"Networks were not originally and are not primarily a technology; instead they are a way of seeing the world that technologies can be built to mimic..."
Like the average person visiting ntari.org, most of us at NTARI are not employed in information technology or computer science. Our founders are communicators. My name is Jodson Graves and I've been working in communications since I was 12. I began as a paper delivery boy with the Lawton Constitution and later became a telemarketer with APAC. After high school I graduated from the Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences as an audio engineer, later worked in new/used car sales before joining the US Marine Corps where I served as a communication strategy and operations NCO, and recently studied communications at Bellarmine University.
The transfer of information requires communication. Whether that communication happens through a language, hormones or nerve synapses, visual/audio media or artifacts coded in 1s and 0s communication happens through networks. Whatever network we are using we are building collective intelligence or the ability to share data, agree on it and act together.
Building collective intelligence networks is our specialty here at NTARI, and we do it rather simply. First we begin with a hub--an idea or premise for the network. Next, we identify the nodes. Nodes are individual points in a network. With the internet, each device is a node whether it is a cell phone, computer or server. Each device is equipped with storage for the user's information and operating systems on each device manage how it is stored and accessed by the user. Next, a transfer protocols determine how that data moves between devices and together these principles make up networks.
Most networks we know of today we don't think of as networks. Social media is the cutting edge in digital networking, but in terms of effectiveness, a nation state network (like the United States of America) is much more effective for helping us collaborate in collective action. That said, the internet is only 60 years old and in another 60 years we will probably look back on all the time we wasted on social media and gag at how unproductive we were.
At NTARI we aim to produce mass production networks, a class of collective intelligence network for producing a product, service or data stream that is useful in everyday life by average people. We begin this effort with four programs.
The first is the Forge Lab. This program assembles code developers to assist our communications experts with developing software, standards and architecture for open-source collective intelligence components. The components produced here will build the future of digitally coordinated mass production. Next are two data streams for gaining collective agreement--the Journal of Citizen Science and Working Memory (JCSWM) and the Lost Sheep Research Fellowship (LSRF).
JCSWM incentivizes community interaction with local institutions like libraries, observatories, clinics, and more in order to learn and train regular people in the scientific method. After a month-long workshop, patrons will publish multimedia presentations of their findings in a citizen-peer reviewed journal hosted at ntari.org. This journal will not only be available for new publications, but community research that increases the detail of citizen's awareness over time. In the same vein, LSRF forms local research chapters to study world theology as diverse cognitive technologies. Finally, NTARI's Mesh program aims to develop local intra/internet connections for residents of watersheds. These connections will equip residents with sensors, relays and guidance on setting local goals for managing our most precious resources-- water and soil.
Our first priority at NTARI is reforming collective intelligence networks from manual-bureaucratic systems to digital. We begin this process where our Stone Age predecessors did, at agriculture with Forge Lab's Agrinet Project. As simple communicators, we will need a lot of help, but fortunately we have a lot of inspiration and around 8 billion nodes to rely on.
"Rest, the world won't end if you take a nap. That is what networks are for."
-Ruthana Emrys, A Half Built Garden
Want to support NTARI as a patron or corporate sponsor? Visit www.ntari.org/getinvolved
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