celestialprunes

Imitate Jesus and Socrates

2011-02-11T10:46:00.000-08:00

Stephen M.R. Covey with Revecca R. Merrill. The Speed of Trust. New York: Free Press, 2006.

In 1791 Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography was published, and so began the American tradition of self-help books. In his book, Franklin linked moral behavior with material success. Morality pays off. Covey follows in the Franklin tradition.

The body of the book proper is preceded by eleven pages of testimonials from CEO’s, business executives, media figures, and self-help gurus. The very people I trust the least. Most egregious is the inclusion of Dr. Laura Schlessinger, former radio talk show host who lost her job after an on air racist rant in which she repeated the “N word” multiple times while accusing a Black caller of being too sensitive about racial prejudice and claiming that all of the Blacks who voted for Barak Obama had done so because they were racists. Her diatribe is on Youtube and makes for interesting, appalling, listening. You are known by the company you keep.

This is a book that pushes a conservative, corporatist bias. Bad behaviours are described as “taxes”. Government regulation is portrayed (14-15) as evidence of mistrust, and not the prudent management it usually is. Specifically, Covey cites the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which came about after massive fraud by Enron and WorldCom, as an enormous burden on companies. No thought is given to the pensioners who lost their life savings due to the rampant fraud that necessitated the Act.

Covey loves charts, graphs, and numbered lists. The Speed of Trust reduces moral behavior to a planned activity that can be summarized by a few visuals, desirable because it adds to the bottom line. Strangely, he places the onus for moral improvement on individual behavior and not on large scale corporate wrongs. “Can you see why employees don’t trust their managers?” he asks. And then misdirects our attention: “Most of the time, it’s not the huge, visible withdrawals like Enron and WorldCom ethics violations that wipe out organizational trust. It’s the little things … that gradually weaken and corrode credibililty” (47). No, Mr. Covey, it is corporate misbehavior that weakens trust. It is the vast greed of the CEO’s and investment bankers who ran the world’s economy into the ground and caused millions of honest workers to lose their jobs. That is the problem, not the man or woman who emails a friend from work or takes five extra minutes of coffee break.

Nobody is against trust or decent behaviour. They are valuable qualities in and of themselves, and they do not need to be justified by bottom line concerns, and they definitely do not need to be used to deflect attention from the corporatists responsible for our current economic woes.

Socrates, Democracy, and "Profit"

2011-02-11T10:28:00.000-08:00

Martha C. Nussbaum. Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities. Princeton University Press, 2010.

Democracy needs an informed and articulate citizenry that can think critically, yet the academic disciplines which best develop such qualities are rapidly disappearing from the curriculum. In this book, philosopher Martha Nussbaum sounds the warning that “nations all over the world will soon be producing generations of useful machines, rather than complete citizens who can think for themselves, criticize tradition, and understand the significance of another person’s sufferings and achievements” (2).

In place of education for democracy, students are being offered education for economic growth. Such an education is invested in maintenance of the status quo, rather than inspiring youth to improve the world and the lot of its citizens. As Nussbaum puts it “educators for economic growth will not want a study of history that focuses on injustices of class, caste, gender, and ethnoreligious membership, because this will prompt critical thinking about the present” (21).

A lot of what Nussbaum says is not new or surprising. Humanities types have been warning about this phenomenon for decades. What makes this book important is that it delivers its message in a clear and compact package, with none of the elitist sneering that characterizes a lot of such writing. Chapter IV “Socratic Pedagogy: The Importance of Argument” is brilliant and contains the core her message. It asserts that the chief contribution of Humanities education is that it turns everything into an argument. Argument is not mere contradiction and disagreement; it is the practice of continuous critical analysis, discussion, and questioning. It provides the basis of the scientific method and of sound reasoning in all other areas of human endeavor. As Ronald Reagan said, “trust, but verify.”

The enemy of Socratic Pedagogy is, of course, standardized testing. Nussbaum claims that “to the extent that standardized tests become the norm by which schools are measured, then, Socratic aspects of both curriculum and pedagogy are likely to be left behind. The economic growth culture has a fondness for standardized tests, and an impatience with pedagogy and content that are not easily assessed in this way” (48). Nussbaum demands that each student be treated as an individual “whose powers of mind are unfolding and who is expected to make an active and creative contribution to classroom discussion” (55). We habitually undervalue the skills that will make democracy vibrant and sustainable, the ones that foster innovation and creativity, in favour of test taking and regurgitation of facts.

Presidents need guts

2011-02-11T10:19:00.000-08:00

Chad Coauette, “You Know How it Works, It Is a Dance, An Art, Not a Science: Decision Making by Public Two-Year College Presidents.” Leadership 17-1 (Winter 2011): 23-27.

This is a short, but interesting, article on how College Presidents and other senior administrators make decisions about complex issues. Coauette’s conclusion is that personal experience, rather than educational experience, is the guiding factor. “College presidents’ past experiences” he asserts, “inform how they see current events at their institutions …their previous experiences led them to make intuitive or ‘gut’ decisions” (23).

All hail William Zinsser!

2010-06-10T22:38:00.001-07:00

Every Friday, William Zinsser publishes an essay at www.theamericanscholar.org
He is 88 years old, has written 17 books including the wonderful "On Writing Well", teaches at Columbia School of Journalism, and, in his spare time, plays piano in a New York Jazz bar.
The essay linked to below is about the idea of giving yourself and others permission to be creative. Everybody needs somebody to believe in them. It is a teacher's job to give his or her students permission to try great things, to dare to be different.
Creative people also need to give themselves permission to create. As he puts it, "Nobody gave George Gershwin permission to write 'Rhapsody in Blue' at the age of 25, when he had only written 32-bar popular songs." Gershwin gave himself permission to do something entirely new, and great.
Zinsser has been giving himself permission for several decades. May he do so for a few more.
in reference to: Zinsser on Friday: Permission Givers | The American Scholar (view on Google Sidewiki)

Help! The horse is out of the barn!

2010-06-09T23:28:00.001-07:00

All over the world, social media are undercutting power structures. Just as the invention of movable type made books and newspapers, and the knowledge and information they contain, available to anyone who could read, social media is giving voice and authority to anyone with a cell phone or laptop computer. Twitter almost brought down the government of Iran last year. Businesses have been destroyed by hostile reviews on web sites such as yelp.com Movie stars have had their careers wiped out by cell phone video. Just think of Michael Richard.
So now the Mashable social media web site has put together "24 essential social media resources you may have missed." The purpose of the article is to give tips to companies and individuals who see in social media a way to make a buck through marketing or "presence" or "digital branding". There are some in the world who still think there is a chance for corporations and governments to get out ahead of the social media phenomenon and direct it to their own ends. Good luck.
I looked into a few of the resources listed in the article, three of them to be exact. And they all say the same thing: get out there, try hard, try to take control. Nothing they offer is so specific as to help anyone take control. And that's not surprising. Control of social media is not possible. Millions of people are out there writing, taking pictures, shooting video, and uploading it to the net.
The best companies can hope is that they don't draw their wrathful gaze any time soon. The BP oil spill video is available online, in real time, 24-7. Dead corporation walking.

in reference to: 24 Essential Social Media Resources You May Have Missed (view on Google Sidewiki)

Manage your own damn privacy

2010-06-09T22:55:00.001-07:00

Facebook has been in receipt of a lot of attacks lately for its privacy policy. The author of this piece, Mashable's "Social Analyst" editor, argues that this anger is misdirected. His thesis is that "people [who] believe that Facebook and the web in general should be able to protect the information we post online" are wrong. His conclusion is that we alone are responsible for managing our online identities and that people should simply make wiser choices about what information they make available about themselves on the web.

in reference to: In Defense of Facebook (view on Google Sidewiki)

Patterns make beauty

2010-06-08T11:57:00.001-07:00

Here we have a brilliant piece that brings together poetry and mathematics. Cohen shows how a poem is structured like a mathematical formula and how a mathematical formula is structured like a poem. The link is that both employ chiasmus; just as my previous sentence does.
Classical rhetoric remains supremely useful; belle lettristic essays still cast the brightest light.

in reference to: A Mindful Beauty | The American Scholar (view on Google Sidewiki)

It's Galileo all over again

2010-06-08T10:56:00.001-07:00

The Attorney General of Virginia believes that claims of climate change are not true. Michael Mann is a climate-change scientist who, until recently, taught and did research at the University of Virginia. The Attorney General has subpoenaed email between Mann and other climate-change scientists as part of a fraud investigation. The Attorney General asserts that claims of climate change are fraudulent and that scientists who support climate change are guilty of fraud.
This article asks, does this subpoena violate academic freedom and does academic freedom exist as a right under law? The short answer to both questions is (probably) yes, unless the case ends up in the US Supreme Court and they overturn precedent.
The authors of this article make the fascinating point that this case is pretty much a repeat of the Vatican's trial of Galileo. Galileo published findings that challenged the received wisdom of the people in power. He was hauled up on charges and imprisoned. Scientific truth was not considered an acceptable defense.
Will the present case be judged on the scientific merits of the research? Should that matter? Will every scientist who publishes findings that offend a politician find herself up on charges of fraud?

in reference to: Does the Constitution really protect a right to "academic freedom"? - By Dahlia Lithwick and Richard Schragger - Slate Magazine (view on Google Sidewiki)

What service?

2010-06-07T20:46:00.001-07:00

Service learning is an admirable endeavour. Students learn valuable, real life experience while performing free work for a non-profit. What could go wrong? According to this New York Times article, some non-profits cannot afford the cost of training and supervising the "free" student workers. Larger, better funded, agencies can afford a coordinator to train and supervise them, but smaller outfits cannot. Perhaps the colleges and universities that use the non-profits to round their students' education should be dropping some money into the kitty to defray the added cost.

in reference to: Does Service Learning Really Help? - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Where's the learning?

