13:51 11/06/2004 Mathemagenic: Mathemagenic
Mathemagenic
...giving birth to learning...
        

Mathemagenic

  Friday, April 30, 2004


  Different ways to look at things

Just a couple of links from today's readings that changed the way I looked at things:

More on: fun passion 

  Blogging as a keynote at conference with 4000 attendees

Talking about Perfect Corporate Weblog Pitch Competition...

Robert Scoble is talking about blogging as a keynote at conference with 4000 attendees:

Steve Ballmer, for instance, spoke to the MVPs last month. 1200 people. Took an hour of his time. Was that a waste of his time? I certainly don't think so.

So, Steve, I have an audience bigger than that here now.

Wanna do a guest blog?

More on: blogs in business 

  Thursday, April 29, 2004


  Weblog research ethics (2)

This is what I love about blogosphere: you post a question and keep being busy with other things while many smart people provide you with answers. Two days back I posted my questions on weblog research ethics that provoked quite a discussion.

The opinions regarding informing bloggers that you study them and asking permissions differ: Sylvie Noël suggests to do it anyway, while Alex Halavais regards weblogs as "the equivalent of public printed matter like newspaper articles, brochures, and books" (so I assume not asking).

In regard to quoting it's a bit more clear.

Sylvie in comments:

As to quoting, well, it would depend if I'm treating the blog as a source for data or a source for information: if I'm studying the blog, then I'd ask for permission to quote, giving the person possibility of being anonymous or attributed because of the possibility of tracing back to the original author. If I'm using the blog for information, then I consider it as the equivalent of a research paper and I would not ask for permission (but of course I'd attribute the quotes to the author).

Alex adds that this is about balancing two potential responsibilities to your subjects: to protect their privacy and to recognize the authorship of the individual. It seems that the bottom line is to attribute, asking permission if you treat a quote as a data.

And thanks to hafey (who is linkless, but could be identified as "just a plain ol’ MBA trying desperately not to see the world through business as usual constructs") I discover what Hawthorne Effect is :)

My further questions are triggered by Ed Bilodeau note that he is not likely to be citing weblogs as they are "not (yet?) valid supporting sources". I thought about it quote a lot - should you refer to weblogs as references in an academic publication?.

My problem is that my thinking is heavily influenced by bloggers. More than by any papers I read. I pick up phrases and ideas from weblogs around me and I feel it's not fair if I don't attribute them only because they are not considered as "serious" enough. But then it goes against existing academic tradition. I've heard some academics saying that even conference papers are not good enough to be cited in a journal paper (ok, I guess that wasn't about first class conferences).

If you add to it that there is not much weblog research published anyway (e.g. I'm not aware of any journal paper on weblogs; let me know if you are :) it becomes quite difficult... Of course, 2004 seems to become a year of "weblog research gets into mainstream publications", so I shouldn't have this problem at the end of my PhD, but still.

Ah, I'm getting convinced more and more that I'm not well fitted for academia. Not the part that explores the world in a rigorous way, but the one with rules for publication and promotion that just don't make a sense to me :)

This post also appears on channel weblog research

  The web is about changing people's attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors

Ross Mayfield points to Captology Notebook, a weblog of Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab. Between others things there: books about persuasion and a quote by BJ Fogg:

The web is not about sharing information with people -- that's an illusion. In reality, the web is about changing people's attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.

See also: Captology, persuasive technologies and web credibility

A bit of later: associated with thinking about persuasion - How I was played by Online Caroline, Jill's essay featured at her homepage.

Emanuel Vigeland is the little-known younger brother of the famous Norwegian sculptor Gustav Vigeland. While Gustav filled a huge park with sculptures, creating a monumental Oslo tourist attraction that still bears his name, Emanuel spent decades designing and building his own mausoleum. He designed the space to direct visitors' movements in several ways. The door is so low that I have to bow my head to enter. Inside the light is dim, and it takes several minutes for my eyes to adjust. The acoustics are peculiar, making my slightest sound reverberate in echos. I walk quietly to avoid making a din. The architecture makes it physically impossible to enter or view his work without showing it respect (Wadell 41-42).

