10 useful things to do with a blummy wiki January 29, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : tools, Wiki , comments closedAlex Kirk has released a major update to blummy which makes it even more useful in my opinion. ( If you haven’t encountered blummy yet, I linked back in October )
The addition of a personal wiki instantly accessible from any computer is no feature bloat, it’s a logical extension to the idea of web hosted personal and social bookmarklets.
A personal wiki is a scratch pad and an extension of your own memory - not a collaborative space like a mediawiki.
It’s completely portable across platforms and computers, so I can use it just to keep short term “to do” lists with instant continuity between homes and workplaces. It’s getting close to the point where all I have to do on a strange computer for the first time is to load firefox and add the blummy bookmarklet to the toolbar.
10 useful things to do with Blummy Wiki
1) Store the URL for your own blog so you can paste it in when leaving comments etc.
2) Store short pieces of frequently used code relevent to the current project.
3) Maintain a private but portable “to do” list.
4) Jot down a phone number which somebody tells you.
5) Collect potentially interesting URLs from messages while you’re reading them, then Furl+deli.cio.us them more systematically later.
6) Write down a new idea in one sentence before it evaporates.
7) Save your last comment in case it fails to publish.
Refactor part of a Wikipedia entry before submitting it when their servers are too slow.
9) Write a reflective haiku.
10) Capture details of expenses to make sure they end up in accounts.
Tags: blummy, wiki, bookmarklet, web2.0, cop2.0, firefox
Mashups and CoP2.0 January 29, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : General , comments closed
It strikes me that looking at this new development of mashups from the point of view of trying to find out how you might choose one of them to benefit a particular community, or to facilitate our own learning, could be slightly missing the point.
It’s not as if there is an option to decide that mashups probably aren’t of interest to you, so you can mostly ignore them and they will go away.
Because this thing is already happening and it’s changing the way the people we all deal with are going to use their computers.
Fundamentally, I think it represents a final and irreversible shift away from the architecture of desktop/laptop computers and onto the internet itself. By providing open APIs, the big database owners - Google, Yahoo, Amazon etc have set up an ecosystem whereby the next generation of applications development centres around them rather than around Microsoft, Apple or Linux.
How will this shift in the big picture affect us?
That’s a topic worth exploring, in my opinion and I’d like to venture a few suggestions to get started.
1) Some new members will approach the existing communities having already had experience with rich, dynamic and compelling interfaces. If they are expected to fit in with an existing setup which looks dull and obsolete to them, they might just laugh out loud and then build their own cop2.0 instead.
2) The commoditisation of non-proprietary entry level computers will drive down the cost so that much of the rest of the world will be able to be connected.
3) It will matter even less which computer you happen to be sitting at today. Digital identity and synchronisation of workflows will be rolled out to everyone so that they bring all their own stuff with them when they join in.
4) Community links and ties will be more explicit, perhaps even to the extent that automated systems will be able to depict the existence of potential CoPs just waiting to be crystallised out.
5) Overall, perhaps there will be a tendency for CoPs2.0 to be more easily created and then dissipated again, with less clear boundaries and more rapidly shifting internal and external dynamics.
If none of this makes any sense at all then try reading “Mashup ecosystem poised to explode” at zdnet
“With mashups, much the same way blogging systems put Web publishing into the hands of millions of ordinary non-technical people, the barrier to developing applications and turning creativity into innovation is so low that there’s a vacuum into which an entire new class of developers will be sucked. It’s already happening. “
Tags: mashups, cop2.0, mashup, web2.0
Audio January 28, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : General , comments closedFor a change from all the read/write stuff, I’ve finally got around to upgrading some of my audio capabilities. The griffiniMic purchased last year came out of its packaging and was connected to the USB hub trailing from my Mac mini. A computer microphone and speakers were plugged into the iMic, and everything started working straight away.
I couldn’t find a simple sound recording program on my computer so I started up garageband and tried that. After a bit of searching about for the editing and effects options, I was ready to go with my first live recording omto the mac. It’s a short burst of my version of Joe Cocker’s version of ‘with a little help from my friends’. Learning how to use iTunes to convert the aiff to mp3 took as long again, but good enough is good enough, so publish and move on.
Next to install Skype and attempt a Voice over Internet call. I tried to register with variations of my own name but as usual, one of the other 350,000 Andy Roberts had already taken them all. So I fell back on an old one, “magpiecrow” - that’s the name to add to your contacts please. Skype me.
I called lindiop and it was quite nice having a good quality voice coming from the computer speakers instead of a telephone, although the feedback and delay is a bit offputting. I don’t really like making telephone calls but this particular technology is probably going to be essential to my plans so I’ll have to find a way at least to put up with it.
Barn raising January 23, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Wiki , comments closedI’ve just twigged this idea of holding a barn raising party for launching a wiki. The story was told in the CPsquare web2.0 conference about the launch of the NVC wiki last month. It reminds me a little of the origins of traditional Breton step dancing, which was a kind of house warming party through which the new inhabitants get welcomed to the village and they get their brand new earthen floor nicely compacted as well.
The idea of barn raising to launch a wiki is actually documented on the meatball community wiki:
BarnRaising occurs when a community actively decides to come to the same place at the same time to help achieve some specific goal.
It’s pretty much impossible for one person to raise a barn. The main part of the process is taking two framed walls that have been built lying on the ground and raising them to vertical. Thus BarnRaising demands collaboration in a way that other activities do not.
then you have a big party with everyone who’s around. That’s where the social aspect of it comes from. Lift some walls, rejoice and dance.
So now I’m planning to host a barn raising party myself to launch the DAR wiki in March. Instead of just an online exhibition with feedback, I’ll put the word out that it’s a barn raising event and generate a sense of occasion for getting a new collaborative wiki off the ground.