2010-06-07T11:24:00.001-07:00

Stan Katz writes about "service learning" in response to a New York Times article (referred to in a separate blog posting) that questions whether students taking service learning courses really provide a useful service to the non-profits that host them.
Katz asks the other obvious questions: does service learning contribute to learning the curriculum of the course of which service learning is a part?
Is service learning more than community service? Katz concludes that it can be, if the course is "well designed and managed by the instructor". But, he adds, it's a difficult job to satisfy the competing demands of "service" and "learning".

in reference to: Does Service Learning Really Help? - Brainstorm - The Chronicle of Higher Education (view on Google Sidewiki)

What NOW?

2009-10-05T09:40:00.000-07:00

On September 30 and October 1, 2009 I attended the NOW Conference, hosted by the University of Calgary. Most of the sessions took place at the Telus Convention Centre in Calgary.

The conference had three streams: Youth, Academic, and Non-profit. Some sessions were open to all streams, while others were exclusively for one specific stream. I was in the Academic stream. At first, this was confusing because the materials which I received before the conference did not make this arrangement at all clear.

The conference began with a keynote address by F.W. de Klerk. De Klerk is a former President of South Africa and a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. He led South Africa out of apartheid and into its present democratic government structure. The theme of his talk was leading change. It was both analytical and inspiring. He spoke from actual experience of leading a country through monumental change that, if done improperly, could have caused massive bloodshed. Among the points he made was the importance of a guiding vision, the necessity of working with all parties, and (most interesting of all to me) the need to be able to tell when to be cautious and when to gamble. He cited two examples of the latter: his decision to put the end of apartheid to a vote among the white electorate and his decision to destroy South Africa's nuclear arsenal. Remarkably, white voters elected to end apartheid and hand power over to the black majority. And South Africa is the only country that has disarmed itself of nuclear weapons. De Klerk's keynote was an excellent beginning to the conference.

The next session I attended was called "Service-Learning Course Design in Higher Education." For me, this was the weakest that I attended. I came to it very interested in the possibility of introducing service learning into the college where I work, but came away with very little that I could use to do so. Partly, I was put off by the presenter's style. Although there were only about 10 people in the session, he shouted at us as if we were a crowd of hundreds. The session was supposed to be a workshop, but it was difficult to get into a workshop mood after being railed at. In fact, the presenter went on at such length that there was actually little time left for the workshop to happen and we were left with handouts and the promise that we could use them productively on our own.

Next came the highlight of the conference, a public talk by the Dalai Lama before 17,000 people at the Pengrowth Saddledome. After a 45 minute presentation of music and song from various performers, hosted by Olympic medalist Mark Tewksbury and actress Sandra Oh, the Dalai Lama appeared on the stage. Clad in saffron monk's robes and sitting on a chair on a raised stage with a translator/assistant nearby, he spoke for nearly an hour. He began by addressing the youth in the audience, urging them to work for reform in a nonviolent and nonsectarian way. He then broadened his message to speak of the dangers of religious conflict, materialism, and an education system that trains the head and not the heart. His speech was filled with compassion and humour. At the end of his speech he entertained questions from the audience, which he answered with seriousness and wit.

The second day of the conference was to begin with a keynote by Jan Egeland, former Undersecretary of the United Nations. Unfortunately, security at the venue was so tight--because the Dalai Lama was in attendance--that about half of the delegates, including me, were unable to get through the screening process in time to hear him. Poor planning on the part of the conference organizers. To compensate for the missed opportunity, I purchased a copy of a book by Egeland.

Once through security, I proceeded to the large lecture hall where many of the seats were already filled by people waiting to hear the Dalai Lama speak. This was to be a more "private" speech for conference delegates only. Since there were between 300 and 400 delegates, the setting was hardly an intimate one.

The Dalai Lama's speech was focussed on education and picked up on the previous day's theme that education was for the heart and not just for the mind. He urged educators to strive for a balance between factual knowledge and right feeling. He also spoke at some length about the importance of developing one's analytical powers and advised everyone to think long and carefully before making important decisions and to consider both the heart and the head in making the decision. He then took questions from the audience.

After a short break, I attended a session titled "Mother Earth: Creating a Natural Harmony--An Aboriginal Perspective." The session was moderated by Leroy Littlebear, a First Nations elder and professor at Lethbridge University. The panel consisted of four presenters: one a University of Toronto Professor of Forestry of First Nations descent, and three First Nations elders. Unfortunately, the program brochure did not provide their names. The session addressed three topics: traditional perspectives on the concept of human stewardship, sacred connections to the land and nature, and the concept of Balance and Harmony in relation to the ecological systems, the environment, nature, and economic development. A fourth key theme that emerged was the importance of language preservation to the survival of Aboriginal peoples. This was an excellent session that raised many thought provoking questions.

After lunch, I attended my final session of the conference: "Four Realms: Balancing Humanity--An Aboriginal Perspective". Dr. Cora Voyageur of the University of Calgary was the moderator and the panel consisted of four First Nations educators, three PhD's and an MD. All of the presenters spoke of their struggles to maintain a sense of balance between their Aboriginal identity and culture and the Eurocentric world of the academy. They spoke with passion and humour. Once again, the preservation of Aboriginal language emerged as a theme, as did the importance of elders in assisting young Aboriginals in maintaining a balanced perspective.

The conference concluded with a Chancellor's reception hosted by the University of Calgary. The event provided me with an opportunity to share my impressions with other delegates.

The NOW Conference was an excellent experience and I came away from it with some useful knowledge and a lot of good memories.

We don't need no education: did we really think that?

2009-05-08T11:42:00.001-07:00

"The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future(Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30)" (Mark Bauerlein)
Mark Bauerlein is Professor of English at Emory University in Atlanta and former director of Research and Analysis at the National Endowment for the Arts. The thesis of this book is that the digital age is making students "dumb" in both senses of the word. Students can't think and they can't communicate, he argues, because they spend too much time watching tv, playing computer games, and hanging out on Facebook. He does not say that the digital age makes people less intelligent; in fact, he reports that IQ scores have gone up over the last 20 years. But he also points out that scores in standardized tests for numeracy, language skills, and general knowledge have all gone down over the same period of time. It would seem we have a pool of brighter students who know less, can't express themselves, and lack the knowledge we would expect of citizens in a democratic society.

In my opinion, one of his most relevant complaints is that electronic culture promotes narcissism and isolation. Young people can communicate nonstop with their peers. They can reinforce peer values, while rejecting the larger needs and values of society. It is an unchallenging environment that doesn't promote reasoning or analysis. When students confront difficult issues in school or life, they shut down and run back to Myspace.

I share many of Bauerlein's concerns. Young people can be narcissistic and closed minded. I recall the class where several of my students walked out because I played them some Bach. "Our generation doesn't listen to that stuff," one of them told me. But, frankly, he comes across as a bit of an old fogey: someone who seems to see all change as a loss.

Furthermore, he tends to lay too much blame on the young people and not enough on the old people who have allowed this to happen. If you feed a child junk food all of its life, is it surprising that the child doesn't like his/her first taste of mashed turnips?

I would like to have seen more examination of causes and more suggestions for answers. Bauerlein's problem is that he is a neo-conservative caught in a contradiction. While bemoaning the loss of certain traditional skills and values, he cannot bring himself to say that capitalism and consumerism are the main causes of the problem and so he blames the victim.

Technorati Tags: education, internet culture, language

Getting clued in

2009-05-08T10:59:00.001-07:00

"Clueless in Academe: How Schooling Obscures the Life of the Mind" (Professor Gerald Graff)
Gerald Graff is professor of English and Education at the University of Illinois. He is author of several books and articles and a major contributor to cultural debate in the United States. In this book, he looks at the difficulty contemporary students have with academic discourse. Why can't they understand and follow the debates and discussions central to their academic majors? The title sounds like he is laying blame on the students, but in fact, he isn't.

Students are "clueless" for two reasons: (a) they are not sufficiently challenged in secondary school and tend to shut down when confronted with "difficult" writing and (b) their professors refuse to compromise their language so that neophytes can understand it. Graff sets out to pose solutions to both of these problems in his book.

For students, the answer is an educational system that is more challenging and less concerned that everyone pass. It would be an education system firmly grounded in books and reading as opposed to experiential learning. This will probably never happen; too many entrenched interests would be affected.

For professors, the answer is to get down off their high horses and deign to explain things to their students. Graff offers several practical writing tips for professors, many of them the kind of thing one would tell a freshman class: use examples, occasionally employ colloquial language, consider your audience. That professors should require writing tips is troubling.

I enjoyed this book because Graff puts a lot of energy into proposing solutions without ignoring the problems. I think his a particularly humanities oriented approach that will not find acceptance in other fields.

Technorati Tags: education

Genius and Madness

2009-05-07T12:26:00.000-07:00

Creative minds: the links between mental illness and creativity - Features, Health & Wellbeing - The Independent

Can science explain creativity? Does the theory of evolution account for the enduring value people place on literature? Is the brain of a "genius" different in some empirically measurable way from "normal" people's brains?
There is a small, but growing, tendency in the humanities to use certain branches of science, particularly neuroscience and biological evolution, to explain why people create art and why societies value it. This brief article in The Guardian outlines new theories which suggest that creative genius and clinical psychosis have much in common, and that many famous thinkers were troubled by what we call mental illness. More controversially, it floats the idea that psychosis itself might be a factor in natural selection--that is, the fact that we can trace psychotic behaviour throughout history suggests that it is an evolutionary adaptation that enhances survival.
The idea of a link between madness and genius is not a new one. The article cites Seneca as making the observation and the poet John Dryden, writing in the 1700's observed that:

Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide.
(from Absolom and Achitophel)

The use of neuroscience to explain art is a new and controversial things. The comments section at the end of the article attests to this.