  Tuesday, April 27, 2004


  Weblog research ethics

What would you do when using quotes or stories from public weblogs as examples in your research?

Do you inform people that you study them? I can understand it if you study specific weblogs to use them as a case, but what if you just let yourself to be immersed in the blogging community and pick up stories and examples as they come and go. You can announce your interest in studying it in on-line chat or forum, but what do you do with weblogs, with their open-ended nature. Do you post "I'm studying your blog" on all your pages?

Do you quote anonymously or with attribution? You can tell stories without giving any names, but quotes are never anonymous - Google is always there for those who are interested to find the author. Attribution is nice for the authors if you quote their smart ideas, but what if you want to illustrate conflict?

Do you ask for permission? I don't ask people for permission to quote their paper in my research and I don't ask for a permission of bloggers to quote their posts in my weblog. How weblogs are different? They out their in public, so I should be able to quote as far as it's "fair use" (but what is fair use when it comes to blogging?). From another side, they are between public and private, so should you excuse yourself as you would do interfering a conversation overheard in a party?

I would appreciate any thoughts on it, especially if you are researching weblogs and have your own guidelines for making ethical decisions.

And, once you are reading this post you are somehow on my radar - beware, I may be studying your weblog :)

This post also appears on channel weblog research

  Monday, April 26, 2004


  Lee LeFever wins Perfect Corporate Weblog Pitch Competition

In case you need someone to convince executives about the value of blogging - ask Lee LeFever, the winner of Perfect Corporate Weblog Pitch Competition.

The carefully crafted pitch:

First, think about the value of the Wall Street Journal to business leaders. The value it provides is context — the Journal allows readers to see themselves in the context of the financial world each day, which enables more informed decision making.

With this in mind, think about your company as a microcosm of the financial world.  Can your employees see themselves in the context of the whole company? Would more informed decisions be made if employees and leaders had access to internal news sources?

Weblogs serve this need.  By making internal websites simple to update, weblogs allow individuals and teams to maintain online journals that chronicle projects inside the company. These professional journals make it easy to produce and access internal news, providing context to the company — context that can profoundly affect decision making.  In this way, weblogs allow employees and leaders to make more informed decisions through increasing their awareness of internal news and events.

In case Lee is too busy to help you, ask Randal Moss (second place), Michael Angeles or Jack Vinson (third place).

More on: blogs in business 

  Searching for knowledge as constructing personal learning experience

Another piece "around" now almost-finished-paper.

In the study we describe in the paper we carried out exploratory interviews (we did more :) using critical incidents technique (see Intel white paper for similar approach), asking people to recall several situations when they needed in-house knowledge and discussed why and what they were looking for, how they found it and what problems were encountered.

During the interviews we found out that in many cases when people talk about "searching for knowledge" they look for

  • information about knowledge (e.g. "what do we know about topic X in our organisation?")
  • knowledge representations (e.g. reports on certain subject)
  • knowledgeable people

This findings support the argument that knowledge doesn't exist "out there" (e.g. in documents) and that people need information cues and engagement of others to (re)construct it. A similar observation is made by Cross et. al. (2001: 102) who make a distinction between being informed about what another person knows and "the willingness of the person sought out to engage in problem solving rather than dump information".

From this perspective "searching for knowledge" is in fact searching for information and people within an organisation in order to obtain knowledge. Or, "searching for knowledge" is a process of constructing personal learning experience, selecting learning resources and engaging others as facilitators.

  Reinventing is more fun than reusing (2)

Just a quote illustrating that reinventing is more fun than reusing.

Overcoming "Not Invented Here" Syndrome (in software development context):

[...] Some organizations and individual developers seem quite content to re-invent the wheel over and over, congratulating themselves on their innovation at the same time.

Becoming more aware of what is already available, however, cannot help but shake our belief that "if you want it done right, do it yourself." Many developers, too, take too much of a perfectionist attitude when considering components for re-use. They look at the available alternatives, and dismiss them for various minor faults. "The doc is not adequate", or "it's not an efficient algorithm", we might hear. The faults may be quite real - but are they truly significant enough to justify starting from scratch? A developer must, of course, take a careful and considered look at components being considered for re-use - but if they do 90% of the job, is it really more effective to re-invent that 90%, plus the remaining 10, or would it make sense to contribute the final 10% to the existing component? Would it be as much fun? No, almost certainly not. Would it be more efficient and cost effective? Quite likely yes.

