The Snowsuit Effort - Sammi

Eloquent, visual, compelling. Check out The Snowsuit Effort , the work of photographer Ryan (last name?). Daily photographs of people from the streets of Detroit. Who needs words?

The power of the visual is something that is just now seeping into the corners of our online tribes.

Mobile Phones and SMS for Addressing Development Needs

Via iConnect Online Welcome SMS technology for TB treatment there is another story which reinforces some experiences I have had in education in Africa. This time it is a health behavior approach. This is terrific. A doc in Cape Town was having problems because his mother kept forgetting to take her TB medicine. He started sending her SMS messages to remind her.

"It did not take him (Dr. Green) long to make the connection between the effectiveness that his SMS messages had on alerting his mother, the high incidence of TB in Cape Town, and the possibilities that bulk SMS messages could present. However, when he wanted to pilot his innovative idea with TB patients at a local clinic in Cape Town, he met with resistance. Healthcare professionals were skeptical about the number of patients who would have access to cell phones. Not deterred, Dr. Green went back, did research and persuaded them with statistics which indicated that over 50% of Cape Town residents have cell phones. In addition, he found that 71% of patients at the clinic he earmarked for the pilot had access to cell phones. The local health authority eventually agreed and paid R11.80 per patient per month to run the SMS reminder service. The results of the pilot have been outstanding: of the 138 patients involved in the pilot, there was only one treatment failure."

I find it interesting that he met resistance. It seems like a no brainer, but ya never know!

Grassroots Use of Technology - Conference April 15-16, 2005

From Jock Gill word of an interesting conference for those of you on the East Coast mid-April: Grassroots Use of Technology - Conference April 15-16, 2005. The conference lists these themes: a) Making technology relevant to communities b) Online politics post-2004 c) Uniting movements for social justice - Building coalitions, progressive infrastructure.

Here are the 12 workshops confirmed at this time:

• Adopting Open Source Software in a Nonprofit Environment (Al Essa, Sloan School of Management, Carolyn Meeks, Aristoi)
  
• CMSes are like Chocolate Bars (Alison Stanton, student, Miami University, formerly of Democracy for America)
  
• Web Applications for Human Services Organizations (Scott Smith, Community TechKnowledge and Kevin Harris, Social Solutions)
  
• Moving your website to the next level with Plone - an open source CMS (Nate Aune, Jazkarta Consulting - jazkarta.com)
  
• Affordable Tools for Activist Outreach & Civic Engagement (Gregory Heller, Emily Thorsen/EchoDitto, Raj Singh, and Bob Lelievre)
  
• Using a blog to get your group's message out (Aldon Hynes, blogger involved in the Dean for President effort)
  
• Online Tools to Engage your Members and Donors: an Introduction (Deborah Elizabeth Finn, CyberYenta)
  
• Technology for Labor Unions and Labor Organizers (Tanya Renne, Orchid Suites, Claire McDonough, SEIU Headquarters, and Wayne Langley, SEIU Local 615)
  
• From zero to sixty: how your group can adopt online advocacy techniques (Josh Friedes, Freedom to Marry Coalition of MA)
  
• Grassroots Technology and the Emerging Progressive Infrastructure (panel with Jo Lee, Zack Rosen, others TBA)
  
• Adapting 'Alinsky-style' theories for online organizing (panel convened by Brian Reich, Mindshare Internet Consulting)
  
• Ask The Experts: small group assistance for your organization (with Marty Kearns, Green Media Toolshed, Robert DeBenedictis, Sue Dorfman, and three others)

I have to say, I loved the title, "CMSes are like Chocolate Bars!"

Community Creativity

Another reason to love Flikr - and Kastner.

Where the Internet Goes Bust, Radio Steps In

Another example of the power of conversation and bridging technologies from scidev-africa-oct04.pdf

A Cameroonian woman pulls a small, battered micro-cassette recorder from her bag and disappears into a cornfield, heading for a group of women working there. Beckoning an agricultural support worker to join the group, she begins to record the conversation. Martha Motoko Biongo is a local journalist specialising in gender and agriculture who works on a project entitled ‘Linking Agricultural Research and Rural Radio’. It seeks to use rural radio to communicate information about science and technologybased innovations emerging from agricultural research. The project was set up in 2000 as part of a wider regional initiative backed by the University of Guelph, Canada; the Developing Countries Farm Radio Network; Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations.

”The project empowers women and increases their access to agricultural technologies,’” she says. “It gives them better access to innovations, and challenges the subsistence agricultural roles they often have had to play.” It is based on the idea that strengthening partnerships between farmers, researchers and radio broadcasters allows women to become involved in dialogue about issues that can improve their lives.

BetterBadNews on Sexism

Set aside your beverage so you don't spew on your keyboard while laughing and check out BetterBadNews

"The BetterBadNews panel examines rank sexism in the technorati priesthood skewering gender norms overdue for an upgrade.
This short video blogcast (same as a podcast but without the misleading brand name) remixes Shelley Powers, Jeff Jarvis, Maureen Dowd, Valerie Solanas and the blogherconrati. "

Now on to the Gender Genie to see how my writing parses: male or female. Who needs TV? (My snippet parsed as male, by the way. I'll post that later when Blogger is not acting so F***** up.

