Great By Choice

Jim Collins' Great by Choice is another classic in the making.  After Good to Great and How the Mighty Fall, Collins' latest book examines what defines greatness in times of turmoil and instability.   10Xers are those that lead organizations to greatness.   Yet these traits and skills are also habits that can be learned and possessed over time.   Through rigorous research into companies, Collins and his research team reveals three concepts which distinguishes performers that excel above the rest.   Collins' findings correlate closely with his earlier research.  Hard work, persistence, low maintenance, and high quality work all pervade heavily in the ingredients to success.

1.  20 Mile March - Requiring great consistency and discipline over a long period of time, delivering high performance in difficult times, and holding back in good times.  Much more than philosophy, the march is about having concrete, clear, intelligent and rigorously pursued performance mechanisms that keeps one on track.  Think of climbing a mountain every day at 20 mile intervals, despite the weather, despite the conditions.  The maxim "never too high, never too low" is concisely the point here.

2.  Fire Bullets, Then Cannon Balls - Success is never a single-step creative breakthrough when in fact, it comes about as a multistep iterative process based more upon empirical validation than visionary genius.  The idea of bullets is to make small ventures -- small steps -- and learn from potential mistakes, before firing the "cannon balls."  

3.  Productive Paranoia - Success is never complacent.   As a result, 10x'ers prepare obsessively ahead of time, all the time, for what they cannot possibly predict.  They assume that a series of bad events can happen at anytime; it's what one does before a storm hits that matters most.  While one cannot predict more than 1% of when a disaster will strike, one can comfortably be assured with 100% certainty that disaster will strike at any time.  Therefore, one must be ready at all times.

Libraries in a Digital Frontier: Preserving Chinese Canadian Cultural Heritage

I'm really pleased to present to you my latest publication.   With my terrific colleague at the University of British Columbia Library, Yu Li and and I, we co-published, Libraries in a Digital Frontier: Preserving Chinese Canadian Cultural Heritage.  As a three-year community-based research project at the University of British Columbia, Chinese Canadian Stories: Uncommon Histories from a Common Past is government grant-funded project by the Community Historical Recognition Program (CHRP) that brings together the expertise and resources of a wide range of UBC Library units and off-campus partners: from the digitization of archival material of UBC Library’s Rare Books & Special Collections; to the digital storage infrastructure of UBC’s Digital Initiatives; to the community outreach and digital technology of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre; to the Chinese language online resources and community historical preservation expertise of the Asian Library. 

A labour of our love these past three years, Lilly and I presented our project to an audience in Beijing, China at the International Conference on Asia-Pacific Digital Libraries (ICADL 2011) "Digital Libraries -- for Culture Heritage, Knowledge Dissemination, and Future Creation" in Beijing, China, Oct 24-27, 2011.  Through this project, a number of partnerships with community and civic institutions nationwide were formed.  This UBC-library led project focuses on three initiatives: a one-stop web portal, a series of community workshops, and digital interactive cultural game using cutting edge technologies. This paper is a progress report of the project.  For more information about this unique project, there are a couple of websites you should visit:

http://chinesecanadian.ubc.ca/ 

http://ccs.library.ubc.ca/

Digital Humanities for Librarianship

Digital Humanities Summer Institute (DHSI) has been a rising force in the digital humanities (affectionately known simply as “DH” in the field).  Having been hosted at the University of Victoria campus for more than 10 years now, DHSI has provided an ideal environment for discussing and learning about new computing technologies and how they are influencing teaching, research, dissemination, and preservation in different disciplines.  Every year, faculty, staff, and students from the Arts, Humanities, Library, and Archives communities as well as independent scholars and participants from industry and government sectors participate in the DHSI.    Digital Humanists can no longer be classified as a “fringe group” or sub-discipline; it’s grown to encompass its own set of theories, best practices, industry standards, and scholarly publications.     What is DH and why should we care?   Simply put, it touches on so much, as

an area of study, research, teaching, and invention concerned with the intersection of computing and the disciplines of the humanities. Sometimes called humanities computing, the field has focused on the digitization and analysis of materials related to the traditional disciplines of the humanities. Digital Humanities currently incorporates both digitized and born-digital materials and combines the methodologies from the traditional humanities disciplines (such as history, philosophy, linguistics, literature, art, archaeology, music, and cultural studies) with tools provided by computing (such as data visualisation, data retrieval, computational analysis) and digital publishing.

One of this year’s themes of DHSI 2011 is Editing Modernism in Canada, or better known as EMiC.    Bridging academia, technology, and industry, EMiC has slowly risen as the hub for training and networking graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, professors, publishers, and technologists.  Where traditional disciplines shun digital technologies, EMiC fills in by providing the resources necessary for researchers to conduct literary projects using cutting edge technologies, be it digitization, text-encoding initiative markups, or social media fluencies.   Although it aims primarily at preserving Canadian modernist literature, it serves as a the gold standard in innovation for the digital humanities field.

It seems an opportune time for academic libraries to take note.  To a certain extent, academic libraries have slowly shifted in that direction, with such positions as Digital Humanities Librarian at Brown University’s Center for Digital Scholarship.    University of Toronto Library has its own digital scholarship librarian, and in the process of creating its own Digital Scholarship Unit.  The University of British Columbia Library forged ahead in creating a brand new division called Digital Initiatives.   It seems quite clear: academic libraries have an important voice in DH.   For humanists, who only recently had been questioned whether it will survive the 21st century, it’s only logical to collaborate with one of academia’s oldest partner: the library.  So let’s move forward.

Teaching Generation M

Teaching Generation M: A Handbook for Librarians and Educators is an important piece of work in the librarian’s toolkit.   In bringing together writings by 26 librarians and educators at colleges and universities across the United States to facilitate thoughtful planning for teaching Generation M in the college library, the book is separated into three sections, the volume begins with chapters defining Generation M and the meaning of the term literacy. The second section defines the culture of Generation M and the technologies it encounters. The final section focuses on best educational practices, theories, and applications to assist the librarian or other educator in serving this new population of “Generation M” students.

Patricia Dawson and Diane Campbell’s Driving Fast to Nowhere on the Information Highway: A Look at Shifting Paradigms of Literacy in the Twenty-First Century examines the history of librarianship and information literacy.   In it, they point out that librarians have been concerned about teaching people how to access and use library collections since the 1800′s.  In fact, library instruction had been taught in universities as far back as the Civil War.  Indeed, academic Lamar Johnson is credited with laying the foundations of bibliographic instruction when he offered tours of the library with instruction in the use of basic reference tools, point-of-use instruction, individualized instruction, and course-related instruction in the mid-20th century.  With online web technologies, bibliographic instruction evolved into “information literacy.”   The advent of the computer in the “information society” shifted from finding information in a physical library to searching for information using virtual online databases.

