Page 7 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report

Introductionwhat we like, give value to and seek.When you live in an age where you are sur- rounded by information, di ering viewpoints, hard to vet and verify sources, fake news and propaganda, content curation moves rapidly from being a trendy buzzword for content marketers to become an in-demand necessity for any human interested in actively learning, comprehending and wanting to make sense of today’s reality.Content curators act as expert “trusted guides” who help us manage this overwhelming glut of information, while supporting us in making sense of the issues, topics, events and people that interest us most.“When we curate content online, it enhances who we are... – we learn things, and we help to de ne ourselves by understanding our own interests – and in a more external way, by allowing other people to better understand who we are. It becomes part of our ethos, part of our personal brand.”(source: http://sco.lt/7cPrPd)Dr. Gideon Burton of Brigham Young University o ers an interesting insight into why curationis such a valuable activity for humankind by pointing out that our e orts to gather, collect and order the information chaos surrounding us are a critical activity to understand ourselves, to learn more about anything and to make sense of the world we live in.Real-world examples of such content curation are everywhere around us. They range from music compilations, to video playlists, galleries of images, directories of tools and resources, to hand-picked lists of experts, custom maps, timelines, guides and in-depth news stories.Culturally, these curated resources are not just shortcuts to the “essence” of something, but they also shape and de ne the character, the perime- ter of who we are, of what we are interested in,For these reasons content curation acts bothas a cultural portal to discover who we are as well as a multifaceted lighthouse pointing to whatever our culture deems to be relevant and worth of attention and scrutiny.Content curation shapes and molds our own culture as it promotes the ltering and highlighting of what is identi ed as being of greater value and interest by experienced scholars, researchers, and passionate information explorersIn turn, content curation shapes and moldsour own culture as it promotes the lteringand highlighting of what is identi ed as beingof greater value and interest by experienced scholars, researchers, and passionate information explorers such as content curators are.Filtering and the Content CuratorAlthough one may not realize it, the greatest part of our lives is spent ltering out irrelevant, unimportant or uninteresting signals while pay- ing attention and giving focus to what we feel is important and relevant at any given moment.Our lives are spent making choices. We are the only animal who can do this: stop and decide what to choose, listen, watch, read, and respond to.We make choices even when we choose not to make a choice or when we let others do it for us.And if this is a key trait that makes us di erent from other living creatures, it would only appear to be logical that we did our best to make valuable, intelligent choices every time we were confronted with one.In other words, if I took this concept to the ex- treme I could say that a fully operational humanAC/E DIGITAL CULTURE ANNUAL REPORT 20177Smart culture. Analysis of digital trends