Write Technology

I can't believe I forgot two resolutions. This is a sign I'm spreading myself too thin already!

As far as Write Technology and my world goes, I have some New Year's Resolutions. Here's hoping I stick to them!

I have to say, I think this is a positively brilliant idea.

Obama is going to record his Presidential "Fireside Chats", pioneered by FDR, and post them on YouTube. Ah, our first Web 2.0 president is continuing with his social media power. And I think it’s fantastic.

Think about it – When FDR started those Fireside Chats over the radio, the radio was the global means of communication. People listened for entertainment and for news. It was the Internet of the 1930s.

The Fireside Chats are still broadcast on the radio (did you know that?), although I couldn’t tell you where on the dial to find them. They’re usually only 4 minutes long, so posting to YouTube is perfect. I bet they get a lot more response than those radio addresses over the last 8 years. They don’t require any time from network TV and really, they can film this with a laptop and a flip video camera. It’s not a big-budget item, but it does get the message out.

While we’re on the topic, have you seen Change.gov? It’s the transition web site, and it’s fantastic. It includes a blog with latest news, as well as short videos from key members of Obama’s transition team. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to work with Obama’s social media team. I have a definite knowledge of this stuff, but his team is the best in the business. It makes me wonder, in what ways will they use social media to broadcast the inauguration?

Here’s the first Fireside Chat. Let’s call it pre-Presidential. What do
you think of this idea? A better way to communicate with the masses?

cross-posted and slightly modifed from bub.blicio.us

Over at bub.blicio.us, I’ve written a couple of posts on how you could track and participate in the election on the Internet. Last night, however, was monumental in a number of ways. Not only did we create a potentially new and different America yesterday, we also impacted the way future elections should be run.

The use of the Web by campaigns, news organizations, interest groups, and just interested parties, was a sign of how much the Internet has affected our daily lives. Whether it was interactive electoral maps on CNN.com or Katie Couric moving from newscast to webcast at 2 am, technology was evident on and off the air.

I was at an election party where we watched Comedy Central and CNN as well as tracked the election via Twitter. Twitter, by the way, was calling states for the respective winner just slightly before the actual news channels it seems. I left a party early and learned of the election being called for Obama by watching my Twitter feed on my phone.

Sarah Perez at Read Write Web has put together a fantastic Flickr slide show on how the Web was used by all of us last evening as we tracked election results.

How did you use the Web throughout the election results last evening?

Completely off-topic but close to my heart, so forgive me the lapse:

Come join us!

This is another benefit for the scholarship fund in memory of my little sister. But this one might be a little more to your liking, seeing as how it’s a wine class.

Party Source has generously donated one of their excellent EQ sessions, including the wine, the appetizers, and the expansive knowledge of Jay Erisman. Come join us on Thurs, Sept 11, from 6-8 pm at the EQ Center at The Party Source for a night learning about Up & Coming French Winemakers and Wine Regions, with a focus on red wines.

Cost for the event is $40 per person and 100% of your donation goes to the scholarship fund. Isn’t that cool? There are only 28 seats still available for this before we have to mark it as Sold Out. It’s a great chance to learn more about French wine and help out a good cause as well. Win/win – or perhaps, win/wine!

Tickets must be purchased online and it goes without saying (but I should say it anyway), you must be 21.

If you have any questions let me know. You can learn more about my sister and the Scholarship Fund at the official website, which is also where you can register for the tasting.

Cheers!

cross-posted from bub.blicio.us

I opted to cross-post this item because it’s not only interesting for looking at your future employees, but also, your future trainees.

Every year Beloit College prepares the Mindset List,
which provides the worldview of the incoming freshmen. Most of those
freshmen were born in 1990, which rather blows my mind, and they will
graduate college (ideally) in 2012. The mindset list is almost freakish
- I can’t believe some of these references.