BlogHerCon, gender, blogging,

Enhancing Internal Communications with Blogs, Wikis, and More

Via Giulio Quaggiotto on the KM for Development group --- Enhancing Internal Communications with Blogs, Wikis, and More from a January 25th, 2005 presentation by Nick Finck, Mary Hodder, and Biz Stone. This presentation is available online at:
http://www.nickfinck.com/presentations/bbs2005

Technology For Communities

Sean Callahan points out the new blog Etienne Wenger, John Smith, Kim Rowe and I are working on. I love it when my friends blog my work before I do. Shows you how far behind I am!Anecdote: complexity - narrative - knowledge: Technology For Communities

The guys (and gal) at CPsquare have created a new blog which will feature discussions about how technology can support communities of practice. Etienne’s original paper is available with a new, totally revised, version published this year (in both French and English). Highly recommended reading for those involved in community of practice development.

Just to clarify, the new report is not, alas, yet done. The CEFRIO chapter is available on the site with links to Etienne's original work. Now, if we could just carve out enough time to finish this baby! (Unpaid) labors of love often get on the lower end of the to-do list! I have two case study edits on my to do list this week!

J.B. Walther - Some interesting publications

Rosanna Tarsiero pointed me to this interesting set of papers by Joseph B. Walther. (Update. Dr. Walther moved institutions, so the above link is updated as of October 2007. I added a few more since this blog post was offered in 2005! He also has another list of things to read about CMC.)

Walther, J. B. (2007). Selective self-presentation in computer-mediated communication: Hyperpersonal dimensions of technology, language, and cognition. Computers in Human Behavior, 23, 2538-2557.

Pena, J., Walther, J. B., & Hancock, J. T. (2007). Effects of geographic distribution on dominance perceptions in computer-mediated groups. Communication Research, 34, 313-331.

{PDF**}Walther, J. B., & Bazarova, N. (2007). Misattribution in virtual groups. Human Communication Research, 33, 1-26.

Wickham, K., & Walther, J. B. (2007). Perceived behaviors of emergent and assigned leaders in virtual groups. International Journal of E-Collaboration (Special Issue on Virtual Team Leadership), 3, 1-17.

Walther, J. B. (2006). Nonverbal dynamics in computer-mediated communication, or : ( and the net : ( ‘s with you, : ) and you : ) alone. In V. Manusov & M. L. Patterson (Eds.), Handbook of nonverbal communication (pp. 461-479). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Walther, J. B., & Bunz, U. (2005). The rules of virtual groups: Trust, liking, and performance in computer-mediated communication. Journal of Communication, 55, 828-846.

Walther, J. B., Gay, G., & Hancock, J. T. (2005). How do communication and technology researchers study the Internet? Journal of Communication, 55, 632-657.

{WWW} Walther, J. B., Pingree, S., Hawkins, R., & Buller, D. (2005). Attributes of interactive online health information systems. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 7 (3). http://www.jmir.org/2005/3/e33/

{WWW} Nowak, K., Watt, J. H., & Walther, J. (2005). The influence of synchrony and sensory modality on the person perception process in computer mediated groups. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 10 (3).

Walther, J. B., Loh, T., & Granka, L. (2005). Let me count the ways: The interchange of verbal and nonverbal cues in computer-mediated and face-to-face affinity. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 24, 36-65.

Walther, J. B., Bunz, U., & Bazarova, N. (2005). The rules of virtual groups. Proceedings of the 38th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

Walther. J. B. (2004). Language and communication technology: Introduction to the special issue. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 23, 384-396.

{WWW} Walther, J. B., Wang, Z., & Loh, T. (2004). The effect of top-level domains and advertisements on health web-site credibility. Journal of Medical Internet Research.

{PDF} Nowak, K. L., Watt, J., & Walther, J. B. (2004). Contrasting time mode and sensory modality in the performance of computer-mediated groups using asynchronous videoconferencing. Proceedings of the 2004 Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

Walther, J. B., & Parks, M. R. (2002). Cues filtered out, cues filtered in: Computer-mediated communication and relationships. In M. L. Knapp & J. A. Daly (Eds.), Handbook of interpersonal communication (3rd ed., pp. 529-563). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Rabby, M., & Walther, J. B. (2002). Computer-mediated communication impacts on relationship formation and maintenance. In D. Canary & M. Dainton (Eds.), Maintaining relationships through communication: Relational, contextual, and cultural variations (pp. 141-162). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Walther, J. B. (2002). Time effects in computer-mediated groups: Past, present, and future. In P. Hinds & S. Kiesler (Eds.), Distributed work (pp. 235-257). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

{WWW}Walther, J. B., & Boyd, S. (2002). Attraction to computer-mediated social support. In C. A. Lin & D. Atkin (Eds.), Communication technology and society: Audience adoption and uses (pp 153-188). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

{WWW}Walther, J. B. (2002). Research ethics in Internet-enabled research: Human subjects issues and methodological myopia. Ethics and Information Technology, 4, 205-216. http://www.nyu.edu/projects/nissenbaum/ethics_wal_full.html

Tidwell, L. C., & Walther, J. B. (2002). Computer-mediated communication effects on disclosure, impressions, and interpersonal evaluations: Getting to know one another a bit at a time. Human Communication Research, 28, 317-348.

