Communities

communities of interest and practice

5th Anniversary

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On 19 February 2004, I went down the rabbit hole and started this blog:

This is where I post my thoughts and comments on ideas, events or other writings that are of a professional interest to me. Current areas of interest include social networking applications, like blogs, wikis and the use of RSS feeds, which is one reason why I have this blog; to practise what I preach. I’m also interested in the use of open source software platforms for learning. The development and nurturing of communities of practice online is another area of applied research that interests me.

And so I began blogging in earnest, having set up a few others previously, but this time with my own domain and a bit of a plan. My personal knowledge base is now over 1,400 blog posts with +3,000 comments. Mostly, I write for myself, though I know that others read what I’ve posted and a smaller fraction make comments. Many of these people have become friends and even business colleagues. That’s been the best part, meeting people who share some of my passions.

I’m writing fewer posts than when I started out, with a peak of 58 in May 2004. I can’t imagine doing that many now. I have settled on an average of 15 per month which seems to be enough for personal knowledge management (implicit => explicit) and I don’t feel under pressure to publish. I’ve found a daily commitment a bit much, such as when I helped fill in for Stephen on OLDaily.

I’ve also taken up micro-blogging on Twitter this past year and that is enabling different kinds of conversations. What might have been a few comments here are now many 140-character tweets. This blog is still central to my Web presence but I have other windows on the world now.

Thank you for coming by here during the past five years and helping me make sense of my place in the world.

Can social media bring about real change?

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Nicola Avery commented on my last post on changing the structure:

How do you bring everyone together though – we do it in learning through various networks and initiatives but don’t know with this – who would be interested, how to connect them up ? It would be great to start an economic education initiative – but who to involve – as well as individuals – would it be organizations like World Economic Forum as well as the alternative World Social Forum – just some thoughts.

So is it possible to use “frivolous” social media for real change?

Vinay Gupta thinks so and has written a visionary essay on The Future of Poverty. Vinay sees social network development, coupled with the billions of people who have cell phones, as the necessary change infrastructure for the developing world.

“By the time I retire in 20 years, I believe that poverty that people die of will be a thing of the past. If you do not think that is possible, I ask you to think on this question: if the Linux nerds had needed to learn to grow food and build wells, do you think they could have cooperated to figure it out and implement it everywhere it had to happen?”

From tweets, to blog posts to pictures and videos; statistics can become real people. Events like Charity Water can make a difference. Take the time to read the entire article or at least go to the bottom and find out what you can do.

Moving down-scale

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Jim Kunstler spoke to a packed audience at Mount Allison University last night, covering much of the material in his book The Long Emergency with updated data. You can watch his 2004 TED Talk on The Tragedy of Suburbia.

Kunstler opened with a most informative graph developed by C H Smith:

Yes, that’s right; sometime in the near future, oil will trade for $1,000 per barrel. In this post-peak oil period, Kunstler’s basic conclusion is that the age of continual growth (2-7%) is over. He showed how the US economy was based almost entirely on suburban development and that has now come to a crashing halt. He also predicted the collapse of the aviation industry in the next 48 months. Dwindling oil supplies and higher costs will affect every sector of society, and we will see major changes in:

  • how we inhabit the landscape as our cities & towns adapt
  • how we grow food as we are forced to be more local and use animal power once again
  • how we do business after the collapse of the industrial retail model (e.g. farmers markets vs Wal*Mart)
  • how we will make things on a more local level
  • how collector schools premised on cheap transportation will disappear

There will soon be a major down-scaling of everything we do because we will no longer have the energy to continue with our current system. Kunstler’s suggestion for a pragmatic North American project to get society motivated to tackle these huge issues is to restore our passenger rail service. It’s feasible, much-needed, requires no new technology and will employ many people. Cars (and suburbia) are dead, no matter how many hybrids we buy.

Can our cities survive?

