Wednesday, April 10, 2002

Social capital, bonding, and bridging. I attended a talk tonight by Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone, a study of the sharp decline of social capital over the last 30 years. The decline is measured as a loss of connectedness: people less willing to join organizations, to be civically involved, even to entertain friends at home. When I read the book some months back, I wondered whether Putnam believes online community can help reverse the trend. Yes and no, it turns out. Although he doesn't seem deeply wired into online community, he made some interesting points about the Internet and social connectedness. Face-to-face contact. Putnam's research shows that joining just one organization cuts your risk of dying, within the next year, by as much as quitting smoking. Social isolation is a huge health risk. Online community, for all its benefits and pleasures, is a poor substitute for face-to-face interaction. I greatly enjoy virtual society, but it doesn't do much for my blood chemistry. To what degree will telepresence make online social life feel more like mammalian social life? It will be fascinating to watch this unfold as storage, bandwidth, and CPU proceed on their current trajectories. Bonding vs. bridging. The Internet clearly does support lots of group formation. To the extent that it enables like minds to gather, the kind of social capital thus created is what Putnam calls bonding social capital. This is useful and important, but can be insular. Cross-fertilization may not occur. Groups may turn inward, recycling memes that don't evolve. The countervailing influence is bridging social capital which connects dissimilar groups. This stuff is harder to create, but also more valuable. These terms provide another way to understand the function of what I call human supernodes and what Malcolm Gladwell calls Connectors (people like Lois Weisberg). These people belong to many different groups, and they bridge among them. Tim O'Reilly is that kind of person. His conference in February brought together hackers, lawyers, politicians, biologists, and soldiers, and created lots of bridging social capital. We have yet to see blogspace reach its full bridging potential. Radio Community Server will be part of the story. RSS is even more important, as a way of bridging among many kinds of tools and cultures. I've watched the channelroll propagate to a number of Radio sites now. The subscription lists I see on other sites are, for the most part, very like mine. This tells me that there is more bonding than bridging going on at the moment. And it focuses my attention on the lists that are most different from mine. These, by definition, are bridges. There are, of course, some promising bridging projects underway. At first, these mainly interconnect tech tribes. It gets really interesting when the bridges lead to other tribes -- of librarians, of academics, and I hope many others. [Jon's Radio] 7:57:39 PM    comment []

Social capital, trust, and the purposes of online community. Robert Putnam's data on social capital show that social connectedness in America was on the rise through most of the last century, until its precipitous decline beginning in the late 1960s. Why the decline? He blames television, urban redevelopment, single-parent households, two-career families, and other factors. An equally interesting question: why the rise that preceded the decline? Putnam suggests that 100 years ago, there was a crisis of social connectedness like the one we are in now. Migration of agricultural workers to the industrial cities, and of European immigrants to America, badly disrupted social networks.  In response, Americans invented social institutions -- bridge clubs, bowling leagues, men's and women's social clubs, the 4H (a government creation, in fact) -- and proceeded to join them at an increasing rate, until the trend suddenly reversed in the late 60s. These once-popular social institutions were created, Putnam suggests, by people who sensed, or knew, that there was a critical deficiency of social capital. The institutions were designed to correct that deficiency. If he's right, the flowering of online community that we see all around us may be part of a very large historical pattern. As a culture, we may be sensing a deficiency of social capital, and creating new institutions -- appropriate to our time and our technology -- to remedy the problem. Putnam's thesis may be read as a requirements specification for online communities. A corollary to the sharp decline of social capital in our generation, by the way, is a sharp rise in the number of lawyers per capita. Fifty years ago, Americans thought that most people were trustworthy. Today most think the reverse. Lawyering flourishes, says Putnam, because it is the "production and sale of synthetic trust." Interesting. For years I have interacted online with people I have never met face-to-face, and may never meet. Yet I trust them. [Jon's Radio] 7:28:38 PM    comment []

Anomalies hint at magnetic pole flip. Strange variations in the Earth's magnetic field spotted in satellite data could be early signs of the poles swapping [New Scientist] 4:54:10 PM    comment []

I had sushi with Adam Green tonight.  We had a long talk about what the next big thing is going to be.  What comes after the Web? The conclusion: PCs, Web Services, and lots of great apps.  It's subversive. It turns the Internet into an operating system. It flys under the radar of the bigs (which means that there is plenty of room for independent developers to have fun and make money) and it has a low price of admission: $39.95. [John Robb's Radio Weblog] 11:04:28 AM    comment []

Yesterday, Ernie blogged: "I'm sure an E-book would hold all of the information that my son and three of his colleagues are carting around, and do so in a searchable, and electronically highlightable (and bookmarkable) form.  Plus, many E-Books have built in dictionaries so that if someone is reading and they don't know the definition of the word they can access it immediately.   The cost of distributing the books would probably be so much lower that the student could buy all of the books and get the reader free.  I mean this is a no-brainer.  Is any school out there working on this?  Why not?" The answer to his question is yes, although my knowledge about the project is a year old now. AFAIK, the leading candidate in this arena is still the goReader. It's basically a tablet PC with the following features: Connect to the Internet wirelessly, via a LAN or Dial-in connection.1 Enjoy full-page 800x600 Web browsing. Synchronize with Microsoft Outlook to download important emails and contact information. Download, revise and upload Office, PDF, HTML and many other documents with goReader's multiple format support. Draft Word, Excel and email documents easily via a virtual keyboard, USB keyboard or handwriting recognition. Jot notes on screen in your own handwriting with Ink Memo. goReader weighs only 2.4 pounds, yet is secured by a durable magnesium housing. Windows CE operating system provides users an intuitive, familiar interface. Memory is easily expandable using CompactFlash or PC Card options. SuperVGA 10.4" TFT touchscreen provides a bright, easy read. Instant-on, instant-off allows you to forget about long boot-up times. Device directly connects to several peripherals via a USB port, PCMCIA type II slot and microphone and headphone jacks. Optional Docking Station offers extended connectivity with 4 USB type A ports, 1 USB type B port, 2 PS/2 ports, DC-in and data synchronization. Listen to MP3 music files while traveling. Play Windows Media Player video files while passing time at the airport. Record important notes with the 18 bit analog digital stereo. Attach a video display and microphone to run presentations directly from your device. I'd love to have one of these myself! I had heard that field tests were being run at Highland Park High School and the University of Chicago. You can read more about the Highland Park trial here: Aiming to Turn Page on How Students Read [Chicago Sun-Times] E-Textbooks Test Emerging Platforms [The Seybold Report] That's about all I know about this particular ebook reader, but I know Tom is more familiar with them and I'm hoping he'll either leave a comment below or start his own blog and discuss it there. [The Shifted Librarian] 10:47:04 AM    comment []