Tags: barnraising, wiki, launch, CoP2.0, distributedactionresearch
Frankie Roberto - Citizen journalist January 22, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : london bloggers, social media, wildlife, internet, Flickr, London , comments closed“All in all, a good few days for citizen journalism, if not so great for the whale.”
So concludes a lengthy blog from Frankie Roberto who has taken a big interest in citizen journalism and wikinews recently. No doubt he has his reasons for doing so.
frankie roberto blog - Citizen journalists report on the London whale
photo by Mr Jaded
Tags: London, blogging, citizen, journalism, media, news, websites, whale
Dear future self January 20, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : General , 1 comment so far43things have added a feature which seems to integrate nicely with the whole idea of goal setting, smart tasks, todo list and so on. When you set a new goal, you now have the option to send a message to your future self about it.
Dear future self,
I’m reminding you about your stated goal on 43 things, to “Write a 100 word topic proposal on distributed action research”.
How’s it going?
Sincerely,
Your past self
The above message will now be sent to me in one week’s time, just when I’m really busy doing something else. No doubt there will then be some kind of ’snooze’ button - remind me again in another week or similar - so to what extent do I really want to be nagged by my own past self?
Web2.0 as a double meme January 10, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : web2.0 , add a commentSomebody at the cpsquare web2.0 conference suggested it would be fun to consider web2.0 as a meme.
So I had a go at it…
Web2.0 combines two memes
I think web2.0 might be broken down into at least two memes. The first meme is the idea of the read/write web, the bloggers thinking they are the first people to be interacting over the network and the struggle to reclaim the web from the broadcasters. There’s something about this kind of interactivity which is very infectious compared with the old style forums. Perhaps its because blogs show up in google.
The second meme is the ‘2.0′ thing which suggest that a qualitative tipping point has been reached , whereby a new era is being ushered in with a major redesign of how things are meant to work.
The 2.0 meme is now sucessfully attaching itself to a multiplicity of other words, beginning as parody but then taking on substance as we saw in the identity2.0 video which seemed to be making a quite serious point.
So the combination of two memes may have produced something more vigorous then the seperate components added together - or the 2.0 section may burn itself out through proliferation.
Technorati Tags: web2.0, meme, cop2.0
This isn’t your Dad’s search engine January 10, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : tools , comments closed“Warning: This isn’t your Dad’s search engine”
says Wink.
Which gets me thinking about what my Dad’s search engine is like. I really ought to go and find out sometime, last time I was there it was google on Internet Explorer, or maybe MSN search. So should I pass Wink on to my sons and then not use it myself or am I just overreacting to the implied slur on Dads 
When I tried the “synchronise with del.icio.us” option it crashed the database, by the way.
Other useful concepts to explore January 8, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Action Research , add a commentMore gems extracted from Rosanna’s feedback
*other useful concepts to explore:
1. Communicating and learning styles
2. Linguistics of email
3. “media richness” and personality styles
There are studies I know of in these fields, if you like to dig more, just ask me.
If these studies are available online then I’d like to link to them from the DAR wiki.
*practical ideas on how to do DAR:
A. starting with testing the several definitions:
Majerstin discovered about 44 definitions of CoPs. Plus there are similar concepts that are worthy a reflection upon IMHO.
B. gathering case-studies and seeing how many of them match a definition of CoP and in case which one:
MANY “studies” call a bunch of people a CoP WITHOUT specifying the properties that makes it a CoP (or not). I could tell you which authors to stay away with, in case ***grin***
OK, I’ll need to look into this at some point.
I’m aware that the term CoP can get thrown around near online groups which don’t meet the criteria - I have used Etienne Wenger’s definition of a CoP requiring an identified
- domain
- community
- practice
I wrote about this at the outset of my research with the craft cidermakers community.
C. using qualitative and quantitative measures
D. using linguistic analysis of collaborative exchanges and artifacts as qualitative measures of the “degree of CoP” present in a group of professionals.
Linguistic analysis could be could be very interesting if I knew how to do it, and I’d have to have some idea of how it might bring some benefits or improvements to the community or the practice. I’ve identified that both qualitative and quantitative data analysis can be appropriate to action research methodology. Some people think it has to be all qualitative, but I think that arises from bending the stick too far the other way in contrast to positivist methodologies.
Kock (1997) depicts four popular myths about action research methodology:
- (1) That action research is necessarily opposed to positivism;
- (2) That, in order to allow for “true emergence” of research findings, action research should begin without a clear research framework;
- (3) That action research is necessarily a qualitative research approach;
- 4) That action research, due to usually not relying on heavy statistical analysis, allows for fast and easy data collection and analysis.
I had a bit of trouble finding that paper again online, it seems to have been taken down by the university site but here it is via the wayback machine
Technorati Tags: distributedactionresearch, actionresearch, communitiesofpractice
Web 2.0 and Communities of Practice conference January 7, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Action Research, tools , add a commentI’ve been invited into the CPsquare community to take part in this online mini-conference. It’s ostensibly about tools but quickly becomes more than that because everybody is interested in the community aspect. There are people wanting to take up action research with CoPs too, so that makes it well worth my getting involved with. The only thing is it’s behind password protection so I can’t link in, but here’s the public blog:
CPsquare is holding an online mini-conference in January 2006 to focus on 5-6 major technologies (or tool groups) that reflect the qualities of what is being termed “Web 2.0,” probably staying on each one for 2-3 days in an online discussion that’s introduced by a telephone conference. For each tool we’ll consider how it’s actually used in a community of practice (or speculate how it could be used).
Technorati Tags: cpsquare, cop2.0, distributedactionresearch, communitiesofpractice
is an online professional who initiated DARnet 
