How the Outernext Guidelines Initiative came to life

Origin

John C. Havens of Porter Novelli and Jack Mason of IBM got together at a pub in Maplewood, NJ to discuss how Augmented Reality, the Semantic Web, the Internet of Things and other emerging discliples/concepts were/would affect culture.  Jack pointed out that we weren't going from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0 but from Web 2.0 to Web 20.0 and that technology is now evolving faster than people's understanding of all its ramifications. 

Panels

John then hosted three panels, one at his office and two at the Web2Open (part of Web2.0) in New York City.  The focus was on how Augmented Reality would intersect with the Semantic Web.  John and Jack talked a lot about OGI (the Outernext Guidelines Initiative) and how things like AR would affect privacy issues (when image recognition comes into full fruition, is it okay for a stranger to map your face and locate your personal data?) business, (who has the air rights to the Outernext?) and how we think (if when I see you I can track your picture and know your details in the moment, do I even need to remember your name?)

Thoughts

It's important to note that we don't lionize or demonize any technology or the intersection of any technologies.  But we are passionately interested about how culture could be affected by the pace of tech at this time.  For instance, a teenager was recently released from court when it was discovered he couldn't have committed the crime he was accused of because his Facebook status had been updated too frequently.  A young women in the U.K. was also recently jailed because she received a text three seconds before striking another woman in a car and killing her--the barrister said she was distracted by the text and held that distraction to be at the level of driving while drunk.  Note we don't mean to make this seem too cautionary in tone--we're also fascinated by how people are dating now with tools like AR and Social Networking.  How cool is it to use tools like FourSquare or BrightKite in conjunction with AR to find the spots where your community hangs out in real time? 

Goals

• To move this conversation forward in an open environment (hence the wiki)
• To be global in scope--we recognize that much of the leading work in AR, for instance, is being done in Europe and South Korea.  We'd love to hear from you!
• To foster discussion versus hinder technology or ideas.  We're about empowering innovation by recognizing how people interact with technology.  Never about diminishing discovery.
• To meet in person somewhere in the next few months to talk more in person, preferably neer beer or good wine.

Questions? 

Please shoot John an email: john DOT havens AT porternovelli DOT com