Technorati Tags: art, education, health, medicine, poetry

El Sistema

2009-05-07T11:23:00.000-07:00

This video is incredible! It is from the TED.com web site and features Gustavo Dudamel conducting the Venezuela Youth orchestra. The concert is a tribute to the founder of "El Sistema," a Venezuelan project designed to engage disadvantaged youth in education through music. Dudamel is a graduate of the program, and a world famous conductor, and all of the musicians are enrolled in the program.

According to the wikipedia article on El Sistema, "its greatest achievement are the 250,000 children who attend its music schools around the country, 90 percent of them from poor socio-economic backgrounds."

The video is evidence of the transformative power of art. As you watch these passionate, engaged kids, remember that without the program they would likely be dropouts, druggies, or dead.

Technorati Tags: art, education, music, TED

How to Wake Up Slumbering Minds - WSJ.com

2009-05-05T22:27:00.001-07:00

How to Wake Up Slumbering Minds - WSJ.com

This Wall Street Journal article is a review of "Why Don't Students Like School: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom" (Daniel T. Willingham). Willingham bases his answer to the question on recent research in neuroscience. The main points are

The human brain does not like abstract thinking. We are more receptive to "doing" learning than to "thinking" learning. This is not new. Socrates engaged his students in debate. He didn't lecture them.
We learn best by "drilling" and repetition. This goes against current educational theory, but is generally true to my experience. In most cases I can do mental arithmetic more quickly than students can do calculations with a calculator. As a child I had to memorize and repeat the "times" tables. I just can't do it with big numbers
Getting students to "think like mathematicians" or philosophers or any other trained specialist doesn't work. This, too, goes against contemporary theory. The line is that if we get them to think like mathematicians, they will be better at math. Not so. First expose them to the knowledge of the discipline (possibly by drilling it into them) and some of them might start to think like workers in the field, eventually.
Students cannot apply generic critical thinking skills until after they have acquired a considerable amount of knowledge and fact. Until students know something, they cannot analyze it critically
"Learning styles" are largely a myth. There is no empirical evidence to back the claim that different people have different learning styles. Frankly, this comes as no surprise to me.It has always seemed to me that they represent trivial differences in individuals and should not be used as a basis for educational planning. Now we have scientific data to support that conclusion. The belief that all students are "equal in ability but unique in style" is hokum.
Placing an emphasis on knowledge and content is the best way to ensure student learning. Again, no surprise. I remember with fondness and admiration the teachers and professors who "knew their stuff". More importantly, I remember much of what they taught me.

Technorati Tags: education

When bad businesses go good

2009-05-05T22:27:00.000-07:00

Why Ideals are the New Business Models - Umair Haque - HarvardBusiness.org:
Every once in a while I take a look at the Harvard School of Business blog to see what the other half is doing. By the other half, I mean the people who are interested in making a profit. I was surprised to see this article, which argues that modern business needs "value creation," not "value capture". Apparently, this means it's time for business to base its way of operating upon values instead of chasing after valuables (i.e. profit). The article takes quite a hammering from some of the commenters. Apparently they consult the Harvard Business blog for tips on making money, not for moral advice.
The author, Umair Haque, is described as "Director of the Havas Media Lab, a new kind of strategic advisor that helps investors, entrepreneurs, and firms experiment with, craft, and drive radical management, business model, and strategic innovation." I'm not sure what all this means, but I do like the idea of "radical management."

Technorati Tags: business, education, money

Encouraging Civility as a Community College Leader. edited by Paul A. Elsner and George R. Boggs.

2009-01-02T11:24:00.000-08:00

Encouraging Civility as a Community College Leader. edited by Paul A. Elsner and George R. Boggs.

The title is misleading because most of the book isn't about encouraging civility and because its contents reflect a very narrow definition of "community college leader".

The main body of the book consists of five chapters. Three of the five are about specific tough trials that the authors have undergone. Civility, if it is addressed at all, is more the subject of what was missing from what the "other" side said and did. There is very little concrete, effective advice or analysis of civility, its definition, its absence or presence, or its promotion.

Four of the five chapters are written by current or former college presidents. We are given the view from one side of the fence only. Also, three of the chapters are personal narratives of tough battles at colleges. They are not objective and not very helpful. Their message seems to be "hang tough and don't lose your cool". It would have been helpful to seek input from other leaders in the college system such as faculty union heads, board members, and student council executives.

The exception to my two main criticisms is Chapter 4 "Compassionate Leadership Transcending Prejudice," by Zelema Harris. She offers helpful definitions, suggestions, and analysis. She is the only writer among the personal narrativists with the courage to say that management abuse can be a major cause of incivility in colleges.

Chapter 5 "Addressing Challenges to Civility on Campus" by Paul A. Elsner, one of the book's editors, is a well written summary of the causes and complexities of campus incivility. Elsner tags all sectors of the college community with some responsibility for the problem. He identifies ways in which all sectors can contribute to a solution. He also makes it clear that it is administration's job to take the lead.

The book concludes with three short appendices containing sample codes of conduct from three American colleges.

Festering incivility on campus

2008-12-29T14:14:00.001-08:00

Civility is a disappearing value on the contemporary campus. Everyone seems to be hyper-aware of his or her rights and needs. Too many place individual goals ahead of the common good. Judy Rookstool offers a calm and reasoned analysis of the problem, along with some tentative solutions in her short book, Fostering Civility on Campus. Through an historical analysis of what the word "civility" means, she leads us to see that it is more than tea party etiquette. Rather, it is a series of behaviours and attitudes that allow for free enquiry, academic integrity, and civilized exploration of complex and often controversial subjects. Without civility, there can be no meaningful college experience.

After defining civility and explaining why it is necessary in a community college, Rookstool offers some strategies for promoting it on campus. The chapter is under twenty pages in length, so it is in no way comprehensive. She also provides an appendix of "Examples and Models" of civilty policies from several American community colleges. There are also lists of references cited and additional resources.

Fostering Civility on Campus is an excellent consciousness raising document, but its brevity prevents it from offering detailed solutions. Unfortunately, the book is currently out of print.

Short bits: online articles recently read for professional development

2008-06-09T08:29:00.000-07:00

"Exposed," by Emily Gould. A New York Times piece about what happens when a blogger "overexposes" on the internet. A tale of chickens coming home to roost.

"Restaurateur Tries to Censor Yelp Review: Epic Failure" by Reem Abeidoh. This blog entry could serve as a case study for Blog Rules, a book discussed in an earlier post. The gist is that someone wrote a negative review of a restaurant on a social networking site called Yelp. The restaurant manager tried to bully the writer into changing the review. The reviewer told others about the intimidation effort and the restaurant and the manager were vilified in countless blogs. A public relations nightmare.

"Gender in Job Negotiations: A Two-Level Game" by Hannah Riley Bowles and Kathleen L. McGinn. This pdf by two Harvard researchers is available for download here. The researchers attempt to explain why women tend to negotiate lower starting salaries in management positions. Gender stereotypes are found to still play a powerful role in the workplace.

"Getting Down to the Business of Creativity" by Julia Hanna summarizes the efforts of Harvard Business School researchers to gauge the importance of creativity in the success of entrepreneurs and managers. Once again the managerial classes aspire to rise to the level of Arts majors. The conclusions tend to be banal: "People have their best days and do their best work when they are allowed to make progress." You mean flogging doesn't work? Damn.

"When Winning is Everything," by Deepak Malhotra, Gillian Ku, and J. Keith Murnighan. This Harvard Business Review article looks into the disastrous effects of "the primal urge to win" on decision making and offers tips on how to manage said urge.

Technorati Tags: blogging, business, education, journalism, puppy, technology

Bogged down in rules

2008-06-06T09:28:00.001-07:00

"Blog Rules: A Business Guide to Managing Policy, Public Relations, and Legal Issues" (Nancy Flynn)
The attitude in this book is best summed up by the old saying "damned if you do, damned if you don't." According to Nancy Flynn, organizations must blog to survive. Blogging is the way to get the word out on your product, service, whatever. If you don't blog you will lose contact with your customer base and die. But, blogging will inevitably lead you into trouble. Somebody will hack your site. An unhappy customer will leave a comment on your site and it will be linked to by 27 million bloggers and your name will be mud. A disgruntled employee will spill the beans and some government regulator will shut you down and the shareholders will sue you for a bizillion dollars.

Flynn's answer to the dilemma is that every company should blog, but that it should do so within a framework of extremely (possible excessively) restrictive rules and policies. Every blog post should be vetted by a blog director. Employees should be made aware that if they say the wrong thing on a blog, even if it's not a company-owned blog, they can be sacked. Customer comments must be carefully censored so as to give the appearance of an open exchange, but nothing really negative should be allowed through. The CEO should blog in order to convey the human side of corporate leadership, but only after every word is checked by the company's legal firm.

My reaction after reading this book is that I'd never want to blog for a corporation that followed Flynn's advice and that as I consumer, I'd never want to read a blog produced under those conditions--it would be boring.

Microsoft, oft criticized for being too controlling, offers a counter model. Microsoft community blogs are, to quote from the site,
"Web pages which are updated frequently, written from the point of view of an individual, written in an informal tone, and usually expose an RSS feed for syndication . . . These blogs will provide you insights and opinions about using Microsoft technologies and software." I'm sure nondisclosure clauses are in effect and that the same rules about insubordination would apply in the blogs as in the workplace. For many years one of Microsoft's most famous bloggers was Robert Scoble, whose blog was often openly critical of company policies and decisions. The discussion that his blog raised, often around customers' negative responses to Microsoft products, led to product improvement and customer loyalty. Bill Gates had the vision to see how giving up a little control could be good for business. Scoble himself became such a "brand name" that he quit Microsoft and now blogs full time. His blog is called Scobelizer: technogeek.