For an alternative opinion on reusing code of others, see In Defense of Not-Invented-Here Syndrome.

  Sunday, April 25, 2004


  Amour of India
Dance scene with 'amour of India' on background
A craftsman, not woman :)
Mehndi on my hand

This week Dutch department store chain De Bijenkorf has started thematic weeks The glamour of India. Today they had an event in Enschede, so given my interest in India I couldn't miss it.

It was a two hour dive into "everything Indian".

Passionate performance of Samudra, South-Indian dance group. Demonstrations of traditional crafts. Unlearning stereotypes that all these things are done by women. Walking with henna on my hand waiting till it dries to reveal Mehndi. Smelling spices. Finding something Indian in every department of the store. Memories of buying a sari in Mumbai. Thinking of chatting with Dina just a few days back about my dreams of coming to India again.

And only downloading photos I noticed that at one of them the theme reads as amour of India :)

More on: travel 

  Growing pains of virtual communities

Aldo de Moor, colleague and coauthor of An argumentation analysis of weblog conversations paper starts a weblog, GrowingPains, which is "a place to discuss the meeting of theory and practice on evolving virtual communities".

From an introductory post:

Although the importance of virtual communities is clear, much of their potential is not realized. Many never reach maturity, become paralyzed, or die before they have accomplished their goals. Virtual communities are living organisms: they have (or lack) energy, grow, and have a lifecycle. To make them successful, their evolution needs to be fully understood. Research on the evolutionary dynamics of virtual communities is still in its infancy. With this blog, I hope to contribute to a fascinating and much-needed research discussion on how to alleviate the growing pains of virtual communities.

More on: blog new communities 

  Friday, April 23, 2004


  Do you want to be a management guru?

Heath Row:

Ever wonder how much money business speakers such as Jim Collins, Tom Peters, and Michael Porter pull down each time they take the stage? Workforce Management has compiled a handy chart. Here are the highlights:

  • Clayton Christensen: $40,000
  • Jim Collins: $45,000
  • Stephen Covey: $65,000
  • Gary Hamel: $50,000
  • Tom Peters: $65,000
  • Michael Porter: $70,000

The chartlet accompanies a feature story about management gurus -- and whether they make good on the promises they make the companies they work with.

Even if speaking fees look very attractive I'm not sure I want to become a management guru. Don't know why, just a feeling while a read the article. I guess the reason behind it is the same as behind lack of desire to write books: it feels like broadcasting and not conversation or visible impact.

Please, remind me about this post if I publish a book :)

More on: leadership passion 

  Knowledge flows are powered by questions

Don't know if this piece will survive in the paper I write, so post it here. This is pretty much what I think on "why people share knowledge".

One of the goals of knowledge management is to improve knowledge flows and knowledge reuse in an organisation. While there is much discussion on knowledge sharing, motivation and culture, the demand side of knowledge exchanges seems to get too less attention.

I believe that knowledge flows are powered by questions: in many cases employees do not mind to share their knowledge, but do not do it because nobody asks them or because they are not sure that others need to know. This could be one of the explanations behind the success of on-line communities where knowledge bases fail (e.g. in Shell EP case, see Petersen & Poulfelt, 2002 or ask Andy): many communities work in a problem-solving mode, where knowledge sharing starts with a question or problem. In this case knowledge is shared to help others, and it is rewarding. In contrast, submitting a document (for example, "lessons learnt" from a project) to a knowledge base doesn't have an immediate question behind it, but more of an expectation of future questions that may never arise, so the motivation to share is much lower.

And, as I wrote before, asking is more difficult then answering and reinventing is more fun then reusing.

Guess what my conclusion is? KM is about motivation to learn :)

  PhD blogging and paper writing

Just wondering: when I finish my PhD research how much of it will not documented in my blog. In other words, will I be able to say to my readers something like "this is a link to my dissertation, but there is nothing new there for you"?