Yet, despite raving reviews of Generation M’s computer skills and constant connectivity and social networks, there continues to be (perhaps even more so) criticisms by academics and especially by employers that new graduates lack basic writing, communicating, and higher order information skills such as analyzing and evaluating content.    While Generation M might be tech-savvy, and used to 24/7 ubiquitous “anytime, anywhere” technologies, they are not necessarily so sophisticated in using this technology, especially in cases where information literacy skills that require critical evaluation of their found materials.

Digital literacy, in many ways, is the new paradigm of librarianship, perhaps an evolution of information literacy of the necessary for the early Web.  What a librarian was once a specialist in a subject area, be it a bibliographer of reference sources, drawing on his deep knowledge of books and creating finding aids for their patrons in the physical library, new generations of librarians must adapt to social media technologies, electronic books, e-Readers, providing grey materials, forging pathways in open access publishing, synthesizing thoughts into pithy blog entries, connecting with fellow colleagues across the world through social networks, delving into legal topics such as the Google Books court case, not to mention integrating existing cataloguing rules into the new web frontier.   Indeed, the librarian of the 21st century has evolved to the point where the profession is ready to have its voice heard in a new “digital strategy” movement.

Michio Kaku and the Future of the World

Michio Kaku is Professor of Theoretical Physics at the City College of New York of City University of New York, the co-founder of string field theory, and a "communicator" and "popularizer" of science. He has written several books on physics and related topics, he has made frequent appearances on radio, television, and film, and he writes extensive online blogs and articles.  Kaku's new book is an extension of his previous book, Physics of the Impossible.  Rather than talkin about walking through walls, telekinesis, or time travel, Kaku tackles more salient topics: the future of science and humanity.     In particular, through his interviews with numerous scientists and futurists, Kaku is able to paint a picture of what is in store for us in the next 100 years.

 What really struck me is the end of Moore's Law.  According to the laws of physics, the evolution of technology will eventually come to a halt, thus ending the concept of Moore's Law's exponential growth of computer technologies.  Moore's Law depends on miniaturizing transistors; and at the heart of the revolution is the tiny computer chips, which get cheaper and cheaper with each generation.   At some point, it will be physically impossible to etch transistors smaller than the size of an atom.  Moore's Law will stop when the transistor finally hits the size of individual atoms.  In fact, Kaku predicts Silicon Valley could rust away by 2020 unless a replacement comes along.  Some food for thought -- Physics of the Future is definitely a book worth reading.

The Internet of Things

The basic idea of the IOT is that virtually every physical thing in this world can also become a computer that is connected to the Internet . . .  things do not turn into computers, but they can feature tiny computers. When they do so, they are often called smart things, because they can act smarter than things that have not been tagged.

Imagine a world where cars can "talk" to each other to prevent accidents, or a door that opens based on its recognition of the person in front of it.  Elgar Fleisch is one of the innovators of the future of such technology. His research focuses on the economic impacts and infrastructures of ubiquitous computing.  At the Auto-ID Lab where he and his team develops their work with a global network of universities, an infrastructure for the “Internet of Things” is currently being formulated.   In many ways, there is still a competition between the "internet of things" and the "web of things," and where this is going will be largely determined by experts like Fleish.   In the white paper, The Internet of Things, some important pieces of this vision is already laid out:

1. "Embeddability" - There is a sense that while the internet is based on flashy software, the IOT is invisible.  Whereas the nerve ends of the Internet are fullblown computers that require regular access to the power grid, the nerve ends in the IOT are very small, in many cases even invisible, low-end and low energy consumption computers.  The IOT is about sensing, storing and communicating only a limited amount of information, and often does not even interact directly with human beings.

2.  Networks & Nodes - Although we think we're all "connected," the fact is, we're really not.  While there are about five billion devices such as mobile phones, personal computers, MP3 players, digital cameras, web cams, PDAs, and data servers that serve a world of 6.7 billion people, the reality is that only 1.5 billion are currently using the Internet.   The number of items created each day, consumer products, far exceed anything Internet-related. With an estaimated 84 billion products created each year gives us an indication of just what is not "connected."   With the IOT, think how computer-enabled "things" around us that requires a vastly different and much larger new network infrastructure that is required.

3. Bandwidth - Think the current Internet as a "mile bottleneck" while the IOT as a bandwidth "highway."  Like the early pioneers of the railway, the Internet has been increasing tremendously over recent years with its ability in transporting us on the information highway, with an average household in many countries with a cable-based Internet access with a bandwidth of at least 1 MBit/s.   However, with the IOT, the implementation of emerging technologies such as fiber optics to the home, the bandwidth will soon become as high as 50 - 100 MBit/s.

4. Standards - The academic and industrial communities are currently searching for alternative technologies and standards (e.g. EPC, ucode, IPv6, 6LoWPAN, Handle System, or Internet0) to number and address the "smartening physical world."   There needs to be the identification and addressing of the nerve endings. Because Internet-based identification and addressing schemes require too much capacity to become part of low-end smart things, the IOT's architecture would have to make sure that any tagged object could in principle be accessed by any computer.

5. Machine-centric Universe -  If you think Jeopardy's Watson is a sign of things to come, then IOT would not be far off.  While current Internet-based services are targeted towards human beings as users, (the World Wide Web (WWW), email, file sharing, video, online chat, file transfer, telephony, shopping, or rating), IOT almost completely exclude humans from direct intervention, as the smart things communicate amongst each other and with computers in the Internet in a machine-to-machine way.

6.  Sensing -   Like the economic success story of the Internet, which allowed companies and individuals virtually for the first time to reach out to a global customer base at ridiculously low cost, Web 2.0-based services include Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Wikipedia, only made it even richer. The IOT adds another data dimension, as it allows the  physical world, things and places, to generate data automatically -- where the IOT is all about sensing the physical world.  It provides the infrastructure that for the first time enables us to not only measure the world, but to do it in a cost-efficient means of growing a very finely granulated nerve system of nerve endings.  This is hopefully, what the IOT becomes.

Seven Principles to Happiness

Everyone faces some stress at work and in life.  Regardless of how happy one may be.   Shawn Achor is at the cutting edge of positive psychology, a new branch of psychology that finds and nurtures genius and talent,  while striving to make normal life more fulfilling.  Rather than not simply to treating mental illness, the emerging field of positive psychology is intended to complement, not to replace traditional psychology.   Although librarianship and academia are spaces of social networks, they are also nodes of critical inquiry and draconian debates -- not often ingredients for pleasantries, let alone, goodwill.