The list is great
at making you feel old, but it’s also fantastic for looking at those
folks who will be your employees in about 4 years or so. From that
perspective, a mindset list isn’t a bad idea.There are 60 items on the list; I thought I’d share just a couple. 

4. GPS satellite navigation systems have always been available.

17. Club Med resorts have always been places to take the whole family.

18. WWW has never stood for World Wide Wrestling.

22. Clarence Thomas has always sat on the Supreme Court.

28. IBM has never made typewriters.

33. The Tonight Show has always been hosted by Jay Leno and started at 11:35 EST.

34. Pee-Wee has never been in his playhouse during the day.

51. The Windows 3.0 operating system made IBM PCs user-friendly the year they were born.

__
Cheers!
Find Michelle Lentz here on Write Technology, on Twitter, Pownce, and FriendFeed.
 

Intel has a child-proof laptop. I love that concept. Originally created for use in developing countries, Intel is now focusing on slightly "more mature" markets, according to this article from the BBC. The Intel deal provides laptops to school children between the ages of 6 and 10 years old.

The deal will change the way education works in Portugal, according
to Paulo Campos, the Portuguese government’s secretary of state
assistant for public works.

"It will change the educational system, change the way that
students look upon school and how we communicate with parents," he
said.

They want to take a "holistic approach," admitting that the hardware is just one part of the puzzle, which includes a relatively low use of broadband in the country. The biggest hurdle they expect, however, is how to train the teachers.

According to Intel, they have "already trained five million teachers to make better use of
technology and aimed to train millions more in the coming years."

As stated in the article, thsi will change the educational system. How would you approach the problem of teacher training?

Cheers!
–
Find Michelle Lentz here on Write Technology, on Twitter, Pownce, and FriendFeed.

Note: This is cross-posted from bub.blicio.us, where I posted it first, and then decided to share here as well.

image by Darren Hester thru Creative Commons

There’s a lot of discussion happening right now about Nick Carr’s controversial article in The Atlantic Monthly: Is Google Making Us Stupid?

In addition to Carr, there are other voices chiming in, including Maggie Jackson (Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age) and Rick Shenkman (Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth About the American Voter). I heard these two speak, in particular about how the Information Age is really an "ignorant age" on the Diane Rehm show on Tuesday.

I take issue. I think we’re getting smarter.

I work a lot in instructional design and eLearning. The world of adult learning is changing. We learn faster and can take in more types of information – we have access to more types of information. It’s a fascinating time to work in the industry.

There’s a buzzphrase you hear now at all the eLearning conferences: informal learning. I call it watercooler learning. People have all this information about their jobs tucked away inside their heads. With Web 2.0 tools and content sharing, we can not only get people to share that information, we’ve got people willing to teach each other in an informal setting. It’s a wonderful thing to be able to tap that previously hidden knowledge.

There is a lot of reference in the article, and in other supporting articles, to a lack of picking up a book and reading. I still read. In fact, I try to devour a new work of fiction every other weekend. It’s an escape mechanism for me. I will never stop loving the feel of the traditional, paper-bound book. No Kindle for me, thanks. I want to smell musty pages and turn the crunchy paper. I love it. I can’t imagine wanting to read less. I would go so far as to say that I now have easier access to things like the NY Times Book Review, as well as Amazon.com, which I wouldn’t have without the Internet. Those two sites, in particular, often guide me to new books.

Is my attention span shorter? I don’t know if it was ever long. Growing up, Sesame Street (you know, the TV) was my babysitter. I’m of the TV generation – I don’t know life without it and it was the dominant technology of my youth. Do I now skim web pages to grab relevant information? Yes! Because I’m smart enough to be able to pull out the relevant information. If an article really grabs me, I’ll read the whole thing. Do I twitter constantly? Yes! But it has actually improved my technical writing, helping me better condense relevant information into short concise sentences. Not everything you read needs to be lovely prose, after all. Not only that, Twitter has introduced me to a whole community of people, many of whom I’ve gone out of my way to meet in person and then carry on in-person, intelligent communication.

