Lewis Thomas on Language

Fromn the Simultaneous Translation site comes this lovely quote from the biologist, Lewis Thomas in his wonderful book, "Lives of a Cell."

Language is simply alive, like an organism. We all tell each other this, in fact, when we speak of living languages, and I think we mean something more than an abstract metaphor. We mean alive. Words are the cells of language, moving the great body, on legs. Language grows and evolves, leaving fossils behind. The individual words are like different species of animals. Mutations occur. Words fuse, and then mate. Hybrid words and wild varieties or compound words are the progeny. Some mixed words are dominated by one parent while the other is recessive. The way a word is used this year is its phenotype, but it has deeply immutable meanings, often hidden, which is its genotype.... The separate languages of the Indo-European family were at one time, perhaps five thousand years ago, maybe much longer, a single language. The separation of the speakers by migrations had effects on language comparable to the speciation observed by Darwin on various islands of the Galapagos. Languages became different species, retaining enough resemblance to an original ancestor so that the family resemblance can still be seen.
– Lewis Thomas
Living Language
from The Lives of a Cell: Notes of
a Biology Watcher (1974)

Ladder of Participation now available online

One more gem from David as I start catching up on all my "draft" blog items. Barrage coming! Fair warning!
Ladder of Participation now available online:

One of the most powerful models for thinking about how much influence people have in public programmes is Sherry Arnstein's Ladder of Participation, developed 25 years ago. Her eight rungs range from Manipulation to Citizen Control. I developed a version for The Guide to Effective Participation, but could never find an online reference for the original. However, it is now available in full as web pages and downloads.
I think that the ladder ((here), remains a useful way of thinking about power and control, though participation programmes are more complex these days. Back in the 1960s it was usually a matter of one civic power holder - council or agency - considering how much 'say' they would give to citizens. These days there is almost inevitably a complex partnership of interests, who may not agree among themselves. The result is often that promises are made about high levels of engagement, but the reality drops down the ladder.

When I amended the ladder I suggested that it was not really a matter of the higher up the ladder the better, but rather horses for courses. There's more explanation of the idea of stance here). Sometimes consultation on fixed options would be appropriate, sometimes a partnership among stakeholders, or support for key interests. Unfortunately things seldom work out that cleanly, and I think that Sherry may have been right to include terms like manipulation and therapy in her model."

If you haven't kept up with David's blog, it's worth subscribing. There are four or five other articles I could blog here, but you should go read his blog instead.

Presenting to promote conversation

David Wilcox posted this bit over a week ago. I appreciated it for it's usefulness in F2F presentations, but I think the principles involved also apply in online interactions. Presenting to promote conversation:

"Geoff Mulgan, former head of Tony Blair's strategy unit, this evening provided a striking lesson in how to do a presentation that favours the audience - by chunking the content in a way that stimulates conversations. It was all the more effective because there was no Powerpoint, no exhortation, and no evident ego. Clearly some people can survive a tumble in the No 10 spin machine.
The occasion was a meeting of the Tomorrow Network, a free, loose association of about 2200 people treated by the Tomorrow Project to end-of-the-day meetings every few months, mainly in London. Not all at once, of course.
Tonight's topic was 'The future of the electronic media', which is usually a great temptation to fancy slides and baffling techie references. Instead we got 10 stories that provided different windows into the issues, based around technology, business, geography, power relationships, civil society, mentality, community, children, morality, time. The content was a crisp mix of anecdote, analysis, and hunch, all in 20 minutes. I'll do more later on one or two of them. My point here is that the presentation was - it seemed to me - designed specifically to prompt some conversations (and incidently offer at least 10 neat blog items). It occurs to me you could also take the structure and use the 10 categories for further research... a good jump start to some Spurling perhaps. Or do a mindmap - here's a start. "

networked_performance: Simultaneous Translation

I'm not sure where I picked this up a week ago. It has sat in the draft pile but it looks interesting. networked_performance: Simultaneous Translation - A Networked Collaboration: "December 08, 2004
Simultaneous Translation - A Networked Collaboration. Distance and Time Through the Lens of Streaming Media.