In his new book, the Happiness Advantage, Achor looks at the seven basic principles that we can all use to boost our happiness level.  Why do we need this?   Well, simply because it also supports our well being as well as effectiveness at work.   By scientifically studying what has gone right, rather than wrong in both individuals and societies, positive psychology is actually an interesting starting point in examining our work lives as well as personal lives.  Happiness leads to success in almost every domain of our lives: marriage, health, friendships, community participation, creativity, jobs, careers, businesses.   So how do we do it?  
 
Happiness Advantage -  Giving quick "jolts" of happiness is important.  Find something to look forward to each day - each little item counts one more bit towards that goal of happiness.  Infuse positivity into your surroundings.  Exercise more.  Spend money on experiences.  Commit conscious acts of kindess.  Give positive feedback.  Engage in activities you enjoy while working.  What we want to do is reach the critical mass of happiness that will snowball into long-term content.

The Fulcrum and the Lever - Archimedes once said, "Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world."  What this metaphorically means is that our minds are our realities.  Einstein's relativity doesn't end with just physics: we can actually use our relative experiences of the workday to the best of our advantages.  Our realities are how we view it. Make meaning in your job.  Rewrite your job description into something meaningful for you: make it your calling.  This can work with those around us, for Achor dubs this the "pygmalion" effect, that our belief in a person's potential can actually bring that potential to life.  The heart of this challenge is to cease interpreting the world as fixed when reality is relative.

The Tetris Effect - Just like the game of tetris, a psychology experiment proved that people tend to perceive their world in mere tetris blocks after playing the game for hours on end.  Similarly, people can also be unable to break a pattern of thinking or behaving after a while of being conditioned to it.   This can have detrimental effects when our selective perception warps us into actively searching for something when it's not even there.  The trick is then to turn this into a "positive tetris effect" in which we infuse our minds with gratitude and optimism.  Psychology experiment after experiment have shown that positive people tend to solve puzzles more quickly and spot errors more accurately.  By listing all the good things we have in life, getting stuck in the positive tetris effect can be productive.

Falling Up - Being able to battle through adversity is all the difference to leading a happy life. Helplessness is a learned behaviour and the sooner we can rebound from failures the sooner we can pave the way for happiness. Crises are in fact, a catalyst for happiness.  Rather than seeing life as a series of successes and setbacks, there is a third path: falling upwards.  Success is much more than mere resilience; rather, it is about  redirecting downward spirals to propel ourselves in the opposite direction so that we can capitalize on setbacks and adversity to become even happier. 

Zorro Circle - This is a beautiful metaphor: Zorro became an expert, swashbuckling hero after his aging master Don Diego instructed the young man to learn his craft inside a small circle until he could expand his repertoire to hanging off chandeliers and handling five enemies with one swoosh of his sword.  The same goes for our lives: we simply can't expect to reverse our lives in one day, neither can we run a marathon in under an hour.  The trick is to regain control aspect of our lives one circle at a time, making it so manageable that it is almost effortless, and gradually expanding it until we reach our goal.  Small successes can add up over time.  But it takes drawing that first small circle.

The 20 Second Rule - Sure, we are probably thinking this already: this is common sense, right?   But as Achor puts it, common sense is not common action. As we are mere bundles of habits (and bad ones usually), we don't consciously work towards good habits.  Willpower usually takes us only so far; much of the time, it doesn't take us anywhere at all.  Rather than using willpower, we need to create the path of least resistance so that our lazy minds won't need to consciously use willpower. The key is to create habits as ritual, repeated practice, until the actions become ingrained in our brain's natural chemistry.  If it means hiding the email icon to stop us from consciously looking to email in order to improve our productivity at work, then do it.  By as little as 20 seconds at a time, it means an investment where forming one today will automatically give out returns for years to come.

Social Investment - The best investment we can make is our support networks.  In times of crises, experiments have shown that those who lack support are those most prone to continuing the downward spiral.  Surrounded by our support networks, whether at home or at work, big challenges feel more manageable and small challenges don't even registar on the radar.  Our social support prevents stress from knocking us down and getting in the way of our achieving our goals.   The most innovative artists and scientists worked as part of a group.  Social connections motivate.  As a result, social relationships are the greatest predictors of both happiness and high performance. So it's time to make that investment.

Social Media and Clay Shirky's View of World Politics

 One complaint about the idea of new media as a political force is that most people simply use these tools for commerce, social life, or self-distraction, but this is common to all forms of media. Far more people in the 1500s were reading erotic novels than Martin Luther's "Ninety-five Theses," and far more people before the American Revolution were reading Poor Richard's Almanack than the work of the Committees of Correspondence. But those political works still had an enormous political effect. (Shirky, Foreign Affairs, 2011)

Clay Shirky has finally made it.  Often championed as one of the modern thinkers of technology and society, but also maligned as a mere naval-gazing pop intellectual who talks the talk, Shirky's recent article The Political Power of Social Media: Technology, the Public Sphere, and Political Change in the long-renowned journal, Foreign Affairs, has penned some thought provoking gems about the changing political order thanks the effects of ordinary citizens' use of social media technologies.
  
Social media have become coordinating tools for nearly all of the world's political movements, just as most of the world's authoritarian governments (and, alarmingly, an increasing number of democratic ones) are trying to limit access to it.In response,the U.S. State Department has committed itself to "Internet freedom" as a specific policy aim. Arguing for the right of people to use the Internet freely is an appropriate policy for the United States, both because it aligns with the strategic goal of strengthening civil society worldwide and because it resonates with American beliefs about freedom of expression. But attempts to yoke the idea of Internet freedom to short-term goals-particularly ones that are country-specific or are intended to help particular dissident groups or encourage regime change-are likely to be ineffective on average. And when they fail, the consequences can be serious.

1.  A New Political Science? -  What social media has done is essentially re-write the rules of political science and even the social sciences.  It would be impossible to describe the recent political crises in Tunisia, Egypt, Iran, Moldova, or Thailand (among the many) without discussing the use of mobile media and online tools by those resisting against authoritarian governments.  Such social technologies have mobilized grassroots citizenry and civic grassroots journalism to not only effecting change in the political landscapes in countries, but ultimately bringing down regimes.

2.   What Is Civil Society? -  What social media has down is ultimately breaking down the state's ability to use violence and oppression, truly allowing for a degree of civil society unheard of before the age of the internet.   Shirky views this as a shift in the balance of power between the state and civil society that has ultimately led to a largely peaceful collapse of communist control.  As such, when civil society triumphs, many of the people who had articulated opposition to the communist regimes-such as Tadeusz Mazowiecki in Poland and Václav Havel in Czechoslovakia- became the new political leaders of those countries.  Communications tools during the Cold War did not cause governments to collapse, but they helped the people take power from the state when it was weak. The same should be seen from the power of social media -- perhaps even in a more intensified process.  And we're witnessing that as we speak.

