Back around the time of Issue 03, we launched the Small Business Advertising Program to create affordable ad space for indie companies in the print version of Coilhouse. By the time Issue 04 rolled around, the number of advertisers had grown significantly – by this time, we had record labels, jewelry and clothing designers, sculptors, other magazines, web hosts, toy makers and graphic designers advertising in our pages. Click here to see them all. With editorial duties taking up more and more of our time as the weeks go by, the moment has come for us to seek help with the advertising side of running the magazine. We’re looking to hire an Ad Manager for our Small Business Advertising Program, starting with Coilhouse Magazine #05… and possibly subsequent issues.

Full details after the jump!

Read the rest of Coilhouse is Hiring! Apply Here.

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STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA
SECRETARY OF STATE

SUBVERSIVE AGENT FORM

Filing Fee - $5.00

[...]

Check the appropriate box. Do you or your organization directly or indirectly advocate, advise, teach or practice the duty or necessity of controlling, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States, the state of South Carolina or any political division thereof?
[ ] YES [ ] NO

If yes, please outline the fundamental beliefs. If applicable, attach a copy of the bylaws or minutes of meetings from the last year.

For those folks who are interested, here's the Slideshare version of the presentation I gave last week at the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute annual meeting. I was asked to talk about foresight thinking, as the event theme was "The Big One of 2056: What Went Right?" a look at a fictional 7.8 quake in the SF region that was handled as well as they could imagine possible.

My goal was to offer a bit of reassurance to the audience that there is some real utility to thinking about the future, and to spell out (in a cursory way) the kinds of big picture issues they should keep in mind while looking ahead forty-six years.

By and large, it was a successful talk. The post-talk questions were engaged, with little push-back, and I'm told that the overall response from the audience was quite positive.

The talk was video recorded, and I'm told will eventually be available to the public. I'll link when that happens.

A gifting economy is different from a barter or market economy in that valuable items are given away to those that need them, without any quid pro quo, exchange, or payment.  Gifting economics (lots of great papers on this topic) were/are the economic heartbeat of hunter-gatherer tribal cultures, the social organization where we spent 99% of our time as homo sapiens sapiens.  Barter was, in contrast, a mechanism for economic interactions between tribes.  

This gifting economic system wasn't based on pure altruism.  It did have an enforcement mechanism to ensure compliance with the system over the longer term.  On the positive side, there was an intangible increase in the social status (using personal or societal metrics) of a tribal member that gifted an item.  On the negative, a failure to offer hospitality or gifts to those in need was considered a mortal slight that could incite violence or expulsion from the tribe.

There were also a considerable number of drivers for gifting at the tribal level.  Here are some:

• The survival of the tribe, as a group, was more important than the survival of any individual.  However, the loss of any individual could put the tribe at risk.
• The generation of surplus and innovation was highly uncertain.  Sharing reduced that uncertainty to manageable levels.
• Sharing reduced internal friction that could put the tribe at risk.

Scalability

It's pretty clear that the societal drivers of tribal gifting economics and the mechanisms of enforcement didn't survive the transition to a global social system composed of billions of members.   Simply, the connections between any two individuals (outside of immediate familial relationships) are too abstract for these drivers and enforcement mechanisms to be relevant.   As a result, market based mechanisms for economic interaction have gained dominance.

However, the ongoing shift of the global market-based economy from a trade in rival goods (tangible items that invoke zero sum economics) to digital non-rival goods (items that can be copied at no expense or diminishment, endlessly) provides a window of opportunity.  It may be possible to revive gifting economics for non-rival goods to amazing beneficial effect.   Some ideas on how this could scale:

• Automated reputation metrics that enhance social status based on contributions.
• Mechanisms built using MMO gaming as a way to tie successful gifting to status improvement (leveling) or an ability to attract investment.
• The creation of an inside/outside barrier that separates a gifting economy from the global economic mainstream.   Automated mutual interdependence (see my friend Bruce Sterling's absolutely brilliant story on this:  "Maneki Neko").

So what’s the latest on SNOW? I guess two new developments art that I added a dedicated Twitter feed, and also created a Facebook fan page. The Twitter feed is mostly just automated with new articles from the site — because some people actually prefer that over RSS feeds these days — but I do keep an eye on it, and will reply to questions and comments. The Facebook page is just another way of putting the site out there, and should be a good way of informing members of SNOW-related events as they happen.

Regular content updates have also continued over the past week, with a few new guest columns and my regular news items. Here’s a list of what you may have missed over the past few days.

• One Coin Comics
• Wired’s Personalized QR Codes
• Annapurna Moonrise
• Lone Expression: Tommy Guerrero
• Asato Z
• COLORS
• Shinjuku Disco
• Labyrinth of Woods
• Koukotsu
• Japan Pan Am
• BQLSI STAR LASER
• Mountain House by Atelier Bow-Wow
• Measuring Tape Toilet Paper
• Kuri
• No Man’s Land
• The 69th Tokyo International Gift Show
• Memories of Island Life: Ogasawara, 1992
• A House Made of Two
• 24-Hour Subway in Tokyo
• Tiltshift Generator for iPad
• Hair Club for Men: Style #326
• Droog Town House
• G-Tokyo 2010
• First Trailer for Kitano’s Outrage
• JAGDA 2010 Calendar for iPhone