Are you in or out?

"this culture mashes up elements of creativity and raw emotional honesty, of exhibitionism and voyeurism. You risk insignificance unless you are a visible presence 24/7, which explains the relentless noise of personal video broadcasts via kyte TV, of text message “microblogging” via Twitter."

For the Industrial Man, the creativity part could be tolerable. I don't know about the other three.

More from David Rowan here.

Folk Knowledge

Michael Tan poses two questions in an interesting Inquirer.net article: "Is there any scientific basis for the belief that mushrooms emerge after thunderstorms? What about the belief that planting fruit crops at early dawn increases the chances for larger fruits?" He then refers to a 1998 book for an answer.

Idea seems to be about blending science and folk or indigenous knowledge. To be sure, there is a lot of work around that theme. Suddenly, I am reminded of Knowledge Management and Folk Knowledge.

Please forgive the shameless self-promotion. I attempted to "co-create" by leaving a comment on the Inquirer blog entry and pointing to how Web 2.0 can help blend science and folk knowledge. Guess what happened? So I just resorted to a track back.

Now Web 2.0 is viewed as a challenge

At least that's the impression I get from Bruce W. Dearstyne, of Information Management Journal, in an article where he offers an Enterprise 2.0 overview in a language that should be understandable by IT Managers.

Among the trends he mentioned, one strikes me hard not because of its persistence, but because it resonates someone I consider the doyen of KM:

"The rising importance of knowledge workers, who, according to Tom Davenport in Thinking for a Living, 'have high degrees of expertise, education or experience, and the primary purpose of their jobs involves the creation, distribution and application of knowledge.' Knowledge workers are heavily dependent on information systems and tools to create information and also to access, analyze, exchange and synthesize the information that is the essential precursor of knowledge."

More here.

Now if only more people understood the real driver of KM.

Wiki-Wiki Lessons from Wales and Cunningham

Mike Rogoway of OregonLive.com interviewed the "collaborative creators" of Wiki/Wikipedia.

Here's one interesting point of the conversation:

"Q: The vast majority of people who use wikis still don't necessarily participate in the wiki community. Are there strategies for getting people more involved?

Cunningham (to Wales): Do you have a ratio, readers to writers? Wales: We don't know. It's at least 1,000 to 1. In terms of getting more participation, people are working toward WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). It's a classic technology problem. You have to support the old users and do something new. Another way of getting participation is thinking about ways to encourage people to just get involved in some smaller way. A friendly atmosphere is really important to getting participation, particularly if you want diverse participation."

Now that reminds me of Clay Shirky's statement that "We cannot separate the technological aspects from the social aspects of running a virtual world."

WOV sighting of the day

Learn. Create. Collaborate.



Tutorom.

PIKAPIKA 2007

"ridiculously incredible", knocks my socks off .

Legislation 2.0

Ellen Miller of the Sunlight Foundation reports that US Senator Durbin, Richard- (D - IL) is "crafting a bill online this week on universal broadband policy."

Miller wonders "if this effort is a first of its kind but I think it might well be." Now if you ask me, I'd like to think that this could be a source of inspiration for forward looking/proactive legislators.

Got pitch?

Myelevatorpitch.net is a site where you can send your elevator pitch ang get it reviewed by "experts".

Good place to practice drafting pitches to angel investors.

How do you combine IM, chat and International calling card service?

Use mig33. Works even with most basic phone models. [via techvine.org]

Some Web performance tools are getting a lot simpler

Here's something I got from Allan Joseph Batac.

"Check your Blog's PageRank, Alexa rank, backlinks, feed subscribers

What is Xinu (unix spelled backward)?

It's a tool to help you check yourblog's (or even someone's) PageRank, Alexa rank, backlinks, feedsubscribers, technorati rank, domain validation/diagnostics and much more."

Career Fair 2.0

aka "The Game Has Changed: College Admissions Outpace Corporations in Embracing Social Media".

Nora Barnes, Ph.D. and Eric Mattson report in a recent paper that: "[t]he adoption of social media by admissions departments is being driven by familiarity and their recognition of the increasing role of social media in today’s world ."