3.  The "New" Public Sphere - The famed social philosopher Jurgen Haberman's concept of the public sphere is being challenged and perhaps will soon be thrown right out the window in this age of intensive social media.   Developed during the Renaissance in Western Europe and the United States, Habermas viewed a vibrant public sphere acting as a positive force keeping authorities within bounds lest their rulings be ridiculed.  As such, the public sphere is a place between private individuals and government authorities in which people could meet and have debates about public matters.  With such critical discussions taking place, they anchor as a counterweight to political authority.  The "public spheres" more importantly, happened physically in face-to-face meetings in coffee houses and cafes and public squares as well as in the media in letters, books, drama, and art. Forward three hundred years, and we’re seeing the physical public sphere turn digital: in the blogosphere, twittersphere, Facebook, and viral video sharing sites.

4.  Communications -  Although mass media alone do not change people's minds, the process does.  As Opinions and ideas are first transmitted by the media, and then they get echoed by friends, family members, and colleagues. Eventually, it is the social network that influences and forms political opinions.  This is the step in which the internet in general, and social media in particular, effects change. As with the printing press, the internet spreads not only media aconsumption, but also media production.  As Shirky argues, "It ultimately allows people to privately and publicly articulate and debate a welter of conflicting views."   How's that for social change?

Have You Been Screw-gled Lately?

Greg sighed. He knew Google too well: Every time you visited a page with Google ads on it, or used Google maps or Google mail -- even if you sent mail to a Gmail account -- the company diligently collected your info. Recently, the site's search optimization software had begun using the data to tailor Web searches to individual users. It proved to be a revolutionary tool for advertisers. An authoritarian government would have other purposes in mind. (Scroogled, 2007).

Canadian writer Cory Doctorow is best known as the proponent of copyright laws that should be liberalized and allowed for free sharing of all digital media. Arguing that copyright holders should have a monopoly on selling their own digital media, he proposes that copyright laws need only come into play when someone attempts to sell a product currently under someone else's copyright.  How's that for digital democracy?

Doctorow is also a science-fiction writer, and a futurist.   In 2007, Doctorow penned a fascinating, but eerily nihilistic view of the Google-dominated universe.  Like the panopticon, Doctorow's short story, Scroogled, is about a world gone terribly astray, where every action parsed directly or indirectly by Google is effectively used to monitor our every action. 

Not surprisingly, there is a search engine that goes by this very title that  Scroogle, a site designed for those who don’t want Google tracking their searches back to them.  Disguising the Internet address of users who want to run Google searches anonymously, Scroogle is a web service that gives users the option of having all communication between their computer and the search page be SSL encrypted.

Think about it: Google can keep your searches on record for up to a year and a half.  It's said that if you do not want a record of all your searches in storage, then using Scroogle's "scrapper" might be an effective method.

Are we living in a paranoid dimension here?   The librarian in me says that freedom of privacy and information is of course central to a democratic society.   Think about it: Google does have an enormous influence on us, although we are only subtly aware of it:

1.  Societal Influence - It has been a mental influence on people that if your search is not found on google it does not exist.  In fact, if it's not ranked highly, it isn't important.  And if one Google yourself (which a lot probably do), it's a reflection of one's "importance" virtually and physically, too.  Think of all the resources that companies are exercising in raising their Google ranking. Think of all times you search for meaning and answers to life, all coming from Google search results.  If Google isn't a convenient magic eight ball, then what is?

2.  Street View - I must admit, I am an admirer of Google Street View, especially when I want to see places I haven't been before.  However, it has also been accused of taking pictures and coming too close inside people's private homes and people who walk down the street not knowing they are being watched on Google's service.   While they were at it, Google collected about 600 gigabytes of data from users of public WiFi stations (which are not owned by Google) during 2006-2010, including snippets of emails. 

3.  Politics - Being the world's largest company ultimately drags it into the political sphere, too.  Case in point: although Mainland China had already enforced by filters colloquially known as "The Great Firewall of China," Google.cn search results were further filtered so as not to bring up any results concerning the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, or websites supporting the independence movements of Tibet and Taiwan, or the Falun Gong movement.  It wasn't until only recently after a clash with China that Google stepped out of placating the world power.   But is Google tempting fate as a multinational corporation?   I guess while we wait for the answer, we should at least give Scroogle a try.

Beyond the Nation-State and Social Media

It's a recent phenomenon: social media is altering world history. As the recent Iranian resistance from twittosphere has shown, as well as the recent events in China, Burma, Russia, Tunisia and Egypt resistance, not even the tightly drawn cloak of authoritarian regimes can regulate what seeps through the social web. Just look at what Wikileaks is doing to open up once tightly withheld information, and ultimately, the political order.

Don Tapscott argues in Macrowikinomics, that we have entered the age of "beyond the nation state." Microfinancing, virtual activism, and global agenda partnerships via the social web are but a few developments that are breaking down the nation-state's grip, and challenging the very notion of its importance to its citizens. Non-governmental organizations (NGO's) are clearly gaining legitimacy and relevance, even by nation-states. NGO's have become effective change agents. And social media is only intensifying this change.

Vancouver-based HootSuite is one example of how social media is challenging the stronghold of the notion of the state. In particular, social media helping people in Egypt circumvent the government's shutdown of the Internet. Hootsuite, which offers social media portal feed for cross-posting to Twitter and Facebook, is reporting that signups are up sevenfold this month in Egypt, with the most from this past week of January -- mostly from mobile devices.

The company, which offers users a social media dashboard for posting to Twitter, Facebook and other social networks, reports that signups are up sevenfold this month in Egypt, with most in the past week and most from mobile devices. Blocking Internet access and text messaging as well as Twitter and Facebook, the Egyptian government hasn't deterred its people from going through proxy servers or using third-party applications like HootSuite and TweetDeck to voice their dissent.

Here's something interesting: although HootSuite users who had already signed up before the Internet are being shut down in Egypt, they are still able to use the service as new users who must register a new account online at twitter.com. Moreover, iPhone users can sign up for new HootSuite accounts through the mobile app. From all the developments we're witnessing about the transformational change social media has afforded us, it's changing the course of history as well. We'll see more in the upcoming years ahead.

Cross-posted at Smertlibrarians blog.

The 5 Well Beings In Life

It turns out that in between work and career are still important things in life.  Love, work, play.  Regardless of what profession one is in, I think there's often unfortunate disconnect between living and working.   News stories are increasingly reporting people around the world working overtime, inordinately more than the prescribed 40 hour work weeks so prevalent a generation ago.  Reports seem to indicate that people are turning into workaholics.   In the follow up to their highly successful Strengthfinders 2.0, Tom Rath and Jim Harter's Wellbeing is really about how to reverse all that -- how to live a happy, fulfilling life of love, generosity, and gratitude. Though their findings, the authors argue that there are five key essential ingredients.  I think these words of advice (and research) indicate some lessons we can all learn. 

