Communities

communities of interest and practice

decentralized social media

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‘Decentralised social media is more than just a technical shift; it’s a step toward restoring autonomy and trust in our digital lives, empowering individuals and communities to connect without compromising their values or privacy.’ —Zhilin Zhang, University of Oxford, 2024

In November 2022 — from platforms to covenants — I wrote that I firmly believe open protocols connecting small pieces loosely joined is a better framework than any privately owned social media platform. Twitter was just too darned easy for many years. I am connecting more on Mastodon though I have not mastered all of its functions. Mastodon is an open protocol and anyone can put up a server and connect to what is called the ‘fediverse’, a federated network of hosts using the protocol.

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two decades of blogging

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Bryan Cantrill discusses what he has learned after 20 years of blogging through the decades. I too, crossed the two decade mark this past February. Bryan was asked four questions on the occasion by Cynthia Dunlop.

  1. What blog entry was I most proud of?
  2. Which one was most difficult to write?
  3. What impact of blogging have I found surprising?
  4. What advice would I have for those getting started with blogging?

So I thought it might be a good idea for me to do the same.

1. I am proud of a post that received the most negative feedback ever. I was even asked to change the title of the post. Our future is networked and feminine looked at how there were many ancient tribal societies led by women but both the advent of institutions, like kingdoms and religions ‘of the book’, and later capitalist markets were clearly male-dominated. Today, in a network society, we are seeing more avenues for feminine influence, as evidenced by movements like ‘me too’, and of course there is a resulting push-back from patriarchal institutions and markets. The shift is not complete but if we don’t blow ourselves up, I think it will happen.

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farewell little bird

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I started using Twitter in late 2007, at the urging of several friends, who felt that as a blogger it would be a good way to extend my reach. And it did. From 2012 to 2021 Twitter (Tweetbot) was one of my top three tools for learning. It dropped to fourth place after Musk bought the company and then it dropped completely off my list.

Over the years I have noted that the micro-blogging platform let me stay in loose touch with many people. I wrote that next to my blog, Twitter was my best learning tool and allowed me to stay connected to a diverse network [SEEK & SHARE]. For several years Twitter was the largest source of visitors to this blog. It even eclipsed Google search.

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defeated by the pandemic

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Following up from yesterday’s post — fix the networks — this presentation at XOXO Festival 2024, by Ed Yong tells the story about how the pandemic defeated him. Yong wrote many articles focused on making sense of the pandemic for The Atlantic from 2020. In 2021 Yong won the Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting. His first premise is that succeeding or failing to deal with a pandemic is a choice.

For me, just the fact that Yong wears a N95 respirator mask while presenting, makes this worth watching. It’s real leadership by example. With no previous journalistic experience, Yong set some rules for himself, especially after winning the Pulitzer. These are good rules for any writer.

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fix the networks

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Erin Kissane, in a presentation at XOXO Festival 2024, discusses how Twitter was instrumental in crowd-sourcing a wide variety of experts to understand what was happening early in the Covid pandemic. Twitter enabled many ‘rando’, or loose social connections which resulted in the Covid Tracking Project that was ahead of the CDC and other official sources of public health information. But as Kissane states, “It’s a mark of institutional failure to leave your public health crisis data in the hands of amateurs and volunteers.” That has been the ongoing state of affairs in most Western countries, Canada included.

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sowing good seeds

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Why should we help those we compete with? Because we want to live in a resilient society and have a thriving economy.

“There was a farmer who grew excellent quality corn. Every year he won the award for the best grown corn. One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about now he grew it. The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbours. “How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbours when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?” the reporter asked.

“Why sir” said the farmer, “Didn’t you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbours grow good corn.” —Author unknown — see below*

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full bloom blogging

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Jon Naughton in The Guardian — The blogosphere is in full bloom. The rest of the internet has wilted — notes that Dave Winer’s blog is now 30 years old. Winer invented RSS which easily syndicates blogs and ensures that podcasts can be played on your application of choice. Like Winer, when I started I also thought that blogging was for everyone. It’s not.

“I was born to blog. At the beginning of blogging I thought everyone would be a blogger. I was wrong. Most people don’t have the impulse to say what they think.” —Dave Winer

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ITA Jay Cross Award 2024

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The Internet Time Alliance Memorial Award in memory of Jay Cross is presented to a workplace learning professional who has contributed in positive ways to the field of Informal Learning and is reflective of Jay’s lifetime of work.

Recipients champion workplace and social learning practices inside their organization and/or on the wider stage. They share their work in public and often challenge conventional wisdom. The Award is given to professionals who continuously welcome challenges at the cutting edge of their expertise and are convincing and effective advocates of a humanistic approach to workplace learning and performance.

We announce the award on 5 July, Jay’s birthday.

Following his death in November 2015, the partners of the Internet Time Alliance — Jane Hart, Charles Jennings, Clark Quinn, and myself — resolved to continue Jay’s work. Jay Cross was a deep thinker and a man of many talents, never resting on his past accomplishments, and this award is one way to keep pushing our professional fields and industries to find new and better ways to learn and work.

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just another blog

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I write this blog mostly for myself, though it’s great to have people join in and create conversations.

“But there’s also a part of writing, of online writing particularly, blogging, that’s all the humble without the security, that’s full of risk, that’s vulnerable even if what you’re saying isn’t necessarily personal or deeply meaningful or anything you or anyone else even really cares about. This thing we do, blogging, is crazy. Really. What a trip, what a concept, what an experience. It’s a place where the public share is instant and your little words can tromp their way across the world before you have time to regret it.”—Annie Mueller

I highly recommend reading all of Annie’s blog post — it’s just a blog (thanks to Euan Semple and Chris Corrigan for highlighting Annie’s work)

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dead blog walking at 20

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Twenty years ago I started writing this blog. Over 3,600 posts later, it’s still my main tool for making sense of my work and the world.

Only a few months after I started blogging, I heard Tod Maffin, a Canadian digital journalist, on CBC radio state that blogging was dead — already! But I saw my blog as a tool for work, and not necessarily a way to make money, so I marched on — dead blog walking.

What has my blog been good for?

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