Ramirez, Jr., A., Walther, J. B., Burgoon, J. K., & Sunnafrank, M. (2002). Information seeking strategies, uncertainty, and computer-mediated communication: Toward a conceptual model. Human Communication Research, 28, 213-228.

{PDF}Walther, J. B., Boos, M., & Jonas, K. (2002). Misattribution and attributional redirection in distributed virtual groups. Proceedings of the 35th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

{PDF}Watt, J. H., Walther, J. B., & Nowak, K. L. (2002). Asynchronous videoconferencing: A hybrid communication prototype. Proceedings of the 35th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

Walther, J. B., & D'Addario, K. P. (2001). The impacts of emoticons on message interpretation in computer-mediated communication. Social Science Computer Review, 19, 323-345.

{WWW} Burton, M. C., & Walther, J. B. (2001). The value of web log data in use-based web design and testing. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 6 (3). http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol6/issue3/burton.html

Walther, J. B., Slovacek, C., & Tidwell, L. C. (2001). Is a picture worth a thousand words? Photographic images in long term and short term virtual teams. Communication Research, 28, 105-134.

{PDF} Burton, M. C., & Walther, J. B. (2001). A survey of web log data and their application to use-based design. Proceedings of the 34th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

Walther, J. B. (2001). Virtual audiences. In T. O. Sloane (Ed.), Encyclopedia of rhetoric (pp. 72-75). New York: Oxford University Press.

Walther, J. B., & Reid, Larry D. (February 4, 2000). Understanding the allure of the Internet. Chronicle of Higher Education, pp. B4-B5.

Walther, J. B. (1999). Die Beziehungsdynamik in virtuellen Teams (The relational dynamics in virtual teams). In M. Boos, K. J. Jonas, & K. Sassenberg (Eds.), Computervermittelte Kommunikation in Organisationen (Virtual communication in organizations), pp. 11-25. Göttingen, Germany: Hogrefe.

Jonas, K. J., Boos, M., & Walther, J. (1999). Motivation und Medienkompetenz als zentrale Erfolgsfaktoren für virtuelle Seminare. In U.-D. Reips, B. Batinic, W. Bandilla, M. Bosnjak, L. Gräf, K. Moser, & A. Werner (Eds.), Current Internet science: Trends, techniques, results (Aktuelle Online Forschung: Trends, Techniken, Ergebnisse). Zürich: Online Press.

Walther, J. B. (1997). Group and interpersonal effects in international computer-mediated collaboration. Human Communication Research, 23, 342-369.

Walther, J. B. (1996). Computer-mediated communication: Impersonal, interpersonal, and hyperpersonal interaction. Communication Research, 23, 3-43.

Walther, J. B., & Tidwell, L. C. (1996). When is mediated communication not interpersonal? In K. M. Galvin & P. J. Cooper (Eds.), Making connections: Readings in relational communication (pp. 300-307). Los Angeles: Roxbury.

Walther, J. B., & Tidwell, L. C. (1995). Nonverbal cues in computer-mediated communication, and the effect of chronemics on relational communication. Journal of Organizational Computing, 5, 355-378.

Burgoon, J. K., Buller, D. B., Dillman, L., & Walther, J. B. (1995). Interpersonal deception: IV. Effects of suspicion on perceived communication and nonverbal behavior dynamics. Human Communication Research, 22, 163-196.

Walther, J. B. (1995). Relational aspects of computer-mediated communication: Experimental observations over time. Organization Science, 6, 186-203.

Walther, J. B., Anderson, J. F., & Park, D. (1994). Interpersonal effects in computer-mediated interaction: A meta-analysis of social and anti-social communication. Communication Research, 21, 460-487.

Walther, J. B. (1994). Anticipated ongoing interaction versus channel effects on relational communication in computer mediated interaction. Human Communication Research, 20, 473-501.

Walther, J. B. (1993). Impression development in computer-mediated interaction. Western Journal of Communication, 57, 381-398.

Walther, J. B. (1993). Construction and validation of a quantitative measure of impression development. Southern Communication Journal, 59, 27-33.

Albrecht, T. L., Johnson, G., & Walther, J. B. (1993). Understanding communication processes in focus groups. In D. Morgan (Ed.), Successful focus groups: Advancing the state of the art (pp. 51-64). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Walther, J. B., & Burgoon, J. K. (1992). Relational communication in computer-mediated interaction. Human Communication Research, 19, 50-88.

Burgoon, J. K., Walther, J. B., & Baesler, E. J. (1992). Interpretations, evaluations, and consequences of interpersonal touch. Human Communication Research, 19, 237-263.

Walther, J. B. (1992). Interpersonal effects in computer-mediated interaction: A relational perspective. Communication Research, 19, 52-90.

