This is my last post on this blog. Radio Userland has served me well since I started blogging in 2003. I will post more details on the transition, at my new blog - for now I just wanted to make this announcement, and provide the new url and feeds.

New Blog URL - http://dinamehta.com/
Subscribe via RSS 2.0 - http://dinamehta.com/feed/
Subscribe via Atom - http://dinamehta.com/feed/atom/
Comments feed - http://dinamehta.com/feed/atom/

The new blog will also be called Conversations with Dina - it's just a new blogging platform - but the same old blog! I do hope you continue reading and feeding it. 

My old blog will be archived at its old url (http://radio.weblogs.com/0121664/) and I will keep the archives going. Stuart, who has worked out the platform for Conversations with Dina on Wordpress has done some neato hacks - one that I love a lot is that the search function will not just search the new blog archives, but also my old Radio blog archives. And he has managed to transfer some of my posts over too. That's so cool!!! Lots more needs doing there ... and that will emerge I'm sure.

12:26:59 PM    comment []  trackback []

Its been quiet here too long ....... the result of many many shifts. A new home, getting things to work smoothly, much travelling, transferring from a PC to a Mac, not being able to figure out how to get my Radio blog easily onto a Mac (Paolo has very graciously offered to help after I left a comment at his blog)....

And mosoci β

Mosoci is more than an idea - it is a beta platform, an emergent plan.  It is jazz, bricolage and serious play.  It lets us play a little music where chaos, creativity, diversity and complexity are all welcome. It fulfils our desires and needs which are driven by the fundamental experiences of our souls, to live and work in an emergent, globally connected community.

What it is not, is a formal traditional organization.  We hope the lifestream we have built at the Mosoci blog demonstrates this.  We want it to be more than just the two of us.  Stuart spells this thought out really well:

"We know we would not be doing this without everyone that has read our blogs over the last few years. Social Media built the platform for our collaboration and the sense that our network and community would support, participate with us and help us grow. Now it is beyond an idea and yet it is still being formulated. We certainly don't want to end up as just the two of us. Today though we are happy to feel like we are in a constant state of beta. That's the zone where it is a real rush.

Thank you for your support, praise and interest. Our blogs and blogging will evolve just like our other social media activities are. For example we are really enjoying bringing our bookmarking into the feed. For now our tweets are there too. That may be overwhelming. Then it may also be helpful. We'll let the readers tell us.

It is born out of our curiosity, passion and deep belief in the strength of social technologies to make a real difference, our willingness and drive to share, learn and grow allowed us to experiment with and use those very technologies to communicate and collaborate on several projects over the years. More details from Stuart:

"Much happens today by chance. Things also emerge and we find ways to jump on them and adapt. Over the years Dina and I have enjoyed telling parts of our story. We first met in an online forum. I set her up blogging “Conversations with Dina” with install instructions over an IM chat session, long before voice and video connections were possible. Skype also helped to revolutionize our collaboration and connectivity. Open channels between India and the US made collaboration around Learning Journeys, research, and just links and interests possible. Working in India for most of the last year, attending some conferences together around the world and we knew we were at the point where where 1+1 makes more than two.

Mosoci is the platform of our collaboratory around the interests we love, are passionate about and to reinforce the direction and learning we need to go in. We won’t be successful without our network and our community and the power of social media. Blogs, wikis, forums, twitter, bookmarking have enabled who we are today."

10:29:31 PM    comment []  trackback []

Global Voices Online has announced the first five citizen media outreach projects to receive Rising Voices microgrants.

9:43:04 AM    comment []  trackback []

I am shocked at the venom and death threats against Kathy Sierra - it is sick, mean, even anarchical and evil, totally unethical. My first reaction was disgust and dismay and I have the greatest sympathy for what she is going through - but I find myself as appalled at the knee-jerk reaction of hate going around about a set of people implicated in her post - its not doing much good I'm afraid. Truly *Evil* minds whoever they are in this case, feed on such things.

I feel Mitch Ratcliffe's post is a really balanced take on the whole thing, especially this from Mitch - "We are further from that moment of truth now, however, because the silence of mock outrage reigns."

There are many conflicting thoughts in me right now around this issue. The woman in me is enraged at what Kathy is going through - and yet am not sure its a 'woman' thing at all. Lots of the American blogworld , esp at the A-list level, is fairly obsessed by how few women are really respected in Tech - this is evident by the endless debates on inviting women speakers at conferences. And yet, apart from BlogHer I don't see much happening to change this, as I see the same set of women speaking over and over again. The outrage against what's happened to her, is possibly greater because Kathy happens to be a woman. Are we perpetuating this gender divide by making it a woman thing - am not sure.

