Society doesn’t need newspapers. What we need is journalism. — Clay Shirky Inspirational Copy Share Image
A firm is successful when the costs of directing employee effort are lower than the potential gain from directing. — Clay Shirky Cost Copy Share Image
“Tragedy of the Commons: while each person can agree that all would benefit from common restraint, the incentives of the individuals are… — Clay Shirky Organization Copy Share Image
Any system described by a power law [...] has several curious effects. The first is that, by definition, most participants are below average. — Clay Shirky Average Copy Share Image
You used to have to own a radio tower or television tower or printing press. Now all you have to have is… — Clay Shirky Access Copy Share Image
Carpooling is important for urban density, air pollution and other reasons, but carpooling is not the kind of thing that actually changes… — Clay Shirky Actually Copy Share Image
Time Warner has called and they want us all back on the couch, just consuming - not producing, not sharing - and… — Clay Shirky Consuming Copy Share Image
Egalitarianism is possible only in small social systems. Once a medium gets past a certain size fame is a forced move. — Clay Shirky Certain Copy Share Image
“For the last hundred years the big organizational question has been whether any given task was best taken on by the state,… — Clay Shirky Business Copy Share Image
Wikipedia took the idea of peer review and applied it to volunteers on a global scale, becoming the most important English reference… — Clay Shirky Ads Copy Share Image
Communications tools don't get socially interesting until they get technologically boring... It's when a technology becomes normal, then ubiquitous, and finally so… — Clay Shirky Boring Copy Share Image
Facebook is not very good at dealing with named groups; they're not very good at saying, 'We've got this book club and… — Clay Shirky Action Copy Share Image
When I say 'publishing is the new literacy,' I don't mean there's no role for curation, for improving material, for editing material,… — Clay Shirky Act Copy Share Image
With the old economics destroyed, organizational forms perfected for industrial production have to be replaced with structures optimized for digital data. It… — Clay Shirky Available Copy Share Image
Publishing is not evolving. Publishing is going away. Because the word "publishing" means a cadre of professionals who are taking on the… — Clay Shirky Buttons Copy Share Image
It did not take long after the rise of the commercial printing press before someone figured out that erotic novels were a… — Clay Shirky Erotic Copy Share Image
“[B]ecause the minimum costs of being an organization in the first place are relatively high, certain activities may have some value but… — Clay Shirky First place Copy Share Image
Curation comes up when people realize that it isn’t just about information seeking, it’s also about synchronizing a community. — Clay Shirky Come up Copy Share Image
There is no larger collective-action problem than the environment. The three biggest lies of the environmental movement is that every little bit… — Clay Shirky Action Copy Share Image
When you make the claim that something on the Internet is going to be good for democracy, you often [hear], 'Are you… — Clay Shirky Be good Copy Share Image
Knowledge, unlike information, is a human characteristic; there can be information no one knows, but there can't be knowledge no one knows. — Clay Shirky Characteristics Copy Share Image
More interesting than thinking about what's possible in 10 years is thinking what's possible now but that no one has built. — Clay Shirky About Copy Share Image
Our social life is literally primal, in the sense that chimpanzees and gorillas, our closest relatives among the primates, are also social. — Clay Shirky Also Copy Share Image
[C]ollaborative production is simple: no one person can take credit for what gets created, and the project could not come into being… — Clay Shirky Credit Copy Share Image
More interesting than thinking about whats possible in 10 years is thinking whats possible now but that no one has built. — Clay Shirky Built Copy Share Image
The Shirky Principle declares that complex solutions, like a company, or an industry, can become so dedicated to the problem they are… — Clay Shirky Business Copy Share Image
The more ideas there are in circulation, the more ideas there are for any individual to disagree with. More media always means… — Clay Shirky Arguing Copy Share Image
The whole, 'Is the Internet a good thing or a bad thing'? We're done with that. It's just a thing. How to… — Clay Shirky A good thing Copy Share Image
