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News for February 2004
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 22 February 2004 |
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20 February 2004 |
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| Is there an echo in here? |
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David Weinberger's Is there an echo in here? (Salon article, with free ad supported registration process) takes a critical look at closed, self reinforcing groups and conversations and reaches some wise conclusions.
Posted: 2/20/04; 11:31:11 AM # |
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19 February 2004 |
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| General System Theory |
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The original defining book on system theory is General System Theory by Ludwig von Bertalanffy. I come back to this book every few years, because it teaches me to see patterns in my work that I would otherwise miss. It also consistently gives me some tools to help assess the various proposals that I'm asked to evaluate, many of which appear to be founded on wishful thinking, rather than a sound understanding of how human systems grow and change.
Posted: 2/19/04; 5:36:57 PM # |
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18 February 2004 |
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| Movement as Network |
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Gideon Rosenblatt and the folks at ONE Northwest have published Movement as Network, an analytical piece derived from their experience at the intersection of the environmental movement and the Internet.
Posted: 2/18/04; 10:20:51 AM # |
| The 2003 Koufax Awards |
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The 2003 Koufax Awards for best progressive weblog writing have been announced. If you're interested in exploring some great sources in more depth than I offer them here, these awards would be a good place to start.
Posted: 2/18/04; 10:20:41 AM # |
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17 February 2004 |
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| Emergence in Philosophy of Mind |
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I throw the term "emergence" about with some frequency. Because it is a concept of such importance in the world of communication and organizing, I want to offer you some deeper resources to explore on the topic. One excellent annotated list is Tullio Tinti's Emergence in Philosophy of Mind, which includes links to articles, books, conferences, and organizations.
Posted: 2/17/04; 10:16:42 AM # |
| Designing for Limited Resources |
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Laura Quinn's Designing for Limited Resources is a fantastic guide for budget conscious organizations who nevertheless want to be mindful of the process of technology development. I'm particularly impressed with her recommendations for Guerilla Requirement Definition, given how apalling (or absent) requirements are in the world of nonprofit technology.
Posted: 2/17/04; 10:16:28 AM # |
| Revenge of the User |
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Danah Boyd has published her notes from her recent talk at the Emerging technologies conference entitled Revenge of the User. Focusing her attention on social networking software, she makes an aggressive case for the primacy of users over technology. Her work is strongly based on solid research and it's utterly persuasive.
Posted: 2/17/04; 10:16:15 AM # |
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15 February 2004 |
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| Gilbert Center Programs |
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Over the last four years, The Gilbert Center has grown organically, with new web sites sprouting up for new projects here and there, several evolutionary deadends, and one mass extinction (Social Ecology). We spent some time helping the process of natural selection on a bit, and now you can find all the Gilbert Center Programs in one place! Take a look at our workshops, for example. Did you even know we offered those?
Posted: 2/15/04; 3:47:34 PM # |
| Oppose unreasonable database protection |
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Public Knowledge is asking people to oppose unreasonable database protection. There is yet another public landgrab happening, where companies that package publicly available facts want to own the facts themselves. Are you in the U.S. and do you rely on public information for your work in any way? If so, please enage with this one.
Posted: 2/15/04; 3:47:19 PM # |
| Real World Semantics |
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I've been pretty excited about the vision of a Semantic Web for some years now. But I have learned that it's the small steps that my sector is most likely to embrace. So, it's with great pleasure that I point you to Real World Semantics, a copy of the (very readable) slides from the eTech conference presentation by Tantek Celik and Kevin Marks.
Posted: 2/15/04; 3:45:49 PM # |
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13 February 2004 |
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| 10 Steps to Measuring Web Site Success |
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Several people turned me on to Jim Sterne's recent 10 Steps to Measuring Web Site Success. It's fairly generic, but it adopts utterly the right approach: Understand your important relationships and how you want to develop them. Develop metrics for tracking the progress of those relationships. Design to maximize those metrics.
Posted: 2/13/04; 3:14:04 PM # |
| Criminal Dissent |
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I am someone who believes that all nonprofit organizations are, to one degree or another, dissenting voices in our culture. If they were not, there would be no reason to be a nonprofit because the "free market" would provide, right? Anyway, whether you see yourself as a dissenter or not, Bill Berkowitz's comments on the systematic criminalization of dissent in the U.S. is important reading.
Posted: 2/13/04; 3:13:08 PM # |
| International programmes cooperate on online volunteering |
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The UN Volunteers programme and OneWorld International are planning to coordinate their efforts to enhance flow of information through online volunteering. The UN has some great tools and a global reach. OneWorld has opportunities for easy publishing for volunteer editors. I'm looking forward to the content that might come of this.
Posted: 2/13/04; 3:12:50 PM # |
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11 February 2004 |
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| Break the Silence |
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I've spent a good chunk of the last few days on the phone because of things people don't want to put in writing. I'm pleased that discretion opens up channels, but I'm sad at how cautious people are. It's with some immediate interest that I read Jevon MacDonald's Break the Silence, in which he argues that many organization's cultures of silence are strangling their abilities to succeed.
