A place to capture and share ideas and links about online interaction, online community, distance learning, distributed CoPs from Full Circle Associates
This is what I'll be reading on my upcoming plane ride (or more likely, the airport wait)... New Literacy of Cooperation in Business by Andrea Saveri, Howard Rheingold, Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, and Kathi Vian
The PDF (856K)files can be found directly here.
Recently David blogged a wonderful piece, Web as world. This one paragraph was like a cup of dark, hot chocolate. "some things become clearer if you do not start with the premise that people are fundamentally isolated and battle against noise in order to connect with others. Instead, we find ourselves in a world shared by others. Connection comes first. Isolation and alienation are withdrawals from the pre-existence of what is shared. I think that helps explain why some sites 'work' and others don't. Many of the sites that work for me are ones in which I see that my participation helps create and enrich this shared world; I have that sense at del.icio.us and Flickr, at every place I leave a review or join in a discussion, and every time I blog. I can't explain that by thinking of the Web only as a medium, but I can explain it if it's a shared world that we are building together."
In the past week there has been an intense and often challenging conversation on the Online Facilitation Yahoogroup which I moderate and sometimes even facilitate. It is a lot of work to keep a 1000+ diverse group moving forward and sometimes I ask myself, "why bother." Well, David summed it up. It is because it is a communal act of building something together. It is a shared world, even if it has warts, bumps and wrinkles. They, at least, are our bumps, warts and wrinkles.
Thanks, David, for continuing to keep the heart visible in all of this.
[lead via Bill Anderson]
P.S. (posted a bit later) Make sure you read the comments following Dave's post with Dave Rogers.
After a year's hiatus I'm heading back to Austin in March for SXSW Interactive. I'll be speaking on the Deliberate Democracy and Interactive Technology panel then sticking around an extra day to spend time with 20 folks thinking about the same issue.
If you are going, or live in Austin and want to get together, leave me a note!
David S. Isenberg has another interesting event up his sleeve, Freedom to Connect. Here are the details:
WHO: F2C is for all who care about -- and are affected by -- network connectivity, economics, applications and policy.
WHAT: F2C is where communications policy meets networking technology, network economics, networked applications, and network construction and operation. F2C is dedicated to the proposition that strong networks build strong democracies, and vice versa.
WHEN: From 8:00 AM on March 30 through 5:00 PM, March 31, 2005.
WHERE: F2C will convene at AFI Silver, a short walk from the Silver Spring Metro station. The Silver Spring Metro is six stops from Washington, D.C., Union Station on the Red Line.
PARTICIPATION FEE: $250 until February 28, then $350. Register here.
(If you need to be there but can't afford it, write to isen@isen.com and make your case.)
Why Freedom to Connect? updated 17Jan05
The future of telecommunications starts now; there's a new U.S. Telecom Act in the works, there's unbundling in Europe, fast fiber in Asia, wireless across Africa and networks a-building in cities and villages around the world. Lead the discussion. Shape the debate. Assert your Freedom to Connect.
The need to communicate is primary, like the need to breathe, eat, sleep, reproduce, socialize and learn. Better connections make for better communication. Better connections drive economic growth through better access to suppliers, customers and ideas. Better connections provide for development and testing of ideas in science and the arts. Better connections improve the quality of everyday life. Better connections build stronger democracies. Strong democracies build strong networks.
Freedom to Connect belongs with Freedom of Speech, Press, Religion and Assembly. Each of these freedoms is related to the others and depends on the others, but stands distinct. Freedom to Connect, too, depends on the other four but carries its own meaning. Unlike the others, it does not yet have a body of law and practice surrounding it. There is no Digital Bill of Rights. Freedom to Connect is the place to start.
Too often the discussion of telecommunications policy turns on phrases like "overregulation," and "investment incentives." These are critical issues, to be sure, but like the term "last mile," such phrases frame the issues in network-centric terms. As more and more intelligence migrates to the edge of the network, users of the network need to be part of the policy debate. Let's put the user back into the picture. Freedom to Connect provides the frame.
Freedom to Connect begins with two assumptions. First, if some connectivity is good, then more connectivity is better. Second, if a connection that does one thing is good, then a connection that can do many things is better.
It is written that Freedom of the Press is only for those with presses. But Freedom to Connect is potentially available to everybody; the main economic limit is the need for sustainable networks that will improve as new technology becomes available. How can we best do this? Who will build, operate and govern these networks? Who will decide how we use them? Who will pay? Who will gain? Aha! Let's discuss it at Freedom to Connect.
Speakers (under active construction, check back soon) updated 19Jan05
Keynotes include Jim Baller, Vint Cerf, Reed Hundt (sorry, conflict was unworkable), Lee Rainie, David Weinberger. Panelists include Daniel Berninger, Jeff Chester, Susan Crawford, Jeff Jarvis, Robert Pepper, Rick Whitt. Others to be added soon. Proposals to organize panels, debates and demos welcome. The agenda will gather a lot more structure (and a lot less ambiguity) over the next few short weeks, folks.
Rebecca Lawrence launched her new blog today, Letters To My President. I met her last night at the Seattle Blogger Meetup and loved her enthusiasm and intent to use her blog to try and connect productively around some tough issues. Here is her introduction: On Inauguration Day, 2005 some will cry, some will cheer. And approximately half of the country will be contemplating how best to combat this administration and survive daily life in today's United States at the same time. Those who felt oppressed, defeated and voiceless over the past four years are probably anticipating a depressing renewal. But I hope to offer them a way to get involved, and proof that there are others unwilling to settle for more of the same.
Keep going, Rebecca!
To encourage and remind like-minded citizens that Bush is accountable to each of us, the interactive blog "Letters To My President" will launch on Inauguration Day. While President Bush is the catalyst for this e-campaign, the true goals are to: educate, enlighten, and entertain. It is my intent to send and/or post publicly one email or letter to President Bush representing EACH DAY of his second term. Short, long, funny, sad, questioning, and irate. I have committed to writing, gathering submissions, and keeping up the site.
I went to my first blogger meetup here in Seattle last night and got to meet a couple of folks I have known online, and meet many others who are brand new to me.
The Seattle Blogger Meetup is a very informal thing. There were maybe 20 of us, just mingling and moving around talking to each other. Since it was my first time, I was a bit hesitant and talked to the known, but I resolved to move around and talk to at least three new people. I was very glad I did. I'll blog about one of them in a subsequent post.
My very predictable opening line was to ask the other person's name and about their blog. It was interesting to hear how many of the people I talked to had generalist blogs. They blogged because it gave them voice. I realized I have mostly been operating in the corner of the blogosphere where people have fairly defined blog topics so this was a great peek into another area.
And, typically of anything that has to do with the kismet of connections, I met someone who knows a good friend of mine. It always amazes me how we can find connections everywhere. I like that.
Other meeting links: Pirillo, Make You Go Hmmmmm, attendee list, more great pictures
This month I have worked hard to get back to exercising. I do this in the morning. Guess what gets less time? Blogging. Sigh.
Update on the Technorati tag experiment: My chocolate tagged posts showed up. Technorati: Tag: chocolate.
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