May 2003
Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30	31
Apr   Jun

Right now, I am focusing on working on the Whittier School Manila Hub and slowing figuring out our Plone server. What seems cool about Plone is that one can show off as much as one wants to and yet maintain a private area on one account. Most of my time is spent working on Manila and catching up on the new additions. I am working with a community organization on developing a space we have provided them . I am also trying to document my march with Manila and Plone on our Praxis with Manila and Plone weblog. 

---

Started a Praxis weblog on using Manila. A space to plan, take note and get a better handle on Manila use in my school community 

---

The Blue Oxen Vision.

Blue Oxen Associates - that is, Eugene Eric Kim and Chris Dent - had a launch party in San Francisco last week with their first official piece of output: a 20-page research report on how open source communities function.  The report features case studies of the communities that have formed around the TouchGraph and SquirrelMail software development projects. It was sponsored by the Omidyar Foundation, the very same foundation that awarded a grant to Tom Munnecke's GivingSpace initiative a few months ago.

On the occasion of the launch, Chris wrote a statement of what motivates him in this enterprise. Here it is in full.

We live in a time when the decisions of our governments are made outside any appreciation for reasoned and reasonable consensus. Information is delivered to us, packaged, shiny, and full of persuasive power but often lacking in the awareness of past, present and future required to make wise, lasting and honorable decisions.

I am tired of this. I'm tired of feeling powerless and listening to my self, my friends and my colleagues, filled with good ideas, swing in and out of a lonely and ineffectual desperation.

While it took me some time realize it, helping to start Blue Oxen is my small way of saying I've had enough, it's time to do something. I'm here to suggest that we can make the better world we believe is possible: one where people truly communicate and communicate truly, one where ideas are shared, one where the goodness that is our nature is allowed to emerge, in concert with one another, our neighbors down the street and our neighbors around the world.

I want Blue Oxen to catch and enhance the building wave of people who have acknowledged that sharing ideas, openly and frankly, is a creative force for improving the world and for motivating action. I seek not a free marketplace of ideas, but a free community of people collaborating to create and refine new thought.

Collaboration is a fully buzzword compliant term these days yet it is still an undefined discipline. Eugene and I connected over a casually tossed phrase that I made in response to the question of what is augmentation for. I said, "To make me less dumb." It's now several months later and while I still believe this is an important aspect of what collaboration is for, my close association with Eugene and the members of our first collaboratory and the looser collaboration with disparate voices discovered by the simple act of making some noise has revealed a larger focus: Less dumbness emerges from open communication.

When the internet reached the public, it was hailed as a compelling democratizing force. The power of personal publishing was going to alter the face of society. It didn't quite happen like that. I remember being disillusioned as the significance of my own web server faded in the face of the shine, the gloss and the money of centralized media.

We are, today, thanks to motivated and idealistic people, in a new phase of enthusiasm. Systems such as weblogs and wikis and the developing genre of social software are birthing dynamic social networks that produce new understandings. In and of themselves these tools are nothing, it is the people who use them and what they do with them that matters. People are exploring, communicating, generating and accepting feedback; using their freedom to generate more freedom.

I want Blue Oxen to be an experimental gardener in this realm. Our task is to participate in the discovery, engenderment, development, evolution and facilitation of the patterns of behavior and process[~]and the tools the patterns use[~]that bring the ecology of collaborative evolution we need as a society. Our challenge is to see that the communication facilitated by collaborative systems continues, stays open, and creates artifacts that are accessible and reusable by others. Openness leads to shared and knowledgeable understanding, shared understanding leads to shared goals. Goals lead to motivation and motivation leads to action. Let's do what we can.

Chris is interested in the politics of collaboration, which seems like a hugely interesting topic. A later post of his is titled Anarchic Emergent Collaboration, and reflects on the ways in which we structure collaboration. Chris speculates that "emergent and loose collaboration is the most natural style." (which seems to resonate fairly well with Chris Corrigan's musings on Open Space Technology). Chris Dent writes,

"So I wonder if there are threads of connection that we can draw between extremist political theory (and history), systems theory and discussions of collaboration. Even if the threads prove ephemeral the exploration will probably be productive."