1.  Career Wellbeing - Do you like what you're doing each day?  Whether a librarian, policeman, salesman -- whatever it may be -- people high with marks in this category wake up each morning looking forward to doing something each day at work.  Instead of workaholics, turns out these people actually take more time out to enjoy life though!

2.  Social Wellbeing - More likely to make time for vactions or social gathering with friends and family, these people have several close relationships that help them achieve, enjoy life, and be healthy, as well as surrounded by people who encourage their development and growth.  Positive energy on a daily basis.

3.  Financial Wellbeing -  It's hard to be happy without meeting basic needs.   Managing their personal finances well and spending their money wisely, these people not only buy experiences instead of just material possession, they also give to others instead of always spending on themselves.

4.  Physical Wellbeing - It's about having good health and enough energy to get things done on a daily basis.  Exercising regularly, good dietary choices, enough sleep to rejuvenate, these individuals are able to do everything people their age can do.  Maybe even more.

5.  Community Wellbeing - This trait indicates a high security of where one lives and take great pride in their community.  Not only do they want to give back and make a lasting contribution to society, there is a sense of engagement with where a person lives.  This is what separates a good life from a great one.

Librarian 2.0?

It seems to have died down: the Library 2.0 mantra.  For a while, controversy abound over the appropriate usage of Library 2.0, so much so that Wikipedia threatened to take it down altogether.  Many argue that such a term diminished the profession while others charge that Librarian 2.0 rejuvenates what is a lagging field in an increasingly interconnected digital world.  Australian librarians Helen Patridge, Julie Lee, and Carrie Munro have recently come out with an ethnographic analysis, "Becoming 'Librarian 2.0': The Skills, Knowledge, and Attributes Required by Library and Information Science Professions in a Web 2.0 World (and Beyond)."

The authors' methodology is simple: focus groups of about 81 librarians to discuss what they think defines "Librarian 2.0."  Although diverse, the answers are unnervingly clear and concise.


1.  Technology - There is a difference between IT skills an IT appreciation skills.   Librarian 2.0 should be a role model, not in being an "elitist" in terms of technology, but as a credible source for understanding and imparting knowledge of new technological developments.  They are plugged in, but can easily walk away from it, too.


2.  Learning and Education - Willing to grow with the job, librarian 2.0 in the web 2.0 world is interested in what is happening around them, and scan the horizon and are aware of the outside world.


3. Research and Evidence Based Practice - An essential element, research is a way for librarian 2.0 to be making best decisions, best practices, and establishing benchmarks.


4.  Communication - Good at negotiation and diplomacy, librarian 2.0 should be able to use whatever "language"is needed to persuade or influence the target audience to their point of view.


5.  Collaboration and Teamwork - Is about building relationships and partnerships while establishing networks with individuals and groups wherever it is needed.


6.  User Focus - Interested in creating communities, they are driven by a focus on people, not resources.


7.  Business Savvy - Entrepreneurial, they are know how to get things done -- they go out and seek business


8.  Personal Traits - Adaptable, flexible, persistent, and resilient

Super-Connectors?

As librarians and information professionals, we've been strangely attacked within the past decade about web 2.0's necessities to "connect" with users and to "outreach" to our constituencies about our usefulness.  As a result, we've been busily preparing for the onslaught by integrating our working minds into social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.   Has it worked?   For the most part, it's helped align ourselves to the (albeit digital) world.   But other than that, there's been a lot of chatter that such social media tools have been just librarians talking to other librarians.    If that has been the measuring stick, then I dare say we've been one of the most active and successful professions in doing so.  And we haven't lost our jobs doing it, too.

Superconnect is a fascinating new book about the strength of connections, but puts the onus back in the real physical world.  It offers a unique look at what librarians (among many others) should be doing: reconnecting with one another.  Moving past just the tight, narrow confines of the library shelves and stacks.  Surging beyond the walls of library-think, and into other networks and spheres. I read this book with great interest, not only as a reference book, but ultimately as a book about humanity which we can all learn from.   Here are some highlights:


1. Strength of Weak Links -  When it comes to communicating from one person to a target in a different world, weak links far outperform strong ones.  Studies have shown that people tend to overuse family and friends, but "underuse" people they don't know particularly well.  It is casual acquaintances that are nine times better than friends at providing the connections we need or giving us useful information.

2.  SuperConnectors - Unlike our prejudged vision of slick, savvy, prominent socialites, super connectors are actually humble folks who just happen to connect with people because they have placed themselves at the centre of a social system, integrating into a number of networks and nodes that might otherwise have been isolated from one another.  Most importantly, a superconnector is willing to "connect" others.

3.  Internet - It's important not because it is a new world, but rather it is an old world.  It's given us terrific intensification of the communication and network that have actually been built decades and even centuries before its very invention. Social networks have given us tools to lubricate relationships, helping us record, organize, and manage our online connections, acquaintances, and memberships.  How's that for improvement?

4.  The "Third Place" - To live an interesting life means also the need to cultivate rich, meaningful weak connections.  The third place is a term which describe locations where one habitually relaxes and spends time.  Regular visits to third places, and irregular visits to new ones, are crucial to renewing and forging these so-called weak links.  Even going to the local park, and being among lots of people can be considered a process of connecting.  How's that for living a rich life?

The Cyberport of the Future?

The Web 3.0 craze has already hit the shores of Hong Kong. Although Cyberport was meant to be Hong Kong’s version of Silicon Valley, it has a reputation for being a ghost town. The 95,000 square meters of office space on the west side of Hong Kong Island is a 15.8 billion Hong Kong dollar (US$2 billion) government-owned project criticized by some as being an unsustainable venture.

In a first of its kind Web 3.0 conference took place at Cyberport. As the organizers put it,

in the world of Web 3.0, the Internet should know I won’t be able to watch my favorite TV show. It should automatically record it and book a time slot for me to catch up on this show. This is an example of how the Internet and Web will become smarter. What is an example of Web 3.0 with today’s technology? Earlier this year, we transmitted live and in 3D the World Cup from South Africa to cinemas in Hong Kong with the help of the Internet.

In essence, Cyberport organised Web 3.0 Asia as part of its commitment to establishing itself as a leading information communications technology (ICT) hub of the Asia, region, pushing Hong Kong's creative digital enterprises and start-ups to prepare for the next version of the web.  What struck me was the depth of speakers for the programme, including: Simone Brunozzi, Technology Evangelist at Amazon Web Services; Jon Leland, President and Creative Director, ComBridges.com; and Kaiser Kuo, Director, International Communications of Chinese search enginge, Baidu.