Trying to imagine how things will be when I finish PhD (futurecast ;) is one of my ways  to get over unproductive time.

Blogging is another way - it helps starting. When I work on a paper I often write posts related to it: informal notes that later will turn into formal paragraps, side track ideas, paper summaries or just associations. Next to a good feeling of producing at least something it get's me into a writing mode: switching from blogging to paper writing is much easier then starting directly.

It's funny how blogosphere brings something that correlates well with your current mode (or how selective is your own attention :). Came across this old post by Joel Spolsky in the morning:

Once you get into flow it's not too hard to keep going. Many of my days go like this: (1) get into work (2) check email, read the web, etc. (3) decide that I might as well have lunch before getting to work (4) get back from lunch (5) check email, read the web, etc. (6) finally decide that I've got to get started (7) check email, read the web, etc. (8) decide again that I really have to get started (9) launch the damn editor and (10) write code nonstop until I don't realize that it's already 7:30 pm.

Somewhere between step 8 and step 9 there seems to be a bug, because I can't always make it across that chasm. For me, just getting started is the only hard thing. An object at rest tends to remain at rest. There's something incredible heavy in my brain that is extremely hard to get up to speed, but once it's rolling at full speed, it takes no effort to keep it going. Like a bicycle decked out for a cross-country, self-supported bike trip -- when you first start riding a bike with all that gear, it's hard to believe how much work it takes to get rolling, but once you are rolling, it feels just as easy as riding a bike without any gear.

Maybe this is the key to productivity: just getting started. Maybe when pair programming works it works because when you schedule a pair programming session with your buddy, you force each other to get started.

Yes, another thing to get into paper writing it to start discussing it with someone else :)

More on: blog writing flow PhD writing 

  Thursday, April 22, 2004


  Technorati macro for Radio

For Thomas and others: Radio macro to get Technorati cosmos for a post (see this post in browser for an example).

From Matt Mower via IM:

I also edited macro to display "Technorati cosmos" instead of "What other blogs are saying about this post", you'll find it easily in the text.

Matt comments:
I forgot to mention, you can change the text by passing a parameter (easier than editing the macro), e.g. use:

<%postCosmos( [Macro error: Can't evaluate the expression because the name "itemNum" hasn't been defined.] , "Technorati Cosmos" )%>

instead.

Also: the same for Movable Type (+ other tricks), some other systems and more Technorati add-ons.

More on: Radio 

  BlogWalk 2.0: personal Webpublishing for self-organized and informal learning

BlogWalk 2.0 LogoIt didn't take us long: BlogWalk 2.0, 28 May, Nürnberg, Germany, hometown of Sebastian Fiedler. This time the fun and conversations will be around the role of personal Webpublishing for self-organized and informal learning.

This post also appears on channel weblog research

  Frustrations of being an alien

Usually I prefer sharing insights and not frustrations, but this time it's too much to keep for myself.

For a few days I was trying to reach Dutch Immigration and Naturalization Service (Immigratie- en Naturalisatiedienst or IND) to find out about extension of my residence permit. I'm here for almost three years (btw, paying taxes and contributing to Dutch economy), I sent all my papers two months back and I even paid all what they want (285 euro; this is only for extending the permit, it's 430 when you first apply)... No way I can reach them - I get through the phone menus only to hear "everyone is busy, please call later" and then hanging.

Fine. I change my tactics. I go to expat web-site only to find our that others managed to get through and were told that now permits would take anything between 3 to 7 month to arrive (a little detail - it serves as a visa, so you are not able to travel without it).

Great. Since I have to travel in a week this means getting return visa. I'm calling IND again. This time I choose another option, so after a few minutes waiting I'm getting a person, she connects me to the right line (why do they need all the menus then?) and I wait for ages again. Several calls like that (my record - 20 minutes waiting patiently) and I get someone on the phone: they will call me next week to say when I can come (btw, to another city 1,5h away). I'll have to pay travel costs and 40 euro for a visa and they don't promise that I can get it in time.

