Just saying.....

I'm reviving this blog because I think I'd like to share a few thoughts.
The posts that precede this one are all from a Grad Cert ICT I did in 2009.I've thought of deleting them so I could start new but I thought what the hell, where would I archive them, they are sort of useful so I'll leave them.
From the dates you will see that they are all over 3 years old.  Hopefully I've moved on...
How? Where to? Well stay tuned - but basically: I realised we are in a different century than the last one - new rules, new music, new economy, new life. I've changed (again) from being a teacher to being a far more creative thinker and doer and I'm getting to the last few decades where I can think and communicate coherently - so I better speak up now.

Debrief on the POD Exercise

3 stages of interaction called socialization, alliance building and forming a team to do the work.

The background writing for the exercise (as well as the final recommendations) can be found both as part of this blog and on the Blue Group Ning. All of this material is to be considered when evaluating my contribution to Blue's work This post is just a personal debrief of the POD work structured according to one of the questions on the sample exam paper.

Socialisation

'To get social' with people you've never met or seen for me was a real problem. Fortunately another Blue member (Sarah) had somehow 'decided' that we would use a Ning as the main communication platform and had set it up for us. After inviting everyone, she was a bit vague on what to do next. I made contact with her and suggested we use Skype on a regular Wednesday night to get a better quality communication. Because Sarah had done so much in establishing the project, I aimed at trying to establish a timeline and the various roles that other POD members would play. I published this on the Ning forum.

Alliance Building

By this time, Sarah and I had started to work on the project (as if no other people would come forward). However, soon Andrew and Tyrone replied to their invitations and supported the work that Sarah and I had done. I then published a forum posting for each of the POD questions. Over the previous few weeks, I had collected lots of bookmarks that would help us. My posts included the best links and tried to link bookmarks to particular questions. I also posted a draft set of dot points that covered the main points of question one. Sarah replied to this post with a very expanded and improved version. In the meantime, Andrew had provided his own set of bookmarks and comments linked to each question.

Forming a team

We knew a team was building when we realised that with only a week to go, we were well on track according to the schedule we had set ourselves. At the final meeting, Andrew got us using Google docs, which enabled us to edit all drafts into a final set of recommendations. It's lucky there were only 4 of us because it got a bit complicated when everyone wanted a say. At this stage, I felt I had done enough and didn't want to get in the way of the others. I sort of sat back and watched the document write and edit itself in front of my eyes. It was amazing. I thought the final doc was a pretty good version of what we all thought and did in the activity. I thought the activity was great because it gave us a real and practical way of engaging as an online community and developing a POD.

Exercise 10.1 Social networks case study

Since we have a fine collection of artefacts from our own learning community in this subject, use the references to guide your directions AND figure 1 on mapping the social network as a set of nodes.

As the diagram and grid shows:

James is followed by Sarah and Andy

Sarah is followed by James and Andy

Andrew is followed by James, Sarah and Tyrone

Tyrone is followed by James and Sarah.

If you look at the blogs of the various blue pod members, all of us has a different view of what is a follower and a followee. My definition just looks at each blog and notes the followers as claimed on the site. However, if you also make a person a follower if they posted a comment (but did not register as a follower) then the diagram looks very different. I tended to comment a lot on the main Blue POD site and also on the blogs of the other members but I didn't register as a follower. Therefore the diagram makes my communications minimal and my contribution seem small (and I don't think it was).

The tricky part is deciding whether those followers who are not in Blue POD should be included. This depends on the context of the 'following'. Blue POD activity was based on the CIO recommendation scenario. It had a clear purpose in bringing us together. My (and others) following of non Blues blogs was to ensure that I was up to date with the course work and to see what other students' responses were to the same questions.

If I try to reconcile the nodes proposed by my diagram, I think it is a very simplistic view of the nature of the interactions. I suppose the exercise would be useful in tracing 'pass the parcel' communication scenarios or decoding 'swarm behaviour' but it did not provide much help in documenting how Blue delivered their award winning recommendations (lol).

I think the diagram could be improved by putting arrow heads on the lines to indicate 'flow' and maybe colour coding to designate roles or sub groups and PODs outside the group that contributed. Sarah included follower outside of the Blue POD and I think her effort was better for it.

Exercise 9.2 Research and evaluation in Government 2.0

Summarise the use of Wiki drafts of papers for public discussion and Twitter in Government.

The government has just as much right to use Web 2 tools as any teenager. It just needs to learn how. The writing on http://gov2.net.au/ is very informative and I like the way they have picked up the use of hyperlinking to the various wiki platforms to add information and credibility to the discussion. The blog posts were all very supportive and offered the possibility of real forward movement in this enormous topic. I found the ideas put forward by David Eaves at http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=167627754521&ref=mf and the piece on Inquiry 2.0 at http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=160433599521&ref=mf to be the most interesting.

