Santy Worm and PhpBB Bulletin Boards

It's not as if online group interaction doesn't have enough challenges!! eWeek reports on a new type of virus identified by the Kaspersky has more details. Google squashed it by blocking the Santy search query. I saw the story here : Santy Worm Defaces Web Forums:

"The worm, known as Net-Worm.Perl.Santy.A or Santy, uses Google search to randomly find sites running phpBB and overwrites several different files to deface the forums.

By targeting the freely distributed phpBB, the defacement worm has become a major nightmare for some businesses that use the forum software to handle customer-service queries and other support issues."

I just finished writing the little piece I mentioned a few days ago on the history and skills of online facilitation. Ismael suggested that the technical side of it needed more emphasis in my piece (advice I used, thank you!). This sort of story reinforces that there are many risks that come with the technological territory!

Chris' Gems on Linkages in Conversation, Leadership, Presence and Creativity

Like a little unexpected Christmas gift... 10 items of linkage focusing on conversation, transformative leadership, presencing and creativity". Thanks, Chris!

Review my Draft?

OK, so I'll admit, I get really nervous when I am submitting something for a book that comes out of academia. I'm a practitioner. I don't write academic pieces very often. Yesterday, many of you helped me find some sources for a piece I'm writing for this book: Encyclopedia of Virtual Communities and Technologies. I'm doing a piece on the history and evolution of online facilitation.

I'm not finished, but have to complete my final draft by Wednesday night. I'd love to send it to a few of you for some feedback -- short turn around. Anyone game?

I also am wondering if it is kosher to post the draft here. (Besides showing rough, unfinished work. Which never seems to bother me!)

Distracted Teleconferencers

Can't focus on the teleconference? Join the club brings no great surprises.

"Workers are sharpening their multitasking skills--but the boss might not be so happy about how they're using them.

Ninety percent of people who participate in conference calls find things to keep them busy besides following the discussion, according to a new survey from audio and video conferencing company Raindance Communications.

Topping the list of distractions: doing unrelated work and looking for materials being discussed on the call. A full half of respondents said they read and write e-mail and instant messages during such calls, while just more than a third said they take the opportunity to fill their stomachs. Twenty-seven percent say they surf the Web during conference calls, while a third said they are guilty of pressing the mute button to talk privately with others.

So what do you do when you are leading or facilitating a teleconference? I wrote a bit about this on my website. Teleconference Call Tips. Have any to add?

Gifting technologies

I'm late reading December's "First Monday." There is a cool looking article on Gifting technologies that has captured my attention (or what little is left of it.) From the abstract:

File–sharing has become very popular in recent years, but for many this has become synonymous with file–getting. However, there is strong evidence to suggest that people have strong giving (or gifting) needs. This evidence suggests an opportunity for the development of gifting technologies — and it also suggests an important research question and challenge: what needs and concerns do gifters have and what technologies can be developed to help them? In this paper, we discuss the existing literature on gifting, report on an initial study of gifting in an online sharing community, and suggest some ways the study results can inform future research into gifting desires — as well as the design of specific gifting technologies.

Oh, and I love the first line of the full paper.

Could the ability to give be one of the central features that determines the popularity and success of computer–mediated "sharing" activities, communities, applications, and services?

Isn't hat part of the attraction of blogging?

43 Things (and I thought I was already busy!)

43 Things is in beta and I've been playing around for about a week, thanks to an invite from Lee. Some of you noticed my cryptic earlier post (where I was testing the ability to post to my blog from within the 43 Things interface -- I haven't yet figured out the utility of this, but hey, I'm slow.) So I figured I should say a bit more.

43 things is a new site from some folks here in Seattle that works on the premise of things we want to do -- so why do them alone? Find others who share a goal and coalesce around that.

So far, it is a tantalizing reminder of all the wonderful things we can do -- if only we had more time. I am both enjoying it and hating it. I enjoy the connection it affords around shared interest. I, however, am feeling guilty about all the cool things I'm not doing. Figure. I think I need a thing about not feeling guilty!!

It is still in beta. Holler if you want an invite -- leave a comment and to the clever thing of typing AT instead of @ to avoid the ole spam, spam, spam.

Dan on Accountability

Dan's leap into blogging is allowing the rest of us a peek into some great stuff. Here is a snippet - check out the whole thing!Accountability:

"What's deeper -- and obvious -- is that the use of the term is often a strong signal of disconnection between people. When the term is thrown around loosely, my sense is it often means 'we've stopped listening to one another.' And that can happen for a lot of reasons, the greatest of which is loss of trust. It's a sign that we no longer believe what we hear from one another and can't seem to get through. We can't quite communicate what our world is like and how much we need them -- whoever they are -- to do what we need them to do. In this sense, accusations about others' lack of accountability is often code for a Dilbertian world of silos, shut down communications, and self-protection -- characteristics of what I would call the background 'default' culture of American business and government organizations. Hmmm. Pretty dark.

And if we want to change this? The answer, it seems to me, is in the relationships, the willingness in the hearts of people to try to understand the dynamics of how we are viewing each other and what that's doing to us -- all of us. Once that's found, the stereotypes fade in favor of real people who are discovering how to care about their work, their workplace, and what happens to one another. We have seriously positive capabilities and they can be liberated, but often to get there we have to go through the darkness of looking at how addicted we are to that background Dibertian world, how it prevents us from real contact with one another, which means dealing with reality, with tension, with conflict in the name of breakthrough."

RIT Lab for Social Computing

Cool news via Liz Lawly about the new Lab for Social Computing:

"Welcome to the home of the Rochester Institute of Technology's Lab for Social Computing. This lab is part of the Center for the Study of Cyberinfrastructure (CASCI) in the Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences.