The Well Turns 20

On April 1st, the Well will begin it's 20th year. As part of the community celebration, Howard Rheingold, Cliff Figallo and friends are looking back in the Well's public view conference, Inkwell.view. For those who love a good community story, click into Engaged: Conference: inkwell.vue. Here is a snippet to whet your appetite for this conversation which will continue for the next two weeks.

Howard writes:

"The ghosts have been awakened. Just starting to write about this has conjured spirits in my mind. Thoughts of dhawk, casey, mandel, and rab are entering my mind, seemingly unbidden, as I go about my other tasks. As so many people testified at his memorial, dhawk had this quiet way of taking newcomers under his wing and showing us the ropes. I know that Cliff has written about this before -- the geekiness of PicoSpan and Unix made it necessary for old-timers to teach newcomers the ropes. And that turned out to be important. Casey used to smack me around so much about the 'community' business. Over the years, I've come to agree with much of what she was saying -- and yet, she was also one of the secret sharers who took so many newcomers under her wing. And toward the end, she was certainly a beneficiary of quiet community outreach."

Flickr: Transparent Screens

What an amazing expression of creativity. Check out Flickr: Transparent Screens

About Transparent Screens

Optical illusions created by photographing what's behind your screen and using it as a wallpaper.

Rules are simple :
You CAN'T use a blue background and chromakey the photo into your screen. It has to be a real photo of your screen (I know it's hard with the glare and stuff, but with the right lighting it'll work).

[Via Christian Crumlish]

Bill Harris - The power of "and"

Bill Harris is kicking into gear with his blog. Here is a snippet of a piece from this week.

"...we do ourselves and our colleagues a disservice when we act as if there are only two alternatives and they are mutually exclusive: hard-nosed or touchy-feely, profit or people, the environment or the economy, Left or Right. Often when we do that, we follow up by saying that one of the alternatives is good and the other bad. Life is much richer than that, even business life.

I'm beginning to suspect that categorizing everything as mutually exclusive extremes, as in the preceding list, is but one example of the human failing that led to 'the map is not the territory.' Maps are handy, but only when we realize they are aids, not reality. They help us find our way quickly, but they're less often helpful in puzzling situations. When faced with a puzzle, we're more likely to understand how to proceed when we ignore the map and investigate the reality or, lacking that, when we try multiple maps to see if one (or a combination) can help us make sense of the puzzle we face...I've found we can save ourselves a lot of work and make much useful progress if we stay open to the idea that the best answer to a question might also be found somewhere in the middle, perhaps using bits of one extreme and the other, or perhaps using yet another idea not part of either extreme."

And is your friend. The map is not the territory. The listserv is not the community. Little dictums to remind ourselves that the representations we use to communicate can trip us up in their simplification. And...

Creating Passionate Users: Interaction vs. one-way communication

Kathy Sierra has a wonderful post on Interaction vs. one-way communication, sharing a story about reactions to her interactive tutorial at E-Tech. A MUST READ for those who design online or F2F interactions! (And another blog on my list... wow!)

Ben Brown and Connections

Ben Brown posted a great story a few days ago, Virtual Community Boards, Missed Connections Not Missed, and Ambient Noise
He recounts two incidents of people who did not intentionally set out to connect and help each other do just that via a spontaneous, in-room chat.

While I was sitting in Ana Marie Cox's keynote at SXSW the other day, I popped open the 'Rendezvous' window in iChat. Rendezvous allows you to see people who are using iChat nearby, even if you don't have them on your chat friend's list. I've never seen more than one person on my list, even at popular net cafes here in Austin. At the keynote, there were easily 80 people on my list.

I was suprised to see that most of the people on the list had used the little status message feature to indicate that they were at SXSW. Some said they were in the keynote. And some said exactly what seat they were in...I was trying to write a post about the keynote for Austinist, and wanted a picture of Ms. Cox speaking. Unfortunately, I was stuck way in the back behind Tantek's giant head, so I couldn't get a photo. So, I set my status message to a call for help.

Can you take a photo?

Just seconds later, Joshua Greenberg, a guy I had met the night before in a drunken stupor, IM-ed to offer a photo. He took it, synced it to his computer, resized it, and sent it over IM. It took about 2 minutes.

I got the photo, logged in to Austinist's MovableType system, and uploaded it for my post. That took another minute. The photo was up on the web, and people in the room and also people all over the world.

So, what happened? Why is this interesting to me?

Joshua and I posted a virtual message on a message board that did not exist physically, but was tied to a specific location. He responded, and was able to take advantage of his slightly better vantage point to record a notable experience. He transmitted a digital photo, first over a wire, then over the airwaves to me, where I transferred it over airwaves then wires to a server somewhere in New York. While the notable event was still occuring, two strangers collaborated to share the event with the world, and record it for posterity. It all took about three minutes.