Some small details: since I came here permit prices were raised from 50 to 430 euro, rules, responsible organisations and phone numbers were changed several times, IND web-site got several fancy redesigns (including special site of about the authenticity features of the Dutch identity cards for aliens), I've lost countless hours trying to find out about progress of my documents and I've got none of my permits in time.

Who talks about mobility and knowledge economy? It's about survival of the fittest.

There is only one funny thing in it - imagining myself as an alien :)

More on: cross-cultural life 

  A Topic Sharing Infrastructure for Weblog Networks

A Topic Sharing Infrastructure for Weblog Networks by Sebastien Paquet & Phillip Pearson (via Sebastien Paquet)

Abstract. Weblogs have recently emerged as a popular means of sharing information on the Web. While they effectively foster the networking of participants on a one-to-one basis, so far they have been lacking the capacity of allowing the establishment of many-to-many communication relationships. This paper describes recent work on facilitating group-forming processes and the sharing of content among weblog authors with shared interests. We have designed, implemented and tested the Internet Topic Exchange, a system that enables weblog posts to be shared among open groups in the form that we call topic channels. After nearly a year of operation, more than 200 topic channels have been created; several of them have been very active and have brought together many participants. This suggests that our approach to enabling weblog authors and topical content to cluster while retaining the advantages of personal publishing is a viable one.

This post also appears on channel weblog research

  Wednesday, April 21, 2004


  The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think

Edwin Schlossberg: "The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think" (reference; via Martin Roell)

In a funny way this quote calls for many associations. It turns me to the "information vs. knowleldge" discussion which is one of the most difficult questions in KM (both "you have to make you definitions clear" and "don't even start this discussion or we'll never get things done").

Although it's a difficult topic, I'll try to articulate where I stand:

Knowledge doesn't exist "out there": products and artefacts only represent knowledge that people have. Explicit knowledge is information.

Knowledge sharing doesn't exist, it's about at least two processes: one person tries to articulate knowledge creating artefacts (e.g. blog posts :) while another one uses artefacts to (re)construst knowledge. This is more obvious in asynchonious or mediated settings, while conversations are closer to co-construction, but any conversation still has micro steps of articulation/(re)construction.

Effective knowledge sharing is about facilitating (re)construction of knowledge: articulating in a way that is easier for another person to interpret. At this end effective knowledge sharing is about learning on one side and facilitating it on another.

If "facilitator" and "learner" share contexts one word could be enough to (re)construct the knowledge, if not the role there is need for more contextual information. ~"The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think".

Or, if I don't sound convincing :), check the paper that I consider the best on this issue: Stenmark, D. (2002). Information vs. Knowledge: The Role of intranets in Knowledge Management. In Proceedings of HICSS-35, Hawaii, January 7-10, 2002

[…] knowledge is based on personal experiences and cultural inheritance and fundamentally tacit. We use our knowledge to perform actions such as creating information. Although the knowledge required to create the information is interwoven with the information, the reader must still have knowledge similar to that of the creator to be able to interpret the information. The more overlapping that cultural background between the two, the easier the information is understood. Information is a vehicle for reflection that may, by informing the reader, expend or relocated his or her knowledge state. (p.9)

  Scripting News dinner in Amsterdam

Funny: it takes reading blog by Italian to find out about Scripting News dinner in Amsterdam.

If I guess right it's about Monday 26th April. And Dave Winer says you don't need an invitation to join. Will try to be there.

More on: learning event 

  Tuesday, April 20, 2004


  Implicit Structure and the Dynamics of Blogspace and more papers from HP Information Dynamics Lab

It's always like that: looking for one thing you find many others.