I don’t disagree that there is now a plethora of information out there. For the last two weeks I’ve only managed about one post a day on this blog because I’m suffering from a bit of information overload – or maybe information fatigue. I’m almost bored with the idea that there is a new startup every day. You’ve got to really dazzle me now, I guess. But times like this ebb and flow. Whether my mind is a bit jaded or not does not mean that "Google" has made me stupid. It means I need to work harder at separating the signal from the noise.

I’m a big fan of Steven Johnson’s Everything Bad is Good for You. I honestly believe that the strategic thinking employed in video games is a useful type of learning. I believe that honing my research skills both in a library and online is a good use of my time. And I believe that although we are learning differently now, and parsing information differently, that difference isn’t a bad thing. It’s evolution of information, and thinking. And I enjoy it.

I want to close with a quote from Stephen Downes on Stephen’s Web, in reference to the Carr article:

Sigh. My response is very simple. I read constantly. I write constantly. I also work in images and multimedia. If Google is making me stupid, then I am forced to conclude that without Google I would have been some kind of super Einstein or something.

–
Find Michelle Lentz here on Write Technology, on Twitter, or on Pownce.

As far as personal issues go, 2007 has been a rotten year. But professionally, especially on the Web 2.0 front, 2007 has rather rocked.

From being voted VP Technology of our local ASTD chapter, co-facilitating a Learning Lab at ASTD TechKnowledge, both this blog and the wine blog being recognized as Typepad Featured Blogs, to big things in store at Learning 2007 – well, I can’t really complain.

And things just got a bit better. My wine blog, My Wine Education, has officially been recognized as one of Cincinnati’s Top 10 Blogs. I found it in the Enquirer online edition, but apparently it was even in the hard-copy paper as well. (Do people still read that? ) I don’t get anything for this recognition except a warm feeling in my chest, which is fine. It’s really cool just to be recognized.

There is still a slight chance that tomorrow I’ll win an iPhone. But the competition is stiff. The Cincinnati Blog is darned good (I’ve read it for a long time) and there’s a girl blogging about fighting cancer. How do you beat that? But it really is an honor just to be nominated.

CincyTechUSA, Chamber Pick Region’s Top 10 Blogs

Everyone has growing pains as they progress from toddler through to adulthood. The blogosphere is a living, dynamic thing and it’s no different. It was inevitable, of course. That’s not to say it’s not painful for some, and emotional for many.

I debated on even mentioning it, but when it was picked up by the New York Times and the BBC (here and here), I had to investigate further.

To understand it, you have to acknowledge that as in any industry or field, there are certain high-profile folks. In the blogosphere, we have our own "stars" or "celebrities." People like Dave Winer, Robert Scoble, Kathy Sierra, just to name a few. These folks are incredibly high profile, speak at many events, are public figures that express their views on widely read and well respected blogs. The rest of us are just regular bloggers and the rest of us make up the majority of the blogosphere. In fact, for many of us, these blog stars exist on the periphery of our blogging existence, if at all. So, why are their problems important?

It’s similar to how when high-profile chefs focus in on certain foods. Maybe Emeril makes a jambalaya extra special and showcases it in his restaurant, cookbooks and TV show. Eventually, that same style of jambalaya, in a cheaper, less artistic, and less tasty version will filter down to the regular and inexpensive restaurants of the world, such as the Cajun place in the mall food court. It’s slow, but the high-profile folks have an effect on the rest of us.