The purpose of the LSC is to engage in research, technology development, and education related to social computing--the use of technology to facilitate social and collaborative activities."

Congratulations to Liz and her group!

Another F2F/Online Blend Offering

I'm a big fan of gatherings that allow us to extend and deepen via online pre/post wrapped around F2F events. I've hosted a few with colleagues and often use this design approach with clients. It is a kick to see more of them happing like Stowe Boyd's upcoming event. True Voice:

"Our interest isn't to just have a seminar, but to structure meetings that matter; to create a context around those meetings that is highly engaging and enduring. While we are charging $295 for the seminar, its really much, much more than a few hours of involvement. It includes a six week virtual workshop, and the opportunity to be selected out of the 30 or so attendees to have an even deeper and more strategic interaction with the True Voice team."

(Hm, now I can't find the exact spot where I copied this text from. Ah, this is the downside of posting drafts weeks ago, and finally getting to edit them today. Sigh.)

Ozzie looks back, looks ahead

Ray Ozzie looks back at the launch of the company that created Lotus notes and forward to the future of online collaboration tools. Below are a few snippets. I have to admit, I enjoy these year end retrospectives. Lots of food for thought and fuel for 2005's imagination.

...Twenty years ago tomorrow, on Dec. 7, 1984, Mitch Kapor and I signed an agreement that began the development of a product code-named Notes.

...Fifteen years ago tomorrow, on Dec. 7, 1989, ... Lotus Notes Release 1.0 was born.

...The fundamental nature of the corporation was changing--catalyzed by a change in doctrine and deftly enabled by cheap commodity communications and information technology.

...By the late 1990s...business was changing--from vertically integrated powerhouses to a mesh of interdependent partners. The winners were companies that used information technology to create the most efficient and effective network of partners and suppliers.

...Peter Drucker projects the future of the corporation to be an extreme confederation of businesses--from the large to small to very small. These loosely knit confederations are held together by a common strategy--local economics--and a web of fine-grain alliances.

...The Wall Street Journal observed ...New jobs are being created, but they're in different organizational forms than the ones we're measuring ... more people, by choice or necessity, "become self-employed or form partnerships, rather than working for large corporations."

...the fundamental nature of work itself is changing--enabled by cheap, ubiquitous networking, communications, coordination and information-sharing technologies. The "virtual office" is more the norm than the exception.

... The new concept: a world of pervasive knowledge work, riding on the foundations of fiber laid by the ghosts of an Internet bubble past and enabled by cheap, self-service communications tools and technologies.

...New concepts appear almost daily, emerging from both the distant parallel universes of paper-bound corporate or academic research and the "just try it and see what sticks" petri dish that is today's Internet ecosystem. Those universes have brought us the likes of ICQ, Skype, Blogger, Wikipedia and Flickr.

8th Virtual Communities Conference CFP

Harry Collier has posted the dates and call for proposals for the The Eighth International Forum on Virtual Communities in Loncon, 14-15 November 2005.

Offers of presentations at this conference are now being invited. We can only accommodate a maximum of 18 full presentations during this two-day programme, so we shall need to be selective.

This conference is an opportunity for attendees and speakers to share best practices. With a focus on various species of virtual communities, we plan presentations or panels on:

* Social Software and Social Networks
* Collaboration Tools: Helping Communities Work Together
* Communities of Practice
* Communities of Users
* Geographic / local area Communities
* Case studies of Successful Communities
* Core tools and technologies
* Communities as pressure groups / Flash communities
* .......

Those with appropriate expertise who are interested in taking part in the programme should contact the conference's programme management panel via Harry Collier of Infonortics...Because speaking or panel slots are limited in number, you are advised to get your detailed propositions in as soon as possible to avoid disappointment. Deadline for paper offers: Monday 30 April 2005."

Who coined the term online facilitation?

I'm writing up a small piece on the history of online facilitation and I'm trying to pin down who started using the term. I fell into this field and was using the term in 1997 - as an effort to look beyond the more traditional online community term of "hosting."

Does anyone have any sources/pointers to earlier uses? I'm SURE they are out there, but I have not had much luck in my Sunday morning searching.

Also, if you have any other interesting pointers to the history of online facilitation, I'd love to know about them. You will see down in the lower right hand side of my blog that my FURL additions this morning are all in this area. The RSS feed for my FURLs are also there if you are interested.

Stephen Downes 2003 Predictions/Realities

Among other interesting bits was this section from Downes in his prediction reviews.He wrote in December 2003:

"The evolution of email will have as an unexpected consequence a resurgence in the widespread search for community on the internet. Historically, the most popular applications have always been those where people could share their thoughts in groups. Usenet dominated the early days of the net, email and mailing lists the nineties, web based discussion boards the last decade. Because community forums have been so corrupted by commercial content, people have found themselves cut off from their communities."

His December 2004 comment:

This phenomenon has emerged largely unremarked (I haven't seen a reference anywhere). But I have a sense that people, if they think about it, will discover that they haven't been reading their email so diligently nor visiting the online discussions so frequently.

I still can't find any quotes - but this is my own observation. Traffic on the mailing lists seems lighter - not so much in volume, because places like DEOS and others have become a haven for conference announcements, calls for papers, and other assorted palaver. Subscriptions to my newsletter via RSS on Bloglines have gone from none to 300 in the last year. But you'll have to make this call yourself - is email as compelling as it was this time last year?

I think I was right about the community aspect - people have been abandoniong email as their means of expression. But they have turned to their blogs, and blogs have become much more of a community phenomenon that I would have reported this time last year."