Flynn has also written "E-Mail Rules: A Business Guide to Managing Policies, Security, and Legal Issues for E-Mail and Digital Communication" (Nancy Flynn, Randolph Kahn). I think I will give that book a pass.

Technorati Tags: blogging, business, censorship, technology

A fine mess you've gotten us into

2008-05-27T22:05:00.001-07:00

Eric Abrahamson and David H. Freedman. A Perfect Mess.

The subtitle pretty much summarizes the book (and me): "The hidden benefits of disorder--how crammed closets, cluttered offices, and on-the-fly planning make the world a better place."

In one sense I didn't learn a lot from this book since I've always been an advocate of constant short term planning, intuitive filing systems, and lateral thinking. The more you control, the less you have control. In another sense, I got what I needed: intellectual validation for something I've always felt to be true: that systems work best when they have some wobble in them.

Section headings in this book read like zen koans:

Completeness: Awash in Useful Mess

Invention: Creative Disorder

The order pervert: Derives pleasure from order for its own sake

Citing such diverse examples as the discovery of penicillin (Alexander Fleming left a dirty petri dish near a window and went off on vacation. When he came back he found a fuzzy green substance growing in it. Antibiotics were discovered!) and jazz improvisation, the authors argue that messiness fosters creative connections that would not have otherwise happened, and that it is the ability to appreciate the potential of such connections that characterizes successful people.

The myth of leaderless organizations

2008-05-27T10:22:00.001-07:00

Jeffrey S. Nielsen, The Myth of Leadership.

Every age has its leadership myths--stories that are said to illustrate the true nature of the leader. My favourite is the line attributed to the Duke of Wellington that the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. The assumption is that true leadership, the kind that saved a country, was learned while playing games at an exclusive boy's school. Teamwork, a rigid class system, and the marginal presence of booklearning give you a leader. The child is father of the man, to quote Wordsworth.

Nielsen attacks the concept of the hierarchy-based organization with the charismatic CEO at the top. This myth of the charismatic CEO is rampant in our society. Jack Welch saved GE by laying off huge numbers of workers and was rewarded with a salary that rivaled the sum total of those he cut. He later made a bundle by writing a book about his leadership experiences.

Steve Jobs is probably the most famous contemporary business leader. Infamous for his bad temper and micromanaging style, he is viewed by the general public as a hero of commerce who once a year gifts us with some consumer toy--an ipod or an iphone.

According to "The Myth of Leadership," the charismatic CEO is, well, a myth--a fiction, an illusion, a product of superstition. Nielsen argues that successful organizations in the future must be peer-driven and leaderless. His message is utopian and more often formed by the negative image of the traditional leader than by the positive features of a peer-driven organization. The bad boss--manipulating, egotistical, greedy--becomes the norm in Nielsen's account.

The peer-driven organization will work when human nature achieves perfection. When people can exist without egos, greed, and fear, they will be ready to work in harmonious cooperation without the need for someone to chair the meetings.

Just put it over there

2008-05-26T20:51:00.001-07:00

David Weinberger, Everything is Miscellaneous

I have to confess a personal bias up front. I like ad lib planning, messiness, and intuitive thinking. Systematic, orderly processes frustrate the hell out of me, so as soon as I saw the reference to "disorder' in the subtitle I knew I would like this book.

David Weinberger is the coauthor of the geek cult book The Cluetrain Manifesto and an eternal optimist. The Manifesto predicted "the end of business as usual" and it was right. The internet has changed the face of business permanently.

In this latest book, Weinberger espouses the theory that "the new digital disorder" will cause an intellectual upheaval as we develop increasingly powerful ways of accessing and altering data.

Since Aristotle, the Western mind has been taught to think that everything has its place, that the macrostructure of the universe is orderly, and that by analogy human social structures should also be orderly. Simply put, a thing can exist in only one category and systems of categorization should somehow be parallel. A book has only one Dewey decimal number in the library and it would be crazy to classify things by incompatible criteria (ie to classify foods as high fibre, high fat, and never cooked by my Aunt Irene).

Weinberger argues that the digitizing of data has made such categorizing systems obsolete. We put physical letters into pigeonholes in a mailroom, but we forward, copy, edit, and reply to email in a far less restrictive way. The physical letter can be in only one place at one time. The email can be in many places, in many forms. It can even be recovered after deletion.

The backwash implications of digitization are philosophically enormous. If there is no single way to categorize or position an email, maybe all methods of categorization, all hierarchies, all "orders" are arbitrary.

Another aspect of the phenomenon Weinberger is describing is that, increasingly, machines are creating new data for us, dynamically, on demand. When the web began much of it was just books typed into a computer--word processing with a long reach. Today, every Google search creates, via machine, a web page or pages that never existed before, containing concepts that might not have been brought together before. There is even a web search engine called bananaslug that inserts a randomly generated word into any search the user initiates. Through randomness, get results you would never find on Google.

Bottom line: I think Weinberger is applying to the digital world something we've known all along--that despite all our system building, our rational categories, and our little plans we are to a large extent subject to kizmet and serendipity, and that we should get over ourselves.

A testament to fear

2008-05-26T10:46:00.001-07:00

Andrew Keen, The cult of the amateur.

This is a book grounded in fear and reaction. Keen does not like the online world of wikinomics, citizen journalism, blog-based commentary, and open source software.

What he seems to fear is loss, by elites, of control over product and loss, by corporations, of money. His first fear is based on the concept of authority, as in "Joe is an authority on baseball." Keen believes that bona fide experts will lose their place in society and that their expertise will be buried under a sludge pile of drivel from bloggers and wikipedia contributors. He even cites as statement by Jurgen Habermas to that effect.

I disagree. Expertise is valuable because it is useful. The experts, as long as they continue to provide value, have nothing to fear. They might have to shape up, stop resting on their laurels, and get online, but once they adapt they will do fine.

Keen's second fear, when examined closely, is almost comical. There is little chance that kids who upload videos to youtube.com will bankrupt Fox or that an amateur programmer who creates, and gives away, his own spreadsheet will bring Microsoft to its knees. For every local company that loses money to an internet competitor there is an internet company building a global market. Amazon, Google, and Facebook are massive generators of wealth. The wealth is being repositioned and Keen seems intent on speaking for folks who want it to stay where it is (with them).

For me, Andrew Keen comes across as a voice of reaction, a fearmonger desperately clinging to the status quo.

Thinking for a Living

2007-06-29T11:31:00.000-07:00

Thinking for a living by Thomas H. Davenport

Subtitled "How to Get Better Performance and results from Knowledge Workers", this book raises a number of good points about managing, evaluating, and motivating people who think for a living, so-called "knowledge workers". Most of the points are worth considering:

knowledge workers value their autonomy
they cannot be evaluated by traditional efficiency obervations
they can be made more effective by minor systemic interventions
above all, they can be made more effective by individualized intervention

Most of the book is aimed at managers in larger business organizations. I would like to come across a similar book geared specifically toward academics.

The pedagogy of indignation

2007-06-20T11:17:00.000-07:00

Paulo Freire, The Pedagogy of Indignation

Freire is the most influential educational theorist of the last one hundred years. He advocated hope, freedom, and curiosity. In this, his last book, he counsels us to reject mechanistic explanations of history, to cultivate hope, and to use our justified indignation to work for change.

Reading him made me realize how compromised I have become in accepting the reality that government and commercial interests argue is true and inevitable. Freire points out time and again the wrongheadedness of fatalism and acceptance of current economic/political structures and relationships as "just the way things are".

Significant passages:

Education is always a certain theory of knowledge put into practice; it is naturally political, it has to do with purity, never with puritanicalness, and it is in itself an experience of beautifulness.

It would be desolation to me if I had to recognize my absolute inability, as a human being, to effectively intervene in reality, if I had to recognize that my aptitude for verifying does not extend into modifying the verified context, leading to future and different verifications.

the more education becomes empty of dreams to fight for, the more the emptiness left by those dreams becomes filled with technique, until the moment comes when education becomes reduced to that. Then education becomes pure training, it becomes pure transfer of content, it is almost like the training of animals, it is a mere exercise in adaptation to the world.

Technorati Tags: education, Freire, pedagogy

The Value of Openness in Scientific Problem Solving

2007-02-16T08:28:00.000-08:00

This article on the Harvard Business School website provides specific, concrete data supporting the thesis expounded in Wikinomics see below.

From the article:

Executive Summary:

Scientists are generally rewarded for discoveries they make as individuals or in small teams. While the sharing of information in science is an ideal, it is seldom practiced. In this research, Lakhani et al. used an approach common to open source software communities—which rely intensely on collaboration—and opened up a set of 166 scientific problems from the research laboratories of twenty-six firms to over 80,000 independent scientists. The outside scientists were able to solve one-third of the problems that the research laboratories were unable to solve internally. Key concepts include:

* Opening up problem information to a large group of outsiders can yield innovative technical solutions, increase the probability of success in science programs, and ultimately boost research productivity.
* Open source software communities provide a model for improving the process of solving scientific problems.
* Outsiders can see problems with fresh eyes; in this study, problems were solved by independent scientists with expertise at the boundary of or even outside their field.
* Achieving true openness and collaboration will require change in the mindsets of both scientists and lab leadership.

bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress

2007-02-15T18:25:00.000-08:00

"Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom" (bell hooks)
bell hooks is Distinguished Professor of English at City College in New York and a nationally recognized teacher. This book is a collection of passionately written essays about teaching and about "education as the practice of freedom". A list of some of the chapter titles indicates the tone of the collection: "Engaged Pedagogy," "Theory as Liberatory Practise," and "Ecstasy: Teaching and Learning Without Limits."

hooks sees her teaching practice as a battle against sexism, racism, and classism. This book is an excellent antidote to the current fashion
of promoting education as merely a route to employment.