Friday December 17 & Sunday January 16, 2004; Madrid, Spain 20:00 (19:00 Greenwich Mean Time. 2PM Eastern Standard Time); Concert and live internet audio stream. Developed by John Roach with Miguel Ramos and Willy Whip Performers: Carlo Giordani, John Hudak, The Same Room Left, James Rouvelle, Mike Rosenthal, John Roach & Miguel Ramos.

Simultaneous Translation is an international networked performance that draws connections between language and the internet. Just as language has changed over time and as dialects have evolved as groups of people moved geographically from place to place, so in this project, live sound will be effected by time and distance. Audio created by the participants in Madrid, the US, Germany and Italy, will be broadcast live on the internet. [Related]"

Women Online Have New Tech Attitude

I've been interested in the area of women in technology since I became a woman in technology in 1996. Currently I volunteer with a program here in Seattle called Ignite which helps bring women working into technology into classrooms to talk with young women about their options. So I was interested to scan Women Online Have New Tech Attitude, According to Survey; Survey Reveals New Woman Emerging - ''Tif'' the Technology Involved Female

...according to Intel Corporation's "Women, Technology and Lifestyle" online survey of American adults, released today, women are catching up with men in the way they embrace technology....The survey reveals that women are using computing technology in their daily lives now more than ever.

(snip)
Introducing "Tif" - the Technology Involved Female
A new, tech-savvy woman has emerged and Intel calls her "Tif," short for Technology Involved Female. She spans generations and backgrounds, from the young women who have grown up with technology, to women who have been exposed to technology at work, to motivated self-learners. Tif is closing the technology gender gap, with women at the youngest end of the spectrum actually surpassing men in their intent to purchase a laptop. Half of young women say their next computer will be a laptop as compared to 43 percent of men their same age.(2)

Closing the Technology Gender Gap
Technology has become increasingly important in the daily lives of women. The Intel/Harris Interactive survey reveals women (58 percent) feel as lost as their male counterparts(3) (56 percent) if they don't check email at least once per day. And, women continue to want more and more from their technology, with the majority of women (62 percent), like men (66 percent), enthusiastic about learning how to use new features on their computers.

Not often recognized as early adopters, women in the survey are revealed as leading the way with wireless Internet access, as more women than men believe this is one of the most important features for a laptop to have (39 percent women versus 29 percent men). While men (51 percent) and women (48 percent) agree that the airport tops the list of the most useful locations to have wireless Internet access, women (38 percent) are more likely than men (30 percent) to desire a connection in a doctor's office as well.

A few other stats from the survey:

• women have become more reliant on their laptops
  
• women still lag behind men in some areas including confidence in their decision to purchase computers
  
• they are nearly three times as likely as men to believe that the opposite sex overstates their knowledge about computers (32 percent women versus 10 percent men)
  

Clearly this is a survey with a marketing purpose, and it has a slant that I took as slightly patronizing. But the reality is that women have more clout as users and purchasers of technology than as women working in tech fields. So lets weild the power!

Welcome to Blogging, Dan

My friend Dan Oestreich, a leadership consultant, has jumped into blogging. Today we have been messing with his new blog at Oestreich Associates. Welcome, Dan!

Watermark: Holiday Linkage

Sharon Montana finds some fun holiday gems at her Holiday Linkage

I am becoming addicted to the "Make a Snowflake." My Secret Santa name is Tumbleflump Berry-Pie!

Test post

I am doing 43 things.

Hm, playing with the blog integration at 43 Things. This is, as you might have guessed, a test post.

Scratching head.

The Digital Divide Network Launches New Website

Attention activists! The Digital Divide Network has launched a new page to host their 3000+ member community. RSS feeds, discussions, news... chow down!

"You're looking at the new and improved DDN, the Internet's premier resource for bridging the digital divide. Use DDN to build your own online communities: publish a blog, share documents and discussions with colleagues, announce news and events and submit an article or two. Connect with colleagues from around the world to share ideas, form partnerships and develop new strategies for bridging the divide."

