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Thoughts About K4D: Musing About the Digital Divide
	John Daly's Musing About the Digital Divide is a worthwhile read if you're interested in the use of ICT in development work. I have to quote his closing line: "The real digital divide is not measured in personal computers and cell phones, but in the power that people and societies have to appropriate ICT for their benefit." Posted: 10/16/05; 6:50:44 PM #

Idealware: Vision

I am a fan of Laura Quinn and all the folks who have helped start Idealware, a Consumer-Reports style approach to software reviews for nonprofits. This is probably the right vision for such an endeavor, although I think there are a lot of potential barriers. The number one issue is going to be to develop criteria that are relevant to actual communication centered requirements of different clusters of nonprofits and different usage scenarios. It will be interesting to watch their methodologies develop. Posted: 10/16/05; 6:46:24 PM #

Mayomi: Supporting Creative Thought
	If you're curious about the conceptual diagrams or mind maps that I use from time to time, but you're not yet ready to install new software on your computer to support your use of the technique, you might want to consider exploring Mayomi, a flash based mind mapping tool. Posted: 10/16/05; 6:32:09 PM #

Open Space Technology: A User's NON-Guide

I've been noticing that the "Open Space" meeting process has become quite popular at conferences in the last few years. If you haven't encountered it yourself, you probably will soon. I have mixed feelings about the approach, largely because it depends profoundly on the skills of the participants, rather than the facilitators. Just as I believe that a democracy requires citizens with certains skills, knowledge, and motivation, rather than just good voting technology, so does Open Space require qualified participants. At most conferences, little effort is put into either selecting or training the participants. But in the hope that you might be prepared next time you are part of this process, I suggest you take a look at the Open Space User's NON-Guide (114 page PDF). Posted: 10/16/05; 6:29:24 PM #

Introduction to Stocks and Flows in Online Communication (part 1 of 3)

Lee Lefevre's three part Introduction to Stocks and Flows in Online Communication is a great example of communication centered analysis producing valuable insights. In the classic language of systems thinking, he concludes that Weblogs are highly suited to facilitating the flow of information and that Wikis are highly suited to developing stocks. He concludes with some excellent systems questions to ask when developing online knowledge and communication tools. Posted: 10/16/05; 6:21:37 PM #

Models of Collaboration
	I missed this back when it was published in 2003, but I really like Timothy Butler and David Coleman's Models of Collaboration. They created a matrix of level of interaction and group size and came up with five models: Library, Solicitation, Team, Community, and Process Support. Posted: 10/16/05; 6:16:54 PM #

10 Ways RSS Can Help Build Online Communities

Alexandra Samuel gives us 10 Ways RSS Can Help Build Online Communities. I have reworded her headlines a bit, as follows: 1. You can start in the middle in regard to content. 2. Small numbers can be aggregated into larger communities. 3. It helps you go to where the people are. 4. It puts your members to work for you. 5. It reduces the time commitment required to participate in a community. 6. It allows you to diversify content but allow people to stay within familar groups. 7. It can help foster discussion, not chatter. 8. Reading an RSS feed enrolls more people than a signup process. 9. It facilitates hand-off of a short lived community to a larger network. 10. You can manage multiple communities with less effort. Posted: 10/16/05; 6:15:36 PM #