Technorati Tags: education, feminism, literature, women's studies, science

ErasmusPC - CityPoems

2007-02-15T09:11:00.001-08:00

ErasmusPC - CityPoems is a very interesting collaborative web site which displays photos of graffiti poems from all over the world. Contributors take a picture of a "citypoem" and email it to the blog owner.

The site is a simple, yet brilliant, way of illustrating the universality of poetry as an art form.

Technorati Tags: art, blogs, creativity, ideas, literature

A Million Penguins

2007-02-15T09:05:00.001-08:00

Penguin Books, in collaboration with the Creative Writing department at De Montfort University in Leicester, England, is sponsoring a collaborative novel writing project that uses mediawiki software (the software that powers Wikipedia) and a number of authors to create a novel.

To my eye the site is chaotic and the bits of novel that are posted are sophomoric--stuff you would expect from undergrads playing along with their prof's pet project. We will just have to wait to see how it turns out.

For a statement from the project organizer on what they are up to, click here.

Technorati Tags: art, creativity, education, ideas, literature, wiki

Difficult Conversations

2007-02-14T09:58:00.000-08:00

"Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss what Matters Most" (Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, Sheila Heen, Roger Fisher)
How to discuss tough subjects without running them off the rails. Also a book about how to listen and how to plan conversations. Not great. Works in scripted situations, but the sample conversations sound manipulative.

True discussion is a search for the answer. If you go into a meeting with the answer set in your mind and are looking for a way to deliver the message, then you are not really conversing. This is the dynamic in a lot of management situations. You are not going into the meeting to discuss whether or not a certain clause in a contract applies, or whether or not an employee is going to be laid off. You've made that decision, and need to deliver the message in a respectful and humane, yet clear and unambiguous manner.

There are other situations, say where someone has manifested unhappiness or hostility, where a "learning conversation" would probably be helpful. Sometimes anger and unhappiness are justified, and it would be good to learn their causes. It's too easy to assume that the angry person is bad at their job or a negative influence in the workplace. Complaint is a necessary part of every work environment.

Technorati Tags: ideas, management

fora.tv online videos

2007-02-13T11:59:00.001-08:00

This is an excellent online collection of videos of lectures/talks given by leading authors, educators, and leaders in a variety of fields.
I was blown away by Richard Dawkins' speech at Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, VA. The Q & A session more than proves the necessity for secular, government-funded education.

Technorati Tags: atheism, biology, education, ethics, Dawkins, science, video, web2.0

Open Culture blog

2007-02-12T13:54:00.001-08:00

The Open Culture blog is one of the finest sources of free educational/intellectual resources on the web. They regularly publish links to videos, podcasts and other resources for educators, students, and anyone interested in ideas. They have an rss feed that you can subscribe to with Google Reader or bloglines.com

A list of recent posts (all of which contain links to excellent podcasts and videos):

10 Excellent University Podcasts (includes lectures by Steve Jobs, Francis Fijuyama, Harold Bloom, the Dalai Lama, and Tim Berners-Lee [founder of the worldwide web])

50+ Free Courses from UC Berkeley on itunes

Digital MBA: America's Best Business Schools on Your Ipod

Technorati Tags: art, blogs, creativity, education, ideas

Multiculturalism under examination

2007-02-12T12:05:00.001-08:00

Just as North American universities and colleges are making a serious effort at "internationalizing" their curriculum, European professors are seriously criticizing the concept of multiculturalism, attacking it, and its mainly postmodernist defenders, as moral relativists and nihilists.

Sightandsound.com has published a number of articles on both sides of the controversy and has links to the posts here. All of the contributors are very "high end" intellectuals and all argue convincingly.
The one that I found most convincing was by Dutch Professor Paul Cliteur. Read it here.

Technorati Tags: education, feminism, history, ideas

Is Shakespeare "universal"?

2007-02-12T10:01:00.001-08:00

In the academy, it is generally accepted that there are no such things as "universal" human values that transcend time and culture. In a article on The Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy website author Paul A. Cantor puzzles over why the historicist proposition that universal values don't exist is so at odds with his perception that people in various cultures, at various times, have found Shakespeare so important to their lives.

Technorati Tags: art, education, history, ideas, literature

Madame de Chatelet

2007-02-12T09:33:00.001-08:00

Madame de Chatelet was one of the leading lights of the Enlightenment in France, a friend and collaborator of Voltaire, author of books on philosophy, mathematics, and physics. Because she was a woman, she had difficulty getting her writings about mathematics and physics taken seriously. Cabinet Magazine has an excellent introductory article on her.

A significant figure for feminist theory, history of science, and French history.

Technorati Tags: feminism, history, ideas, literature, education, tagging

Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit

2007-02-12T08:34:00.001-08:00

"The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life" (Twyla Tharp)
Twyla Tharp is one of the world's greatest choreographers: artistically honoured and commercially successful. This book is Tharp's analysis of her creative process/habits. It's a very clearly written, optimistic, and inspiring book.

Tharp does it all; she's a dancer, choreographer, director, entrepreneur, manager. She understands the necessarily chaotic nature of creativity, as well as the need for discipline in harnessing that chaos and shaping it to serve our ends. We are partially the servants of our best creative moments, partially the creators, and partially the masters. This is book will be incredibly useful to any manager or creative person who is willing to listen to it.

Interesting passages:

"being creative is a full-time job with its own daily patterns" (p.6)

"Too much planning implies you've got it all under control. That's boring, unrealistic, and dangerous. It lulls you into a complacency that removes one of the artist's most valuable conditions: being pissed. Art is competitive with yourself, with the past, with the future. It is a special war zone where you first make the rules, and then you test the consequences." (p. 133)

"The more you fail in private, the less you will fail in public. In many ways, the creative act is editing." (p. 213)

"When it all comes together, a creative life has the nourishing power we normally associate with food, love, and faith." (p.243)

Technorati Tags: art, dance, design, ideas, management, creativity

The Ten Faces of Innovation

2007-02-11T15:20:00.001-08:00

"The Ten Faces of Innovation: IDEO's Strategies for Defeating the Devil's Advocate and Driving Creativity Throughout Your Organization" (Thomas Kelley, Jonathan Littman)
This is a follow-up book to Kelley's "The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America's Leading Design Firm" (Tom Kelley, Tom Peters, Tom Peters). It is not as good as the first, which had some excellent advice and exposed the world to the innovative practices of the Ideo Design firm, where Kelley works.

The second book is generally a rehashing of its predecessor, with the points rearranged to be in numbered lists (thus the title). I doubt if a truly innovative practice can be codified into numbered points.

He begins with an excellent piece of advice: banish the Devil's Advocate from your organization. Beware the person who habitually responds to a new idea with "Let me play the Devil's Advocate for a minute …" and goes on to explain why the new idea won't work. Give innovation a chance. Don't kill ideas at birth.

Kelley says there are ten personality types needed to contribute toward institutional innovation. It is possible for an individual to have traits of more than one personality, but not possible for one person to contain all ten.

I like the idea of diversity of character type and approach. Too often we hire people who are just like us, who think just like us. Who needs all that me-tooing?

Interesting lines:

"Stories persuade in a way that facts, reports, and market trends seldom do, because stories make emotional connection." (p. 242)

"Flexibility is the new strength" (p. 263)

An ok read, but not an essential book.

Technorati Tags: design, management

Breakthrough Ideas for 2007

2007-01-31T19:37:00.001-08:00

The Harvard Business Review takes a shot at predicting the "breakthrough ideas" of 2007. There are twenty in all, including "The folly of accountabalism": "a set of related beliefs and practices that bureaucratize morality and make us believe we can control our lives by adhering to specific rules." Amen to that. The sign of maturity in an individual and an organization is the willingness to wing it, to go beyond the textbook, to ride the bike with the training wheels off.

Technorati Tags: ideas, technology, web2.0, management

Connected?

2007-01-25T22:14:00.000-08:00

Last night I happened to wander into my home office when the house was in darkness. The table desk was covered with green and red dots of light: cell phone recharging, printer, computer speakers, printer, laptop power indicator, ipod recharger. I used to carry a little notebook and a pen. I still do, but now I also have all this electronic stuff for keeping notes, keeping in touch. Reaching out and being reached. I have satellite radio, cable tv, an ipod, digital music channels on the cable, fm radio on the cable.

On my computer I have web browsers that play music (including the channels that come with our xm radio subscription), real player, itunes, windows media player, live 365 player. I also have a 6 disc cd player and a cd player in the car. Two of our tv's have built in vcr players. We have two dvd players, and a third vcr in the basement. We have three tv's. Christine has a boom box at work and one in the basement and her own mp3 player. When we walk at the track we listen to our respective mp3 players. I love it. I listen to my ipod at the gym as well. The rhythms of the music lift my spririt, supplement and maybe help the adrenaline jolt that the cardio gives me.

I put reminders into my google calendar. It sends me text messages to remind me of the events and it sends me emails and it puts a notification on my computer screen.

When we go out I forward calls from the house to my cell phone. Christine has a cell phone. My cell has voice recognition. When I tell it "Christine" it calls our home number. When I say "cell" it calls her cell phone. I have a free account with backpack that allows me to give myself reminders which are emailed and texted to me.

My secretary keeps my appointments organized for me. She types them into the Palm software on her computer and syncs it to my handheld. I syn it once or twice a day to my computer. Ical uploads it to my calendar on .mac. My google calendar reads the .mac calendar and integrates the work appointments with my private reminders. Reminders from google calendar appear on my computer screens at home and at work. I can also run ical at home on my laptop and, because I subscribe to my .mac calendars I can see my work schedule at night or on weekends, in case I'm curious about what lies ahead for me.

I have a program called quicksilver that allows me to send to-dos and meetings to either ical or google calendar without using a web browser. It takes about a second. I type in the event and the date and time in a text box and boom, it's up there.

