I could not have explained it better! ;)
From Tocqueville and the Tyranny of the Majority.
Tocqueville argues that there is little toleration of difference of opinion in democratic societies.
“I know of no country in which, speaking generally, there is less independence of mind and true freedom of discussion than in America […] As long as the majority is still undecided, discussion is carried on; but as soon as its decision is irrevocably pronounced, everyone is silent, and the friends as well as the opponents of the measure unite in assenting to its propriety “
““The sovereign can no longer say, “You shall think as I do on pain of death”: but he says, “You are free to think differently from me, and to retain your life, your property, and all that you possess; but if such be your determination, you are henceforth an alien along your people. You may retain your civil rights, buy they will be useless to you, for you will never be chosen by your fellow-citizens, if you solicit their suffrages; and they will affect to scorn you, if you solicit their esteem. You will remain among men, but you like an impure being; and those who are mostly persuaded of your innocence will abandon you too, lest they should be shunned in their turn.”
“Make Your Mark with a Tenner helped me to develop skills which I don’t think you can ever be taught in a classroom, like using my own initiative and creativity. Because it was our own idea and we were driving the project, rather than being told to do something by a teacher, it made us really motivated to do well and prove ourselves. It’s also made me think much more seriously about the idea of owning and running my own business in the future.”
Since one year together with my colleague napo, I started and lead a research group in FBK, called SoNet. Our research focus is studying Web2.0 and social networking. You can have a look at our SoNet blog if you are interested (still a bit under construction …)
Well, there is now a great opportunity for post-doc positions in our group here in Trento, Italy.
Find information at http://www.uniricerca.provincia.tn.it/bandi_ricerca_en.asp . If you have any question about the position, please contact me!
UPDATE: I forgot to mention that the deadline is Monday September 14th, 2009.!
The opportunity
* incoming: funding of individual research projects, both “post-doc” and “team”, promoted by *Italian and foreign researchers* who will carry out the research activity inside Trento province;
* re-integration: funding of individual research projects, both “post-doc” and “team”, promoted by researchers who have been carrying out *research activity in a foreign country for at least three years* and aimed at their possible definitive return to Trentino.
What is SoNet
So Net is a research group inside FBK (Fondazione Bruno Kessler) research institute. FBK is located in Trento, north-east of Italy, and counts more than 350 researchers in a variety of areas, such as Information Technologies, Materials and Microsystems, and Humanities.
SoNet’s research focus is Social Networking and its impacts: more info at http://sonet.fbk.eu
Research in Trentino, Italy
Trentino is the right place in Italy for research. It hosts a large number of research labs from environmental studies to high-tech technologies. The Province of Trento allocates several resources such as infrastructure, real estate and funds to encourage research and innovation. Many institutes, both public and private, local, national and international have established their research units in Trento and Rovereto. Trentino is located in north-east Italy in a charming area of mountains and lakes.
Please forward this message to anybody who might be interested.
See you soon in Trento!
From http://smallblue.research.ibm.com/projects/snvalue/
The goal of this project is to integrate financial capital, human capital and social network analysis to formally and quantitively define and model social capital. Our interest is to find out what are the real dollar value of social networks.
Nine hundred and forty-eight dollars.
That’s the annual dollar value of each person in your email address book at work, according to a novel IBM study published in the Winter Information Systems Conference in February 2009.
IBM researchers, together with researchers in MIT, were looking to scientifically determine how valuable electronic social networks are, such as those in a group that primarily communicates electronically. Using mathematical formulas, honed by observing the email traffic and financial success of 2,600 anonymized far flung IBM consultants collaborating on thousands of projects during one year, researchers found that not all email relationships were equal.
In fact, they found that people with strong email ties with a manager, or had a more diverse circle of correspondents, enjoyed greater financial success than those who were more aloof. Teams with an even mix of genders also performed well financially. Individuals have more diverse networks and thus have more people who are reachable within 2 social steps (i.e., your friends’ friends’ friends.) is valuable. Too intensive communications to the same people have negative impact, perhaps because of the repetitive redundant information exchange.