[Seb's Open Research]

Sounds good to me. A good read and a place to keep an eye on. Thier mission has my interest! It seem little by little folks are focusing on the getting great "stuff" done.  

---

Trott Report. Ben and Mena Trott are here, visiting Seabury as part of our technology lecture series. They gave a spectacular workshop talk this afternoon for a gathering of students, stimulating their imaginations about the potential of personal publishing beyond anything they’d dreamed before. They joined Trevor and Margaret (and Pippa) and me for dinner at Cozy Noodle, and now are beginning... [AKMA’s Random Thoughts]

---

Good post which touches on the conversation with the creators of Movable Type in Evanston, Illinois. I found the conversation around virtual communities and blogging the most interesting. There are two schools in San Fran. that use MT and have great looking sites. A hint at what the new MT Pro. features, such as a photo gallery module. 

---

Weblogs and passion.

I had an opportunity to listen to Mena and Ben Trott talk about Moveable Type last night courtesy of AKMA at Seabury Western. They sparked a good discussion around the role of weblogs in creating and sustaining community (two good live blogged accounts from AKMA and Gabe Bridger by way of Mike Marusin).

At least some of the power and energy behind the weblog phenomenon has to come from passion of the creators of weblog tools. All of the products supporting weblogs are labors of love; all grew out of individual efforts to scratch personal itches--Blogger, Moveable Type, Radio.

This is why weblogs will become important to knowledge management and knowledge sharing in organizations and why the big software players haven't been a significant factor yet.

Organizations have recognized that knowledge is an essential part of the value that they create. Knowledge management efforts on the other hand have largely been a disappointment because they have tried to force knowledge into a product metaphor; trying to force what is fundamentally a product of craft into an industrial model of reusable parts (see knowledge work as craft work).

Discussions about knowledge management in organizations always raise the issue of sharing with the argument that people will be reluctant to share out of fear that their efforts will be appropriated by others. This is rooted in a industrial product metaphor of knowledge. See knowledge work as craft, however, and the sharing issue dissolves. Craft workers exist to share the fruits of their creating. A true knowledge craft product embodies something of the soul and personality of its creator. You share it with others not so they can copy it but so that they can find inspiration in using it in their own craft.

Weblogs hold so much promise in the organizational realm precisely because they amplify this connection between craft and creator. Your record is there to be seen and to be shared.

This is also why weblogs are so confusing in the organizational realm. You have to move beyond the notion of reusable and reproducible product as the putative goal.

I had a conversation with Alan Kay a while back about Smalltalk and object-oriented programming that I now finally think I understand (conversations with Alan can be that way for those of us who are mere mortals). He was disappointed that the early commercialization efforts around Smalltalk and OO emphasized the idea of reuse. His goal had always been (and still is, take a look at Squeak and SqueakLand) to make it possible for developers to express what they were trying to do faster and more effectively. He was trying to make computers a medium for expressing certain kinds of thinking.

Weblogs accomplish something similar for knowledge workers. They lower the barriers to sharing ideas far enough that it becomes possible for nearly all of us to do so. Bring that inside organizations and you have a powerful tool for being effective as opposed to merely productive. Scary to the established order? Sure. But if value does truly depend on how well and how fast organizations can create and share new knowledge, then the winners will emerge from those who commit to making it work.

[McGee's Musings]

---

I have three points. The first is that bloggers are passionate about blogging. Second, this event was held in a major graduate school for training pastoral workers. Just like educators, a group that needs to get connected are the pastoral workers. Caregivers need support, too! I wonder if web based tools like blogs, may help pastoral workers. I think so. Sometimes a mission, be it in an urban area or rural, can be very isolating for any number of reaons. One needs to share about one's experiences and dialogue about the 'practice', especially if the folks one is working with would rather gab than get down to "business" .