I can send email to a variety of blogs. I can send email to a reading list that I maintain online. When I write in one of my wikis it automatically sends me an email telling me that I have just done that (kind of redundant). I have a special (free) program that lets me read the ny times online. I subscribe to a ton of rss feeds through google reader. I can save them, erase them, email them to other people, tag them to my del.icio.us account.

Flock, my current browser of choice, automatically uploads anything I book mark to my del.icio.us account. My gmail account shows me if any of my contacts with gmail accounts are online. If they are, gmail has built in chat. If I receive an excel spreadsheet as an attachment gmail lets me move it to google documents for viewing and storage. I can also upload or create .doc documents in google documents. I can create, save, edit, read, and share word documents without owning a copy of word.

I can also upload documents to my .mac idisk. I have a wiki on .mac that I type into from any place where there is internet access. Ditto with other files (my favourite being files made with omnioutliner. I have several wish lists on amazon.com where I create lists of books I want to read. I keep a list of books that I have at home and haven't read on my voo2do.com (free) account. Whenever I buy a new book I email its details to this account where it is kept in an alphabetised list.

Wikinomics

2007-01-08T08:52:00.000-08:00

Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams. Wikinomics.
Wikinomics is a book about the economy in a new era of networked collaboration. It charts how mass collaboration, usually, but not always, over the Internet has created new companies and new expectations among employees. I lament how little collaboration there is at my place of work.
Interesting passages:

"Employees have previously unthinkable knowledge about their firm's strategy, management, and challenges ... rather than something to be feared, transparency is a powerful new force for business success. Smart firms embrace transparency and are actively open." (22)

"the Net Generation ... born between 1977 and 1996 inclusive, this generation is bigger than the baby boom itself, and through sheer demographic muscle they will dominate the twenty-first century" (46)

"The Internet makes life an ongoing massive collaboration, and this generation loves it. They typically can't imagine a life where citizens didn't have the tools to constantly think critically, exchange views, challenge, authenticate, verify, or debunk" (47)

"real innovation can occur when companies take the time to observe how the existing workplace culture operates in a 'state of nature,' and then learn how to serve that culture effectively. This means ending the practice of trying to force employees into rigidly structured work-flow tools that stifle their creativity" (254-5).

Tom DeMarco, Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Efficiency

2007-01-02T14:12:00.000-08:00

Superefficient organizations are doomed to failure. Everyone is busy: there is no time for change, innovation, or flexibility. Every organization, especially 'knowledge' organizations, needs "slack". without slack they are rigid, vulnerable, and uncreative.
Some useful passages:
"Reinvention takes place in the middle of the organization, so the first requisite is that there has to be a middle … Now our in some slack, increase safety, and take steps to break down managerial isolation."
"There is no such a thing as 'healthy' competition within a knowledge organization: all internal competition is destructive … Knowledge work is by definition collaborative. The necessary collaboration is not limited to the insides of lowest-level teams; there has to be collaboration as well between teams and between and among the organizations the teams belong to."
"Risk avoidance is flight from opportunity."

In search of the elusive "hard conversation"

2006-06-21T11:27:00.000-07:00

This is how the web works. Havard Business School's Working Knowledge site has an article on "The Morning Meeting Ritual" that makes allusion to "hard conversations" and accountabiity. Berkun blog picks up the thread and says, great idea, wish they'd have told us how to encourage these "hard conversations". Ever helpful, Lifehacker asks readers to comment on what a "hard conversation" means to them.

Working Knowledge Blog

2006-06-20T10:36:00.000-07:00

The Harvard Business School has an excellent blog titled Working Knowledge. The site is valuable because it carries short, useful, enlightened articles on management. An rss feed is available.

A List Apart: Articles: The Four-Day Week Challenge

2006-05-10T09:38:00.000-07:00

A List Apart: Articles: The Four-Day Week Challenge
The idea of working four, slightly longer, days is very appealing. Whether or not you can do it depends on the culture of your workplace. I can't see an assembly line worker being allowed to work different hours than the rest of the line. Such flexibility isn't usually available in unionized industrial settings.
For me, the key idea in this piece comes in the middle when he asks if your life should facilitate your work, or if your work should facilitate your life. The author says it should be the latter, but he doesn't explore the fact that the choice he is positing isn't one that all people have available to them. I know that when I have the choice I want my job to facilitate my life. I don't live for my job. But a lot of the time the job can impinge on the life negatively (deadlines, surprises, disease etc). It's situational.
People who work around the clock, come in on weekends, and skip vacations because there is too much to do need to tell the job to back off.

del.icio.us/dprecosk/web2.0

2006-04-21T14:56:00.000-07:00

del.icio.us/dprecosk/web2.0:
This is a list of 30 online items that I've read and commented on (in the posts below).

Technorati Tags: technology, web2.0

goowy media home

2006-04-20T16:16:00.000-07:00

goowy media home:
goowy is one of many attempts to duplicate the computer desktop through a web browser. The idea is that one day you won't need software on your hard drive. It will all be available online, accessible from any computer with an internet connection. This particular site has a distinctive look, but limited functionality.
More interesting is writely, "the web word processor" which was recently purchased by Google, with the purported intention of making it a part of a "web operating system".

BitTorrent BitTorrent

2006-04-20T11:05:00.000-07:00

BitTorrent
BitTorrent is a software product, but it has also become a generic name for a type of filesharing. The technology is difficult to encapsulate, but it involves sharing files that are housed on tens of thousands of personal computers. The shared files, called "torrents". The service is problematic because it is used by pirates to distributed illegally copied files, but also by legitimate businesses, including universities and publishers, to distribute materials.

eBay - New & used electronics, cars, apparel, collectibles, sporting goods & more at low prices

2006-04-20T10:56:00.000-07:00

eBay - New & used electronics, cars, apparel, collectibles, sporting goods & more at low prices:
eBay is user driven online commerce. Buy and sell almost anything.
It is interactive, user focused, and people really do make money through it.
Click here if you want to buy a Porsche

Technorati Tags: technology, web2.0

MySpace

2006-04-20T10:49:00.000-07:00

MySpace:
MySpace bills itself as an online community. It is free and provides users with blogs, chat, photo sharing, classified ads, videos, and personals. It is immensely popular with the high school and college crowd. In the future MySpace will add "premium" (ie paid for) features. It could serve as a model for online educational communities.

Personal and small business information manager: Get organized, Backpack

2006-04-20T10:43:00.000-07:00

Personal and small business information manager: Get organized, Backpack:
Backpack is one of many online productivity web sites. Backpack is my favourite because it offers its basic service for free. The service includes online to-do lists, an online whiteboard, wiki-like pages, and a reminder service that sends me reminders via email and text messaging to my cell. The free package is limited to ten active reminders at any one time, but I have never exceeded the maximum.

Skype - The whole world can talk for free.

2006-04-20T10:37:00.000-07:00

Skype - The whole world can talk for free.:
Skype is a "free" voip service. You can talk for free (computer to computer) over the internet with anyone who has a skye account (accounts and enabling software are also free). You can also make calls to real telephones for rates generally below long distance.

Firefox - Rediscover the Web

2006-04-20T10:04:00.000-07:00

Firefox - Rediscover the Web:
Firefox is the preferred browser of web 2.0. It is free, created by volunteers, and highly extensible. It works on Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms. I have installed it on my home and work computers and use it on a daily basis.

Technorati Tags: technology, web2.0

digg

2006-04-20T09:53:00.000-07:00

digg:
Digg is a social bookmarking site specializing in technology news. It is fairly new and has enjoyed very large growth very quickly.

Excerpt:

Digg is a technology news website that employs non-hierarchical editorial control. With digg, users submit stories for review, but rather than allowing an editor to decide which stories go on the homepage, the users do.

Note the key web 2.0 characteristics of interactivity and of ceding control of the site to users. The "digg effect," whereby a web site that has been voted to the front page of digg by its members crashes under the weight of increased traffic, is much sought after by new web 2.0 enterprises. To be crashed by the "digg effect" is to be declared very cool.

Technorati Tags: tagging, technology, web2.0

del.icio.us

2006-04-20T09:46:00.000-07:00

del.icio.us:
Delicious is a free social bookmarking service. There are many such services available, but delicious is the most successful and most popular. It is a prime example of the use of folksonomy and is cited as one of the premiere success stories of web 2.0 application development.

Technorati Tags: technology, web2.0

Blogger: Create your Blog Now -- FREE

2006-04-20T09:10:00.000-07:00

Blogger: Create your Blog Now -- FREE :
A website where a user can sign up for a free blog. Very easy to use. Blogger has a huge number of members. It is particularly popular with bloggers who are not technically inclined. Its ease of use means that blogger lacks a lot of sophisticated features that professional blogs might require.
Wordpress is another free blogging service. It offers more features and is, therefore, a bit more difficult to learn.
Typepad charges for its services, but it gives you more features.
If you are a serious blogger, want total control over your blog, and have technical skills, then you might consider Movabletype. With Movabletype the blogger pays a license fee, downloads the blogging software, and runs it from his/her own server.

Technorati Tags: blogs, technology, web2.0

Plan, organize, store and share. Get Zoho Planner

2006-04-20T08:53:00.000-07:00

Plan, organize, store and share. Get Zoho Planner :
A free online planner. Allows todo lists and events.

Technorati Tags: web2.0

Wiki Hosting. Seed Wiki, web based solution for public and private Wikis. Affordable and free Wiki

2006-04-20T08:36:00.000-07:00

Wiki Hosting. Seed Wiki, web based solution for public and private Wikis. Affordable and free Wiki:
You can go here and sign up for a free wiki.

Technorati Tags: wiki, technology, web2.0

EDUCAUSE REVIEW | September/October 2004, Volume 39, Number 5

2006-04-20T08:34:00.000-07:00

EDUCAUSE REVIEW | September/October 2004, Volume 39, Number 5 :
A lengthy and informative article on wikis in general and on specific uses of them for educational purposes.