As a blogger, and one who has been around since 2003 this sort of stuff has been around. [link via Doc Searls]. Hate is just simply bad. Cyber bullying is bad. That's what we need to address. Whether against victim or accused (note here - I make a distinction between accused and convicted). Whether its against an A-lister or a Z-lister. Whether against man or woman. Its a reflection of a society gone badly wrong. Only the social system within which it exists can correct itself. In this case, blogs. Blogs and bloggers often reflect mob-like mentalities - some call it the echo chamber - and while there are many positive aspects of this - we must guard against the negatives.

I've had all sorts of threats and quite a bit of hate mail - I found the best thing is to simply ignore it and it usually goes away. I'm glad Kathy brought it out in the open though, its an issue that needs to be debated and addressed - and still I wish she hadn't made those really serious and clear accusations against specific individuals until after all the investigations by the authorities were done. Blogs are so powerful and the internet is an unforgiving place - entire reputations can be ruined thus.

We had an incident, not half as offensive as this, but the fallout was pretty severe, in the Indian Blogosphere - where a guy who was plagiarizing content from blogs was really beaten up by Indian bloggers - and I got tons of really bad hate mail for calling it Mob Justice and a witch hunt - although I will say this once more, that I would never condone plagiarism. - check the comments out there - these are only those that I let through. There were tons of mail and other comments that crossed my line of acceptability and were really lewd, hateful and full of threats. I ignored them and deleted them. And they went away.

Censorship and more regulation is not the answer - has it ever really worked where the internet is concerned? Andy Carvin has called for a Stop Cyberbullying Day. That's the sort of action that makes sense.

12:16:43 AM    comment []  trackback []

Found at the Fast Company Blog: IFC, a World Bank Group organisation, and World Resources Institute has an interesting report - The Next 4 Billion: Market Size and Business Opportunities at the Base of the Pyramid. Some facts from their Executive Summary:

Four billion people form the base of the economic pyramid (BOP) -- those with annual incomes below $3,000 (in local purchasing power).

The BOP makes up 72 percent of the 5,575 million people recorded by available national household surveys worldwide and an overwhelming majority of the population in the developing countries of Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America and the Caribbean -- home to nearly all the BOP.

This large segment of humanity faces significant unmet needs and lives in relative poverty: in current U.S. dollars their incomes are less than $3.35 a day in Brazil, $2.11 in China, $1.89 in Ghana, and $1.56 in India.

Yet together they have substantial purchasing power: the BOP constitutes a $5 trillion global consumer market.

"In its geographic analysis, The Next 4 Billion finds that the Asian BOP market (including the Middle East) is by far the largest, with 2.86 billion people and a total income of $3.47 trillion, constituting 83% of the region's total population and 42% of the its aggregate purchasing power."

BOP populations across countries:

More countries covered here.

Income vs expenditure for India in this BOP market:

This shows huge market potential .. probably larger than ever thought before, and really undeserved by businesses. C.K.Prahalad must feel vindicated!

10:49:47 AM    comment []  trackback []

On International Women's Day this year on March 8, The Blank Noise Project is once again, collecting stories in another blogathon.  From their announcer post ...

"This is an attempt to understand how different women ( across age groups/ cultures/ communities) have dealt with street sexual harassment in their everyday lives. Male bloggers are encouraged to share stories of women in their lives and how they have dealt with street sexual harassment. Non bloggers are also invited to participate- email us your story. We will upload your email at www.blanknoiseactionheroes.blogspot.com. You could also be an agent- the one that collects stories of confrontation/ of heroism from your mother, grandmother, cousins, domestic workers, people in your office, the vegetable vendor, the woman bus conductor...anyone! To confirm your participation, announce the event on your blog and email us the link right away!"

10:19:22 AM    comment []  trackback []

I've been quiet here, but have been blogging a lot at the Asia Source II blog. Its been fun facilitating the Open Publishing sessions - I've learnt so much myself! We've had huge challenges with connectivity - 120 of us sharing a 256 kbps modem; trying to get Plone then Drupal working and finally resorting to Wordpress for the live blog! Rather than writing it entirely, I've got lots of folks from different countries and tracks sharing their perspectives. Lazy me :)

What's the blog about ...
This blog is meant to capture the colours, flavour, essence and spirit of Asia Source II in Sukabumi, Indonesia. We'll be sharing our discussions from the sessions, lots of fun stuff, some serious FOSS wisdom, and even some poetry. We'd love it if you jump in and add your perspectives to the many conversations and exchanges we will have in this space. The Asia Source II wiki will have more detailed content and reports.