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Mount Allison University presents:

James Howard Kunstler, fierce critic of suburban sprawl and our automobile-centric culture and the novelist The New York Times described as “provocative and entertaining,” will speak at Mount Allison University on Wednesday, February 11 at 7 p.m. in the Crabtree Auditorium. His talk is entitled “Planning after Peak Oil: Can our cities survive the converging catastrophes of the 21st Century?” The talk is open to the public.

I plan on attending and will write up my comments here.

Kunstler’s website and blog.

O Canada

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Guest post by Graham Watt

Harold’s note: This is the post that I would like to have written, but Graham says it so much better than I could have.

Springfield, a small community in New Brunswick, has been in high dudgeon in past weeks, after the principal of Belleisle Elementary School there, cut out the playing of O Canada at the start of each school day. The reason given was the objections of some parents to their children having to stand and sing the anthem.

I have a 10-year old daughter attending public school here in New Brunswick, and she has always had to sing O Canada each morning. In fact, down here, it’s quite common to still hear God Save the Queen at some school and civic events. Evidently while colonialism is slowly ebbing, it is being replaced with good ol’ American patriotism. The many recent letters to local newspapers extolling the virtues of patriotism and hooking it onto the O Canada anthem is perhaps another indication of how this part of the country has become a pale imitation of the U.S., where everything and everyone must have a reputation as a stalwart defender of freedom, and hopefully, a missing arm or a visible wound, preferably still bleeding. Not quite the Deep South, more like the Deep East.

O Canada is a wonderful anthem, a bringer of tears during emotional moments, be they Olympic victories or the sight of our poor soldiers returning home in boxes, having given their lives not only for their country but also for misguided foreign policy. Must we play it every day in schools, like a song for some brand we’re trying to sell? Why not keep it for occasions that merit our tears of joy or sorrow? Why not keep it for those who have earned its playing? They are the brave lost ones who have no recourse, nor do their families, but to be proud that they kept their word, and did their duty.

The playing of O Canada every day in schools, is supposed to celebrate the country and make us all proud. Exactly what are we proud of? That we’ve become employees and managers but not owners in our own land. That we rank 17th out of 23 industrialized countries in rates of child poverty? That we’ve killed all the fish, cut down all the trees, dug up all the coal, sucked out the world’s dirtiest and most expensive oil? That we keep saying we want to keep our beloved public health system while our business elites keep wanting us to get rid of it so they can pay less tax and make more money with a private system?

Are we proud of watching U.S. television programs so much that we have next to no original work of our own? Proud that we use another country’s television programs to describe ourselves? So that when a possibility of a coalition government forming occurs in our parliament (a perfectly normal event in a parliamentary system) we cry unfair, coup d’état, because “Hey man, they don’t do that in the U.S., so we can’t do it here”? Is this a reason to sing O Canada? Are we proud that we don’t offer our children civics courses in school? Or that any immigrant to this country knows more about our political system than we do ourselves? Are we proud of being in Afghanistan to help build schools for children while tacitly ignoring the plight of our aboriginals here? The same aboriginals whose life spans are the same as in the poorest third world countries? The same aboriginals who saved our sorry asses each excruciatingly cold winter of our ancestors’ arrivals here? Canada is in the top 5 in the UN’s human development index. Our aboriginal population is in 78th place. Do we think of this when we sing we’ll stand on guard for thee?

And exactly why are we trotting out the tired old word “patriotism”? A state that Samuel Johnson said was the last refuge of the scoundrel? Why? This is one of the few countries in the world that grew out of peace and not revolution or violence. That’s its charm and its promise too. That might be something to proud of if we’re not of the current machismo bent.

So why are we outraged about a school principal who stopped the recorded anthem every morning, when we trash the same anthem incessantly, trivializing it at every baseball game, every hockey game? Exactly what are we so proud of every school day? That we’ve cut back on education so much that our children are among the lowest scorers in literacy in the country? That we have fewer doctors per thousand people than every other OECD country but three? Have we done some reflecting about our country? Do we have enough confidence to look at its failings as well as its successes? Have we thought about how during World War 2, when Jews needed safe refuge they were turned back by our government, the classic explanatory phrase which summed up the attitude being: “None is too many!”?