“An organization will tend to grow only when the advantages that can be gotten from directing the work of additional employees are… — Clay Shirky Organization Copy Share Image
“The centrality of group effort to human life means that anything that changes the way groups function will have profound ramifications for… — Clay Shirky Business Copy Share Image
Amateur production, the result of all this new capability, means that the category of ‘consumer’ is now a temporary behavior rather than… — Clay Shirky Behavior Copy Share Image
“Tools that provide simple ways of creating groups lead to new groups, [...] and not just more groups but more kinds of groups.” — Clay Shirky Communication Copy Share Image
“[R]elying on nonfinancial motivations may actually make systems more tolerant of variable participation.” — Clay Shirky Motivation Copy Share Image
Unlike sharing, where the group is mainly an aggregate of participants, cooperating creates group identity. — Clay Shirky Cooperating Copy Share Image
“The Dean campaign had accidentally created a movement for a passionate few rather than a vote-getting operation.” — Clay Shirky Campaign Copy Share Image
Human beings are social creatures - not occasionally or by accident but always. Sociability is one of our lives as both cause… — Clay Shirky Accident Copy Share Image
The threat [of the U.S. bills SOPA and PIPA] is the inversion of the burden of proof, where we suddenly are all… — Clay Shirky Bills Copy Share Image
Prior to the internet, the last technology that had any real effect on the way people sat down and talked together was… — Clay Shirky Connecting Copy Share Image
Multi-taskers often think they are like gym rats, bulking up their ability to juggle tasks, when in fact they are like alcoholics,… — Clay Shirky Ability Copy Share Image
“[F]or any group determined to maintain a set of communal standards some mechanism of enforcement must exist.” — Clay Shirky Enforcement Copy Share Image
![“Any system described by a power law [...] has several curious effects. The first is that, by definition, most participants are below average.” quote by Clay Shirky](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/135/clay-shirky-3364_average_any-system-described-by-a-power-law-has_778085.jpg)
![“[B]ecause the minimum costs of being an organization in the first place are relatively high, certain activities may have some value but not enough to make them worth pursuing in any organized way. New social tools are altering this equation by lowering the costs of coordinating group action.” quote by Clay Shirky](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/a6d/clay-shirky-3364_first-place_b-ecause-the-minimum-costs-of-being-an-o_874307.jpg)
![“When you make the claim that something on the Internet is going to be good for democracy, you often [hear], 'Are you talking about the thing with the singing cats?'” quote by Clay Shirky](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/7b5/clay-shirky-3364_be-good_when-you-make-the-claim-that-something-o_3124241.jpg)
![“[C]ollaborative production is simple: no one person can take credit for what gets created, and the project could not come into being without the participation of many.” quote by Clay Shirky](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/a7e/clay-shirky-3364_credit_c-ollaborative-production-is-simple-no-o_2628212.jpg)
![“Tools that provide simple ways of creating groups lead to new groups, [...] and not just more groups but more kinds of groups.” quote by Clay Shirky](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/c75/clay-shirky-3364_communication_tools-that-provide-simple-ways-of-creati_2080167.jpg)
![“[R]elying on nonfinancial motivations may actually make systems more tolerant of variable participation.” quote by Clay Shirky](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/42e/clay-shirky-3364_motivation_r-elying-on-nonfinancial-motivations-may_2718542.jpg)
![“The threat [of the U.S. bills SOPA and PIPA] is the inversion of the burden of proof, where we suddenly are all treated like thieves at every moment we're given the freedom to create, to produce or to share.” quote by Clay Shirky](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/572/clay-shirky-3364_bills_the-threat-of-the-u-s-bills-sopa-and-pip_439701.jpg)
![“[F]or any group determined to maintain a set of communal standards some mechanism of enforcement must exist.” quote by Clay Shirky](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/d05/clay-shirky-3364_organization_f-or-any-group-determined-to-maintain-a_1570598.jpg)