Quotes by Clay Shirky

About Clay Shirky:

Clay Shirky is an American writer, consultant and teacher on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Public and civic value require commitment and hard work among the core group of participants. It also requires that these groups be self-governing and submit to constraints that help them ignore distracting and entertaining material and stay focused ...

Clay Shirky

How we treat one another matters, and not just in a "it's nice to be nice" kind of way: our behavior contributes to an environment that encourages some opportunities and hinders others.

Clay Shirky

Personal value is the kind of value we receive from being active instead of passive, creative instead of consumptive.

Clay Shirky

Upgrading one's imagination about what is possible is always a leap of faith.

Clay Shirky

This work is not easy, and it never goes smoothly. Because we are hopelessly committed to both individual and group effectiveness, groups committed to public or civic value are rarely permanent. Instead, groups need to acquire a culture that rewards ...

Clay Shirky

We are in a world where most American citizens over the age of 12 share things with each other online.

Clay Shirky

Growing up with a name that rhymes with turkey - and jerky - was no great fun. But, as an adult, I tell you, being globally unique in the age of Google can be extremely helpful.

Clay Shirky

When we change the way we communicate, we change society

Clay Shirky

Communications tools don't get socially interesting until they get technologically boring.

Clay Shirky

[T]he ways in which the information we give off about our selves, in photos and e-mails and MySpace pages and all the rest of it, has dramatically increased our social visibility and made it easier for us to find each other but also to be scrutinized...

Clay Shirky

Fame is simply an imbalance between inbound and outbound attention.

Clay Shirky

Unlike sharing, where the group is mainly an aggregate of participants, cooperating creates group identity.

Clay Shirky

[T]he category of 'consumer' is now a temporary behavior rather than a permanent identity.

Clay Shirky

Tools that provide simple ways of creating groups lead to new groups, [...] and not just more groups but more kinds of groups.

Clay Shirky

Mass amateurization of publishing makes mass amateurization of filtering a forced move.

Clay Shirky

Anybody who predicts the death of cities has already met his spouse.

Clay Shirky

For the last hundred years the big organizational question has been whether any given task was best taken on by the state, directing the effort in a planned way, or by businesses competing in a market.

Clay Shirky

One of the biggest changes in our society is the shift from prevention to reaction...

Clay Shirky

A Wikipedia article is a process, not a product.

Clay Shirky

Wikipedia [...] is the product not of collectivism but of unending argumentation.

Clay Shirky

Author Bio

  • NameClay Shirky
  • DescriptionAmerican technology writer
  • Born1964
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionJournalist