CommuniShare

(cross-posted from phillynetsquared.org)

On our last Net Tuesday (December 1), we held the Philly Net Tuesday Book UNclub at Robin’s Bookstore.  The idea was pretty straightforward… We would discuss books in Net Tuesday’s scope of interest: social networking/media, nonprofit technology and social change.  (That’s the “biblio” part.)  And we would use the style of an unconference, in which participants set their own agenda.  (That’s the “social” part.)  As far as any of us knew, this wasn’t really done before.  (And that’s the “experiment” part.)

We were fortunate that Lindsay Tabas video recorded parts of the evening (and also led one of the book discussions).  She put together a really great, short piece that nicely captures the spirit of the evening.  Thank you, Lindsay!

A Biblio Social Experiment from Lindsay Tabas on Vimeo.

We had about 16 people show up, exhibiting our typical mix of techies and nonprofit/activist types.  And, thankfully, people were open-minded about taking part in an experiment.  We started with 3×5 cards with names of the 25 books that people had submitted to the Google spreadsheet over the previous month.  Then we added additional books suggested by the folks who showed up.  We eliminated those books from the spreadsheet that nobody present had read, or felt comfortable enough to generate a discussion, and came away with the following 9 ititles.

1. Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software by Steven Johnson
2. Everything is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder by David Weinberger
3. Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky
4. Our Choice:  A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis by Al Gore
5. Technology and Social Inclusion: Rethinking the Digital Divide by Mark Warschauer
6. The Art of Woo: Using Strategic Persuasion to Sell Your Ideas by G. Richard Shell and Mario Moussa
7. The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web by Tamar Weinberg
8. The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly by David Meerman Scott
9. Twitterville: How Business Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods by Shel Israel

We arranged the cards into a 3 by 3 matrix for 9 breakout groups  (a 15-minute round of 3 breakout groups, followed by a second round, and a third).  Inevitably there was some chaos, especially during switching times, but discussions seemed quite engaged.  In fact, one of the most obvious problems was that 15 minutes was just too short for a discussion on almost all of these books.

So, this was our biblio-social experiment.  And, I believe it went fairly well.  We did some whole-group debriefing at the end, and the following constructive suggestions were made:

• Have more time to talk about each book, which might be accomplished in a couple of ways:
  • Talk about fewer books (i.e., fewer, but longer rounds)
  • Pre-select the books before the event, since the selection process at the beginning of the evening was too heavy and time-consuming.  This could be done with the group (crowd) still making the selection, as opposed to any individual.
• Narrow the subject focus more.
• Try this format with media other than books, like blogs, articles.
• Circulate information about the items to be discussed before the meeting, so people could do some prep if they wanted.

I think these are all great suggestions.  As an experiment, I think it was successful, and certainly worth trying again, incorporating some of these ideas.  But Philly Net Tuesday probably won’t return to this format before later next year at the earliest.  And, maybe this format could work elsewhere.  Anybody have the phone number for the Free Library of Philadelphia?

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Tags: biblio-social, Book UNclub, books, social change, social networking

I like to read non-fiction books in my “field” of information and social empowerment.  And, like a lot of people, I sometimes annotate books as I read them.  In doing so, I am, in effect, “tagging” portions of the book with metadata.  I’m applying my own, personally meaningful expressions to words fixed on the page.  These tags may be explicit (as with a word or phrase jotted in the margin) or more subtle (like by underlining a particularly interesting passage).  Sometimes, that’s the last I see of these markings - which is usually fine.  Other times, I’m sure I’ll want to find the tag again.

But how?  An electronic tagging system isn’t convenient on the subway where I do a lot of my reading.  So, I thought about jotting down these tags, along with their respective page numbers, on the blank pages at the back of the book.  Then, it occurred to me (duh!) that such an idea was called an index, that there already is one at the back of the book, and that it was created for the same purpose - to help me, the reader, re-locate items and concepts scattered throughout the text.  So, why not just annotate the index itself?

This is not such a radical idea, not so different from annotating the body of the book in the first place.  And maybe “everybody else” already does this. But it had never occurred to me before (nor to several others that I mentioned it to). 

from my copy of David Weinberger's Everything is Miscellaneous

I realized that, though I had overcome my childhood qualms about writing in a book, I felt hesitant to mess around with the book’s index.  Its terse order and structure, its separation from the content of the text per se, and its accepted role of providing keys into that text, all conspire to imbue the back-of-the-book index with an authority distinct from that of the author’s written words.

And, as in information professional, I’m well aware that many (though not all) back-of-the-book indexes are constructed by conscientious professional indexers, who do a great job of identifying, disambiguating and articulating concepts that the author has carefully assembled for presentation.  But index quality is beside the point.  A back-of-the-book index - no matter how good it is - necessarily reflects somebody else’s conceptual framework and priorities.  Not mine.  A good index is a tremendously valuable tool, which I deeply appreciate and use.  But it can never reflect my own, changing intellectual perspective or emotional response.  Which is why different people’s annotations of the same book are different.

And, with this modest insight, I feel liberated to “personalize” a book’s index, to merge my subjective tags with the indexer’s “objective” terms, to make an already useful access tool more personally meaningful.  And, in this flush of discovery, I’ve only just begun to identify ways to annotate a back-of-the-book index, including:

• adding new entries in their approximate alphabetical positions;
• alphabetically adding tags in “my language” and referring to their synonymous index terms;
• adding page numbers to existing entries (which the indexer had not considered significant enough to include);
• flagging existing entries, or specific page references of existing entries, that feel particularly important or interesting;
• highlighting references to other books, authors or concepts that I want to pursue independently;
• augmenting existing entries, or specific page references of existing entries, with additional info about why they feel important;
• drawing lines between two index terms and/or tags to reveal connections not expressed by the author or indexer.

Maybe this is interesting to nobody else but me.  But if you’ve annotated your books’ indexes, please share your experience.  Was it useful?  Do you have some tips?  Did you run into problems?  Have you discovered alternatives?

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Tags: indexes, tagging

My wife is taking some classes at Beadfest, an annual gathering of people interested in making beaded jewelry. And it made me think of the Origami convention that a friend of mine goes to every year. (I’ve remarked on this convention before because of that event’s use of labels that attendees can wear, indicating either “I’ll teach you…” or “Please teach me…”)

In both cases, I remarked to my wife, you have a bunch of skill-based enthusiasts who come together to share their skills. But she pointed out a key difference. Beadfest is produced by the trade publisher Interweave Press, and is not particularly interested in facilitating sharing of expertise among participants. It’s really designed primarily for one-way flow of expertise – from Interweave’s sanctioned “experts” to the paying attendees. I don’t know if it just doesn’t occur to the event organizers to facilitate expertise sharing among attendees, or if they deliberately avoid doing so, perhaps for fear of diluting their underlying marketing message. Regardless, though, they do not have the types of explicit networking labels used by the origamists at their convention.

HOWEVER, my wife noted, most of the women (and most of the attendees are women) tend to wear some of their own creations. And “How did you do that?” questions inevitably ensue. I take this as an indication that people’s innate desire to share what they know with others will find a way to express itself. Though they’re not wearing explicit, written labels, the jewelry itself nevertheless serves as a “networking hook” to invite connection and sharing among attendees. People want to share with their peers – even when their environment doesn’t necessarily encourage it. Beadfest might want to look at this as an opportunity, rather than a threat.

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Tags: Beadfest, in-person networking, origami

Perhaps I laud him too much (I see his name is quite big in my tag cloud), but here is a 17-minute talk given by Clay Shirky at the U.S. State Department last month.  It is the epitome of what gets me excited about this whole damn thing we’re living through.  “Web 2.0″ is just scratching the surface.

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Tags: Clay Shirky, media, social capital, social media

I expect that N2Y4 (the 4th annual NetSquared conference) to be the only professional conference I’ll attend this year (except, perhaps, for stuff in the Philly area).  As a Net Tuesday organizer, NetSquared generously picked up the hotel and conference registration, but I had to buy the plane ticket out to California and some meals, and, more significantly, I had to forego a week of consulting work.  So, I decided to invest in one trip this year, and this was definitely the right choice.

My strongest motivation for going was to meet and bond with other Net Tuesday organizers.  Officially, there are 33 Net Tuesdays around the world, and 14 were represented at the conference this year:  Austin (Billy Bickett), Chicago (Justin Massa and Dorothee Royal-Hedinger), Guayaquil, Ecuador (Eduardo Bejar) , London (Amy Sample Ward), Montreal (Peter Dietz and Jeremy Clarke), New Orleans (Jessica Rohloff ), Philadelphia (Ivan Boothe and myself), Phoenix (Sandy Sutton Andrews), Portland, ME (Alex Steed), Raleigh (Justis Peters, San Francisco (Rachel Weidinger), Seattle (Sarah Schacht), Toronto (Celina Agaton) and Vancouver (Eli van der Giessen and Joe Solomon).