Excerpt:

In many respects, the wide-open ethic of wikis contrasts vividly with the traditional approaches of standard groupware and collaborative systems. Access restrictions, rigidly defined workflows, and structures are anathema to most wiki developers. What’s unique about wikis is that users define for themselves how their processes and groups will develop, usually by making things up as they go along.

Wikis and blogs are often confused. A blog is generally a vehicle for individual expression which is organized chronologically. Blogs can be highly and attractively formatted. A wiki is generally a vehicle for group collaborative communication which is organized by topic. Wikis are very plain, bordering on ugly. They use stripped down markup language and require the user to learn some very simple markup basics.

Technorati Tags: technology, web2.0, wiki

YouTube

2006-04-19T13:58:00.000-07:00

YouTube - India Driving
YouTube is a web site where people upload and tag their videos. Click on the link above to see an example.

Technorati Tags: technology, web2.0

folksonomies + controlled vocabularies. Many-to-Many:

2006-04-19T13:38:00.000-07:00

folksonomies + controlled vocabularies. Many-to-Many
Excerpt from wikipedia:

A "folksonomy" is a collaboratively generated, open-ended labeling system that enables Internet users to categorize content such as Web pages, online photographs, and Web links.
Link to full article

Popular web 2.0 sites such as flickr and delicious employ folksonomies to catalogue their contents. That is, users contribute photos to flickr and web links to delicious and attach "tags" or labels to them. The sites are searchable by tag. The searchable terms are, therefore, defined by the users. Traditionally, searchable databases use "controlled vocabularies" that are created by experts. Both systems have strengths and weaknesses.

MIT SMR Article, "Enterprise 2.0: The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration" - Spring 2006 Andrew P. McAfee. Reprint 47306

2006-04-19T13:23:00.000-07:00

MIT SMR Article, "Enterprise 2.0: The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration" - Spring 2006 Andrew P. McAfee. Reprint 47306
Web 2.0 is gaining notice in the academy. Here is the abstract of an article published in MIT's Sloan Management Review.

Technorati Tags: management, technology, web2.0

Thought Leadership

2006-04-19T12:56:00.000-07:00

Thought Leadership
An article on how corporations encourage employees to use blogs as forums for discussion.

Excerpt:

With the increase in thought leadership as a tactic to increase a company's perception as an expert, we are starting to see companies embrace a more public attitude toward publishing what they know. Big companies like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have embraced blogging, allowing employees to publish to a sanctioned space, as a method of creating or maintaining corporate thought leadership.

Microsoft publishes links (example of a tag cloud) to its employees' blogs.
I'm assuming there would have to be certain conditions set out to protect employers and employees.

Technorati Tags: blogs, technology, web2.0

O'Reilly -- What Is Web 2.0

2006-04-19T12:00:00.000-07:00

O'Reilly -- What Is Web 2.0:
The most comprehensive online article on web 2.0. Long, but essential reading if you want to get a handle on the topic.
O'Reilly likes to drop koans like "data is the new intel inside" and "users are co-creators".

MIT OpenCourseWare | Sloan School of Management | 15.269 Literature, Ethics and Authority, Fall 2005 | Home

2006-04-19T11:52:00.000-07:00

MIT OpenCourseWare |

Sloan School of Management | 15.269 Literature, Ethics and Authority, Fall 2005 | Home
Not really web 2.0 technology, but an example of the kind of free sharing that lies behind web 2.0. MIT lets the world look at all of its course outlines, online materials, essay topics etc. The knowledge is free; the degree might cost a couple of bucks.

Technorati Tags: technology, web2.0

Webosphere : Internet, RSS, web 2.0

2006-04-19T11:49:00.000-07:00

Webosphere : Internet, RSS, web 2.0:
Yet another list of links to web 2.0 projects. This one seems comprehensive, but uncritical.

Technorati Tags: technology, web2.0

the cluetrain manifesto

2006-04-19T10:05:00.000-07:00

the cluetrain manifesto

The Cluetrain Manifesto was written (I believe) in 1998 or 1999 and is available in a free online version and as a commercially published book. Some commentators (see my previous post) claim that business demands will kill web 2.0. The Cluetrain Manifesto claims that the web will kill most businesses. Provocative.

Excerpt:

markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies

Technorati Tags: blogs, management, technology, web2.0

Publishing 2.0 » Web 2.0 Is Not Media 2.0

2006-04-19T09:52:00.000-07:00

Publishing 2.0 » Web 2.0 Is Not Media 2.0
Some contrarian reality checking here. The writer makes the claim that web 2.0 is doomed because it does not provide a venue for the sale of traditional media commodities (ie. commercial products and product commercials). All this interactivity and community building is great, he says, but it will not last unless somebody finds a way of making money from it.
Lots of bright young programmers are getting millions of dollars from venture capitalists to develop killer web applications, but one day those venture capitalists will want a return on their investment.

Technorati Tags: blogs, management, technology, web2.0

Virtual Karma: Complete List of Web 2.0 Applications | Rian's blog

2006-04-19T09:43:00.000-07:00

Virtual Karma: Complete List of Web 2.0 Applications | Rian's blog
Another extensive list of web 2.0 applications. If you are adventurous click on some of the links and explore.

Technorati Tags: technology, web2.0

Ten Ways To Take Advantage of Web 2.0 (web2.wsj2.com)

2006-04-19T09:39:00.000-07:00

Ten Ways To Take Advantage of Web 2.0 (web2.wsj2.com)
Or, read another way, ten important characteristics that web 2.0 applications need to have to succeed. Stresses interactivity, social dimensions, user sense of ownership and involvement, and ceding of control.
The author alludes to "The Wisdom of Crowds" (James Surowiecki), a book that provides some theoretical underpinnings to the web 2.0 view of things. Here is a link to another blogger who discusses the interesting question of "who owns the wisdom of crowds".
Another book which provides a more theoretical explanation of the ideas influencing web 2.0 is "Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution" (Howard Rheingold). There is a blog devoted to discussing the implications of the book.
I should read these two books.

Technorati Tags: blogs, technology, web2.0

BBC NEWS | Business | The world according to Google

2006-04-18T22:29:00.000-07:00

BBC NEWS | Business | The world according to Google
Google is the mainstream web service that most clearly exhibits web 2.0 tendencies. Gmail, their free email system, is wonderful. It comes with two gigabytes of free storage, a ton of advanced features, and built-in chat. Google also has a free online calendar service and it owns blogger.com, one of the world's largest providers of free blogs (and the host of this blog). Google's biggest competitor is Yahoo. If Google and Yahoo continue with their software development and with their acquisition of leading edge companies (Yahoo now owns flickr and delicious) they will surpass Microsoft as dominant players in online technology.

Technorati Tags: technology, web2.0

Try a Wiki - Lifehacker

2006-04-18T22:19:00.000-07:00

Try a Wiki - Lifehacker
Lifehacker is a blog about using technology to improve personal and workplace productivity. This particular article is a recommendation for an online product called pbwiki. A wiki is harder to define. Basically, it is a piece of software that allows a user to create a simple web page, enter text and graphics into it, save it, and edit it, all live online. The pages created can be edited at a later date.
Wikis are excellent vehicles for collaboration because most keep a record of all changes/edits. There are many free wikis available. They range from single page html documents such as tiddlywiki which works brilliantly with Firefox (the best web browser available) to online services like the above-mentioned pbwiki, to elaborate systems that a user can download and run from a server.
Wikipedia is the most famous of all wikis and is one of the major achievements of web 2.0 thinking. Here is wikipedia's explanation of what a wiki is.

Emily Chang - eHub

2006-04-18T13:52:00.000-07:00

Emily Chang - eHub
A site with information about and links to emerging web 2.0 sites. Source for further investigation.

Technorati Tags: blogs, technology, web2.0

The Most Promising Web 2.0 Software of 2006 (web2.wsj2.com)

2006-04-18T09:32:00.000-07:00

The Most Promising Web 2.0 Software of 2006 (web2.wsj2.com)
Another list of web 2.0 sites worth exploring.

The secret to Web 2.0

2006-04-18T09:27:00.000-07:00

The secret to Web 2.0: what do Flickr, Ning, Kiko, Vimeo, Shadows, YouTube, Furl, NewsGator, Shutterfly, Mefeedia, Feedster, Planzo, Zazzle, Tailrank, Yakalike, Qoop, Lulu, Blish, Flagr, FireAnt, Odeo, Measure Map, EVDB, Gather, Oyogi, Last.fm... (kottke.org)
The entire posting is a list of web 2.0 style sites. I will comment on some of the more interesting ones (flickr, youtube, feedster, tailrank etc) in a later post, time permitting.

Technorati Tags: technology, web2.0

Thinking in Web 2.0: Sixteen Ways (web2.wsj2.com)

2006-04-18T09:09:00.000-07:00

Thinking in Web 2.0: Sixteen Ways (web2.wsj2.com)
A list of attitudes that should inform web 2.0 development. By inference, these are the attitudes of users. User centric thinking is stressed much more in web 2.0. Old style thinking put the burden on the user to "learn" the web and its features. Emerging opinion is that all features should be obvious and intuitive and that applications should be open and flexible enough that users can adapt them for purposes not thought of by the original programmers.

Technorati Tags: design, technology, web2.0

Design for Web 2.0 (kottke.org)

2006-04-17T14:02:00.000-07:00

Design for Web 2.0 (kottke.org)
This is an entry from a blog run by a web designer. The piece is mainly a series of thought provoking questions about design issues and, in a more general way, about the role of technology in an organization. also contains interesting reflections on management.

Technorati Tags: blogs, management, design, technology, web2.0

Read/WriteWeb: Web as Platform Mash-Ups

2006-04-17T10:48:00.000-07:00

Read/WriteWeb: Web as Platform Mash-Ups:
Good article on the web as "mash-up" platform. One of the many commentaries that speaks longingly of a web operating system or of the web as a platform for applications. Are we going full circle back to computers as dumb terminals? A lot of links to other web 2.0 articles.
The idea of giving up control in order to succeed has long been present in popular culture ("trust the force, Luke"); in the long run it's going to be hard for businesses to cede control to their customers.