Transfer Drawings from Paper to Handheld with InkLink. "Seiko Instruments will soon release the InkLink, which transfers handwritten notes or drawings from any pad of paper to a handheld. The InkLink Data Clip is attached to the top of a pad of paper and continuously monitors the position of the InkLink pen. As the users writes on the pad, the Data Clip communicates its exact position to the handheld, which creates a drawing mirroring what's on the paper. Priced at $100, the InkLink is available from Seiko's webstore now and from retail electronics stores in about two weeks. The InkLink is an improvement over Seiko's SmartPad, which required the handheld to be in a special carrying case fitted out with a pad and an infrared port. The InkLink can be attached to any pad of paper up to legal size. A wire leads from the Data Clip to an infrared transceiver, which can be clipped onto the infrared port of almost any handheld and even laptops with infrared support." [PalmInfoCenter, bOing bOing] This sounds like the Mimio, which we have at SLS. We rarely use it because it's a pain to set up and it only stores what you write as an image rather than as text. If you can't search it, it's not as valuable. When they can add accurate OCR to these things, they'll become much more valuable. [The Shifted Librarian] 9:05:34 AM    comment []

William Butler Yeats. "Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people." [Motivational Quotes of the Day] 8:49:32 AM    comment []

From the Pastor's Desk (Mike Richards) April 9, 2002 Hello all “Bridgeees” – Especially Sam Geers whose birthday was yesterday and Ameila who is 17 today! A big welcome back to Bob and Sue Eggan! We missed you so much!!! I just wanted to drop you all a line to let you know a few things that are happening. I received a call on Friday from a representative of Harvest Evangelism and was asked to help with a prayer walk in Shakopee that will take place on Saturday, April 27. This is a pre-national day of prayer time. I am working to organize this and will have more information for you on Sunday at Church. For now, please pray that the school will allow me to use the parking lot as a place for people to register on that day. Sunday we had the privilege of hearing from Ed Smith, a missions candidate to Romania. This was a wonderful blessing to me both to be able to share the pulpit at our church and to be able to hear about how God is working in and through the Smith family. What a blessing to have 10 year old Alyssa play the violin for us! This Sunday we will be having a missions moment from Gary White and Vonda Jorgenson. They are from Trinity EFC and will be sharing with us the opportunity to pray for (and maybe even participate in) an english speaking camp they will be running in the Chec this summer. This Sunday I will be starting a new sermon series on the book of Jonah. I am excited about this series and pray that God will use it to impact all of us greatly as we are bringing His message to Shakopee and the surrounding communities. Anyone interested, Friendship Church will have a ground breaking ceremony this Sunday at 12:15 on their new property just south of Shakopee. I will have more information on Sunday at church if you would like to attend. For the next few weeks we will not be having children’s church as we restructure that time. Annette Poole has agreed to help develop this area and I will be meeting with she and Connie Burt this week to start evaluating and planning. As we are continuing to Grow as a church I am excited to see lots of new faces every week. If you are fairly new at the Bridge and are interested in knowing more about the Bridge and the Evangelical Free Church of America, the Discovery Group is one way to learn.The Discovery Group is an 8 week group that meets on Sunday evenings to discuss who we are as a church. The current class has been put on hold until we have more people who express an interest. If you would like to be a part of this class please let me know. We will start on as soon as we have a few interested. If you would like more information on how you could be involved or if you have suggestions or questions about our ministries please contact the following people: Diana Barto  – Communications (Bulletin, fliers, newsletter, advertising, web site, etc) Michael Barto  – Facilities (set up, tear down, decorations, etc.) Dani Richards – Worship (music, vocalists, order of service, etc.) Blair Geers  – Prayer (pre-service, e-prayers, prayer chain) Timothy Burt  – Expansion (outreach, missions, discipling new believers) Jean Hutchcraft  – Welcome (fellowship time, greeters, ushers, follow up of new attendees) Tom Hutchcraft  – Growth (small groups, seminars, etc.) Connie Burt  – Children (nursery); Annette Poole  – Children (elementary age)  God bless, Pastor Mike 8:47:41 AM    comment []

Wired reports on a cool new technique to repair torn retinas using magnetized nanoparticles. Batting those baby blues may soon carry an extra magnetic pull -– literally. The Virginia Polytechnic Institute team believes its new but controversial technique to repair torn retinas could prevent blindness in thousands. The procedure consists of injecting magnetized nanoparticles set in silicon directly into the affected eyeball. Once the silicon is in place, the ophthalmologist will use external magnets to position the fluid to the exact location of the tear to seal off any holes in the retina. 8:45:43 AM    comment []