I’ve maintained for years that the core of my understanding of opensource came not from Richard Stallman or Eric Raymond but Jerry Garcia, that my understanding of open markets and democratised innovation came not from Yochai Benkler or Eric von Hippel but Jerry Garcia and his cronies. It goes beyond pure opensource, I think my understanding of the Because Effect was also stimulated by Garcia and by the Grateful Dead. Their commitment to live performances, the very concept of taping rows, the sheer size of the bootleg market for Dead recordings, all these bear powerful witness to my thesis. In fact, trivial as it may sound, my collection of over 50 Jerry Garcia ties is probably another simple example of the Because Effect. [If you want to know more about the Dead’s taping rows, you could do worse than start with this book.]
Bearing all that in mind, I was sure to take delight in this poster:
My thanks to Paul Downey for the poster. You should really go to his flickr site and view the poster there, tags and all. Tag by tag.
I spent quite a while gently navigating the poster, viewing the tags that came up, occasionally doing myself an injury as I sought to harrumph away my laughter and continue sipping my green tea. There’s probably something there, within the intricacy of the poster, to raise an objection from pretty much every person who reads this post. I’ve rarely seen such an open barbecuing of sacred cows. Delightful, helps me remember not to believe in my own propaganda.
I also love the tagline.
The Web is agreement.
My thanks again to Paul.