We should think of that next time we stand to hear the familiar strains of O Canada. Think of how this country is more than a hockey game or a pale imitation of another country. Somewhere good and sometimes not so good. We should reflect on how we might cut back on the puffing up of our chests, and get our hearts and souls into remedying some of the enormous social problems we face by actually realizing we’re not a smaller version of some other fantasy country. That would be a good start. And perhaps think that past all the faults and the timid advances into a vast and wild land, we finally built something unique in North America, not by grabbing and stabbing, but by sharing and caring.

Graham Watt

The Fourth Turning

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I picked up a used copy of The Fourth Turning (1997) as I had read some reviews, positive and negative, and for the price figured it was worth it. I won’t go into the entire premise of the book, as the reviews on Amazon give a good overview, but I find the recommendations from 1997 to prepare for the predicted crisis in the first decade of the millennium (now) most interesting:

Once the Crisis catalyzes, anything can happen. If you are starting a career now, realize that generalists with survival know-how will have the edge over specialists whose skills are useful only in an undamaged environment. Be fluent in as many languages, cultures, and technologies as you can. Your business will face a total alteration of market conditions: Expect public subsidies to vanish, the regulatory environment to change quickly, and new trade barriers to arise. Avoid debt or leverage investments, including massive student debt. Assume that all your external safety nets (pensions, Social Security, Medicare) could end up totally shredded.

Related to my post of the Cuspers going into small business are some recommendations for this generation (AKA: 13ers):

The Fourth Turning will find other generations with lives either mostly in the past or mostly in the future, but it will catch 13ers in “prime time”, right at the midpoint of their adult lives. They must step forward as the saeculum’s repair generation, the one stuck with fixing the messes and cleaning up the debris left by others.

President Obama campaigned on this fact and even Prime Minister Harper has had to discard some of his conservative principles and get down to the messy job of repair. Both are members of this generation. The Crisis is here and there’s lots of work for all of us to do.

Understanding Blogging for Knowledge Workers

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Blogs are now mainstream and it’s no longer necessary to explain what one is. It wasn’t that long ago that bloggers were being put down as a bunch of guys in pyjamas. Lilia Efimova, Mathemagenic, was one of my early sources of understanding about blogs, as I made my initial attempts at online conversation. Lilia introduced me to the concept of personal knowledge management. Here is my first attempt at explaining PKM in action and this is my latest.

Lilia is finishing her dissertation on the blogging practices of knowledge workers and has summarized her conclusions. All of those years of analysis are boiled down into 1,000 words and now give us an excellent summary of blogs as related to Ideas; Conversations; Relations; Tasks; and Context. Read the whole post and bookmark it; it’s a classic.

Picture by Lilia Efimova

Grassroots Community Building through Social Networks

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Grassroots Community Building through Social Networks is the topic that John Gunn (Moncton ITA) and I will be discussing at PodCamp Halifax on Sunday. Lisa Rousseau can’t make it, so we’re pinch-hitting.

John and I have decided to take a look some of the professional and social networks in New Brunswick and ask the question: How can we develop community networks that address the social and professional issues unique to Atlantic Canada?

For example, I came to NB in 1995, when The Information Highway was the hot commodity and fiber cables were being strung from end of the province to the other. I even wrote my thesis on Learning in the NB Information Technology Workplace in 1998. One of the now defunct associations with which I had some contact was the NB Information Technology Alliance. The NBITA was supposed to grow the industry but by 2003 its government funding was cut and it was gone.

In 2004, I was involved in an initiative to use the Web to link organisations and individuals in the more specific area of R&D for e-learning:

With this in mind, I will try to foster communication and discussion in this forum, not the selling of a vision or a marketing plan. This community will be a place to discuss R&D issues, which will remain loosely defined for the time being. Specific deals or collaboration can take place “off-line” or outside of this venue – but this is where you can float an idea and see what happens.

This venture never gained much traction, for several reasons.

