Archive for the ‘tools’ Category

Emily’s Diigo Demo: making the web work for you

Sunday, April 13th, 2008

This is one of Emily Barney’s many excellent tutorials. Diigo is an interesting tool, worth checking out!

Flawed Practices 2.0

Sunday, February 3rd, 2008

Tell me, does it make any sense to put words in the mouths of your users, without an opportunity to review those words or amend them? This - and other similarly ill-conceived practices - undermines the credibility of social networking sites and applications.

Take naymz.com … a site I’ve recently been looking at. (I tend to compare these sites on policy, features, interface, etc.)

It’s a reputation site. It’s got a mechanism for inviting your contacts on various services, it sends the message.

Some of your contacts take the requested action and agree to be a reference, or go further and offer a comment as endorsement. You manage these responses - selecting which references to show … all sounds fine. However, upon taking such step the site sends a message on your behalf thanking your contact for what they have done.

Why do I have a problem with this?

In general, putting words in my mouth that I wouldn’t say or that I don’t know will be said for me (or transmitted) is wrong-headed! As I said, I am on a lot of sites. I’ve been guilty of inviting others, and I have likewise felt some obligation to respond to site add-request when others have joined a new site. But additional communications beyond the first approved (with opportunity for edit) invitational message implies deeper commitment to and endorsement of the site or application. I’d like to make that judgment call myself.

Civic Entrepreneurship, Community Informatics and the Gift Economy

Wednesday, January 30th, 2008

I composed a short list of some essential readings that reflect a world-view appropriate to the Internet Era, I shared it with friends studying Community Informatics and Civic Entrepreurship, two domains seeking a better world. Since I recently catalogued (part of) my personal library using LibraryThing, it makes sense to share these here as well (as they are part of my virtual library).

These writings provide a conceptual matrix for an interesting breed of Civic Entrepreneur- (it’s a partial list) … really a new model of Citizenship and Society/Polity. They aren’t new to a lot of you - and if you have other works that you think really need to be on the list, please let me know.

Movement as Network, by Gideon Rosenblatt, also: The three pillars of social source

David Isenberg’s Rise of the Stupid Network

Pushing Power to the Edges (pdf) by Jillaine Smith, Martin Kearns, Allison Fine

The Cluetrain Manifesto (Doc Searles, et al.)

Cory Doctorow’s Down & Out in the Magic Kingdom

Coase’s Penguin: (by Yochai Benkler … his book The Wealth of Networks is also recommended. There’s a wiki inviting discussion of his ideas.)

The list doesn’t represent any hierarchic ordering.

LibraryThing

Saturday, January 26th, 2008

A cool site/tool I was recently made aware of… LibraryThing.

I like that it uses an open standard for managing my book collection: Z39.50.

I also like that I can export my data.

You can see a more extensive listing of my library here.

Wisdom is proactive

Friday, January 11th, 2008

Confucian wisdom via A Ku indeed!

don’t treat yourself like a tool (a ku!). Take your life seriously. Do something that excites you. Something that you wake up wanting to do.

Wiki works better than email for group coordination: Explanations In Plain English

Thursday, November 8th, 2007

Short video linked here is well worth a few minutes, if you would like to explain wiki to those who cling to email:

http://www.commoncraft.com/video-wikis-plain-english

Here’s a longer related article: Wiki and the Perfect Camping Trip | Common Craft - Explanations In Plain English

conference on neighborhood leadership

Wednesday, June 13th, 2007

     
    You are invited to co-create the 4th Annual Chicago Conference for Good. PLEASE join us, bring friends and add spirit! Share this invitation with neighbors and colleagues, people you’d like to connect or reconnect with this July!

“…cuz people
who do stuff
need to know
more people
who do stuff.”

- ted ernst

   
 

Localizing

Global

Change:

 

Issues

and

Opportunities

   

 

July 19-22

in the Little Village neighborhood of

Chicago, IL USA

     
   

Discussion


What kind of stuff
have we been doing?

  • hosting and attending green dinners,
  • community gardening,
  • blogging,
  • digital excellence… inclusion,
  • chicago conservation corps training,
  • growing food,
  • organizing block clubs and parties,
  • depaving your yard and inviting neighbors,
  • restoring a riverbank,
  • planting native prairie in your local park
  • organizing your neighbors to work with the alderman or CAPS to get a camera,
  • or get one taken out,
  • recruiting volunteers,
  • organizing safe routes to school,
  • buying organic foods,
  • experimenting with new tech ways to connect people,
  • and living with less tech
  • driving less,
  • recycling more,
  • ensuring all differently brained people are seen as human beings,
  • seeing to it that the ADA laws are followed,
  • making social activists are supported and nurtured,
  • urban chicken egg farming
  • block clubs
  • traffic calming
  • peace parks
  • “doing.”… ,

  The momentum of community is rising. Please join us! …for More and More. More and more people. More and more resources. More and more easy. More and more connected. More and more green. More and more power to do good things, in more and more local neighborhoods and organizations.Three years ago, some of us convened a small but national conference on the future of philanthropy, technology and community action. Two years ago, more of us joined in to create a second and international conference which was also the first-ever omidyar.net members conference. Last year we did it again, and along the way these conversations have sparked half a dozen more conferences and action on at least four continents.All the while, you’ve been busy doing all the things you do to try make the world a better place, and you’ve been noticing that more and more people are getting together for global community good. This year’s global gathering in Chicago is going to focus on “doing”. All good work. All kinds of local action. We welcome good people from everywhere to join with people we are actively inviting who are “doing” in Chicago neighborhoods. Bring your own local doing to share. We want to do more and more in all localities, and to do it more together.This year’s conference will follow the same simple and active format as all the previous conferences. We’ll gather for one big opening, create a working agenda that includes all of our most important issues and questions, meet with friends and colleagues to actively address everything on the agenda, document and publish our notes online, and head back out into all the things we are doing with more energy, more clarity and more connections.

The momentum of community is rising. Please join us!
…for more and more global good on the ground where you live.

WHEN? July 19-22, 2007 …music and barbecue on Thursday night, conference all day Friday and Saturday, finishing by noon on Sunday, with airport drop-offs or excursions for out-of-towners on Sunday afternoon.

WHERE? General Robert E. Wood Boys & Girls Club, 2950 W. 25th Street, Chicago IL 60623

WHO SHOULD COME? Anyone who wants to get more and more into community, technology, environment, and other social justice kinds of work and practice. Anyone who wants to make more and more connections between all these sorts of things. And anyone who wants to have more and more fun and friends in the process of community leadership.

WHAT TO BRING? Food to eat/share, materials to show/share, ideas and questions, issues and projects that you care about and want to inform and be informed by others AND a total of $40 (scholarships may be available) to pay for basic costs of site and materials for all three days of meetings.

NOW WHAT? Send an email to register@globalchicago.net (or any other address we like), make a payment at paypal (details forthcoming), forward this invitation to friends and colleagues, people you work with — and people you want to work with. we’ll send you details about places and times and be glad to answer any other questions. Stay tuned to www.GlobalChicago.net for more information.

CO-CONVENERS? Ted Ernst, Christina Jordan, Michael Maranda, Hermilo Hinojosa, Kachina Katrina Zavalney, Pierre Clark, Julie Peterson, Jean Russell, Dave Chakrabarti, and You…