Flashbacks, Common Sense and Kawasaki’s “The Art of the Start”

When I first started reading Guy Kawasaki’s new book, “The Art of the Start,” about six weeks ago, I had just come back from an exhausting overseas trip. I was not the brightest ember in the fireplace. I looked at the chapter names, “Causation,” “Articulation,” “Activation,” “Proliferation,” and “Obligation,” and wondered what the heck I was going to be reading. My natural tendency was to go to Activation and Obligation, being a bleeding heart Pollyanna, but I decided to ignore my normal business book reading patterns and, well, really read the darn book. (I’m a skipper, scanner and kismet reader. In fact I find great rewards is opening a book to any page and finding something that is relevant to me in that moment to a degree that either makes me scared or think I’m a total putz. Go figure.)

The start was a bit slow and the book got put down. Clearly exhaustion is not my best review mode. Four weeks later I picked the book up again and actually started reading. Guy has ditched biz-school speak, seasons with some cool-speak and sauces liberally with humor. Thank goodness. Think about it. Most business books are read on airplanes. If you can find a reason to smile or chuckle while being crammed in a tin can and reading a business book, chuck it. Life is too short. This book is easy to read.

The book follows the list of usual suspects for a start up. This is where the flashbacks started for me. In 1996 –97 I was part of a start up. I really do wish this book had been around when that adventure transpired. What I find to be “no-duh” common sense now that I’m older (read: stressed, wrinkled and wiser) would have been very useful. The flashback was helpful because it reminded me that this is the type of book I will pass on to my son with his dreams of being an entrepreneur. That is the book’s strength. It is straight forward, pragmatic and fairly basic. Don’t get me wrong, the basics are ESSENTIAL. Too often that’s what we skip. But the book won’t be full of surprises for the start up veterans.

Since I no longer work primarily in the business world, I was reading the book with the eye of a social venture or NGO start up perspective. How can this book help those in the non profit world? The concepts are mostly applicable, but I think the language differences between the two worlds is a challenge. That said, I can imagine a conversation or book club discussion around the book with folks from entrepreneurial NGOs would be fantastic once some of the complementary terms were sketched out in NGO-speak.

So what did I like? Not like? I’ll start with the shorter bit: the not-liked. I wanted more stories. Context is everything to me today and the book tended more towards catchy snippets. Almost too easy. There were more stories as I moved through the book, but yeah, I want more. I was non-plussed by the label of the “mini chapters” because they diminished the value of this consistent piece at the end of every chapter that provided a quick but tasty focus on some issue relevant to the chapter. I somehow expected something more there, but can’t put my finger on it, especially when I value straight-forward communication. I guess I can contradict myself. The tables had useful content but the labeling layout surprised me. Again, I expected better. This is in direct contrast to the thing I liked best.

OK, the fun part. Yeah, the thing I liked best. I can’t help myself, but my favorite part was the inside of the book jacket. Yes, the book jacket. Guy created a contest to find the design for the front of the book. On the inside are some of the other entries. I refuse to say losers, ok? It was the perfect example of walking the talk on branding in Chapter 9. In fact I liked Chapter 9 because four pages in, Guy was talking about how to make adoption of your product easier. Now THAT is branding. Of course I swooned at the community section of the chapter because after all, that is my religion. What can I say… I’m not objective in this area.


Most useful? The chapters on Bootstrapping, Recruiting and Raising Capital. Nuts, bolts and a few truffles thrown in for good measure. And I was reminded why I am now joyously a soloist. ;-) What I sensed in this area was a thread on leadership that was never really articulated, but was present. Guy, what does leadership look like in a start up? (I think this would be a fascinating topic and conversation.)

Finally, chapter 11, The Art of Being a Mensch. If there was 2% more mensch-hood in the world I think we’d be ready to entrepreneurally figure out how to make this world a better place. Or at least perhaps not destroy each other and the world. So yeah, I’m a Pollyanna. I’m glad to see that Guy has that gene floating around in his system as well.

Should you read this book? If you are thinking of a start up, yes. If you want flashbacks from doing a start up, take the appropriate cautions (I had chocolate truffles on hand.) If you are an old hand, skim for fun.

Oh, and one more thing. The title, “The Art of the Start” is clever. But in reality, Guy has put more of the practice on the table. I don’t deny there is art in the start, but without practice, it ain’t doodly squat.

