Webeaucracy
This is a call to arms. Well pens. Clicks!
Bureaucracy in its simplest form is people, following rules, to create a product. Webeaucracy then is people using collaborative internet utilities to create product.
Each advance in communications technology — writing, printing, telecommunications — has ushered in a new era of political discourse. Each of these advances however represented one-to-many modalities where the wealthy, powerful, or clergy controlled the means of communication. Today, the communications modality of the internet facilitates many-to-many transactions and the average person controls a node just like any other contributor. This represents a sea-change in communications, the ability to self-govern, and the texture of political discourse.
I published “Webeaucracy: The Collaborative Revolution” October of 2010. In it I warned that collaborative internet utilities could be used to disrupt sitting governments. Just a couple months later, the Arab Spring blew the socks off of even my own visions of social change facilitated by collaborative internet utilities.
In short, the more we understand about webeaucracy, the more we can harness our ability to collaborate toward a self-determined future with useful products that help us all. I have drafted the Wikipedia article “Webeaucracy.” I encourage you to edit this article that we might all move toward a fuller understanding of how we can come together through collaborative internet utilities. I encourage you to be a part of the webeaucracy that will shape a brighter future.