Here's one of my early postings there:

We're working in military tents!

There are four learning tracks for the morning sessions. Three of the four groups are working in military tents, fitted with 8-10 computers. The uber geeks have a classroom, where they can lock up all their cool gizmos like wireless transmitters.

Here's what Track 1 on Open Publishing had as their objective for the Camp Blog they are running as one of their projects:

- to create a lasting online documentation of the camp

- to capture the 'spirit' of Asia Source

They've been blogging, learning how to resize and insert images today, tomorrow they go podcasting. Fun!

2:20:02 PM    comment []  trackback []

I'll be in Sukabumi, Indonesia for the next ten days, at AsiaSource II. It really is going to be a camp, and am excited to be living fairly in dormitory style - takes me back to my college years! Its also an opportunity to meet an entire new set (for me) of folks doing some excellent work in the social media area in South Asia and South East Asia, as this is the first time I'm attending a conference in the Asian region.

There are four main learning tracks:

• Open Publishing and Broadcasting
• Alternative Hardware and Access
• FOSS Implementation and Migration
• Information Management

• risks in open publishing and managing risks
• why organizations should adopt social media
• role of social media/open publishing in disaster relief
• communication, community, collaboration brought about by social media
• open publishing is not just about blogging/wikis ... it is also about keeping track of conversations - session on RSS, trackbacks, social bookmarking, technorati, digg etc ... the entire ecosystem around blogging

7:54:04 PM    comment []  trackback []

What should marketers be looking at in 2007?

TRANSUMERS from GENERATION C(ASH) living transient, connected, participative lifestyles, showing off their STATUS SKILLS, experiencing TRYVERTISING, masters of their YOUNIVERSE, indulging in TWINSUMER ventures, within the TRANSPARENCY TYRANNY of the GLOBAL BRAIN moving ever closer to CROWD CLOUT.

(Images from the trendwatching website). Go there to find out more on status, transparency and consumer power, the online revolution, more adventurous consumption, and a shift from consumption to participation.

"GENERATION C(ONTENT) is joining GENERATION C(ASH). If consumers produce the content, if they are the content, and that content brings in money for aggregating brands, then revenue and profit-sharing is going to be one of 2007's main themes in the online space. It's not like brands will have a choice: talented consumers are going to be too sought after to remain satisfied with thank you notes. Get ready for an avalanche of revenue sharing deals, reward schemes and sumptuous gifts aimed at luring creative consumers."

"At the core of all consumer trends is the new consumer, who creates his or her own playground, own comfort zone, own universe. It's the 'empowered' and 'better informed' and 'switched on' consumer combined into something profound, something we've dubbed MASTER OF THE YOUNIVERSE. At the core is control: psychologists don't agree on much, except for the belief that human beings want to be in charge of their own destiny. Or at least have the illusion of being in charge.

"And because they can now get this control in entirely new ways, aided by an online, low cost, creativity-hugging revolution that's still in its infancy, young and old (but particularly young) consumers now weave webs of unrivaled connectivity and relish instant knowledge gratification. They exercise total control over creative collections, including their own creative assets, assume different identities in cyberspace at a whim, wallow in DIY / Customization / Personalization / Co-Creation to make companies deliver whatever and whenever, on their own terms".

11:30:37 AM    comment []  trackback []

Global Voices Summit in Delhi. Rebecca MacKinnon, one of the co-founders of Global Voices Online sets out some thoughts before the summit. In an email to the GV group, she says: "I've posted on my blog with some thoughts about what I'm hoping to accomplish at this meeting, plus some context of where we've come from and where we may be going."

Latest news from the wiki:

• Global Voices Delhi summit - only a few days to go!
• Global Voices launches new search function!
• See also the collaborative attendee-written blog on this wiki.
• Photos may be found on Flickr.

• Participating via IRC (One click Web chat!)
• Streaming Live Audio
  • Audio and video archives of some of the presentations (coming soon).
• Topical discussions and roundtables
• Coverage, transcripts and archives

12:00:29 AM    comment []  trackback []

I have been tagged by my friend Rob Paterson in a Blog tag game where you tag 5 people whose blog you enjoy and ask them to tell the world about 5 things that most people may not know of you.

