Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age Steven Johnson In Cognitive Surplus, Internet guru Clay Shirky forecasts the thrilling changes we will all enjoy as new digital technology puts our untapped resources of talent and goodwill to use at last. Since Americans were suburbanized and educated by the postwar boom, we've had a surfeit of intellect, energy, and time - what Shirky calls a "cognitive surplus". But this abundance had little impact on the common good because television consumed the lion's share of it. Now, for the first time, people are embracing new media that allow us to pool our efforts at vanishingly low cost. The results of this aggregated effort range from mind expanding - reference tools like Wikipedia - to lifesaving – like Ushahidi.com, which has allowed Kenyans to report on acts of violence in real time. […] The potential impact of cognitive surplus is enormous. Wikipedia, which was built out of roughly 1 percent of the man-hours that Americans spend watching TV every year, is only the iceberg's tip. Shirky shows how society and our daily lives will be improved dramatically as we learn to exploit our goodwill and free time like never before. Clay Shirky teaches at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University and is the author of Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. He has consulted with groups working on network design, including Nokia, the BBC, Newscorp, Microsoft, BP, Global Business Network, the Library of Congress, the U.S. Navy, the Libyan government, and LEGO. His writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Times ( London), Harvard Business Review, Business 2.0, and Wired.