Dissident World

ame across this today, which seems to be gathering a body of support. I like the sentiments; pity it’s not enforceable!Joseph Smarr, Marc Canter, Robert Scoble, and Michael Arrington have authored a bill of rights for users of the social web. The bill states:

We publicly assert that all users of the social web are entitled to certain fundamental rights, specifically:

• Ownership of their own personal information, including:
  • their own profile data
  • the list of people they are connected to
  • the activity stream of content they create;
• Control of whether and how such personal information is shared with others; and
• Freedom to grant persistent access to their personal information to trusted external sites.

Sites supporting these rights shall:

• Allow their users to syndicate their own profile data, their friends list, and the data that’s shared with them via the service, using a persistent URL or API token and open data formats;
• Allow their users to syndicate their own stream of activity outside the site;
• Allow their users to link from their profile pages to external identifiers in a public way; and
• Allow their users to discover who else they know is also on their site, using the same external identifiers made available for lookup within the service.

I’ve recently seen a flurry of blogs about the merits (or not) of Facebook as a social networking environment. I was stirred to action when I read Elsua’s blog this morning, which in turn refers to the question posed by Mitch Joel “Can you claim to be in social media without having a Facebook account”.

Now, whilst I don’t disagree with many of the points made by Elsua, or for that matter Euan Semple, who writes about Facebook being all froth and no substance, I would like to pose the following question:

If you’re serious about Social Media, and profess to be an ‘expert’, where there is a major gathering of like-minded socially-active individuals, can you afford to NOT be there?

Yes, there are a lot of shortcomings with Facebook, but if you want to comment about it with any authority, you need to be a part of it, not a bystander watching on the periphery.

I was amused by an article in the July/August 2007 edition of Information World Review regarding the problems caused by (lack of) digital preservation of e-documents at the National Archives (TNA) – though I should add the intention of the article was not to amuse.

It seems there are problems accessing data created in legacy versions of Microsoft systems, though I wasn’t entirely sure if this was because of the medium used to store the data (I think most people would struggle to get at the contents of a 51/4 inch diskette these days), or the software application itself (surely Word97 is not yet obsolete?). However, as the article points out, the objective is to make “digital data as resilient as paper”. And anyone who’s spilt coffee on the printout of that latest policy statement knows exactly how resilient paper is!

Ah yes, I remember how we were once told that CD-ROMS were virtually indestructible, and that preservation of the data was guaranteed in perpetuity. I guess anyone who’s tried to rebuild software on a malfunctioning PC using the original manufacturer’s CD-ROMS can testify to this being a myth.

I’m reminded of a quote from a senior executive at the old Sperry Rand Corporation (now Unisys) when questioned about the longevity and integrity of digital data on Sperry’s (circa 1960) drum storage technology. The riposte was “it will last indefinitely, or 5 years, whichever is the sooner”. It seems we still haven’t cracked this little nut!

Another great video from the Common Craft Show. This one explains Social Bookmarking.

My colleague Dave Briggs has put together an excellent summary of the various Google social media applications on his LGNewMedia blog. Things like Reader, Google Groups, Docs and Spreadsheets, Blogger, Google’s customised search service, Google Maps, Gmail, Google’s calendar, iGoogle, Google Apps, Notebook etc.

I think most Web 2.0/social media gurus will be familiar with the breadth and depth of Google’s freebies, but Dave also identifies the various rival products. Whether or not we consider the Google versions to be the best of breed, there’s no escaping the fact that you’re likely to get a far better and more consistent user experience through the seamless integration of many of these applications than many of the rival products. Particularly so if you’ve also personalised your browser with the various buttons and plug-ins available, such as the Google toolbar.

Yes, Google’s softly-softly, stealth-like approach is gradually taking over the user’s desktop, and personally, I don’t think it is such a bad thing.

The Community of Practice platform at the Improvement and Development Agency is an integrated set of Web 2.0 tools that is being used to support and facilitate collaboration and knowledge sharing across local government communities. I produced the specification for the platform early in 2006, and the platform was launched in September 2006. I was encouraged by a recent news item on how the strategy continues to flourish, with the following quote from Marilyn Leask, the IDeA’s Head of Knowledge & Learning:

"This is a terrific example of
how the knowledge and learning of local government colleagues is being
better harnessed. Having an avenue where peers can voice their opinion,
share their problems and seek assistance on a national network is another step forward in the journey towards ensuring best practice
is disseminated across local authorities. A benefit of these CoPs is
that they are both secure and confidential. CoPs are part of the
Knowledge’s team’s structured progress with web2."

"There are more than 110 communities listed at the website www.communities.idea.gov.uk.
The CoPs have proven to be of assistance to councillors and senior
managers who have used the medium to discuss issues of concern and use
their collective knowledge to deliver the best outcomes for their
community."

"At the IDeA we believe that the sector has within it the knowledge to
support improvement but that this knowledge needs to be more easily
accessible".

I will be working with Marilyn and my IDeA colleagues again in the near future, so looking forward to participating in the support and cultivation of the CoP’s that have been established, and evangelising the benefits of the platform to those areas of local government that haven’t yet grasped the benefits of this new way of working.   

Knowledgelab have posted an interview with Etienne Wenger, and a full (90 min) lecture given by Etienne on the topic: "What if we assumed that society itself is a large-scale learning system?"

Etienne Wenger is one of the founding fathers of Social Learning Theory
and the concept of “Practiced Communities”. People are learning
together – every individual deals and engage in many different
communities of practice. Here people negotiate and define what
competence and knowledge is. To know something or to be competent
builds on the individuals experiences of being in the world - learning
is a constant transformation or journey of the self.

Uberblogger Robert Scoble is truly one-of-a-kind. For those who don’t know, he became famous as a technical evangelist at Microsoft and quickly became their most outspoken and influential blogger. He now interviews people like Bill Gates, and the worldwide media reports on his every move. One of his most mindboggling skills is information management. He currently reads 622 RSS feeds a day — it used to be 1,400 feeds a day!

How the hell does he do it? Tim Ferris dropped by the Podtech offices and hung out with Robert to find out. How does he avoid overload and process so much information? Find out in this in 11-minute interview, where you can find out:

• Which RSS reader does he use and why?
• How does he configure it to save time?
• What are simple keyboard shortcuts anyone can use?
• How does he find and pick feeds?
• How can you catch his eye with your posts?
• How does he use RSS feeds for building relationships?
• How does he use sites like Techmeme/DIGG vs. niche blogs?

Reading Seth Godin’s blog this morning I came across what was a very relevant item for me, about jobs for the future - the Online Community Organizer. The proximity of Seth’s description of this role with the position I’ve identified and am currntly recruiting for the Information Authority couldn’t be closer. I trust Seth will not mind me replicating the post here:

"If you want to
hire a union organizer, you probably know what to look for. Someone
with resilience, passion, persistence and excellent interpersonal
skills.

Just picked this up from Euan Semple’s blog - a new Facebook application called Blog
Friends  lets you track blog posts by your Facebook friends on topics that interest you, and displays those posts on your Facebook profile while they help you grow your blog readership for you in return.  Cool.