Later in the piece, Ben writes:

Both of these things made me think about how interesting this temporary, location-based virtual community board was, and how it had arisen, not from a software package specifically designed for this purpose, but from the convergence of few random existing technologies. And the designers of these technologies doubtfully had this sort of thing in mind. It was simply people realizing they could use familiar technologies in new and social ways to enhance a shared physical experience. It was as if the net was an added layer upon the real physical world -- something you simply need peer through a lense to see.

It is exactly this last bit that has me excited too. When I think of the work we are trying to do at TechnologyforCommunities, it is exactly this kind of appropriation and use driven by the people USING the technology that excites us. It is great when designers can figure out and design cool stuff, but it is magical when people can apply tools in the moment in ways that are OF that moment. That's magic.

Welcome Bill Harris to the Blogosphere

My colleague and friend, Bill Harris of Facilitated Systems has joined the blogosphere. I'm thrilled to hear this because he writes some great stuff. A blog and RSS will make his voice more accesssible. Check out Making Sense With Facilitated Systems

Ed and Social Software for the New Parent

Edward Vielmetti had a thought provoking piece on "Social software for the new parent." He wrote:

The notion of social software is that you can use computer systems to talk to other people, not just to deal with databases of information. There's a human touch to social systems, and they are the sorts of online artifacts that draw a community around them."

. Then Ed went on to describe social software for new parents including photo sharing, baby blogs, etc.

This is a good example of how the context drives the tools and the types of desired interactions. It is quite delightful to see the online space get more diverse reflecting how people are seeing the potential in many more ways. Like life, eh?

And now for something purely chocolate

Ed Vielmetti pointed me to this blogged recipe for Soft Centered Chocolate Pudding Cakes

"What is not to like about a recipe that starts with 14 oz of chocolate and 14 tablespoons of butter? Bring on the Lipitor!"

Kate, it looks fantastic. Love the picture of the butter and chocolate. And this one...

Yahoo buys Flickr

Kris Krug was right. Yahoo aquired Ludicorp/Flickr.

Holy smokes, SOMEBODY out there is bad at keeping secrets!! Yes! We can finally confirm that Yahoo has made a definitive agreement to acquire Flickr and us, Ludicorp. Smack the tattlers and pop the champagne corks!

I've been watching/playing with Flickr because I'm intrigued about the role pictures (and other visuals) play in connecting us online. Looks like there is more to keep watching!

flickr, yahoo

Mama JunkYard's- Not Just Junk!

Mama JunkYard's- Not Just Junk! was a treat for me this morning, as I feel too sick to work on a writing project, but felt the pull of my blog reader. I found it via a comment she posted to my post on Blogging While Black panel at SXSW Interactive. (Which reminds me, I really want to follow up on comments and I haven't. I wonder why?)

MJY blogs from Kenya and this entry led me to a circle of amazing women bloggers.

Having been to Kenya just once, my experience was small and fleeting. But what impressed me were the women who were organizing in Nairobi to create change. The same as my experience in visiting Cape Town, South Africa.

To be able to connect with this circle of women is a gift that exemplifies the value of online networks and communities. I am taken outside of my experience, given another perspective and then can weave it back into my reality. I, in turn, can offer things out to the world.

Thank you, Mamma Junk Yard, for a beautiful and tangible reminder.

Bioteaming: A Manifesto For Networked Business Teams

I'm so far behind on links it makes my flu feel even worse. Sigh. Here is a piece from February by Ken Thompson and Robin Good. I have just skimmed and it seems to contain a lot of the current wisdom on virtual teams. Take a peek. Bioteaming: A Manifesto For Networked Business Teams - Online Collaboration and Web Conferencing Breaking News - Kolabora.com

"As enterprises gradually decentralize their operations and new networked business ecosystems start to find their way into profitable niche marketplaces, virtual, networked business teams gradually emerge as the wave of the future."

Robin has also pinged me on a new documentary project and again, I' have fallen behind. Maybe next week.... ;-)

Why Craigslist Works, by Craig

ChangeThis :: Why Craigslist Works, by CraigCraig Newmark's "Change This" manifesto on his online community, craigslist. He gets down to the core.

"Unless we listen to our community very carefully, theyʼll find another site that works better for them. We have many public discussion boards on our site including a feedback forum. We really listen to suggestions and complaints on the boards, and we donʼt make any big changes on the site without first discussing it with the community. Everyone has a voice on the site, and we listen to them all equally, which seems to be the most democratic approach."

Teaching Writing, Collaboration, and Engagement in Global Contexts: The Drupal Alternative to Proprietary Courseware | cyberdash

The slide show (from Feb 16), available through Teaching Writing, Collaboration, and Engagement in Global Contexts: The Drupal Alternative to Proprietary Courseware (cyberdash) is a nice overview of alternatives to propriatary LMS. Having worked globally, I have witnessed the failures of big systems and the power of open systems. The main challenge that remains with the open source solutions is the skill it takes to set up and configure them. From what I hear from my tech friends, this is the territory many of them are working in. I also hear that funding is an issue.

"This afternoon, Samantha Blackmon, David Blakesley, and I will be giving a presentation at Purdue University's 2005 Teaching and Learning with Technology Conference. View the Shockwave version or download the original OpenOffice presentation format. This presentation is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license."

