Clay Shirky on Love, Internet Style and perl and linux as a process similar to the Shrine at Ise, Japan

Wow what a great presentation! Important for understanding the value of building great processes that have longevity and sustainment.

Video: Clay Shirky on Love, Internet Style

Noted Internet thinker and author Clay Shirky delivered one of the opening “provocations” at Supernova 2007. Using a 1300-year-old Japanese shrine as a metaphor, Clay explained how the New Network changes the basic dynamics of business and collective creativity.

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Sacred Places: Shrine at Ise, Japan

The great Shinto shrine at Ise is built amid a dense forest of giant cryptomeria trees next to the Isuzu River at the foot of Mount Kamiji and Mount Shimaji in the Mie Prefecture [see 1. Mie Prefecture] in southern Honshu, Japan. Crossing the Uji Bridge and passing through the large torii gate marking the entrance to the shrine, a long path leads to Ise Jingu (Ise Grand Shrine).

The shrine consists of two groups of buildings: the Imperial Shrine (Kotai Jingu), also known as the Naiku (inner shrine), and the Toyouke Shrine (Toyouke Daijingu ) which constitutes the Geku or outer shrine. The Naiku is dedicated to the Sun Goddess Amaterasu Omikami (Heaven-Illuminating Great Deity), and the Geku to the Goddess of Cereals Toyouke Omikami (Abundant Food Great Deity). Each shrine is composed of a number of buildings, including ancillary shrines, workshops, storehouses, etc. Each shrine has an inner precinct with a main sanctuary and two attendant shrines, as well as treasuries, fences, and gates.

Both shrines are constructed of wood, and every twenty years both are totally rebuilt on an adjoining site. The empty site of the previous shrine (called the kodenchi) is strewn with large white pebbles. The only building on the empty site, which retains its sacredness for the intervening twenty years, is a small wooden shed or hut (oi-ya) inside of which is a post about seven feet high known as shin-no-mihashira (literally the august column of the heart, or more freely translated as sacred central post). The new shrine will be erected over and around this post which are the holiest and most mysterious objects in the Ise Shrine. They remain hidden at all times.