Posted: 2/11/04; 3:42:41 PM # |
| Managing the Complexity of Content Management |
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Pay attention to Victor Lombardi's Managing the Complexity of Content Management, in which he describes the misgivings people have with various content management solutions and offers ten pieces of advice: 1. Keep the team small. 2. Don't try to fix everything at once. 3. Only build what you need. 4. Create an efficient information architecture. 5. Show your content some love. 6. Hire bouncers as project managers. 7. Tightly integrate design and technology. 8. Buy the right size. 9. Design faster than business can change. 10. Get a second opinion.
Posted: 2/11/04; 3:42:27 PM # |
| Value-Driven Intranet Design |
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I've worked on a lot of intranets over the years and I have studied even more. There was a time when I would have described almost all of them as failures, but that's slowly changing. People like Shiv Singh , who wrote Value-Driven Intranet Design are helping us do it right, with an emphasis on the entire system and intelligent project management.
Posted: 2/11/04; 3:41:32 PM # |
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10 February 2004 |
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| A Few Thoughts on Cognitive Overload |
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At the request of a colleague who thinks this is really interesting, I have been working on documenting the tools and processes that I use to filter, navigate, and select among the tens of thousands of messages (web site updates, RSS feeds, email, chat logs) that come within my grasp each week. It's in that context that I have been reading A Few Thoughts on Cognitive Overload by David Kirsh. There is some fabulous critical thinking in this piece that very closely mirrors some of the strategies that have been evolving for me in the last few years.
Posted: 2/10/04; 9:30:04 PM # |
| Nonprofit Technology Conference 2004 |
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Thanks to the Kellogg Foundation, there are now scholarships available for NTEN's 2004 Nonprofit Technology Conference. The scholarships are for the staff of organizations that serve people of color, women, or youth. The registration form integrates the scholarship application, which appears to be automatic if your organization qualifies. I look forward to this conference every year.
Posted: 2/10/04; 9:29:10 PM # |
| More on peace activist subpoenas |
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Have you heard how students at Drake University were being called before a grand jury for participating in anti-war meetings? So was the Director of the Catholic Peace Ministry. His story is pretty scary to me. This is the sort of thing that hasn't happened in this country since the activities of the House Unamerican Activities Committee, under Joe McCarthy. Fortunately, there appears to be some evidence that the feds are backing down, but still: Are you ready to have your nonprofit organization's meetings opened up to grand jury investigations, if you happen to be with a muslim charity, or support peace, or are in some other way associated with a cause that is insufficiently alligned with the hysterical tone of the times?
Posted: 2/10/04; 9:28:31 PM # |
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9 February 2004 |
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| Princess Bianca and the Vandals |
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When my friend Nick Licata gave me a copy of Princess Bianca and the Vandals, of course I agreed to review it for Nonprofit Online News. There were only two problems: It's a young adult novel and I have yet to review a work of fiction here. And what was I to do if I didn't like the book? I was almost afraid that the more the book embraced the community and environmental values that would make it appropriate for this publication, the more likely it was to be didactic. Reading the book has solved my problem for me. It's a thoroughly entertaining novel for young adults and a sweet lesson on the importance of human connections with each other and with the natural world. I recommend it.
Posted: 2/9/04; 11:41:39 AM # |
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5 February 2004 |
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4 February 2004 |
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| Innovators Navigate Around Cliques |
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Innovators Navigate Around Cliques is a short piece from last year on the research of Stanford's Martin Ruef. I would suggest that the phenomenon that he studied is even more important in the nonprofit world, where (because financial rewards are less important) the rewards of social connection close off a lot of potential for cross fertilization and, consequently, innovation.
Posted: 2/4/04; 4:22:57 PM # |
| Linking Science to Development Goals (continued) |
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David Dickson was one of the most important scholars I studied when I was getting a degree in Technology and Social Change. In his piece on linking science to development goals he makes a solid case for systems thinking in the application of science and technology to development policies and goals. This parallels the case I have been making for three years: That separate technology funding does not serve us well. Technology (like communication or other such functions) should be incorporated into each of a grantmaker's program activities.
Posted: 2/4/04; 4:21:54 PM # |
| Choosing Open Source |
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I'm a great admirer of Mark Surman's work. Now he and Jason Diceman have released Choosing Open Source, a decision making guide for civil society organizations. They have provided worksheets, a curriculum oriented version, and a PDF for those of you who like to print things.
Posted: 2/4/04; 4:20:22 PM # |
| The Unspoken of Groups |
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The Unspoken of Groups is David Weinberger's take on the need for and the failures of social software for groups. Weinberger is one of the authors of The Cluetrain Manifesto and is willing to tackle head on such questions as why do groups keep making the same mistakes over and over again.