Tild ~: Return of She-blogger

This is too good to resist:

SXSW Session Notes - Lawver Wiki

If you are looking for more session notes from SXSW, or have some to contribute, check out SXSW Session Notes - Lawver Wiki:

Hey! If you're going to take notes on a session, just wrap the title in two square brackets, and then edit away. If you see a red link, that means I've created the link already, but there's no content there. If it's blue, that means someone's edited it. If you have something to add, and it's after the session, go right ahead. If it's during the session, it's probably being edited at that very moment, and anything you write will be overwritten - so try to be nice."

Five Lenses: Towards a Toolkit for Interaction Design, by Tom Erickson

Tom Erickson is a joy to read. Via Elearningpost I was led to a new piece, Five Lenses: Towards a Toolkit for Interaction Design. Here is a fairly hefty snippet. Go read the whole thing! GOOD STUFF!

"The Roving Tribes of Interaction Design

This volume is concerned with establishing foundations for interaction design. 'Foundations' strikes me as an ambitious metaphor, suggesting, as it does, a solid base upon which a single, unified edifice will be erected. And, following the metaphor a step further, it assumes the existence of a stable, well organized community with a shared set of values that is ready to embark upon a such construction project.

I don't believe these assumptions hold up. To me, the state of interaction design feels more primitive. Rather than being an organized community, interaction design feels closer to being composed of a number of roving tribes who occasionally enounter one another, warily engage, and, finding the engagements stimulating, remain open to other encounters.

If this is the case, how do we make progress? I suggest that rather than trying to construct a unified, coherent account of interaction design, we would do better to take a more syncretic approach, gathering appropriate concepts and exploring their interplay without, however, insisting on resolving their tensions and contradictions.

In this essay I explore these issues. I begin with a definition, and illustrate my approach to partitioning the terrain of interaction design using five conceptual 'lenses.' In so doing, I cover most of what I see as the theoretical roots of interaction design. I then turn to the role of theory in interaction design, and suggest that a good way to begin is to assemble a toolkit of concepts for interaction design that consists of appropriately sized theoretical constructs.
Interaction Design

I define interaction design quite broadly:

Interaction design has to do with the design of any artifact, be it an object, system, or environment, whose primary aim is to support either an interaction of a person with the artifact, or an interaction among people that is mediated by the artifact.

Although some see interaction design as particularly concerned with digital systems--either computer systems or artifacts with embedded computational capabilities--I see no reason to exclude humbler artifacts. The forces that shape our interactions, from perceptual and motor processes such as seeing and touching, to social and cultural phenomena such as imitation and fashion, are agnostic with respect to whether an artifact contains digital components. Indeed, much of what we understand about the design of non-digital artifacts--whether it be how to make a switch with a satisfying 'click,' or how clothing functions as a means of expressing identity--are applicable, as well, to digital systems. Finally, as computer systems become increasingly embedded in our artifacts and environments, and even the most mundane objects are tagged and tracked by digital systems, our ability to discriminate between the digital and the non-digital will fade, even should we wish to maintain it."

Setting up a High-Tech Language School? - Heike Philp

Heike posts a great article on using online tools for language learning. She has been doing some amazing work with the European Union.Setting up a High-Tech Language School?

Do you wish to upgrade your language school and do not know how to go about it? What kind of technology is worth the investment? These were the questions posted on slashdot in a forum at the end of last year. The forum post received a staggering 322 commentsin a matter of 2 days and includes a host of technical gems and at the same time criticism, not to use any kind of technology at all in language learning...

What kind of technology is suitable for language learning? Why criticise the use of technology in class? What is missing in the overall picture?

Foodblogging

Ribs and brisket... now you see it... 

All gone! The meat-a-thon ends! 

More pictures from Jon Lebkowsky

SXSW
Democracy
BBQ

Post SWSW Texas BBQ Dinner

About a dozen of us from the various democracy/advocacy panels at SXSW headed out for dinner at Ironworks for ribs and brisket. Umm, yummy, greasy meat-a-thon.

Now I need some time to process and wrap up my experiment of looking at the conference through the lens of women's presence and participation.The percentages were not surprising at all. It would be good to find out the registration estimates from SXSW (I recognize they don't ask for gender when you register, but I wonder if they keep track.) What was useful was to keep one frame, one lens in mind as I participated and experienced the event. What if I had taken the lens of a man, or a black person? Could I take a lens that was of an identity not my own? I don't think so. What if I had planned this in tandem with others who took on different lenses? What would our experiences look like stacked up side to side?

I have not looked at the speaker breakdown for gender or any other defining character. Worth looking at.

For me, there seems no reason from a content perspective why SXSW would not attract fairly equal proportions of men and women. So the question is, why is it still 2/3rds to 3/4rs men?

SXSW
Democracy
BBQ
Women

SXSW: Democracy and Technology

10 of 55 in the room are women

Jery Michalski (http://www.sociate.com)

Little list of the obstacles (presumptions, fallacies, etc.)