Three, I love McGee's critique of business looking at knowledge making as a a reusable tool instead of as a craft. Knowledge as craft.. that is inspirational.

Amen! 

---

Mainstream RSS. If you don't know what RSS is, how it works, why it matters; or you just think RSS isn't for you -- think again. [b.cognosco]

Yes... NetNewsWire
is the the right tool for this. 

---

Dan Gillmor's spin on the Two-Way-Web: "Many journalists have yet to discover: in an emerging era of multidirectional, digital communications, the audience can be an integral part of the process." I'm a bit more radical. The idea of "audience" is obsolete. The new medium is read-write. Low-low barrier to entry. Journalism is all about barriers. Today you have to be sure there's lots of value in your barriers, or else you have nothing to offer. That's hard to do. [Scripting News]

It is Friday, I am going to have to sit on this one and think the implications of Gillmor's words in response to the 2 Way web! What are the implications for teaching? 

---

Jon Udell: "Ultimately, it's not about RSS any more than it was about NNTP. It's about the evolution of our species toward shared consciousness." [Scripting News]

AMEN! Does this guy every have a bad day of writing? 

---

Since I started playing with LAMP, I find days where I am mostly banging my head against the wall. Some things I have to learn. For an established scripter or someone with a good orientation to tools that work with LAMP, the tools I mention may be a breeze to use.

Learn and Use PHPmyadmin: a graphical way to control mysql databases. Some cms and weblogs request that tool. It is free!

Take a peek at MacSQL and SQL4X admin tool to control mysql db's Limited function demos and you have to pay for these.

info.php and config.php files

Fetch chmod controls

hmmmmmmm its 6:56 in the morning. I will continue this later... 

---

"EdBlogger " Convention Pre-Planning at NCTE Convention in SF 2003 Pat Delaney is Moderating. Pat started the "blog rolling" (ok, a bad pun) at his site http://interactiveu.berkeley.edu:8000/PatD/ Chime in ed bloggers! in the Pre Planning Forum http://www.disruptivetechnology.org/phpBB2/index.php Joe Luft has chimed in on the forum and on his blog at http://www.brooklynjoe.com/!

Will Richardson on his site has responded to Pat's Blogvention in 2003 http://205.247.5.91/weblogged/

--- Forum hosted on LAMP Platform 

---

Weblog publishing systems. NetNewsWire Pro has a pop-up menu of weblog publishing systems. When you’re configuring NetNewsWire to post to your weblog, you choose the software you’re using.

My intent is to list all systems that support one or both of the Blogger API and MetaWeblog API or are Blosxom-compatible.

In the next release I’ll add Antville and b2 to the list. Current systems listed are Blogger, Blosxom, Conversant, Drupal, Manila (News Items), Movable Type, pMachine, Radio UserLand, and SnipSnap.

What other systems should be added? Are any missing from the list? [inessential.com]

Old boy is going to town!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

---

NetNewsWire Pro 1.0b3. NetNewsWire Pro 1.0b3 adds a separate preview window. You can turn on live previewing so that the preview updates as you type.

See the change notes for more info. [inessential.com]

If you run OSX Jaguar, download this sweet piece of software.  

---

Radio Wishlist - More firewall support..

Dave Winer reports a new "Radio" feature: Proxy Exceptions. This opens up intranet ftp sites and RSS feeds when I tell Radio to ignore my org's proxy service for servers on an exception list

Excellent for klogging!

Now I want more:

1. Let me share/publish my exceptions list. Perhaps as an opml file? An RSS file?
2. Let me subscribe to one or more exceptions lists.
3. Let me publish an aggregated exception list combined from my own entries and my subscriptions.
4. Autodetect urls that don't have a known top level domain (.com, .uk, etc.). Perhaps confirm with the user that it isn't a typo. Ask if I want to add this server to my exceptions list.
5. Validate that exceptions can still be reached and found.