Last year (at N2Y3) we had a hastily planned lunch with fewer Net Tuesday organizers, only a couple of whom were also here this year.  But this year, the conference organizers much more intentionally acknowledged the Net Tuesday organizers and helping us bond and share.  The kickoff was an entire day before the actual conference began just for us.  Not only did we get to know one another (particularly helpful before the conference got underway), but had plenty of time to discover similarities and differences among our programs, and to share aspirations for the future.  I felt (and feel) a genuine bond with the other organizers that I hope to maintain (we planned some collaborative opportunities before N2Y5).  Unlike last year, when the vast majority of the conference attendees had no idea what “Net Tuesdays” were, this year I felt appropriately validated.  We were acknowledged in the conference program, given specially colored conference T-shirts, and some of us played the vaguely satisfying role of “hosting” (introducing) some of the sessions.   Twice, in plenary sessions, we were asked to stand, and received applause.  In other words, we were much more clearly contextualized in relation to NetSquared.  I feel more pride in my role, and got the (much needed) shot in the arm to return to Philly and keep pushing forward Net Tuesdays and other Philly NetSquared initiatives.  The conference did its job.

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Tags: N2Y4, Net Tuesdays, phlnet2

I’ve just returned from N2Y4, the 4th annual NetSquared conference in San Jose, CA. The main focus this year was the N2Y4 Mobile Challenge, and the lion’s share of content was wrapped around that. Frankly, this was not especially appealing to me ahead of time. I’ve had a Blackberry for about a year now, and I enjoy using it for checking email, Facebook and Twitter, occasional texting, and (oh yeah) for phone calls. But I don’t regard it with the kind of essentialness and potential that made me excited about this year’s topic. I was pleasantly surprised. The top three winners give a taste of the diversity of applications being worked on.

• FrontlineSMS:Medic. First place winner. The main aspect of the project is equipping community health workers (CHW’s) in the third world with second tier (not “smartphone”) mobile phones when they go out to rural villages – many miles from the nearest clinic. Special software provides the CHW’s with access to medical records and lab diagnostics, enabling them to deliver a higher degree of service in the field and reduce the need to transport patients to a medical facility. They’ve already demonstrated this impressively in a trial in Malawi. This is cool enough, but what really blew my (and others’) mind(s) is that they are working with a team at UCLA to develop a new diagnostic procedure. Removing the lens and adding an LED light source, they plan to use the camera chip to diagnose malaria and other diseases in the field, thereby dramatically reducing the time required for diagnosis and treatment. They are looking at the mobile phone not simply as a communications device, but as a platform for repurposing its technology. And, finally, I want to recognize Isaac Holeman, one of the team, who Skyped into our Net Tuesday Philly meeting the following week – making for a great gathering. Thanks again, Isaac!
• The Extraordinaries.  Second place winner. The basic idea is to use your smart phone to identify and perform short “micro-volunteer” tasks, like translating (or transcribing) documents. The video “elevator pitch” gives a nice illustration of what they’re envisioning.
• VozMob – Mobile Voices, Voces Moviles. Third place winner. This is a platform for citizen journalism and community building. Utilizing a participatory design process, VozMob is currently deployed in immigrant communities in Los Angeles. Enable immigrants to share their stories via text, images or sound, the cell phones are being used to empower the community, to report abuses and to connect with family back home.

So, I was pleasantly surprised to get excited by some mobile apps. Some of the participants, it seemed to me, were driven primarily by the technology and finding a cool application for it. But what impressed me was how many of these folks had a deeply developed sense of progressive social justice, and saw the technology as a tool toward that end. (The VozMob folks were particularly articulate about this.) I was also impressed by the sense of mutual support and collaboration among participants. It was fun to watch and be a part of.

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Tags: FrontlineSMS:Medic, mobile technology, N2Y4, The Extraordinaries, VozMob

I had coffee the other day with John S. James, a very interesting person who has come to a couple of Net Tuesday Philly events.  We met primarily to discuss his idea of “smart accounts” – a sort of alternative compensation scheme for enabling online consumers to get something for free – while simultaneously compensating the creator (or whoever).  It’s hard to describe in one line.  In fact, it’s hard to understand from the web page – even though John takes pains to write clearly.  It’s easiest to grasp by example, and John’s example of a musician receiving micropayments of 25 cents/download was very helpful to me.  To my amateur ear, the idea sounds interesting, and technically quite feasible.  If it worked, it could be a big deal – i.e., used by millions of people for gazillions of micropayments and other transactions.  But would it work?  Would “the dogs eat the dog food”?  I can’t say.