Technorati Tags: blogs, management, technology, web2.0

Web 2.0 has a local address / South Park, the neighborhood that fostered the dot-com boom, is back

2006-04-17T08:08:00.000-07:00

Web 2.0 has a local address / South Park, the neighborhood that fostered the dot-com boom, is back:
A human interest story contrasting the excesses of the dot com boom and bust with the more restrained spending habits of the web 2.0 types.

Technorati Tags: blogs, management, technology, web2.0

Web2MemeMap on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

2006-04-16T15:05:00.001-07:00

Web2MemeMap on Flickr - Photo Sharing!:
This is one of the central pages in understanding Web 2.0 This is a "lightbulb" page: the one where the concept illuminates and redefines the landscape.
Notice:
-the map and what it says about web 2.0
-where it is posted (explore flickr)
-notice the comments from everywhere in the world; they go on and on.
O'Reilly's meme map has spawned a wide ranging discussion. See
here, here, and here,for example.
For a more theorized discussion look here. I'll probably do a comment on the last entry later in this blog.

Web2MemeMap on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

2006-04-16T15:05:00.000-07:00

Less as a competitive advantage: My 10 minutes at Web 2.0 - Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals)

2006-04-16T14:44:00.000-07:00

Less as a competitive advantage: My 10 minutes at Web 2.0 - Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals):
A quirky little article about one person's ideas on managing projects in the Web 2.0 world. Some of the points are worth considering in any management situation.
The article has proven quite controversial, as can be seen by the many, many comments appended at the end.
The author is a member of the "37 Signals" design group. Their main business is designing Web 2.0 online applications for personal productivity and corporate collaboration. I use their free Backpackit web application all of the time. The group has written a book outlining their ideas about work, design, and managment. It is available as a paid for pdf download here. I haven't read it yet.

Technorati Tags: blogs, management, technology, web2.0

Levy: Digital Distractions Bad for the Workplace - Newsweek Technology - MSNBC.com

2006-04-13T20:00:00.000-07:00

Levy: Digital Distractions Bad for the Workplace - Newsweek Technology - MSNBC.com
Steven Levy is possibly the leading historian of internet/online development. In this article he introduces us to the effects and dangers of "continuous partial attention," the situation where people (especially at work) are put in situations where they are required to divide their attention among living people, cell phones, Blackberries, and laptops.
Levy's "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution" is a fascinating read. It's in the CNC Library (I think).

Technorati Tags: health, technology

2.0Culture

2006-04-11T20:36:00.000-07:00

2.0Culture:
An article on web design traits of web 2.0 sites. Useful for web designers who want their sites to have the latest, with it, look. Front end stuff doesn't get much attention in writing about web 2.0; it's the AJAX and other programming tricks that get most of the accolades.

Web 2.0: A Pattern Library

2006-04-11T20:19:00.000-07:00

Web 2.0: A Pattern Library
Author Tim Ziegler has written one of the more detailed descriptions of web 2.0 that I have found. Most importantly he has identified one of its most important attributes: the web as platform

Excerpt:

The web is beginning to be used as a "platform" rather than a host of websites. This means that you use hosted websites to get your business done rather than relying on software on your own computer's hard drive. Related to this is the notion that the best web apps are simple and useful and can be combined for extra usefulness, even if they are not run by the same companies.

Other topics covered in this detailed piece are

Ajax
SmartCMS
Dashboard views
Dynamicness and Interoperability
Folksonomies and tagging
Give away your secrets
Human filters
Information architecture (the importance of)
Internet hype
Iterative launches
Pattern libraries and patterns
Mashup-ability
Simplicity and modularity
Social networking models
Coda: My predictions

Technorati Tags: blogs, web2.0

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: The amorality of Web 2.0

2006-04-10T22:11:00.002-07:00

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: The amorality of Web 2.0:
This article is atypical in that it is skeptical of the motivation of people developing sites and applications for Web 2.0 The mainstream line is that Web 2.0 is interactive, collaborative, user friendly etc. Carr's counterclaim is that too many people are heaping uncritical praise on the phenomenon as the next big thing to such an extent that it is turning into a cult. He wisely points out that if making a profit isn't a part of a web developer's business plan, then his/her product will fail. The "yearning for a higher consciousness" as he describes the motivation behind Web 2.0 is a good thing but, he warns, it can all be coopted by the profit motive. We're back to the old cliché that technology is neither inherently good, nor evil. It's the use that people put it to that determines its "morality".

Technorati Tags: ethics, web2.0

= openBC = Groups - "Web 2.0" - Board "EVERYTHING 2.0"

2006-04-09T22:43:00.000-07:00

This very odd blog page contains lists of links to other lists of links to hundreds of web 2.0 sites, most of which are in beta form. It's a site with too much information for me to tackle at this time. Half of the beta sites have probably gone out of business since you began reading this posting.
"OpenBC" is short for something like "Open Business Club" and has no affiliation with British Columbia.

The Top 100 sites in the Web 2.0 world. (://URLFAN)

2006-04-09T22:31:00.000-07:00

The Top 100 sites in the Web 2.0 world. (://URLFAN)
This site describes itself in the following way:

An experiment to discover what sites bloggers are referencing in real time.Reading 285,050 feeds, parsing 31,939,939 posts, ranking 1,230,303 domains.

In other words, it's a list of the top 100 web sites that bloggers are quoting or referring to in their posts. The list itself is an example of a secondary use of aggregation, the collection of web published materials through RSS and other formats. These 100 web sites all provide one or more RSS feeds that users can subscribe to and retrieve via an aggregator. The link a few lines above is to wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, which is one of the signature creations of web 2.0 technology.
Aggregation gives the user control over what she reads, hears, and sees and when she does it. For example, I can subscribe via RSS (using the aggregator of my choice) to the book review pages numerous online newspapers and read them all from one internet location. If I find one or two that I really like, I can tag it and save the reference in my del.cio.us account for later reference. You will notice that most of the posts in my blog have links to technocrati tags

Technorati Tags: blogs, web2.0

» What to expect from Web 3.0 | Software as services | ZDNet.com

2006-04-09T18:14:00.000-07:00

» What to expect from Web 3.0 | Software as services | ZDNet.com:
Web 2.0 hasn't happened yet, but this author is predicting its demise and replacement by Web 3.0
Basically, the author sees web 2.0 as small potatoes because it is driven by individual user needs, whereas web 3.0, he predicts, will be driven by business needs.
Excerpt:
Web 3.0 isn't just about shopping, entertainment and search. It's also going to deliver a new generation of business applications that will see business computing converge on the same fundamental on-demand architecture as consumer applications.
Many web 2.0 projects are attempts to deliver on-demand business tools (word processing, spreadsheets, conferencing), so the point is confusing. Maybe he means it won't "get real" until Microsoft enters the arena with its Vista operating system.

Technorati Tags: web2.0

TechCrunch

2006-04-09T09:14:00.000-07:00

TechCrunch:
TechCrunch is a blog that does nothing but report on Web 2.0 trends. The main impression I get from this blog is that there are tons of new ideas/web sites going up, usually in beta, every day.
TechCrunch has an RSS feed with about 35,000 subscribers. Community is a big feature of web 2.0 Web 2.0 sites are interactive and user focussed. The stories that this blog runs are only half of what makes it valuable. The other half is to be found in the comments that appear on the bottom of the individual stories. Click on the title of any one of the stories on the home page and you go to the story page. At the bottom of the story page are the comments. I'm looking at a story on music downloads that has 95 comments. Old style web sites are informational and owner centered. They put out the site owner's message and expect the visitors to be passive recipients of that message. They might have a clickable email link or two, but they aren't truly interactive. Dynamic web sites aren't the same as interactive web sites, although interactive web sites do tend to be dynamic.

Technorati Tags: blogs, web2.0

18 Lessons I’ve Learnt about Blogging: ProBlogger Blog Tips

2006-04-08T11:32:00.000-07:00

18 Lessons I’ve Learnt about Blogging: ProBlogger Blog Tips
Blogs are incredibly popular because they are so flexible. Most blogs are done for hobby, work, or family communication.
A small number of blogs become very popular and make money for their authors. This article is by a professional blogger who claims to be making a good living. It's the next step in freelancing.
The trick is to figure out how to monetarize (jargon alert) your blog. You can read up on it in "Who Let the Blogs Out? : A Hyperconnected Peek at the World of Weblogs" (Biz Stone)
As an aside, if you click on the link and buy the book I get a few pennies. This kind of targeted link is an example of a monetarization scheme. Lots of blogs are plastered with clickable advertisements that could earn the blog owners money. Look at all of the clickable links on the ProBlogger page.

Technorati Tags: blogs, web2.0

Internet Alchemy Talis, Web 2.0 and All That

2006-04-08T11:00:00.000-07:00

Internet Alchemy Talis, Web 2.0 and All That
A software developer defines Web 2.0 as an attitude and not a technology.

Excerpt:

Here's my take on it: Web 2.0 is an attitude not a technology. It's about enabling and encouraging participation through open applications and services. By open I mean technically open with appropriate APIs but also, more importantly, socially open, with rights granted to use the content in new and exciting contexts. Of course the web has always been about participation, and would be nothing without it. It's single greatest achievement, the networked hyperlink, encouraged participation from the start. Somehow, through the late nineties, the web lost contact with its roots and selfish interests took hold. This is why I think the Web 2.0 label is cunning: semantically it links us back to that original web and the ideals it championed, but at the same time it implies regeneration with a new version. Technology has moved on and it's important that the social face of the web keeps pace.

Technorati Tags: web2.0