[aka Blue Sky Radio]

[a klog apart] 

---

It seems to be a no brainer on why Userland has not integrated Radio and Manila better. The ability for educators to easily publish feeds to a Manila site be it from students, teachers, consultants, other interested parties would be a time saver for folks that have no time. Pat Delaney and Seb Fiedlier, among others bring up a whole that has been there for a while. So I posted a note on Radio dissusion board. Pipe in if you want this. http://radio.userland.com/discuss/msgReader$21090?y=2002&m=12&d=4 ;

---

Working with Movable Type. For the most part it is enjoyable. I just wish developers would put macro script examples in context of the larger template (screenshots). I have had the time going back into my Blogging in the Barrio site and checking out references to other sites and resources that have piqued my interest over the year. I have had pretty good luck in that most sites still exist for the most part. I think my disruptivetechnology site will be about the tools and blog services end and I am thinking of leavign blogging in the Barrio for my stories and rants. http://www.disruptivetechnology.net/blog/ ;

---

ePortfolios, blogging, and higher education.

Noted for future reference...as much for the sheer volume of links as anything else.

ePortfolios.

The link above has more links than you can shake a stick at.  In addition:

• Personal Learning Planner [link corrected]
• PLP and self-directed learning (pdf)

Could we, as an institution, support thousands and thousands of such things (weblogs?)? [Serious Instructional Technology

I would think that an educational institution could support this.  The graduate class I took that was entirely online (Austrian Economics, if you're curious) could have easily been extended to use something like this; while we spent most of our time in FolioViews annotating the text, lectures, and annotations of other students, we easily could have extended our writing into weblogs.  The conversations we'd have had if we were subscribing to each other's feeds might have been amazing, and considerably more real-time than our trading snippets of text back and forth through the professor (which, to be fair, was quite amazing at the time; I still find myself wanting to get all of my books into a Folio format so that I can do the type of annotating and cross-referencing enabled by the technology).[klyjen.blog][via Thomas Burg]

Interesting comment from a learner's perspective. We have touched the topic of learning journals/portfolios a couple of times. See for example this post from Will Richardson from July 2002. Maybe it is time to write up a use case scenario for Weblog based learning journals...

[Seblogging News] 

---

Klog to Learn-Do..

Michel Ickx wrote about Networks of Learning for the Knowledge Board last year.

Students are putting together, themselves, the material which will enable them to learn and to create true operative and ad hoc knowledge. [Phil: Sounds like klogging, doesn't it?] ... In our workshops for networking and collaborative work we go one step further. We reintegrate knowledge and action as we go. we call it "Learn-Do". ... The scope is to create ad hoc knowledge in order to control new processes oriented to more creative objectives, selected and agreed by the team.

You remember more of what you do than what you see or hear. 

You get rapid feedback on how well you learned and the quality of knowledge work.

Now, if the group of students develops its own knowledge and puts it into practice, isn't the group the best judge? Shouldn´t it decide which level of excellency has been attained or not? And also the level of performance of its members? Shouldn´t those members express, in all transparency, their level of preparation and success, without the need of judges or "experts", since they did not learn from those masters? This leds us to develop a group C.V., or [base "]Multi-CV[per thou].

A group curriculum vitae! What a brilliant idea!

Some implications:

• Rethink the design of "skills" databases in job boards and performance reviews.
• Rethink what we teach kids to include skills for collaborative learning.  
• Remove obstacles to self organization.
• Devalue and amortize archived knowledge faster. Manuals, documentation, curricula.
• eLearning services must push curriculum development and grading to the students.
• Merge education and action into one process.
• Make Learn-Do a continuous activity.  

Learn-Do. A process for klogging.  

[a klog apart klogs]

[a klog apart] 

---

As a group, those administering weblogs, we might want to form a virtual group that discusses the issues involved administering and hosting weblogs. Both on a meta and at the local level, we need ot work on collaboration protocols in order to:

to be effective, collaboration techniques must be adopted, learned and practiced
• Adopt collaboration standard practices to break down information silos.
• Build collaboration into decision making processes.
• Design clear agenda goals in collaborative settings.
• Using technology to enhance collaboration among technologists and other executives.