Full paper behind Blog Epidemic Analyzer (for Anjo and Rogier :) - Implicit Structure and the Dynamics of Blogspace by Eytan Adar, Li Zhang, Lada A. Adamic, and Rajan M. Lukose

And other papers from HP Information Dynamics Lab, especially those with titles that I found interesting:

  The high cost of not finding information: Reinventing is more fun than reusing

The high cost of not finding information by Susan Feldman (via Michael Fioritto): 

  • examples of information disasters (how things went wrong because of information not found)
  • reasons for these disasters
    • information is scattered between multiple sources (think of your own e-mail, local drive, paper archive, bookmarks, weblog + all systems of your company that you use + Internet + who knows what)
    • everyone does search, but not everyone has skills to do it well
    • there is too much information (but think of: every signal starts out as noise)
  • data on costs of not finding information for an organisation
    • success of searches
      • knowledge workers spend 15-35% of their time searching
      • only 50% searches are successful
      • 40% corporate users can't find information they need to do their job on their intranets
    • costs of recreating information (see the quote below + estimations of costs for an enterprise)
  • a bit of promotion for advanced search technologies
  • what knowledge workers need to interact with information efficiently?
    • easy access through a single interface
    • need to understand what is there, so they know what they don't know
    • information seamlessly embedded into work

A quote:

Recent research on knowledge work shows that knowledge workers spend more time recreating existing information than they do turning out information that does not already exist. Some studies suggest that 90% of the time that knowledge workers spend in creating new reports or other products is spent in recreating information that already exists. In 1999, a European study by IDC examined that phenomenon, called the "knowledge work deficit," and concluded that the cost of intellectual rework, substandard performance and inability to find knowledge resources was $5,000 per worker per year.

Just a small thing to add: in many cases the reason for not finding information is not about search problems, but about not searching at all. For me it's not about bad search, it's about human nature: for people reinventing is more fun than reusing even if their organisations lose money (hope to post a paper with some data to support it soon :)

See also: Knowledge workers time spent finding information, Why people do not ask questions? (1) and (2), Personal ways of doing things in public

  Monday, April 19, 2004


  Back

Reflection of Moscow Kremlin, sunny Sunday 18 April 2004Back from Moscow. It may be worth adding to your travel list. And if you wait for a couple of years I'll finish my PhD, go back home and will be able to provide personalised guided tours to bloggers :)

Btw, just to let you know: not all Russians drink vodka (and even those who drink rarely do it for breakfast :), it's not so scary and corrupted as you may think watching TV, we do have hot summers and not always snow, of course there are people and not bears on the streets, etc... Think something between Europe and Asia, between order and chaos ;)

More on: travel 

  Friday, April 16, 2004


  The Dark Side of Numbers: The Role of Population Data Systems in Human Rights Abuses

danah boyd:

Many people have heard me tell an anecdote that i learned while living in Holland: At the turn of the century, the Dutch government collected mass amounts of data about its citizens with good intentions. In order to give people proper burials, they included religion. In 1939, the Nazis invaded and captured that data in less than 3 days. A larger percentage of Dutch Jews died than any other Jews because of this system.

Well, i'd been searching for a citation for a while. Tonight, i remembered to ask Google Answers and in less than an hour, had a perfect citation:

The Dark Side of Numbers: The Role of Population Data Systems in Human Rights Abuses. Social Research, Summer, 2001, by William Seltzer, Margo Anderson

The essay is even better than my anecdote and i truly believe that anyone in the business of doing data capture should be required to read this.

I knew the story (did my readings on Dutch history), but didn't think about connecting it with current thinking on transparency. One more reason to repeat my own point: transparency is good in many cases, but I don't want all my data easily accessible in one place.

  Thursday, April 15, 2004


  Media literacy: from reading to writing and beyond

Richard MacManus:

I'm currently reading Lawrence Lessig's new book, Free Culture, which is available as a free download under a Creative Commons license. I'm only up to pg 64, but already I've discovered some great new ideas. One of them is "media literacy". This is the best definition I've found so far of media literacy:

"The ability to read, analyze, evaluate and produce communication in a variety of media forms (television, print, radio, computers, etc.)."

Lessig refers to it as "an expanded literacy - one that goes beyond text to include audio and visual elements" (pg 50). He follows this with a paragraph that really made me sit up and take note:

"Read-only." Passive recipients of culture produced elsewhere. Couch potatoes. Consumers. This is the world of media from the twentieth century. The twenty-first century could be different. This is the crucial point: It could be both read and write. Or at least reading and better understanding the craft of writing. Or best, reading and understanding the tools that enable the writing to lead or mislead. The aim of any literacy, and this literacy in particular, is to "empower people to choose the appropriate language for what they need to create or express." It is to enable students "to communicate in the language of the twenty-first century."