Coordinates:
The Book via Amazon
The Book via CEO Reads

Disclosure: I was asked by a member of one of the communities I belong to if I would like to be part of an experiment with this book. A group of bloggers were asked to read the book and then blog about it. I was provided the book at no charge. I was not paid and if the book sucked I would have stopped reading it and would not have posted. Life is too short!

Logistical observation: I have three books given to me by the authors to read and, if I choose, comment upon them. I know and like two of the authors. The third I don’t know. But his colleague gave me a date by which they’d appreciate the post. Guess what today is? Bottom line, sometimes a boundary or parameter is just the trick to move someone to action! That said, Christian, your's is next! I'm half way through and am enjoying it!

Northern Voice Speakers and Schedule Announced!

I'm looking forward to meeting some folks I read and comment with at Northern Voice next year. Here are the speakers. I'm interested in an an informal add on (Blog Walk like our friends in Europe?) the day before or after around blogging for community issues. Anyone interested?

Speakers and Schedule Announced!

Shelly Farnham on Social Computing and Search

I had the chance to meet Shelly last week and liked what she had to say. So I started browsing. Found this! She touches on an issue I've been noodling on a lot lately, the conversational intersections in networks.

Social Computing and Search

I have been lurking at the Search Champs meeting hosted by MSN Search here at Microsoft…generally exploring the question “what does social computing have to do with search?” The quick answer is it’s all about the social metadata: how you can use collaborative filtering (Amazon), collaborative tagging (de.lic.ious) or FOAF social filters (what are my friends looking at: Eurekster) to focus search results on the content you care about.

My thinking on the social aspects of search has evolved a bit following a few conversations I have had in the past couple of days….over whiskey sours at El Gaucho David Weinberger was asking why MSN wanted to “do” search, implicating why bother when Google already did it so well. I asked him, well, what does he like so much about Google? He said that Google did a good job conveying a sense that it valued community input in determining the ranking of search results: that as people point to each others’ content, they are implicitly voting for it, and Google ranks results accordingly.

I walked away from that conversation mulling over the value so many Internet users place on the democratic proliferation and uprising of online information…and how important it was to provide people with the sense that they were collectively self-determining the value of their online content.

Later I was telling Brady Forrest (blogging afficianado in MSN Search) how I had created a fake blog recently as a joke on a friend of mine, and I asked Brady how would I go about ensuring my fake blog would appear in Google search results. That’s when he told me about Google bombing -- how could I have never heard of Google bombing!? -- where many people would link to a site (such as a biography of George Bush) using descriptive key words (e.g. “miserable failure”), so that any searches on the key words “miserable failure” would bring up a biography of George Bush. He then broke out his trusty sidekick (we were drinking whiskey sours at the Lower Level, our favorite, local, wi-fi-enabled bar) and showed me how George Bush’s biography was the first search result under “miserable failure”, with Jimmy Carter and Michael Moore as close seconds because a whole other set of people started linking to them in a “miserable failure”, Google bombing war.

That’s much more than just implicit voting on the value of online content. That’s a higher order level of conversation between networked collections of people, a give and take of the reinterpretation of information on this large scale, collective action level. It’s entire hive-minds arguing about who’s the miserable failure….

It’s crazy to think search engines could capture that level of conversation. (And, being research minded, we tested, while sipping our whiskey sours, and yes both MSN Search and Google bring up George Bush and Jimmy Carter under “miserable failure”.)

Emerging from the Writing Huddle

My last week was spent in an intense "writing huddle" with three colleague/friends. All of us were staying at my house so we were talking and thinking about our subject matter (technologies for communities of practice) every waking hour. With the exception of a break for a field trip to Microsoft Research (Community Technologies group and Social Computing group - Thanks Scott, Marc, Shelly, Danyel and Tamara) my head was totally consumed with trying to find ways to talk about the intersection between communities of practice and technology. You know, it is hard to organize the huge range of technological options in an easy to use manner. It is complicated stuff, to say the least. My brain hurts. But I think we made some progress. We are finishing editing a chapter of a book CEFRIO is putting together as a guide to CoPs, so hopefully this will move us further in our work.

In any case, I have a stack of draft blog posts -- most of which are aging beyond use. I am contemplating junking them all and starting fresh.

Actually, I am more in the mood to think about holiday cooking!!!