Later, more effort and a lot more money were put into LearnNB, which tried to represent both companies and individuals, a tension that was never resolved, and hence its current status on ice, awaiting an uncertain future. I gave my own prescription for the NB learning industry three years ago.

Other group-forming activities have been more social. The Cybersocials were designed to get “knowledge industry” professionals together in the main cities for a monthly social event. They waned, as many people found them to be boring, in dull venues, with more government than industry attendees and full of job seekers carrying resumés. The Fredericton Cybersocial is still active. These events originally had some government sponsorship.

This past year has seen the creation of Third Tuesday NB, which is a completely grassroots initiative. It was initiated by Dan Martell and Lisa Rousseau, who ensured that all available social media  (LinkedIn, MeetUp, Twitter, Blogs, Facebook) were used to connect people. So far, the gatherings have been quite successful. What I like about the MeetUps are that they are driven by individuals, not companies, and they attract people from many industries, not just IT or e-learning.

Now I’m starting to hear calls for another NB IT industry association, more government involvement and even a Minister responsible for ICT.

Some issues that I’d like to discuss here, at PodCamp Hfx, or elsewhere:

Is there a need for industry associations? Should they be based on companies or individuals?

What would you prefer or be willing to pay for or attend?

Are unconferences and Pod/Bar Camps the way of the future or just an alternative for the fringe? If so, are there enough of us in Atlantic Canada to have a fringe movement?

Cities-Provinces-Regions => do these boundaries matter to you?

What’s your experience? Come out and share with us on Sunday, here, or on Twitter @hjarche or @johnsgunn

* Update *

We’ve decided to start with the theme of ridiculously easy group-forming and whether media tools such as Twitter are having any influence on our communities of practice/interest. As media become more persistent and pervasive, do group-forming norms change? Is the “professional association” with its membership fees and costly qualifications to get letters behind your name, a thing of the past? We’re also going to highlight some NB people whom you may want to get to know, so stay tuned to Moncton ITA as well.

Throwing sheep in the boardroom

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Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom could be sub-titled everything you wanted to know about social media but didn’t have the time to ask. The book is definitely comprehensive and is complete with hundreds of stories about the effects of online social networking. Anyone who is active in using and understanding social media may find this a bit of a repeat of the last few years of commentary on the subject, but those new to the field can find it here in one book, with plenty of end-notes.

The authors cover in detail the banning of Facebook and other sites by government agencies, schools and corporations. They also address some of the more positive aspects of social networking but I would not accuse them of being cyber-evangelists. There is some good analysis around open versus closed social networking sites. Citing the French aristocracy as an echo-chamber that failed to realise the factors that led to the Revolution, they use many other historical examples to place today’s situation in context. For instance, readers of this book will also get a short history of the Knights Templar.

This sums up the authors’ intent, and I think that they have achieved it:

What has interested us most is the Web 2.0 revolution’s impact on the three social dynamics that gave this book its structure: identity, status and power. It will be recalled that we describe our analytical approach to these themes as “3-D” – dis-aggregation of identities, democratization of status and diffusion of power.

Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom reads a bit like an academic treatise on Web 2.0 and would be useful for someone wanting a lot of information in one book. It could make a good course text book. For excellent analysis, without all the details, I would recommend Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody and for a deeper look at the fundamentals underlying the Internet economy I still consider Benkler’s The Wealth of Networks the most comprehensive examination to date.

PodCamp Halifax 2009

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PodCampHalifax2009 seems like a great mid-Winter activity. Time to get away from my computer screen and meet some folks. This year’s event is at the Aldernay Gate Public Library on 25 January, from 9 to 5.

This is an unconference, focused on social media (blogs, wikis, podcasts, video, etc). The goal is to have an open, participatory, user-generated series of workshops and the people who attend are the presenters.

There are several folks from New Brunswick listed to attend, so sign up and come on out. If you plan on staying overnight, you may want to put yourself up for adoption. I’m sure that we can organise some kind of car-pooling as well.