In a nutshell:

20th Century = Read-Only

21st Century = Read/Write

Now obviously this is exactly what I've been trying to promote on my own weblog over the past year, but it's only been recently (after my interview with Marc Canter in fact) that I've begun to appreciate that "personal publishing" goes far beyond writing. It's whatever form of multimedia is most suited to you, the Reader/Writer. 

This is exceptionally large quote for my weblog :) It explains well my own interest in weblogs: it's not about weblogs, it's about empowering individuals, authorship, freedom and will to create...

This post also appears on channel weblog research

  Sunday, April 11, 2004


  Dutch BloggerCon

Peter Breuls on Dutch BloggerCon (via Kaye Trammel)

For a few months, a thought has been growing in my head: why don't organise a local BloggerCon? Just do what Dave does, but in the Netherlands, discussing Dutch topics. It might stimulate the local blogosphere, give bloggers a chance to explore what everyone is blogging about, and why...

I have posted this idea to my blog a few times, and I got positive response. So I actually would like to try it. But where to start? What should the topics be? Do we have a location? Webcast facilities?

There are things happenning in The Netherlands - BlogWalk 1.0 was in Enschede. It wasn't Dutch or about Dutch or in Dutch, it was international, but here locally. It's so funny that we always know better people and initiatives overseas than something that happens at home :)

There is an interesting overview of Dutch blogs:

I know there's some politicians in Holland blogging, but only a very few are actually blogging. One of our ministers, Gerrit Zalm, only keeps a boring diary, while the leader of the Socialist Party is keeping a real, more than daily updated, blog. A question to talk about: what should politicians blog about? They have a channel to their voters, to the people. Doesn't it make sense that they use it to communicate with the public?

A lot of Dutch weblogs have a personal touch. They should, but it's all lifelogs. Stories about what happened in someone's life, what they dreamed about, small fictional stories.. Other blogs are only linkdumping. They provide links to open dirs, funny movies, funny pictures, online games, and so on. Only a very few blogs are commenting on politics, media, the news and more like that. Why is that? Why are so few bloggers actually using their blog to comment on the world? Don't we all have opinions? Do we rather discuss them in real life?

I know many Dutch bloggers blogging "to comment on the world", they just do it in English. I guess it's matter of critical mass (e.g. Elmine's story of switching into English). This would be an interesting topic to discuss...

See also: Dave Winer would join Dutch BloggerCon.

This post also appears on channel BlogWalk

More on: BlogWalk 

  Saturday, April 10, 2004


  Age of transparency: live your life well aware that everything counts

You Are Your References by Seth Godin (via Jim McGee). It's about no escape from leaving digital traces (Janine would like it ;) and what to do with it...

So what should we do? Should we fret and live in fear of our past actions and words coming back to haunt us? I don't think so. There's a bright new opportunity just sitting here, waiting for organizations and individuals to take advantage of it: Spend your future creating your past, starting right now. Live your life out loud, well aware that everything you say can (and will) be used against you (or for you). Treat every customer as though he could turn into a testimonial. Treat every vendor as if she could give you a recommendation. And then, when the time comes, the seeds you've sown will pay off.

I don't think it's much different from what most of religions say: live your life well aware that everything you do will count. May be the current age of transparency just will make us more aware about basics that we tend to forget in everyday stress.

Of course, there is a risk that we'll play it and reconstruct our past, creating fake history online... Could be, but as my mother says, lies always become visible. At least between you and God... 

  Thursday, April 08, 2004


  Chapter on weblogs and learning by Alex Halavais

In case you haven't seen it yet: Alex Halavais for the chapter in International Handbook of Virtual Learning Environments, forthcoming from Kluwer.

Must read.

Update 11/04:

Update 16/04:

Update 19/04 (final part :)

This post also appears on channel weblog research

More on: blogs and learning 

  Ideal intellectual communities

Something that I overlooked in my own links (thanks, Seb) - Amanda on Ideal intellectual communities

The IIC would consist of people who aren't competing with each other for funds, status, recognition, or employment. Intellectual work would not be a zero-sum game to determine who can publish the most, or the fastest, or with the most prestigious publisher.