Oddly, I found the Facebook version of the information more accessible and easy to use. The summaries of the pieces were better presented and it was easier to get around the various topics. Or it may have been the less officious tone of the site.....

Having the Twitter posts at http://gov2.net.au/ did not work at all. Obviously some very fashion conscious people picked up on the funkiness of "Gov 2.0" and inserted it into their Tweets with gay abandon. One of the Tweets somehow made the connection between Gov 2.0 and looking for an audio product to use for recording oral histories. Because they'd dropped the 'Gov 2.0' word, it ended up on the Gov 2.0 site.

I just hope Britany Spears does not mention Gov 2.0 in her Tweets otherwise she'll find herself on the site. I thought the Tweets completely devalued the discussion.

Did you see yourself as a supporter of Government 2.0? If so how did you benefit? If not then explain why. Consider the Gov 2.0 taskforce site at http://gov2.net.au/ and the conference at http://www.gov2.com.au/

This is very difficult question. Part of me says 'What are we paying them for?" I don't ask government to do my job - why should I do theirs. I can see how Web 2 could revolutionise the way the public service operates (God knows the various ministries need better ways to communicate) but I don't know whether I have the time to get too involved in contributing to a debate on anything - I'm too busy with my own life.

But putting my crippling prejudice aside for a minute, I would like shorter lines between the citizenry and the rulers. In some cases (those that impact on me directly) I would like to contribute to a debate. For instance: I'd like to know why my father was arrested by ASIO in 1968 and released a week later without a coherent explanation, I'd like to know why both state and federal governments routinely use IBM and Microsoft products and services instead of supporti

ng the AUSTRALIAN IT industry, I'd like to know roughly how much money it takes to keep soldiers in Iraq when we can't afford to provide enough beds for sick people in our hospitals - but if I could post my thoughts to the Gov 2.0 blog, would anyone care?

Wouldn't Gov 2.o just be a wailing wall for the disenfranchised IT literates?

Exercise 9.1 Is social networking a business model ?

What are the arguments for and against social networking being classified as a business model?

Arguments for-

Business is almost by definition a social activity. It makes sense that newly developed constructs such as the social networking tools of Web 2 have now become important business tools. Who you know is now just as important as what you know. Therefore sites such as Linkedin really cut to the chase: a supercharged resume that not only contains links to past employers, published works and current circles of influence but also makes it very easy for people to contact the person is as many ways as the 'linkedin' person is able to provide. Linkedin has some very powerful people 'on their site' and its is very easy to trawl the site for people who might be able to improve your opportunities.

Arguments against-

Business (ie money/profit) is not the only reason for interacting/networking. It is only one reason and non monetary ones are usually more exciting and useful. Unfortunately some people cannot separate money from anything. People who are open and trusting enough to document their worlds on Linkedin (and other potent social networking sites) must receive far more 'non profitable' requests than useful ones. For some, it could become a full time job just evaluating who is real, useful or a pain in the arse.

Sometimes anonymity is better. Only those who have gone through considerable effort and shown lots of ingenuity are rewarded with one to one dialog with the person they most want to meet.

Exercise 8.4: Aggregation, syndication and the social engine

a) RSS is an XML application needed for aggregation and syndication, often called a Web 'feed'. What is RSS and explain what aggregation and syndication are and how they have changed the nature of the Web. How do you subscribe to an RSS feed? Try some of these RSS enabled sites such as itunes.com and the notions of "swarm" and "stack" at digg.com

RSS (most commonly translated as "Really Simple Syndication" but sometimes "Rich Site Summary") is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format. An RSS document (which is called a "feed", "web feed", or "channel") includes full or summarized text, plus metadata such as publishing dates and authorship. Web feeds benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content automatically. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS In general internet terms, a news aggregation website is a website where headlines are collected, usually manually, by the website owner. Examples of this sort of website are the Drudge Report, The Political Simpleton and the Huffington Post. There are also websites like Google News, where aggregation is entirely automatic, using algorithms which carry out contextual analysis and group similar stories together. In computing, a feed aggregator, also known as a feed reader, news reader or simply aggregator, is client software or a Web application which aggregates syndicated web content such as news headlines, blogs, podcasts, and vlogs in a single location for easy viewing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggregator syndication Hide links within definitionsDefinitionSupply of content (articles, cartoons, stories, etc.) orinformation (business and economic data, news stories, etc.) on a subscription basis to marketers or media (periodicals, radio and television, websites). http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/syndication.html

What is Digg?

Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. From the biggest online destinations to the most obscure blog, Digg surfaces the best stuff as voted on by our users. You won’t find editors at Digg — we’re here to provide a place where people can collectively determine the value of content and we’re changing the way people consume information online.How do we do this? Everything on Digg — from news to videos to images — is submitted by our community (that would be you). Once something is submitted, other people see it and Digg what they like best. If your submission rocks and receives enough Diggs, it is promoted to the front page for the millions of our visitors to see.

Swarm and Stack

The best information about Swarm and Stack can be found at http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/07/17/digg-to-add-sports-swarm-stack/. It shows its good visualisations but probably the best information is on the blog that accompanies the page. Lots of pros and cons about s&s. Basically s&s is about presenting lists of links grouped into categories. The list items are prioritised according to how many people have accessed the link. It's meant to keep you up to date with 'what's happenning' i.e become part of the 'swarm' by consuming what's at the top of the 'stack' you are most interested in.

b) del.icio.us is a social bookmarking website. What does this mean and what are the advantages for workgroups? Discuss how del.icio.us uses the term 'tag' in a different context to what Web publishers would be familiar.

del.icio.us aggregates bookmarks according to category and allow sophisticated searching to further define topics. The topics are 'tagged'. A tag is simply a word you can use to describe a bookmark. Unlike folders, you make up tags when you need them and you can use as many as you like. The result is a better way to organize your bookmarks and a great way to discover interesting things on the Web. A tag cloud is list of tags where size reflects popularity.http://delicious.com/tag/

Web developers use tags (ie metatags) to 'seed' web pages so that search engines will put them high in the list if search engine results. Their choice of words for metatags does not always match the tags athat are given to pages by Delicious users because the motives for tagging are different.

c) How do you see services such as those provided at the GoToWeb20.net site as changing the way that YOU and your future workgroups operate?When I went to GoToWeb20.net, I thought the idea of aggregating web2 tools very appealing. I'm frustrated because there are so many tools and they are located all over the web. GoToWeb20.net is a directory and as such is not really responsible for the content. I found the content to be pretty thin on the ground when you visited the sites. Most of the applications were either very basic or poor versions of more successful web 2 tools. I personally do not think the world needs more services, it needs now to use the current services more effectively. Much of the quality of the sites depends on the amount of traffic/content. Increasing the number of services decreases the potential traffic (and potentially content) for each service. iTunes is successful because of the enormous amount of content and traffic. The very intelligent tagging system in delicious is great for research and staying in touch via the RSS feeds. d) Explain how the Elgg social engine works on a Web site where it is installed? Is this the type of application you want on your Web server in the workplace?

Once installed, the Elgg social engine is able to collect user data based on their interaction with the suite of web 2 tools implicit in Elgg. The data can be used to influence the behaviour and opinion of users through pushing information (that may have been collected from other users within the same group). To me this sounds a bit like mind control depending on how intelligent, broadminded and 'well read' users are and how 'honourable the administrators are. In a business entity, I think this could be used in a very negative way and seems to go beyond the level of privacy normally expected in countries like Australia. Potentially, prospective employees could be asked (or not) whether they would consent to having the app installed on their computer. They possibly could be refused employment if they did not consent to the app.

The Elgg feature set can be found at http://docs.elgg.org/wiki/Features

Exercise 8.3 Data portability, FOAF and the Semantic Web

How does the FOAF tag form part of the Semantic Web and Web services via social networks?

When data goes into a web interface repository, it is either manually or automatically tagged so that it is 'positioned' within the semantic web. While some may see this as an invasion of privacy, the benefit is that the more information the users offer about themselves via forms, polls, profiles etc., the more powerful will be the associations made using the FOAF idiom.

In order for the search engines to make sense of the gigabytes of free data keyed into the web each hour, they must make a call on connections and expected outcomes. If I compare my facebook page of today, I find it is infinately richer than when I created it only a few months ago. This is because the semantic web databases have processed my information stream continuously and as I make choices about which friend to accept and on which to remove, at the same time I'm telling the Semantic web a bit more about myself.

In return, the semantic web is saying 'Oh - I didn't know you cared so much about that person, issue, image,sound file, youtube clip etc. But now that I know that new information, here's a whole lot of new information/multimedia/memberships that (because of your recent choices) should be even more useful to you than last week's.'

If we 'get into the code', the metadata of the discrete webpages (and the server logs that describe our activity) we consume, reveal very accurately what sort of person we are. The FOAF tags not only broadcast our identity through syndicated sites but distill our choices into XML strings - and if we are to truly harness the power of the web - that's the way it should be. I'm not afraid of big brother.