• People don’t know what they want
  
• Focus groups fail at innovation
  
• People don’t know what’s good for them, so we need benign representative democracy
  
• People are easy to spin – sock puppets (Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion)
  
• BJ Fogg, Persuasive Technologies
  
• The Madness of Crowds, the old book
  
• The Wisdom of Crowds, the new book
  
• Denial of Discourse attacks
  
• Consumer politics
  
• The failure of media to figure out what’s going on and to report on it, fair and balanced
  
• Push polling
  
• Money talks
  
• People have bad judgement (behavioral economics) – fallacies, enumeracy, we don’t understand statistics
  
• Our memory plays tricks on us
  
• We make hasty judgements better than our more considered judgement – why deliberate (if you just glance at the Blink issue)
  
• Overwhelming or scary – they Tyranny of Choice
  
• People can’t actually communicate with each other so why bother. Dialog is too hard
  
• What causes any individual to soften up enough to consider the possibility of changing some strongly held belief. Jed Miller, WebLab, people more likely to change their mind about another person than change their mind about the issue they are discussing together.

With this all too pessimistic start off Jerry passes to Jon Lebkowsky

Jon Lebkowsky – long time activist, publisher, technologist and then got involved in online activism, now evolving a guide for activists called Virtual Bonfire. It was going to be a book. As part of the book research, Nodal Politics (missed a bunch due to battery issues… oops) This is a pretty big undertaking, you have to have some kind of skilled facilitation to make it work. People have difficulty communicating and it requires some level of support. So I came to this point of Democracy and Technology. There is a promise in the technologies we have begun to develop for the internet, more highly interactive social software. The hope is to facilitate more widely meaningful participation and discussion.

Ethan Zuckerman – Based out of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. For the last decade technology and entrepreneurship in the developing world. We all throw modifiers on top of democracy because no one wants to deal with the entire span. I’m going to talk about semiotic democracy through a story. What happens before the deliberative process. How do we get information out of the media. New World Information Communication Order NWICO, debate in UNESCO. As satellite TV came into play starting in 1964 there were a lot of questions from developing nations why there has not been news from the developing nations. We can do it now, why is it not making it into European and American media. Shawn McBride put together an amazing report, so controversial that it caused the US, UK and >>>> to drop out of UNESCO. The fundamental idea was that underrepresented nations had a right to appear in the media of the developed world. Three reasons: if you are looking for economic development someone needs to know what you export. 2) if you are having a famine they could send you food. 3) if you are hosting a genocide, the UN can come and intervene. Debate about this right. Northern media took one look at this and said you aren’t going to tell us what to do, speech issue and our audiences don’t want it. Great story. If you did into the story what you realize is a lot of this had to do with the media, broadcast television. Now we have a secondary media revolution with an infinite number of channels and anyone with a computer or even a cell phone has access. Now constrained to attention. What ends up happening is we largely pay attention to each other. I pay attention to the people on this panel.

Same attention problem 25 years later. At the first instance we had a limited table. Now are we really ready to transform our social universe and open this debate to a much larger group. These tools have an amazing potential to let people deliberate. But the only work with those who use the tools. The direction we are in extreme danger in going, while these tools are being picked up as a leading bridger of the digital divide, but people going into their own echo chambers by language or other forms and losing the ability to relate to each other. We have the opportunity for a global conversation, but we talk to our like kinds. My hope for the future of semiotic democracy in that we see people standing up as bridge figures. Even more importantly, people bridging language and culture.

Rebecca MacKinnon – Recovering TV correspondent turned blogger. Worked for CNN in China and Japan for many years. How blogs might help us compensate for the mainstream media, working with Ethan at the Berkman Center and figure out where it is going and how we can create a more democratic conversation. Better democracy requires a better media, better news, better information. Theorists have talked… citizens cannot make informed decisions without the proper information. How journalism defined, provide citizens the information they need to be free and self governing. Democracy that we think can be improved. How do we improve the way we get and discuss information so we can have a better Democracy. As a journalist frustrated, most journalists want to inform the public, but news executives are seeking to maximize profits. The primary goal of news companies. How do we bring media back to a place where it services a democratic citizenry, equipped to make intelligent voting choices, to run, to lobby. This is only going to happen from the public. Media is not going to change. Blogs are a great way to highlight the inadequacies of the mainstream media and demand more responsibility. The mainstream media is trying to incorporate the audience more than in the past. Seeing their declining ratings. Greensboro S.C. trying to integrate citizen journalism.

Where do we go from here. How do we create a system of information and deliberation. There is some fear, the cyber mob, the tyranny of the majority of white geeks, how do you bring other socio economic groups online who are not blogging into the conversation so it is more representative of the population at large. How do you convince a person on welfare they should be blogging so their POV and interests can be heard if they can barely read/write and have 6 kids. Maybe you should not be getting them to blog, but get their voices included in other ways. As we think of a more democratized system of media. Where do we watch out where we tell people what we think they should do. Watch more news and less Lacy Peterson. Here is why it matters to you as a citizen. Without forcing them, how do you get them to pay more attention and be more participatory. To what extent are we trying to get people to adapt their behavior. What do they want to do, how, and how do we create new tools to the realities of how most human beings are inclined to spend their time and direct their attention.

