Full Circle Associates

Dave Sifry is filling the quiet end-of-year time with a project that makes it easy to ask and answer with and for each other online in a variety of ways. Sifry’s Alerts: Announcing Hoosgot: Resurrecting the Lazyweb

Today I’m unveiling a new service that I put together over the last 48 hours. It’s called hoosgot.com. Hoosgot (pronounced “who’s got…”) is a simple way to ask who’s got what you’re looking for. Just put “hoosgot” in a blog post or a Twitter tweet and it’ll show up on Hoosgot. Send a twitter to @hoosgot, it works as well. You can tag a post with hoosgot or lazyweb, and we’ll pick it up as well, as long as your blog is indexed by Technorati. It’s meant to give you a place to send the requests for all of those things that you’ve wanted, but just can’t find - chances are, what you want already exists and someone else out there in the ether knows about it (or has built it!)If someone’s got what you’re looking for, or a clue in that direction, they post a comment. RSS feeds flow from the posts and the comments.

For example, you might ask:

hoosgot an easy-to-use pencil sharpener that has suction cups on the bottom so I can stick it anywhere?

or:

hoosgot a simple camera bag that you can stick a laptop in, and still carry over your shoulder without knocking over pedestrians? Note I’m not looking for a knapsack or a backpack, I want it to act like a messenger bag…

And so on.

It works if you work it: Give back to the web

Of course, you should subscribe to hoosgot, it has RSS feeds (the main feed and the comments feed) so you can watch and participate - for Hoosgot only works if you comment on the questions posed. Happen to know where someone can find the information they seek? Interested in collaborating with them on creating that invention described when the person invoked hoosgot or the lazyweb? Leave a comment on the entry, and give back to the web that has given us so much.

Hoosgot is a great community indicator in that it has its roots in the work of an earlier community (Lazyweb) and many individuals, it is offered as a gift to the world, and it lives that value in the very service it offers. Pretty sweet. Thanks, Dave.

Today I was sent a link to Connecting Dotz … Linking people with ideas with people with ideas… and their lovely cards of the Osani: Circle of Love Game. . This struck just the right holiday note for me. Sitting in a circle. Feet touching, playing a the Love Game.

As I enjoy some time off with my family in the drippy, cool Northwest of the US, know that you are all in my heart, in corners big and little, in acquaintance deep and light. I wish you a new years full of learning, love and good health. I wish our world peace, wisdom and joy.

I have made donations to the following organizations in your collective names:

• American Cancer Foundation Frozen Pea Fund
• Heifer International (chicks and bees)
• The Seattle Guardian Ad Litem/CASA Program
• The Seattle Youth Garden Works 

And for your stomachs, here is my family’s tradition - Fudge!

Put in large bowl:
(really big, big, big to allow stirring room):

• 3 packages chocolate chips - 36 oz. total (I recommend Nestles or Guittard — don’t go cheap!)
• 1 8-oz jar marshmallow cream (if you can only find 7 oz jars, that’s OK)
• 2 cubes butter (buy a brand name — sometimes the cheap stuff is full of water and it will ruin the fudge — very sad)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Have ready at hand:

• 2 cups chopped nuts (optional — you can even add coconut!)

Put in large kettle:
(again, I mean big - the mixture boils up to four times it’s original volume as you cook it!)

• 4 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 can evaporated milk (not skim or lowfat!)

Bring the sugar/milk mix to a rolling boil stirring constantly. Cook a full eight minutes (timed once the mixture comes to a boil — critical!!!).

Take off heat and pour over chocolate/butter mixture. Beat with mixer until creamy. Add nuts and spread in a pan to cool. Lick the bowl and beaters before washing! I like to use a cookie sheet with high edges, but the size of pan depends on how thick you like your fudge. Mine is about 13×24. My siblings use smaller pans. My mom uses two Pyrex pans. Cut into pieces and enjoy!