With this conference, it's becoming clear that the next generation of the web will not be limited in geography, but will be a multiversity of ideas and concepts.

History of Social Media

If you want to work in libraries

I've always asked colleagues why they ended up where they ended up. Each time I get fascinating, but very different answers from the next one I hear. Here's an excellent explanation and reason to be a librarian.

Multi-Touch Technology

Named as Time Magazine's 2008 listing of the 100 Most Influential People in The World, Jeff Han is one of the main developers of "multi-touch sensing," which unlike older touch-screen interfaces, is able to recognize multiple points of contact. Although the use of touchscreen technology to control electronic devices pre-dates multitouch technology and the personal computer, IBM began experimenting with touch screens as early as the 1960s. Over the years, multi-touch technology has seamlessly seeped into popular culture, with Star Trek and Tron being the most prominent. (The Day the Earth Stood Still was the most recent movie which used Microsoft's Surface program). Currently, CNN has been the most innovative user of multi-touch with its "magic wall," which received most of its publicity because of its use by news network CNN during its coverage of the 2008 US Presidential election.

What does this mean for the future of information technology? Let's take a look at Han's use of the keyboard. With new technologies such as augmented reality and locative media, human cognition itself may revolutionized and re-engineered.

Zero History

While much has been attributed to Tim Berners-Lee as the father of the Internet, Vancouver-based fiction writer William Gibson is actually behind many of the ideas behind "cyberspace." Often called the "noir prophet" of the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction. While the term "cyberspace" was first coined in his short story Burning Chrome, the concept was only later popularized in the 1984 novel, Neuromancer.

Gibson's works have influenced cyberpunk and postcyberpunk writers such as Cory Doctorow. Gibson is renowned for his visionary influence on and predictive attunement to technology, design, urban sociology and cyberculture. While Johnny Mnemonic is the only direct attribute to Gibson's works, many of the ideas he presents in his novels have shown up in movies and popular culture. Yet most ironically is that he had completed his first novel, Neuromancer in 1983 on a manual typewriter. In a recent interview with the Georgia Straight, two points jumped out a me which I think is important food for thought:

(1) Immersive Media - Nearly all of the characters in Zero History and in the previous books in the series are totally at home in this message-soaked environment—not just with all the branding and marketing but with the multiple streams of information from wireless devices and RFID tags and GPS systems.

(2) Twitter Streets vs. Facebook "Malls" - As Gibson asserts, social can be overly structured. However, as he sees it, there is a difference between Twitter and Facebook.

Facebook and MySpace seemed like malls to me, as opposed to the street—whereas Twitter actually seems like the street. There’s no architecture within the template other than a limit on the length of a given post. And anyone can turn up and address you directly. It’s exactly like walking down the street. You might meet someone who’s really charming and intelligent, or you might meet a total malevolent idiot.

Linked Data at IFLA 2010

IFLA 2010 has come and gone. Although I did not go, the presentations are now online, and some are outstanding. Richard Wallis, Technology Evangelist from Talis, had a very interesting take on the semantic web. It's quite the package, with 194 slides altogether. Wallis' presentation examines some of the innovative examples of open data that such companies as the BBC is already experimenting with. Wallis argues that if libraries are to participate in the Semantic Web, MARC records will need to be the first type of library data to be shared with the open web concept.

Using Social Media Sites For Self Promotion

The rise of social media sites, such as Facebook and Digg, has presented publishers with an opportunity for self promotion that has never been seen before. Due to the popularity of social media sites, publishers have a huge group of people to promote their sites to. Using social media sites to promote blogs and websites can be accomplished with no money and just a little time.

Using sites like digg.com, reddit.com, or stumbleupon.com to push traffic to a person’s blog or site can cause huge increases of traffic and readership. Simply posting a link to a website or blog post on one of these social news sites will cause a large spike in traffic to the link posted. The key to using social news sites correctly is to post quality content. Quality content will quickly become popular on these social news sites and will push nearly 100 times the amount of traffic to a person’s site than would be pushed by simply adding a random, low quality link.

Social networking sites, such as facebook.com and twitter.com, are another avenue that publishers should take advantage of. By creating a Facebook or Twitter page for their blog or site, publishers can use the social network’s services to update readers about any updates, start discussions, and increase overall reader activity. Using these social networking sites can also help increase traffic, as people often view things that their friends talk about and are members of.

With a little practice, publishers will find the tricks needed to successfully use all social media sites to their advantage. Becoming an active member on any of these sites for a short time will give publishers a feel for the site and a better understanding of what’s needed to successfully use the sites for self promotion.

About the author: James Mowery is a computer geek that writes about technology and related topics. To read more blog posts by him, go to LED TV.

I enjoy thoughts and ideas from innovative web experts. James Mowery is one of them. A technology and social media journalist currently residing in Windsor, VA, James has been awriter for Mashable, CMSWire, and Performancing. I'm fortunate to have him as a guest blogger. If you're interested, please drop me a line, too.

The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet?

Since the time of Alvin Toffler, there have always been futurists who predict the paradigm shifts of technology and society. Recently, Chris Anderson (author of the Long Tail), challenged conventional wisdom of the web, arguing in the Wired article, The Web is Dead. Long Live the Internet, that the web will become obsolete as it is replaced by newer technologies, namely mobiles such as the iPhone App.

1. Web is a shared memory -- We shouldn't see it as a technology, but more of an experience. Arguing for the death of the web is akin to record is dead, long live the cassette. It's rather shortsighted to view one format as the be all of anything. - and I don't think the app is the answer. It's the music that we're after, not the format.

2. Data is the Web - Anderson seems to suggest that the mobile is the is the way to go. Unless phone and internet companies are willing to lower the costs and expand to unlimited bandwidth, most people are still going to have to rely on the web to surf and to download. The web is more than just an "application." It's the circulation system that allows for exchange of information to happen.

3. Ubiquity of the Web Experience - If Anderson is to suggest that the web is dead in the sense that users no longer need to sit at their desks in order to enjoy the web experience, then it's a foregone conclusion. We already are mobile with laptops and similar social devices. Web 3.0 promises to open up for a ubiquitous experience in which the web is that underlying layer of technology that ties physical real world objects together into an 'internet of things'. If anything the web will be more important than ever in this development. Certainly Anderson makes strong points about the new directions that web has taken us; but for us to claim its demise and irrelevance is bit of a stretch!