Along with me, Rob has tagged:

• Craig Willson at Humble
• Peter Rukavina at Ruk.ca
• Cynthia Dunsford at Iridescent spoke
• Johnnie Moore at Johnnie Moore's Weblog

• Whether Pigs Have Wings, by Anant Rangaswami
• Lilia Efimova's Mathemagenic
• Nilu's Recursive Hypocrisy
• Beth Canter's blog - Beth's Blog
• Jim McGee's Musings

8:12:15 PM    comment []  trackback []

Stuff that's caught my eye recently:

• Research beyond Google "Google, the largest search database on the planet, currently has around eight billion web pages indexed. That's a lot of information. But it's nothing compared to what else is out there. Google can only index the visible web, or searchable web. But the invisible web, or deep web, is estimated to be 500 times bigger than the searchable web. The invisible web comprises databases and results of specialty search engines that the popular search engines simply are not able to index." Topics Covered in this Article: Deep Web Search Engines | Art | Books Online | Business | Consumer | Economic and Job Data | Finance and Investing | General Research | Government Data | International | Law and Politics | Library of Congress | Medical and Health | Science | Transportation

• Kameel Ahmady has a series on youth culture in Iranian Kurdistan based on Visual Ethnography. Parts one, two, three, four and five.
  

• Top 10 lies of Web 2.0 - a tongue-in-cheek post by Dan Frost
  

• Delete Your Bad Web Rep - bad idea I think .. we leave traces of ourselves when we put ourselves online. Against my belief in transparency and the open web. There's always good and bad .. and to hide the bad .. hmmm .. paranoia?

• Alec Saunders on creating a meme through blogging:

  "In 12 months time, we've managed to insert an idea, which now has apparently a ton of currency, into a very old industry. We haven't relied on large marketing budgets, or heavy lifting PR campaigns. Instead, using just blogs and conversation, we set out to cause a change that would produce an environment that would be more conducive to our success, and the success of hosts of other companies like ours.

  And that, my friends, is why blogging is powerful."
  

• Computing, 2016 - What won't be possible: "The new social-and-technology networks that can be studied include e-mail patterns, buying recommendations on commercial Web sites like Amazon, messages and postings on community sites like MySpace and Facebook, and the diffusion of news, opinions, fads, urban myths, products and services over the Internet. Why do some online communities thrive, while others decline and perish? What forces or characteristics determine success? Can they be captured in a computing algorithm?

  Social networking research promises a rich trove for marketers and politicians, as well as sociologists, economists, anthropologists, psychologists and educators. "This is the introduction of computing and algorithmic processes into the social sciences in a big way," Dr. Kleinberg said, "and we're just at the beginning.""

• Am enjoying playing with Twitter and iLike ... first impressions - both are really easy to use, and fun! Twitter is amazing .. am currently experimenting with an SMS-Blog interface on a research project and I see lots we can do with a Twitter-like application. I see lots of potential for online campaigns and disaster information/relief as well.

1:13:18 PM    comment []  trackback []

is on November 14, 2006.  An interesting initiative from Making Life Easy:

As part of World Usability Day we’re asking you to make some noise about things that are hard to use. London-based research and design consultancy Flow is marking World Usability Day with a campaign to get people to speak up about the things that make their life needlessly difficult.

Confusing cash machines, unclear signs, frustrating websites - poor usability is everywhere and it gets in the way of life. Sometimes it is just annoying. At other times it stops us doing what we need to do. It can even be dangerous.

World Usability Day is an international event promoting the message that people have had enough of things that are hard to use. We want people to share their usability frustrations with their fellow sufferers. Record your experiences at the campaign website MakingLifeEasy.org and:

1) See what is frustrating other people
2) Rate these annoyances on a scale of Usability Pain (coming soon!)
3) Upload a photograph and describe what makes life needlessly difficult

11:46:57 AM    comment []  trackback []

Wow .. this is just fantastic.  The folks at Savage Minds have set up an open access wiki on anthropology journal articles and papers, and have created a discussion list and IRC channel for those interested in anthropology to hangout at:

Learn about the issue
openaccessanthropology.org is now up and, while it's still very much a work in progress, it is the best place to go for an overview of the issues - and will get even better as we all help grow it.

Sign up for updates
There is an Open Access Anthropology group which people are using as a mailing list - you can sign up today to share your ideas or just keep up to date with what is going on. So far the list is not very high-volume, so you won't be drowned in email if you sign up.