Source: SiloSmashers. 

---

Weblogs become even more effective in the knowledge making process. Wonderful! The upward spiral of comprehensiveness and complexity seems more likely as weblog community discussion and inference gets a big boost. [...]

[Connectivity: Spike Hall's RU Weblog]

A very interesting mini-essay on how to exploit the conversational medium of weblogs to progressively refine your thoughts. My last article has definitely benefited from indirect conversations with other bloggers.

[Seb's Open Research] 

---

Klognet questions and FAQ..

I'm working on a klognet FAQ. (A klognet is a collection of "kloggers" sharing an interest or purpose and their klogs.)

Questions so far:

• What is a klognet? 
• Who is in a klognet?
• What is a klognet's life cycle?
• How do you measure the success of a klognet?
• Why do some klognets work better than others?
• What are the preconditions to forming a klognet?
• How big or small can a klognet be? How does size change it?
• What extra knowledge, skills, and abilities do klognets call for beyond klogging?
• Isn't the name silly?

 Mail me. I'm really hungry for more/better questions. And answers. Send them along, including markups, please.

Thanks.

[a klog apart klogs]

[a klog apart] 

---

Archipelago 2.0 Released. - Archipelago, a GUI editor for web sites, has been released: “Utilizing the services built into UserLand Manila and Radio, and Blogger API and MetaWeblog API sites, Archipelago provides a simple writing environment that makes it easy and enjoyable to update your weblog.” It includes support for NetNewsWire’s drag formats. [via Mac Net Journal] From the product's web page, "Archipelago supports AppleEvents so that you can script various functions." [AppleScript Info] 

---

Toward a theory of klognets..

CommonMe bloggrolled Denmark's own Hoejberg. Hoejberg posted:

Andy Chen talks about his company's product called RabbleRouser. The approach, Four Dimensions of Collaboration, taken to design the product looks interesting.

hmmm. The 4d:

The Connected Worker

• Provisioned with tools for connection.
• Supported by incentives and moderation.

The Evolution of the Community

• Begin dialog.
• Include people inside and outside your organization.
• Ignore org borders.
• Conversation stimulates brainstorms and mindbombs.
• More conversation, more solutions.
• People take roles. See small group psychology.
• Recruit action teams from conversation groups.  

The Evolution of the Problem

• Problems form small communities out of larger ones.
• Problems act as catalysts. They draw the interested and productive, and repell the rest.
• The problem community moves from discussion to action, from informal to formal.

The Problem Portfolio

• Program management in the network/hierarchical organization.

This is a true march toward a theory of klognet behavior.

btw, Quovix RabbleRouser is a free project portfolio app, Windows or Linux.

see also:

• Sébastien Paquet's klognet page.
• David Gammel's How to set up a low-cost klog network (using MoveableType)

[a klog apart  klogs]

[a klog apart] 

---

Where is knowledge?.

Knowledge is embodied in people gathered in communities and networks. This is one of the most powerful descriptions of what knowledge and knowledge management should really be all about that I have ever come across. Notice 'technology' is not mentioned!

Knowledge is embodied in people gathered in communities and networks.

The road to knowledge is via people, conversations, connections and relationships.

Knowledge surfaces through dialog, all knowledge is socially mediated and access to knowledge is by connecting to people that know or know who to contact.

In the knowledge economy, connections and relationships count more than personal knowhow and access to content.

The environment changes so fast, the optimum knowledge strategy is instant access to people & their ideas and continuous awareness & learning in a supportive community.

People and discourse communities provide the 'filter' mechanism for alerting and awareness.

This helps to keep your focus, provides market intelligence and affords a platform for negotiating meaning and value.

- Denham Grey

[Gurteen Knowledge-Log] [Seb's Open Research] 

---