Seb's Open Research
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Saturday, May 29, 2004
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Friday, May 28, 2004
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Welcome, Nancy!
 Woo-friggin-hoo! Long-time online facilitation expert Nancy White has finally started her own weblog (did she hear my plea?). The online community toolkit
that she’s been building for years is chock-full of great material,
which I suppose she’ll do us the pleasure of introducing bit by bit.
A recent post reports
on an experiment I’d been meaning to try but had yet to find the right
conditions for: having group of chat participants listen the same music
while chatting - much as would happen at a party - as a means of
creating a shared atmosphere and giving participants a better sense of
togetherness. Apparently it turned out very well… I’ll really have to
try it. Webjay could make it quite easy.
This post also appears on channel social software
 11:22:44 AM
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Thursday, May 27, 2004
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"In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future.
The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no
longer exists."
12:02:43 PM
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Wednesday, May 26, 2004
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Talk at Atlantic Universities and Colleges Technology Conference
 I'm at the AUCTC conference now, speaking about and demonstrating weblogs to technology specialists from universities around Atlantic Canada.
Post-mortem: Surprisingly, my timing was adequate (I usually run
short on time). But I should avoid running to a conference I'm giving,
it makes me feel more nervous. I suspect I didn't sound as enthusiastic
as I really am...
Feedback from the audience related to the issues of inappropriate
content (how far should institutional image control go?), intellectual
property (do academics really want dissemination?), and the
formalization of getting credit for contributions made in the weblog
medium (not going to happen anytime soon if you ask me).
I've posted the slides on my presentations page.
1:42:50 PM
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Communities tied to one technology
For the most part, members of online communities usually rely on one
dominant communication channel - be it a mailing list, a forum,
weblogs, a wiki, or IRC - even when alternate channels would be helpful
for certain purposes. Communities like open source development networks
and the international, never-sleeping Joi Ito posse, whose members use multiple modes, are the exception rather than the norm.
I've been wondering about the factors that somehow work to inhibit or
facilitate the use of multiple communication channels, and the
interplay between those channels. Now there's a discussion underway on
that topic over at the lively Community Wiki, on the page Community Tied to One Technology.
Among the potential explanations that are brought up for sticking to
one channel: inertia, lack of technical acumen, the
fragmentation/critical mass problem, and the lack of integration
between modes.
My hunch is that as the "software that does less, well" pattern
and the concomitant "mix and match tools" user philosophy that we've
seen develop in social software become dominant, we'll see multiple
modes become rather widespread relatively quickly.
(I should point out that the incredibly prolific Dave Pollard touched upon this topic a while ago.)
This post also appears on channel social software
11:24:13 AM
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Collective music improvisation and dialogue
Chris Corrigan:In the traditional Irish session, the players sit in a circle, and call
out tunes on the fly, changing from one to another as the tune sets
evolve. It never takes long to get to the flow state described above,
where small variations in the tune suggest other things.
When the session is really humming there is a chemistry that arises
between the musicians. I have often thought of this state as one in
which all the individuals
in the group take a significant emotional investment in the music and
place it outside of themselves, in the middle of the circle, like a
glowing ball of energy that we all try to keep aloft.
Sounds like another instance of dialogue, which I've written about
a few times already. Here's one thing I haven't mentioned yet. In some
of the moments when I have found myself in deep discussion of physics
or computer science with others, there was a very similar atmosphere of
nondefensiveness and investment in some object of attention existing
outside of any participant. I note that it never happened in a large
group.
Update: Further, Frank Carver says he sees a parallel to the good role-playing game sessions he's experienced.
9:56:26 AM
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Tuesday, May 25, 2004
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Alexander Pope. "Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed." [Quotes of the Day]
I used to have this as my motto. Then I found the downside of never
expecting anything: you're likely to stay put, and it is not very
enjoyable.
6:00:47 PM
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"Aristotle" and learning in the Knowledge Web
Via Bruno Boutot at ConstellationW3, a vision document from 2000 by Danny Hillis on something called "The Knowledge Web", including a table listing very interesting "required features":
Table
of Affordances
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The
Web |
News
Groups |
Text
Books |
Journals |
| Peer-to-Peer
publishing |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Limited |
| Supports
linking |
Yes |
Limited |
No |
Limited |
| Ability
to add annotations |
No |
Yes |
No |
No |
| Vetting
and certification |
No |
Limited |
Yes |
Yes |
| Supports
payment model |
No |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
| Supports
guided learning |
Limited |
No |
Yes |
No |
Then a bunch of really brilliant people say what they think. The
Artificial Intelligence aromas in the piece are summarily dissipated by
a few of the critics, but what's left has a lot of potential and has indeed
been coming together bit by bit as we speak.
In his comment, Jaron Lanier discusses the rise and decline of the Thinkquest project which we could probably learn a lot from:
The
problem with the Thinkquest model wasn't the cost of the prizes,
but the cost of the judging and maintenance. It became harder
to manage the vast amount of content and huge number of human
relationships. Hard to prevent abuse, fraud, hate speech. Hard
to assure fairness.
One possibility to do away with that bottleneck is obviously to do as
weblogs do: decentralize the tasks of content management, relationship
management, and reviewing. Let content and people sort themselves out.
(If you're into these ideas and haven't already read it, be sure to check out the strong 1987 Drexler article on hypertext and the evolution of knowledge.)
1:46:08 PM
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Weblogs as Bohmian Dialogue
Flemming Funch: "Is blogging Dialogue?
Well, in many ways the medium succeeds better in creating such a space
of dialogue than any other online communication method I can think of."
11:15:41 AM
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Welcome, Bill!
Bill Ives is
a new blogger but an experienced knowledge management consultant with a
background in educational psychology. Here are a couple recent posts by
him that I found especially interesting:
10:29:53 AM
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Monday, May 24, 2004
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Society for Amateur Scientists
The Society for Amateur Scientists is:
"the world's premiere support organization for amateur scientists.
SAS is a unique collaboration between world-class professionals and citizen
scientists, dedicated to the proposition that making discoveries is the birthright
of all people. SAS members include people with no technical training whatsoever
and people with Ph.D.s in one field who want to explore fields outside their
training. The aim of SAS is to get everyone involved in science, from tinkering
in their own garage to working on stimulating projects on the front lines of
science, regardless of age, ethnicity or background."
Moreover, they are developing "a revolutionary new informal science education program that will
link scientists and engineers of all stripes to America’s teens." Very cool initiative.
7:58:46 AM
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Sunday, May 23, 2004
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Musicians get it
Over at the Creative Commons weblog, Matt Haughey cites encouraging statistics from a recent Pew report :
83% [of musicians] have provided free samples of their work online and
significant numbers say free downloading has helped them sell CDs and
increase the crowds at concerts.
5:56:43 PM
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Copyleft
2006
Sebastien Paquet.
Last update:
4/22/2006; 12:18:18 PM.
This theme is based on the SoundWaves
(blue) Manila theme. |
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Earlier this month, Suw Charman wrote a great