Let’s get to the situation at hand. Kathy Sierra, of Creating Passionate Users, received several threatening emails and comments on her blog. At the same time this situation was escalating, another site called Mean Kids was launched. Personally, I don’t get the vision behind Mean Kids, as it does seem rather juvenile to me. But I don’t know the thought process that went behind it. Maybe it was intended as a sardonic and witty comment on our society. Maybe they were just being mean. Having not seen the site, I am not qualified to judge. However, it is public knowledge that one of the Mean Kids, posting anonymously, actually turned mean, and crossed a line from humor to threatening. Someone on that site posted death threats and rude comments about Kathy Sierra and others. The site came down. Another site that was similar in content went up instead, perhaps with the intent to exercise more control. The experiment quickly got out of hand again. In the end, Kathy Sierra was faced with threats of all levels from multiple sources. It scared her, and she has withdrawn from the E-Tech event and from blogging. In the process of revealing this information, a lot of names got dragged in and out of the mud and prominent bloggers all commented.

As the blogosphere, or at least the high-profile part, reeled from all this, Tim O’Reilly (yep, the guy who puts animals on his tech books) decided to step in. I concur with many bloggers out there that his actions as "hall monitor" are slightly misguided, no matter how well intentioned. O’Reilly has issued a draft Blogger Code of Conduct and suggests blogs have badges – those who subscribe to the Code of Conduct and those who have an "Anything Goes" badge. Basically, Anything Goes means that any sort of comment can be posted on the blog.

It raises valid questions. Are bloggers responsible for the comments posted to their blogs? Can we censor the comments, and is it censorship? What information do we actually own, when it comes to our blogs, and how accurate are we expected to be? Should we allow anonymous commenting? Are we responsible for the people who choose to remain anonymous?

I don’t have answers, but I do have an emotional reaction to the whole thing. I think it was bound to happen to someone at some time. Human nature dictates that when there are a lot of people engaging in an activity, at least one person will act like an idiot. (I can’t scientifically back up my idiot theory of course.) In this case, the idiot scared a lot of people in the blogosphere. The reactions have run the emotional gamut. After all, it’s not like bloggers are a quiet, repressed bunch. We blog because we like to share.

It’s my blog and I’ll post what I want. I don’t need a badge to advocate basic rules of being polite. I am polite and I expect it from my readers on each blog I run. I encourage people to disagree. It’s great and it creates a dialogue. That’s what Web 2.0 is all about – sharing, learning, collaboration, growing your own viewpoint by being exposed to others. If someone disagrees with me, I’m not going to delete the comment. However, if someone posts something that truly offends me, be it language or violence, well, I’m going to delete it. It won’t see the light of day. I moderate the comments and I always will. It’s my blog. I don’t want to be offended and my other readers don’t want to either. I don’t need a Code of Conduct to tell me that.

I also don’t allow anonymous posts, but truly, I do that because it cuts back on spam.  For a while, the spam was so bad I turned commenting off. That’s been changed, but there are certain restrictions I keep in place, such as no anonymous comments and the CAPTCHA to curtail it. By the way, the only offensive comments I’ve ever deleted from any of my blogs were posted by blatant spammers. When it comes down to it, you can read a blog, and read the comments, and decide if that blog is right for you. If it’s not, you don’t have to read it. That, folks, is common sense, and doesn’t require a Blogging Badge.

I’m not the only one rather conflicted and coming out against the Code of Conduct. I really don’t think it will fly. People like Cory Doctorow and even Robert Scoble are uncomfortable with the whole thing. In fact, the best dissection of the proposed Code was written by Tristan Louis. There is also an odd kind of pressure those folks are feeling, like disagreeing with Tim O’Reilly could hurt their career. I suppose the high profile folks will work it all out. I encourage everyone to contribute to the conversation though. If you’re a blogger, express your opinion, either way, about the Code of Conduct. It’s not like writing your congressman. In theory, the call of the blogging masses in this dialogue will set standards for the future. And just like restaurants, the ideas at the top will trickle down to the rest of us.

In the meantime, down here in the middle-class blogosphere, we’ll just stick with basic tenets of human kindness and common sense, and occasionally deleting the spammers and idiots.

Technorati Tags: Code of Conduct,
Blogosphere,
Web 2.0, Growing Up,
Growing Pains