My friend Bob just hooked me up with a Google Wave account. After watching a few intro videos it looks like it will be a really powerful, real-time collaboration tool that allows you to mix text, rss feeds, photos and video in a rich, web-based interface. The current drawback is that the user base is very restricted. Since Wave is meant to be a collaborative tool its usefulness is constrained until my classmates can get access.
In social web class this week I learned about the distinction of strong and weak ties. Strong ties are those in our inner circle of friends and family who we have established, trusting relationships with. Weak ties are connections to others we know or know of via friends, conferences, social networking sites, etc. Weak ties turn out to be a strong asset and the social web is making it much easier to expand and take full advantage of this network. A 2008 New York Times article had this to say:
This rapid growth of weak ties can be a very good thing. Sociologists have long found that “weak ties” greatly expand your ability to solve problems. For example, if you’re looking for a job and ask your friends, they won’t be much help; they’re too similar to you, and thus probably won’t have any leads that you don’t already have yourself. Remote acquaintances will be much more useful, because they’re farther afield, yet still socially intimate enough to want to help you out. Many avid Twitter users — the ones who fire off witty posts hourly and wind up with thousands of intrigued followers — explicitly milk this dynamic for all it’s worth, using their large online followings as a way to quickly answer almost any question.
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Last weekend was my first intensive of the year at BGI. I decided to join the Social Web for Social Change class with the intent to become more skillful at using the web to influence people to toward consciously living in harmony with others and the planet.
A considerable portion of our class discussion was dedicated to online privacy and the implications of sharing ourselves via social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. It became evident that we have yet to see the implications on careers and life paths with so many peoples’ lives publicly recorded for all to see. With the majority of social networking sites’ default behaviour set to show most of your information unless you intentionally disable or limit access, your life and connections are available to anyone with a web browser. Is this a good thing? Read More »
So I just jumped into a course called Using the Social Web for Social Change as part of my MBA in sustainable development at BGI. Part of the requirements are to keep a personal learning journal to publicly share my learnings throughout the semester. I thought I would do so here in an effort to add some life to my somewhat idle blog.
Week 1 was on social bookmarking, mostly focused on delicious.com. I wasn’t really on top of delicious or why I would want to use it but I am starting to see the light. My inner luddite has been making considerable noise lately so I have been reluctant to deepen my connection in the digital space. This class is going to carry me along despite the internal ambivalence I have being wrestling with. In a nutshell, delicious.com is a public space to save, share and tag bookmarks, mostly as a replacement for the bookmarks conventionally stored in your browser. Doing so, makes a your life considerably more visible by letting others know what you are interested in. This I think, is generally a good thing as it can lead you and others to web pages that you would have otherwise not found. Plus, if you change computers, upgrade your hardware, or are travelling you can access your bookmarks without any fuss.
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This requires a little code hacking but it’s pretty simple. Open up: wp-includes/classes.php and find function: start_el
After the if else block that sets the value of the $css_class variable add the following code:
$url = get_page_link($page->ID);
$post_url = get_post_meta($page->ID, "url", true);
if ( $post_url ) {
$url = $post_url;
}
and then remove get_page_link($page->ID) from the following line<a href="' get_page_link($page->ID) . '".... and replace it with $url: <a href="' . $url . '"
Now log in and edit the page or post you wish to specify a customized url for. Add a ‘Custom Field’ with key: ‘url‘ and a value of the full url (including http://) that you wish to send users to. The screenshot below shows the completed hack. NOTE: This will get wiped out next time you upgrade! I’ve also used the same logic to show/hide posts and pages from the menu systems.
KIVA Microfunds are building on the success of the microcredit banking model created by the Grameen Foundation. KIVA is leveraging all that is great about the internet to fund poor entrepreneurs in third world countries by matching philanthropic microlenders with third world entrepreneurs in need. Their simple to use website lets you search entrepreneur’s profiles and make $25, $50, $75 loans to the entrepreneurs of your choice.
References
[tags]KIVA, Grameen Bank, Microcredit, Microloans[/tags]
I installed the Geo & Plug ‘n’ Play Google Map plugins so I can geo-tag my posts. You can see it working here: http://shibumi.net/appropriate-technology/high-tech/web/geo-tag/.
I tried several different google maps plugins and this combo was the only one that worked. Install Geo first, then Plug ‘n’ Play Google Map. You can use Google Maps or Free Geocoder to find your logitude and latitude.
References
[tags]Wordpress Plugin, Geo-tag[/tags]
My social web class is holding my feet to the technological fire. Part of this week’s discussion is about Twitter. I signed up months ago but have so far continued to lurk, having not uttered a single tweet (see sidebar on right). Perhaps my followers (49 of them!) enjoy the silence created by reluctance to tweet. My inner luddite is perplexed by the idea of intentionally bringing even more electronic noise into my life to consume ever more of my attention. So my questions are: can this platform be used in service to the growth of our consciousness? If so, how do you think? How are you using Twitter? How has it benefited and hindered your life?