Posted: 2/4/04; 4:18:50 PM # |
| Putting it Together: Taxonomy, Classification & Search |
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In Putting it Together, Jeff Morris looks at the relationships between taxonomy, classification & search. He spends a bit too much time on specific software for my taste, but it's clear that this field is really starting to mature. Or maybe I'm just happy to see ideas that we pioneered in the nonprofit sector in 1999 getting some traction.
Posted: 2/4/04; 4:18:27 PM # |
| The Net, the Dean campaign, and Technological Determinism |
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I have stayed away from engaging in Howard Dean hype, which has proven to be something like the Internet stock bubble -- not as important as people caught up in it believed, driven by a lot of self referential dynamics, but still worth examining. In this case, I think the lessons are not about specific techniques, but about nurturing grassroots innovation. Funders in particular could learn some lessons in this area, since they are prone to swarming and winner take all approaches. I'm concerned about the emphasis that some people continue to put on the technology, so I will point you to Howard Rheingold's The Net, the Dean campaign, and Technological Determinism.
Posted: 2/4/04; 4:16:32 PM # |
| Slash(dot) and Burn |
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The always thoughtful Cliff Lampe and Paul Resnick of the University of Michigan have published Slash(dot) and Burn (PDF) which looks at distributed moderation in a large online conversation space. They give the system examined mixed reviews but their conclusions are hopeful.
Posted: 2/4/04; 4:16:10 PM # |
| Eastern Standard Tribe |
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Cory Doctorow is a tireless advocate for online liberty. He is also a novelist. Eastern Standard Tribe is his second novel and, like the first, it is available for download in its entirety. He pushes me to consider being even braver with some of my own publishing strategies and I hope he pushes you too.
Posted: 2/4/04; 4:15:19 PM # |
| Recommendations for Online Writers and Editors |
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Mark Hurst's Five Ideas for 2004 are good recommendations for online writers and editors: Organization is the hardest part of user experience work. The big picture is the only picture. Experience is bigger than Web usability. Blogs are just content management systems. Managing one's bits is an increasingly essential skill.
Posted: 2/4/04; 4:14:59 PM # |
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3 February 2004 |
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| User-Centric Distributed Social Software |
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I receive a great many invitations to join one social network site or another, depending on where people are flocking at any particular time. While I will likely experiment more with a few of them, what I really want is a distributed system, much like email, weblogs, and other existing social networks. Eric Gradman has written a paper making just that point, entitled User-Centric Distributed Social Software.
Posted: 2/3/04; 9:52:56 AM # |
| A Guidebook for Technology Assessment and Impact Analysis |
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The nonprofit sector is nowhere near where it needs to be in regard to understanding technology assessment. We say that our technology should be mission driven, but organizations and consultants are making product driven decisions all the time. When we assess an organization, we still persist in counting computers and noting software versions, rather than actually mapping communication patterns that support the organization's mission. More importantly, even when we are evaluating a single technology decision, we tend to leave out most of the potential impacts. In case you can't tell, I was recently browsing through an old book of mine, A Guidebook for Technology Assessment and Impact Analysis. Other books by Alan L. Porter.
Posted: 2/3/04; 9:52:42 AM # |
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2 February 2004 |
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| Trash for cash |
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In Trash for Cash, Jeanne D'Orleans thoroughly examines the implications of CBS refusing to run an ad from MoveOn.com during the Superbowl, while still running ads with other persuasive, issue related content. The excuses provided just serve to reveal the incredible uneven playing field that nonprofits play on with regard to getting messages out in the world of commercial media.
Posted: 2/2/04; 1:23:57 PM # |
| MyDoom virus spells double trouble |
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I have now received (in my personal email, not in the automated servers that I maintain) over 20,000 pieces of the MyDoom virus. I'm pleased to say that not one of our office machines has sent out a single copy of this, but that just serves to make me more resentful of the default settings, computing monoculture, and sheer dumb user behavior that combine to allow this thing to work. CNET created a full list of annotated reports on the virus, for those of you who want to learn more.
Posted: 2/2/04; 1:23:17 PM # |
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1 February 2004 |
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| Winning Ways of Alinksy and Gandhi |
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The Winning Ways of Alinksy and Gandhi is the last of a ten part series on citizen action, profiling the techniques used by two of the activists I most admire. The author, Charles Dobson, covers both Alinksy's ten Rules for Radicals and Ghandi's Top Eight Methods for Converting an Opponent. These ideas are ripe for the moden era.
Posted: 2/1/04; 11:38:09 PM # |
| Spoof ad on YASNS |
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This (spoof) ad for a personal social network coordinator perfectly captures my current feelings about the fifty or more Social Network software systems out there (such as Friendster, Ryze, Ringo, LinkedIn, and so on). I am exploring all of these, but personally, I'm waiting for the system that nobody owns. Read it. This is important and funny.
Posted: 2/1/04; 11:37:50 PM # |
| Fused Space |
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Fused Space is a competition for innovative applications for new technology in public space. I'm looking forward to exploring the ideas submitted.
Posted: 2/1/04; 11:37:29 PM # |
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