Introducing Community Informatics

The application of information and communications technology (ICT) to enable and empower community processes, the goal of Community Informatics is to use information communication technologies (ICT) to enable the achievement of community objectives including overcoming “digital divides” both within and between communities. However, community informatics goes beyond discussions of the “Digital Divide” to examine how and under what conditions ICT access can be made usable and useful to the range of excluded populations and communities and particularly to support local economic development, social justice, and political empowerment using the Internet.

Community informatics as a discipline is located within a variety of academic faculties including Information Science, Information Systems, Computer Science, Planning, Development Studies, and Library Science among others and draws on insights on community development from a range of social sciences disciplines. It is a cross- or interdisciplinary approach interested in the utilization of ICTs for different forms of community action, as distinct from pure academic study or research about ICT effect on the elderly, or those living in remote locations in Developed Countries.

At the forefront of this new field of research is Michael Gurstein, Director of the Center for Community Informatics Research, Training and Development in Vancouver, Canada, which works with communities, ICT practitioners, researchers, governments and agencies as a resource for enabling and empowering communities with Information and Communications Technologies. In community informatics, the past decade has also seen conferences in many countries, and there is an emerging literature for theoreticians and practitioners including the on-line Journal of Community Informatics.

What is intriguing is that in a recent ReadWriteWeb article outlining Gurstein's thoughts, community informatics takes a micro-analytical approach in studying how information affects communities. In this instance, it's found that opening up data freely on the web actually had adverse effects. In one informatics study called Bhoomi: ‘E-Governance’, Or, An Anti-Politics Machine Necessary to Globalize Bangalore?, digitization and related digital access to land title records in Bangalore had the direct effect of shifting power and wealth to those with the financial resources and skills to use this information in self-interested ways. This type of study is a counterbalance to what many have proposed for the open data movement. Will opening up information benefit society or just a segment of society of the wealthy? It is these types of questions which will be important for the next version of the web.

The Web of Things

The Web of Things mean different things to different people. Some argue that the Web of Things will be the crucial ingredient for the realization of Web 3.0. Dominique Guinard is at the forefront of this cutting edge technology, and is researching on the very idea of connecting people and objects on the web. Keep an eye out for him. You might hear about him one of these days.

What's In Store for Web x.0?

The definition of Web 3.0 is as elusive as it gets. However, it's getting much clearer than it was one year ago. Many of the technologies in the Web 2.0 world are paving the way for the next version of the Web. The elements of augmented reality and locative media that the iPhone has shown us in its brief history is indication that the web extends beyond the digital world.

Some web experts believe that combining the digital and physical worlds requires the help of hardware devices that can layer on top of the reality the information retrieved from the cloud to a user’s accounts on various sites. Whereas the social web exists in a predominantly digital atmosphere, Web 3.0 extends to a physical realm where Internet-connected “social devices” faced with a local problem can “talk” with other artifacts that can provide their experience about that situation, or likewise offer information that may help to come up with a solution to the problem.

What does this all mean? More to come in upcoming postings.

Introducing The Social Network

"You don't get to a 500 million friends without making a few enemies."

With those epic words, the tone has been set for this what must be the most enigmatic movie of the summer. What does the world really think of Mark Zuckerberg? Adapted from Ben Mezrich's The Accidental Billionaires, The Social Network adds an element of mystique to the rise of Facebook. It's been six years since the release of Facebook, so what have we learned about it? What are your thoughts about Facebook? Here are mine:

1. Socializing Has Changed - "Friending" has evolved from merely adding friends and strangers. It's changed the way we make communicate, the way we talk, email, instant message, even our phones. How do you find someone? You don't - you Facebook them.

2. Business Is About 'Stickiness' - Entire businesses have been built on Facebook. Think of the social graph, and how it's leveraged the idea of 6 degrees of separation into a new entrepreneurial paradigm. Applications like Faceconnector integrates CRM and the data produced by Facebook into entirely new social tools for business. In less than 5 years, Facebook has indirectly helped many businesses earn a lot of money; if that isn't making friends, what is?

3. Software Is Lighter - Cloud computing and software-as-a-service have forever altered computing. While the cloud has provided over-the-Internet virtual resources eliminating many services, SaaS has similarly afforded inexpensive way for businesses to use software as needed rather than license devices with applications. Why settle for a hard drive when you can upload to Xdrive? How about Gmail on the go? Facebook is not only a social network, it's an entertainment and social service.

4. Privacy Has Changed - Things have never been quite the same after Facebook. Whereas before, one had to create a homepage to get noticed, Facebook has made everyone a celebrity. This commodification of status has its drawbacks though: you no longer can hide yourself, and whatever we, where we go, has its digital traces. Sometimes, it's just better to block it out.

The Digital Roadmap Comes Undone?

In a recent Atlantic Monthly article, Michael Hirschorn proposes in Closing the Digital Frontier that we are close to an era of the "digital Wild West," that vast electronic ecology where everything that roamed online was designed to be free of charge. This has all changed, as we have entered a shift of the digital frontier from the Web, where the browser "ruled supreme," to one where the smart phone, the app and the pricing plan now increasingly controls the digital world. There are signs that this is coming to be; however, if this is fully realized, then this is nothing more than an enormous radical shift from openness of the knowledge web to a closed system of entrepreneurial reign.

Digital freedom, of the monetary and First Amendment varieties, may in retrospect have become our era’s version of Manifest Destiny, our Turner thesis. Embracing digital freedom was an exaltation, a kind of noble calling.

Hirschorn makes a good case, and the facts are there to back up the concept of a digital frontier slowly being shaped into something capitalistic. In the U.S., there are only three major cell-phone networks, a handful of smart-phone makers, and one company that has essentially endeavoured for the entire life of the Internet to combating the idea of open, or as Chris Anderson hailed, the revolution of "free." It's true - just think of how difficult it is for one to move legally purchased digital downloads.

Perhaps Apple has subtly taken on the digital battle that Microsoft had badly bungled when Google came along. We are already witnessing media companies pushing content through apps alongside (or even instead of) their Web sites. Netflix plans to send movies and TV shows directly to TV sets, making their customers’ experience virtually indistinguishable from ordering up on-demand shows by remote control. The web has truly moved to the living room TV, as Bill Gates had once predicted (although accidentally and largely incorrectly before the Web) in the Road Ahead.

This is an unnerving proposition. Is this the end of the era of browser dominance? Hirschorn points out that Twitter, like other recent social networks, is not even bothering with its Web site, choosing to instead focus on its more fully-featured smart-phone app. TweetDeck, which collates feeds across multiple social networks, is not even browser-based.

Have we truly entered the age where apps will compete and ultimately win over the web, as more authors and companies put their text, audio, and video behind pay walls? Google is endeavouring to find ways to link through pay walls and across platforms, but this model will clearly will be challenged by the upcoming changes to the web. Its long standing neutrality and impartiality regarding Adsense and Adwords has already been upended; advertisers now can choose where to place and pull their ads from websites. Google's slowly becoming the advertising matchmaker in the process. If this is really the beginning of the end for free and open access, then the digital wasteland has become undone. Will Web 3.0?