Join the conversation
We've started an IRC channel where there’s been a fair amount of chat about OAA (although really it is just a place for anthropologists to hang out in general). It's #savageminds on irc.freenode.net. If you are unwise in the ways of IRC just go to IRC at work type in a nickname, for 'server' put irc.freenode.net and for 'channel' put #savageminds and then you should be good. If you are looking for an IRC program, we recommend GAIM (PC) or Colloquy (Mac).

10:30:25 AM    comment []  trackback []

If you care about Internet Censorship, today's the day to register our protest. Reporters Without Borders urges internet users to join in a 24-hour online demo against internet censorship.

Tags: citizen journalism, internet censorship, censorship

9:22:55 AM    comment []  trackback []

Am looking forward to the Global Voices Summit at the Indian Habitat Centre in Delhi on December 16-17. Details and signup here. Day One is open to all, Day Two is for the GV team. If you're not a part of the Global Voices team, I'd still recommend you attend Day One .. its a fantastic and perhaps the only opportunity worldwide, to meet such an amazing and wide spread of bloggers from all parts of the world, from regions that are almost never represented at other 'blog' conferences. To look outward and not inward.

I had such a good time in London last year at the Summit!

GV is also running a survey among readers, to help re-design the site. From Ethan's blog: "If you're a Global Voices fan, please take a minute and take our survey. We're trying to poll our readers before redesigning the Global Voices site, getting a sense for what people like and use the most on the site. It would be a big help if you'd join us and tell us what's working and what isn't working for you on Global Voices. Thanks in advance."

8:41:20 PM    comment []  trackback []

I was delighted to read that Dr. Muhammed Yunus has won the Nobel Peace Prize for 2006 for Grameen Bank - some say he is an economist and should have been nominated in that category .. I can't help feeling this one is really appropriate because:

"Every single individual on earth has both the potential and the right to live a decent life. Across cultures and civilizations, Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that even the poorest of the poor can work to bring about their own development." The Norwegian Nobel Committee

"Lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty. Micro-credit is one such means. Development from below serves to advance democracy and human rights." Ole Danbolt Mjoes, director of the Nobel committee. [via Washington Post]

His model is being followed in India as well ... and the proliferation of Self-Help-Groups (SHG's), typically groups of women who are given access to microcredit to start a small business, has the potential to empower women by enabling them to make economic decisions and help increase family income. [Image from Lifeonline]. Access to credit can be a great catalyst in enhancing the socio-economic conditions of the poor. Where earlier, they were considered 'outsiders' in the world of banking, as they had no collateral, they are now 'bankworthy'.

"In one village in Nellore District, for example, women have acquired land titles in their names and taken Rs.180,000 as loans towards construction of their houses. They have said that they will not tolerate wife-beating and have forced their husbands to stop drinking alcohol. The longest-standing group in the village has rotated the revolving fund 25 times and also has a savings deposit of Rs.30,000 in the bank. In another village, a group has saved Rs.800,000. In total, the women of the district have mobilized savings of Rs.60 million.

The women have used the revolving funds for productive activities, emergency consumption, health needs, marriages and children's education. The Total Literacy Campaign launched in the district in 1991 has brought education and information, with the savings groups becoming important centres for disseminating information on health, education, water and sanitation. There are visible changes in the health and nutrition of women and their children. Women have identified sanitation as a major problem and are exploring possibilities of financing sanitation improvements, with matching funds from the Government. Women in the credit groups have a positive self-image, recognize their own health needs better and find themselves consulted by men, who realize that credit and information can be accessed through the women's savings groups."

From the Bangladeshi Blogosphere: "People are delighted over at the Bangla blogging platform "Bandh Bhanger Awaaj". Drishtipat has news, pictures and more links to texts and videos on Dr. Yunus and Grameen Bank. Mudhpud Chickness says Dr. Yunus has put Bangladesh on the map. The South Asia Biz says "Today is a great day for Bangladesh." Tanvir says: "I hope that this success will allow the Bangladeshis to dream big and lead the country to prosperity." Atunu says "Finally, a deserving Bangalee wins the Nobel Prize". Shahidul Alam of Drik posts an wonderful tribute to Dr. Yunus." [via Global Voices Online]

[Image from PBS's The New Heroes Series on Muhammed Yunus.]

Tags: Microcredit, Muhammad Yunis, Nobel Peace Prize, Social Banking

9:20:52 AM    comment []  trackback []