Mitch Ratcliff – Editor of the other newsletter, Digital Media. Reporter. Built first online streaming news service. First web journalist to go on Air force one. Now launching a new company that maps social networks at a blink to surface information about relationships. Been tasked with trying to summarize the book, “Extreme Democracy” which Jon and I are co-editing. Taking principles of extreme programming, small groups working fast iterations for improvement, not assuming you are finished but you have more changes to make. Can be used to develop tools, policies and political strategies to respond to the changing competition. It is a form of politics that requires creating a string of small successes. Volunteers don’t burn out when there is some success. We gained a point in the polls, raised money. Small results build up into movements over time. Howard Dean – once this thing started it was unstoppable. WE became impatient. Dean had strengths and weaknesses. When the weaknesses turned up we turned away. He was not a good coalition builder, but good pot stirrer. IN terms of technology and democracy, there is this assumption that if you online connect good things will happen. I think if you only connect you get the same range of human behavior we see in society. Fascism, democracy, generosity, greed. Technology amplifies but does not solve. As we looked at technology over the last couple of days have heard some people trying to prove how technology supports democracy. We should instead be looking at what is broken. The small things will matter. It may make something of progressivism which it does not need to be. Analysis of power. When you start organizing politically, you have to adjust your strategies as you go. American politics is painted as a struggle between two poles. I don’t think it is. Book, “Creating a Learning Culture” and wrote about invisible dogmas we create in systems. For instance a VP of marketing says measure success like this. He moves on but measure stays and atrophies the system over time. We need a practice of historiography for our political tools and systems. A literary study of the previous writings about history. History of histories. We look at the 1950s books about communism are different than books about communism in 2000. There are prejudices in our historians. Have to look back to our prejudices. Not to look to have a revolution, one answer, but a constant evolution which constantly tests, in a Darwinistic way, and kills off what the people no longer need.

Over last couple of days struck by the juxtaposition of views on the panels. Yesterday Amalia was talking about the fact just to sustain a culture, they needed to collect stories to maintain their culture. The guy from EFF said legislators were surprised about copyright. Why is he talking about copyright when people are losing their culture. This is why politics is totally F++ up today. We need to bridge. … We create echo chambers, people talk to themselves about their issues. One issue constituencies. They are both the easiest to fool in an election and the easiest to dismiss because they won’t support you on a broad range of policies. This is why the Dean thing fell apart. In a time when we have post media, we should design systems to bring people into conflict where they can resolve that conflict and then build coalitions. (missed a bit here. He talks fast)> That is what the Democratic party was years ago. Local and national. People overlooked individual differences for a greater good. How do we think about who we are and what we want to be exposed to and what risks we want to take when we design systems. I think we have played it awfully safe up to this point.

Aldon Hynes.
I usually introduce myself as an old guard, hard core geek. Perhaps I should qualify as an old guard, hard core, white male geek. I’m a perfect example of the guy who pays attention to the latest tools. For those of you who are feeling geeky, go to freenode.net swxw free democracy. I’ll comment that during one of the previous panels, I was on the IRC from my cell phone. There’s a lot of very geeky stuff happening here. Three of us, John, Mitch and Myself, we all write for a blog called greater democracy. Send us some essays. Extreme semiotic deliberative direct democracy. I want to try and tie together some of this. The opening question was do pervasive Internet connectivity make the concept of pure democracy more viable. Well, yeah maybe. I spent a lot of time in lots of different online social communities. How is this medium different than any other medium. I think we are hitting a little bit of that. All that’s happening that we are amplifying things. Important differences. First, the difference between the dominant medium of the past 40 years – broadcast. New media more multilogue, dialogue. Something important. The traditional media has been presented as fair, balanced, trustworthy. As we get into dialogues we get to make up our own mind about what we want to know. I have a 15 year old daughter. I ASKED her where she got her news about the Tsunami. I thought maybe Jon Stewart or Blogs. Her favorite source was Nation States – a site where you create your own nation and they set up scenarios. It has a forum associated with it. She gets news that is important to her. What do people pay attention to? My personal blog is all my political and technology and personal stuff. A few hours ago I just got some bad news, and I put up a virtual hug. 5 minutes later via IM via cell phone – people respond to that. Rebecca was on the Nightline show on blogging. One of the other people on the show wrote up about a proposed legislation about reporting of early pregnancy terminations. She blogged on the liberal blogs. The fertility bloggers picked up on it. 1:3 pregnancies end up in miscarriages and heard about this legislation. Hard core, Christian conservatives writing to the legislator telling him he was an abomination. When this sort of connectivity happens you can get things happening. Another thing is click exchanges. Being the geek I tried that. Got a little more traffic to my blog, but what was more important was finding those fertility blogs, and knitting blogs, one that I love, http://www.truecandygirl.com , a Xanga website, a 25 year old Hispanic woman living in Honolulu and she writes the blog for her husband who is stationed in Iraq. A military wife perspective about what is going on in Iraq. There is a community of mil