The Race to the Past

Although Read Write Web calls it the ongoing game of cat and mouse between China and Google, in my opinion, this hearkens back to the long history of colonialism in the 19th and 20th centuries. Much of this tension stems from the Chinese government's suspicion and fear that Google is essentially bypassing Chinese firewalls and spreading Western influence into areas beyond Chinese control. Certainly, from a Western-centric viewpoint, this has always been about democratization and intellectual freedom. However, the same could be said in 1839, when the British aspired to open the doors to China for trade. Hence, the Google vs. China standoff is very much a commercial venture could very well be more about commerce than democracy. Instead of pulling out of China, Google certainly realizes the enormous wealth and lucrative markets of the Chinese, and it simply can't continue as a multinational giant by bypassing 1.31 billion of the world's population.

For that reason alone, rather than pulling out altogether, Google sidestepped any potential conflict this past winter by automatically redirecting its users from Google.cn to Google.com.hk, its Hong Kong search engine. This redirect, which offers unfiltered search in simplified Chinese, has been working well for its users and for Google, as it reports on its latest blog entry.

However, the PRC has stepped up its firmness, as government officials have made it clear that the automatic redirection to Google Hong Kong is no longer acceptable. Google's solution? Instead of redirecting users directly from Google.cn to Google.com.hk, the Chinese homepage will now simply link to its Hong Kong counterpart, which allows users to search free of censorship. As many have commented, the best Google can hope for is to find an acceptable middle ground so that it can honor its own commitment to unfiltered search results while working within the rules set by the Chinese government. And Hong Kong's Google site seems to be that solution, if not long-term, then at least temporarily.

It's interesting, and perhaps historically relevant that Hong Kong is the compromise. A landing spot for much of its history until its recent commercial success this latter part of the 20th century, Hong Kong has always been an entrepot, an entry point where migrants, travelers, and traders stationed temporarily to either evade state authorities or build support for political upheaval. In fact, Hong Kong is where the seeds of Sun Yat-sen's 1911 revolution had taken place. Almost 100 years later, Hong Kong finds itself enmeshed again between the two powers which divide the orient.

Googling for the News

In a recent article in the Atlantic Monthly, Google is intriguingly portrayed as both the destroyer and saviour of the news industry. Certainly, while Google has forever changed the way users access the news, and practice journalism, Google also realizes it needs to salvage the industry as it is crucial to its own survival as a business.

Google's goal is to reinvent business model to sustain professional news-gathering, particularly as “crowd sourcing” and citizen journalism has transformed news coverage. As one of its executives argues, newspapers never made money on ‘news' coverage, Hal Varian argues, automotive sections, real-estate, gardening, travel, or technology had drew profits where advertisers could target their ads -- not serious journalism.

What Google (and the Web) has been done is level this into one giant system for stripping away these "cross-subsidies" current, up-to-the-minute information can be searchable. (Who searches for latest movie listings from newspapers anyways?) This type of "unbundling," as Google puts it, allows users to find the one article they are looking for, rather than making them buy the entire paper that paid the reporter, "all the while allowing advertisers to reach the one customer who is searching for their product, rather than making them advertise to an entire class of readers."

In fact, as Eric Schmidt forecasts:

It’s obvious that in five or 10 years, most news will be consumed on an electronic device of some sort. Something that is mobile and personal, with a nice color screen. Imagine an iPod or Kindle smart enough to show you stories that are incremental to a story it showed you yesterday, rather than just repetitive. And it knows who your friends are and what they’re reading and think is hot. And it has display advertising with lots of nice color, and more personal and targeted, within the limits of creepiness. And it has a GPS and a radio network and knows what is going on around you.

This is already what many pundits say the next generation web, or Web 3.0, will look like. I'm wondering if Google is just holding back on the good news.

Henry Jenkins' From Youtube to YouNiversity

Henry Jenkins is the creator of the Comparative Media Studies (CMS) graduate program at MIT, and can be considered an innovator in digital culture. At its core, his MIT program has encouraged students to think across media, across historical periods, across national borders, across academic disciplines, across the divide between theory and practice and across the divides between the academy and the rest of society. Although he has moved on to being Professor of Communication, Journalism, and Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California, his blog entries continue to be as interesting as ever.

Blogs represent a powerful tool for engaging in these larger public conversations. At my university, we noticed that a growing number of students were developing blogs focused on their thesis research. Many of them were making valuable professional contacts; some had developed real visibility while working on their master's degrees; and a few received high-level job offers based on the professional connections they made on their blogs. Blogging has also deepened their research, providing feedback on their arguments, connecting them to previously unknown authorities, and pushing them forward in ways that no thesis committee could match. Now all of our research teams are blogging not only about their own work but also about key developments in their fields.

As Jenkins argues, academic programs are only starting to explore how they might deploy these new media platforms -- blogs and podcasts especially -- to expand the visibility of their research and scholarship. Watch Jenkin's ideas in this intriguing video - it certainly adds flavour to the argument of the participatory culture of learning.

Wolfram Alpha and Year One of the Shroud of Turin

One year after the release of Wolfram Alpha, the hoopla has come and gone. It just seems as if the world wasn't quite ready for Wolfram to come and grab the spotlight away from Google. Heavily weighted toward computational queries, with blended tendency of manipulating its data sets as opposed to simply retrieving what is actually available on the Web means its results can be more authoritative than a list of links.

As a result, Wolfram has "sold out" in a way, as it plans to make over its home page, and will start adding data for more pop-culture-friendly information such as sports, music, health information, and even its own take on local mapping. The problem is that Wolfram just doesn't know what it's for: as one pundit puts it, "Wolfram Alpha is like a cross between a research library, a graphing calculator, and a search engine."

Another challenge for Wolfram is that unlike Google, Wolfram expects to cash in on its enterprise: let's put it this way, it isn't doing this for knowledge dissemination. It plans to sell subscriptions to advanced users who want to do thing like blend their own custom data with Alpha's engine. The question remains: who's going to use it? Its business model is incumbent on a smaller, elite set of expert users. Google, on the other hand, has a business model that's shown a way to work based on use by just about everybody. There's a neatly aligned financial alliance between more users and revenue.

It's unfortunate as Wolfram Alpha came out with a great deal of anticipation and hope. Stephen Wolfram's presentation was very much as if he was uncovering new findings from the Shroud of Turin. Audience members anxiously waited their turns to throw questions which Wolfram easily captured with his new search engine. Unfortunately, for the past year, it appears as if much has come up short.