A logical consequence seems to be that "[g]enerally, the “marketing teams” of academic institutions [get to adopt] social media faster (especially blogs) than even the innovative companies of the Inc. 500.".

To get a preview of the study, go here (MS doc).

via Gilbane.com.

Indeed, the Internet does not forget.

I was set to blog about the Schools Interoperability Framework (via Lee Wilson) when I got sidetracked by JP's comment on a > 1 year-old blog entry.

The Internet as a distribution channel

Max Starkov & Jason Price writing for the hospitality industry note that "[t]he Internet has become the main distribution channel in hospitality—over 2/3 of all hotel bookings in the US * will be directly influenced by the Internet this year" and offer some "Considerations Before Hiring an Internet Marketing Company."

*And that's just hotel. Could also apply to hostels, B&B, motels and in similar services. But take a look at hostelworld.com for hostel booking with a Web 2.0 flavor. And watch out for "fremium services" like couchsurfing.com. If the shoe fits.

Optimizing server performance?



The choice seems like speed vs. privacy.

Wiimote drivers for Windows

Funny, but the permalink says Linux.

A $5 Mont blanc?

Well only if you buy the Mont blanc refill cartridge and load it into another pen. More of that here.



via Cory Doctorow.

Social Story-writing

Ficlets.com

Blurb says:

"A ficlet is a short story that enables you to collaborate with the world.

Once you’ve written and shared your ficlet, any other user can pick up the narrative thread by adding a prequel or sequel. In this manner, you may know where the story begins, but you’ll never guess where (or even if!) it ends."

I like the prequel and sequel.

Valuation of Social Networks

I've been looking around for ideas on how an intangible thing as one's Friend of Friend network could have "pecuniary" value for purposes of business. This article from mopsos seems to fit the bill so far. Will need to read through some other articles here.

Now their moving wiki to the next level

Wikipedia has set the main category on the value of openness and collaboration.

Good model for subcategories. Check out AskDrWiki. "Using a wiki anyone with a medical background can contribute or edit medical articles. "

Can AskAttyWiki be far behind?

An opportunity to succeed

David Smith writes an intriguing item about what we have been taught to avoid for the most part of our lives: Failure.

I like David's quote from Steve Wozniak: "Failure is what moves you forward. Listen to failure."

The power of openness

Very intriguing how open source could even connect to the idea of open money; and that openness even leads to concepts like knowledge socioeconomy and getting to make the baker come (i.e. escaping from the tyranny of the purely physical to the realm of immaterial knowledge).

162 Million Internet users from China

Don't know about you but I think that's twice the size of the Philippine population.

And that's just a broad stroke picture.

You can see more details at Web Marketing China.

More on 21st century skills

The context here is Journalism education, but for learners who are expected to survive/thrive in a networked economy, the following seems apropos:

Reporting on the World Journalism Education Congress (WJEC) , Guy Berger observes that:

"The main issue was how to teach in a fast and fluid media landscape, and how to prepare students for jobs -- like moderating user-generated online contributions -- that have only recently been invented, or which are even yet to emerge."

via Rebecca MacKinnon.

Words of Wisdom

... from Stefan Sagmeister*

"Money does not make me happy; Being not truthful works against me; Having guts always works out for me; Trying to look good limits my life; Everything I do comes back to me"

via Jasmina Tesanovic and Xeni Jardin

* In English translates to "saying master"

Dust Art or what?

Just a quick one. Couldn't get the code snippets so I'd just point you to the blog post here. Thanks rubysoho.

Economics of Reputation

Lately, I've been looking for some ideas on the real value of dharma/karma, brownie points, etc. Using the keywords "RCE open source reputation ", I stumbled upon Networked Theory of a Better World. Obviously, ebay-centric. Could be a good benchmark for community-developed reputation systems.

Want to run your own reality TV show?

Try ustream.tv -

"[A] platform that provides live interactive video for everyone. Anyone with a camera and an Internet connection can use Ustream to broadcast to a global audience."

I call it TV broadcasting on a shoestring.

Journals and databases, contrasted

"Databases are searchable, structured and constantly updated."

"Journals are peer-reviewed, archival, citable."

More of that in the context of choice between Adsense and Subscription for Academic Journals.

Bottom line seems to be finding the "sweet spot".