Actually, though, I’ve been thinking more about the idea of the idea (the “meta-idea”?).  In other words, the generalized situation I see is this:

An intelligent person (“originator”) has an idea that is:

• personally meaningful
• potentially “big” – in the sense of finding wide acceptance and/or making the world a better place
• not immediately intuitive (it’s complex enough that it probably requires more than an “elevator speech” to adequately convey it to most people)
• at a point at which the originator needs perspectives and expertise from other people in order to validate the idea and move it forward (or, alternatively, to become convinced that it should be abandoned).

I believe that this accurately describes John’s situation with smart accounts.  It also describes my own situation with a couple of ideas, but especially an idea for which I’ve been using the name “Dissemination Station”.  And, I’m sure it applies to many other people and ideas as well.

It seems to me that the challenge for John, me and other such originators is to:

• articulate the idea
  • in sufficient detail and clarity that it conveys its essence
  • briefly and simply enough so that people will bother to read it (or view it, listen to it…)
• attract people to learn about the idea, including those who would:
  • have valuable and needed perspectives and expertise
  • be willing to share their insights with the originator

John has articulated his idea on his website, as well as by submitting the project to the NetSquared conference.  He’s out there and pushing it.  I, on the other hand, have yet to articulate my Dissemination Station idea publicly – even though I first articulated the original version of it as a confidential product proposal to Telebase in 1995!  I suppose my own reticence to “out” this idea is rooted in a long-learned, hard-to-shake sentiment for proprietary knowledge (“It’s ‘my’ idea”), combined with the insecurity that it may not really be as good an idea as I’ve thought.  But a lot of good that silence has done – for me, for the idea (meme) itself or for the world.  Well, fuck that.  I’m gonna out the idea, starting on this website, and risk the embarrassment of imperfect description, the pain of discovering it’s really a dumb idea, or the frustration of losing “credit” to somebody with more ambition and fewer scruples.

Heads up.

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Tags: Dissemination Station, John S. James, meta-ideas, phlnet2, smart-accounts

Well, I’m starting a new blog here.  I’ll be pulling over posts from the previous Blogger blog I shared with Bob Leming, and  staking out some turf to express myself.  I feel like I have a lot to say.  So, now I have to say it.

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Tags: blogging, getting started

The NetSquared “think tank” topic this month is:

What do you think the role of nonprofit organizations is in the changing world of social media?

When I first read it, however, I mentally transposed “the changing” to “changing the” and read it as:

What do you think the role of nonprofit organizations is in changing the world of social media?

The two questions have different meanings. The first one asks about the role of nonprofits in the world of social media (a world which happens to be changing). The second question implies that nonprofits are actually causing that change. And I find this second question more provocative. (Answering one question kind of answers both, but I’m focusing on the second.)

One reason I find the second formation interesting is because many of us (NetSquared folks and others) are focused on how to use social media to benefit the world of nonprofits. But I never thought about asking the opposite question: How can nonprofits be used to benefit the world of social media? (And why should they bother?)

Well, as social media become more pervasive in our society, and as ever-new forms of social media emerge, I believe they will continue to create new opportunities for helping nonprofits that we can’t anticipate beforehand. And, if that’s true, then maybe it’s in the “self-interest” of nonprofits not just to utilize social media to help their own causes, but also to promote the use of social media in general.

When nonprofits employ social media tools they are by definition promoting social media. But, maybe they could go further. For instance…

• When inviting people to join your Facebook cause, provide links to resources about how they can get more out of Facebook for other purposes as well.
• While encouraging people to comment on your blog, provide links to services where they could start their own blogs, or where they could learn how to blog more effectively.
• On your organization’s podcast page, include information about how you made the podcast (tools, techniques, problems), which not only humanizes the process, but may inspire the user to take a leap and create her own podcast.

I hadn’t thought of it this way before, but I’m starting to see how nonprofits and social media exist in a sort of symbiotic relationship. And the lifeblood of that symbiosis, IMHO, is empowerment. Social media, of course, are the epitome of empowerment. (It’s more empowering to put your video onto YouTube than to simply watch someone else’s.) And nonprofits are about empowerment also – either directly (microlending to help a poor villager start a new business) or indirectly (realizing that your single voice is important in stopping global warming). So, as we all work to transform our world, perhaps we should be more aware (well, I am, anyway) that we should be thinking not just about how social media can benefit the world of nonprofits, but how nonprofits can benefit the world of social media. Ultimately, they may be one and the same.

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Tags: empowerment, net2thinktank, nonprofit, social media, symbiosis