the explosive and shocking end. Knowledge workers today need to understand the skill sets they must possess for 2015 and beyond. This is your life, and it's just beginning.
Collaborative Support Models
Internal and External IT Teams
Knowledge-based support communities are rapidly moving to models that are not easily defined or measured. The line between traditional incident management and external support has been blurred to the point where the marketing, support, and infrastructure teams act as one department. Explore the different models of support being used by global organizations today.
Mobility, Big Data, and the Coming Singularity
The evolution of machine-based life
We are living in the future; our devices can see, talk and translate the world around us. Our instant link to knowledge means children today have access to more data than physicians of fifteen years ago. In a single day in 2011, more data is created on the web than in the years spanning 1995 to 2000. We will explore the impact of "big data" in the cloud on the enterprise, users' perceptions of support. and how support will evolve to use techniques that will eventually support precognitive issues.
2009
Social IT
The rise of the Social Service Desk
It seems like just yesterday people doubted the role of virtualization, SaaS, Green IT, and Bring Your Own Desktop as tools for organization and IT service management. Today, as the world spins into the abyss of Facebook, Twitter, and Mobile Devices, are there Service Desks or IT Departments using these tools? The answer is a resounding yes. In this session, you will see in real time the world inside your organization and in the palms of each of your customers and IT Staff. This session is a primer for the post-conference workshop that will change the way you do business.
With an international business background, deep insights in emerging technology fields and an easy going style of communication, Hannes is a popular speaker and business advisor on tech trends, in particular relating to the impact of technology on our bodies.
Hannes work and insights into near- and inbody technology has been internationally recognised by among others Wired, Motherboard, Bloomberg, Business Insider, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, CNN, BBC, Daily Mail, Le Figaro, Nouvel Observateur, Heise and others.
As a biohacker activist, he works to radically democratize public access to powerful biotechnologies. In this setting, he does not step back from experimenting with technology with his own body, and his vision is of a future where the human body has fundamentally different capabilities than it does today.