I wonder if it's feasible :) Amanda articulates other conditions and then suggests:

The blogosphere fulfills several of these conditions, but I'd like to be able to be in the same room with fellow IIC members. What I really want, I suspect, is a salon. [...]

So: where are the salons of today? Have we anything similar? Am I overlooking any existing communities?

I think that our idea of BlogWalk is pretty close to a salon: getting together for intellectual joy :)))

Btw, I can't stop enjoying explanations of weblog titles. Amanda's weblog called Household opera

The phrase "household opera" comes from a sonnet by James Merrill ("Matinees," poem 5, in The Fire Screen [Atheneum, 1964]): "One's household opera never palls or fails."  

This post also appears on channel BlogWalk

  From creative mess to products (blogs and wikis for thinking)

Thinking of blogs vs. wikis to support thinking. For me blogging is easier - it shows how ideas unfold over time and somehow I don't have a problem when I create new page (I do think twice in wikis - because it increases navigation mess). Blogging is also about permalinking and hypertexting half-baked ideas...

The problem is that at the certain moment there is a critical mass (critical mess ;) of bits related to a theme. At this moment you need a least an overview of all of them and then a way to construct something more coherent. Wikis are great for that. It's much easier to get an overview of ideas (if they collected on one page :), edit them into something better or even go for refactoring the whole thing.

But then you get the clarity of a final product and lose an overview of path that took you there. And I'm getting more and more convinced that process and artefacts on the way is as important as the final product.

Of course, some wiki/weblog combination can make life easier (but not those where weblog post is edited as a wiki - you lose the path then).

The funny thing that so far I have my own work around: I use weblog for thinking in progress and then ideas are ripe I write papers. It also makes pretty clear distinction for content ownership in a case where someone (like me) gets paid to produce ideas: I'm building my "thought repository" (weblog) while my company benefits from more polished "knowledge artefacts" (papers and reports) I produce.

Hmm, have to dig out some research on process of creative thinking - something about stages in which clear ideas emerge from a mess of doing and thinking, reading and writing...

Lot's of associative thinking instead of working :)

  BlogTalk 2.0: coopetition and research blogging

Anjo reflects on BlogTalk acceptance list:

Apart from the fact that I'm happy our proposal was accepted, I was totally flabbergasted there are only two accepted proposals with multiple authors (ours, which has three authors; and one other with two authors). All the other 25 proposals accepted have precisely one author. Why is this?

Later: updated list suggests that 8 out of 25 proposals have multiple authors :) 

It's really strange and I'm surprised of not noticing it myself (may be because both of my proposals were co-authored :). I share Anjo's why - why it's so different from any academic conference where it's more difficult to find a single-author contribution?

Is it a selfish nature of blogging? Do we simply have a reflection here?

Is it a competitiveness? When everything is out there, "thinking in public", you know, and blogged back and forth, it's pretty difficult to come up with original ideas. Is it something that keeps many of us not sharing with others than ideas are a bit more ripe? Is it some kind of coopetition, collaboration and competition at the same time?

Or is it just simply lack of knowing of others who can add value to our own thinking, lack of not clear ways reaching them or lack of trust that you need for co-writing?

I believe that many of people submitted BlogTalk proposals would benefit from coauthoring. I guess I'm not going to make unrealistic suggestions here... Let's see how the sharing values of blogosphere and conference competitiveness clash and where we go from there :)))

And if you want something related, but different, check Thoughts on Academic Blogging (MSR Breakout Session Notes) or any other links of research blogging.

This post also appears on channel weblog research

  Wednesday, April 07, 2004


  BlogTalk proposals

The list of accepted for BlogTalk 2.0 is out there. One of our proposals went through, another did not.

The accepted one is on shared conceptualizations in weblogs by Anjo, Rogier and me (these two guys can do magic with metadata and all kinds of "smart tool" analysis, so I guess my role will be asking sceptical questions and connecting it to other weblog studies :)

More on: BlogTalk