Now it is time for some “downtime.” Forgive me if I ignore your emails, twits and posts for a few days. Time for  meals, conversation, books, puzzles, games and just some plain ole NUTHIN!

Happy Holidays

Nancy

Dave Snowden tagged me over on Cognitive Edge with the “8 things you don’t know about me” meme. (Dave, thanks for the compliment of interesting-even-when-we-disagree - I feel the same about you!) I was so gobsmacked that Dave did these memes, that I’m responding, even though I often take a pass.

Like Dave, it is hard to think of things that many of you don’t know about me, especially those who have hung in as readers over the past 3.5 years of blogging. It is a revelatory medium. But heck, here it goes:

First, the rules:
1. Link to your tagger and post these rules
2. List EIGHT random facts about yourself
3. Tag EIGHT people at the end of your post and list their names
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged

Hmmm…

1. I was an exchange student for a year in Sao Paulo, Brazil in 1974-75 (I still have some residual Portuguese in my brain.
2. I was in many musical theatre productions from high school through college, most often the colorful, character roles (alto, and yes, I used to tap dance too!). I had one romantic lead, but she was a feisty one (Barbera in “The Apple Tree.”)
3. I played guitar (fingerpick style) and sang in a bluegrass band in North Carolina for a number of years, mostly for beer, branch water and food.
4. I am a recovering Catholic.
5. I dislike black licorice.
6. I have a bit of fear of heights.
7. I need time for my “closet introvert” (despite the fact that I can be very extroverted, but I suspect a lot of that is learned behavior.)
8. I wanted to design and build an underwater city at one point and that led me to majoring in marine botany in university.

So who shall I torture with a tag? How about some people I don’t link to often. A little exposure can be lovely!

1. Michelle Laurie (budding blogger!)
2. Michael Clarke (international development blogger)
3. Honoria Starbuck (look at her art!)
4. Janet Ginsberg (read her germtales!)
5. Gabriela Avram (community of practice blogger)
6. Steve Dale (CoPs, community and public sector work)
7. Caren Levine (new community blogger)
8. Dave Burke (a coder blogger)

We’ll see who follows their vanity feeds and see’s the tag!

Photo by LinBow

Take a minute to read this great post from Bob Sprankle (who says he is an elementarytechnology integrator - wow, that’s a new one on me!) What We All Want. Bob shares the results of his deployment of the Pew internet student survey (the online NetDay Survey by “Speak Up,” a national research project conducted by “Project Tomorrow” ) in his classrooms, and with his family. What’s coming out of the survey? That kids care about safety, inclusion and contribution. Spot on!

For me, this is the same thing I hear people wanting from their work groups and their communities of practice. What the words mean in context varies, but the pattern is consistent. Well, the adults also want some relief of the giant to-do lists and endless expectations their work puts up on them. They want safety in that they want to be able to be heard, to have time for reflection and quality in their work and learning, despite high output expectations. (This is not to be confused with the culture of fear that has taken hold of my country. The word ’safety” has been pretty warped lately!) They want to be part of something and to be a contributor to that “something.” They want their work to matter.

Bob then goes on to talk about the importance of play in learning. Again, this shows up in the adult world, but we still seem resistant to talking about it using that old “P” word. As if it were wasting time and keeping us from the giant to-do-lists that are eating us alive.

As we roll towards the end of the year, it is useful to remember that learning, knowledge creation and sharing, innovation, yes, even productivity, relate back to these four things: safety, inclusion, contribution and play. Together, these make great descriptors of a culture of love.

I’m not sure I’ll be blogging much over the holidays. I have one post that I’m working on, but just in case, Happy Holidays - may they be filled with safety, inclusion, contribution, play and a whole lot of love.

Hat tip to Stephen Downes for spotting Bob’s post.

Chez pim’s second annual Menu for Hope 4 is in it’s last few days - today and tomorrow. For a $10USD donation you get a raffle ticket on one of many droolable foodie prizes. Click on over and help raise money for the World Food Program, all inspired by the lovely food blogging community.