Category: Four pillars

“You can unleash the players and be confident that you will like the results”

That’s a quote from a wonderful interview of Pierre Omidyar in Release 1.0, March 2006.

In the article, he says that the challenge is to create the right environment where you can “unleash the players and be confident that you will like the results”. In his view, such an environment has three aspects:

  • open access to all
  • open connection (as in ability to communicate and to transact)
  • skin in the game (ownership and accountability)

What he says about markets and environments is as true for institutions. Every firm needs to know how to attract people, retain them, develop them and extend their potential. Omidyar’s rules rule. You should read the whole article.

I’d saved up the March issue to read en route to PC Forum, and to use to annotate the sessions. Unfortunately circumstances were such I could not go. So I got to read it on holiday.

It is probably the single most important print journal I subscribe to, in terms of things that challenge and educate me. Esther Dyson can be relied upon to bring together the people that matter on subjects that matter, and summarise things her unique way. Opensource. Blogs and wikis. Collaboration in general. Tags. Trust. Attention and intention. Identity. Consumerisation. In each case, things I was experimenting with became clearer in my mind as a result of reading the journal.

Sometimes people come up to me and claim that I have A-list-blogger syndrome, that I like having conversations with the bloggerati. And the way it’s said, it’s a bit like being accused of being studious and a teacher’s pet while at school. My reaction is the same as it was when I was at school. What matters to me is that I learn.

Stop, children, what’s that sound?

…. There’s something happening here.
What it is ain’t exactly clear.
There’s a man with a gun over there,
Telling me I got to beware.
I think it’s time we stop, children, what’s that sound?
Everybody look what’s going down

Stephen Stills, For What It’s Worth 

We live in interesting times.

A couple of nonfiction writers (Baigent and Leigh) sue a writer of fiction (Dan Brown), apparently about copyright. Weird that one of the antagonists in the fiction book is called Sir Leigh Teabing (an anagram of Baigent).

Apple Corp and Apple Inc go to court fighting about something to do with their names. And play a Coldplay song to prove some point or the other. I guess I should be glad that they didn’t ask Chris Martin what his daughter’s called, since it could be argued she has some connection with music.

And eBay. And RIM. And Chinese manufacturers suing US ones. And more and more patents being taken out everywhere, just at the point that even legal eagles seem to be agreeing that the system is wrong. Defensive patents. Frivolous patents. Expensive battles.
Everybody look what’s going down.

Unfinished journey

Some books I’m reading right now:

For most of the titles, it’s second time around. I like savouring things. The British Empire “confidential” pamphlet is intriguing, and I will be posting about it later.

Welcome to the Pleasure Dome

No, not the album by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. I’m a tad too old for that.

Instead, it’s about this. A 1949 album, “an audible anthology of modern poetry read by its creators”, edited by someone called Lloyd Frankenberg. And the album is a Long Playing Microgroove Record, the first I’ve bought in twenty years.

Amazing stuff. Readings by TS Eliot, Marianne Moore, ee cummings, William Carlos Williams, Ogden Nash, WH Auden, Dylan Thomas, Eliazabeth Bishop.

  • Never knew such an album existed.
  • Never thought I’d ever hear the voices of some of these giants of my youth.
  • Never dreamt I would be able to acquire such a collection.
  • Particularly an album with ink autographs of some of the poets.
  • And none of this would have been remotely possible except for the web and for trust and for humanity.
  • Without collaborative filtering on some other purchase I would not have known of the album’s existence. Period.
  • The seller preferred to deal locally, having been burnt by international would-be buyers before. Without my PayPal and eBay credentials, and without my Google visibility (this he only told me about later) he would not have sold it to me.
  • Without my innate belief in humanity, and without my trust experience with eBay and PayPal, I would not have paid the pretty penny it took.

But. It’s in my hands. And Barry’s happy; Paypal’s happy; eBay’s happy. And I am happy.

And I am even happier that all 8 poets had Wikipedia entries.

 

Judy Breck and Open Content

Some of you may have read my earlier post on Michael Schrage’s recent article in the Financial Times, pointing out some of the pitfalls associated with computers in classrooms. Some of you may even have seen Clarence Fisher’s almost-angry but later calmer response, a reaction similar to mine.

Why did we respond initially that way? Because of the number of people who keep damning the use of technology in education with faint praise, I guess. Because of the wasted opportunities.

So it was a good day to come home and find Judy Breck’s “109 Ideas for Virtual Learning” waiting for me. Delightful book, one that any and every one interested in 21st century education should read.

Here’s an excerpt from JSB’s foreword:

Let me dwell a moment on this powerful metaphor, an ecology of learning, founded not just on the vast information now readily accessible on the Internet but also the tools that amplify the social aspects of learning — learning in communities, learning with amateurs interacting with professionals, learning as a constantly expanding exploration of ideas.

Emphasis mine. JSB also makes the point about learning-to-be rather than learning-about, as a result of the feedback loops and social networks and participatory process. Brings to mind an old Maths professor of mine, who used to chide us regularly saying “All you do is commit to memory and vomit to paper“. Sounds better with his accent, where he made commit and vomit rhyme just fine.

I quote from Judy:

That transforming idea for education is this: The network, patterning structure of what a mind can know is mirrored in the network, patterning structure of the open Internet.

Powerful stuff. But my first-time around favourites are in ideas 8, 80 and 42. Why only open content will endure. Why open content is a bargain. And The Grand Idea.

I particularly like how Judy approaches the walled-garden problem from an educationist’s perspective. Here’s what she says on page 30:

“It will not work out to have open and closed content in parallel because knowledge itself is connected and that connectivity is dynamic. Only open content will endure because closed pieces of content are excluded from the dynamics.”

And then she goes on to say:

“A knowledge asset closed and isolated in a single website may be an expensive animation of a scientific principle, an erudite essay by a field-leading professor, or a rights-protected journal article. Many of these kinds of assets exist in the closed sections of the Internet. The knowledge quality of what these assets contain may be absolutely first-rate.”

“Even the highest quality isolated assets are a cut below open content because they are isolated from the larger context of their subject.”

Wow. Just go buy the book. Now.

Open content is not about tree-hugging tax-avoiding music-pirating downright UnAmerican activities. Open content is about learning and discovery and magic and our children and Judy’s Golden Age.

 

Â