In looking for things to share I stumbled upon the latest DARPA contest. I’m not sure whether to take this “Adequate Paranoid System” or .mil as a sense of humor, really. At any rate here are some links to what went on, but be warned you follow the references to 4CHAN and the Something Awful Forums at your own risk.
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I’ve been reacquiring my blogging addiction. Like smoking cigarettes an almost irresistible urge reoccurs at unlikely moments. In this instance you can blame Mark Pesce who started one of those interesting Internet experiments, this one called Share This Course. You can find my contributions if you stumble around in the comments fields. Here’s an example:
Chess from Donal Little on Vimeo. I’m a bit of late arrival so this will count both as an introduction of self, and as my daily sharing assignment. I’ve been absent from the “ write” part of the Read Write Web for the last several months, and it’s a bit odd to be participating here rather than trying to catch up on all the projects that I’ve left hanging. I probably should say something about who I am, why I’m here, and what I’m about, but that would presume a body of knowledge which I frankly lack. I’m trying to figure all that out; I suppose in some sense we all are. As self identified artist of one sort or another I’ve been thinking about sharing pretty much since I was old enough to think about thinking. The above is something from the late 80s; perhaps a bit long, but not without interest. I’m working on a post…
In 1969-70 Chip Delany won the Hugo & Nebula awards with a little number called “Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones“. Like a lot of Delany’s work it was more about art than science, but that made sense because we were on the cusp of post-modernity, and he was the great white hope of science fiction. Despite the indicators most of didn’t realize that he was both black and gay. Time was pretty good, the plot didn’t get in the way of the story and as usual it had characters that we wanted to identify with and a narrator that we liked, one Harold Clancy Everett or HCE an acronym which seems a bit pretentious until you stop and think that the whole thing is, on a certain level, about language and reference as markers of membership. All of which was brought to mind by a post by Scott McLemee on Criminal Incompetence:
In Delany’s metaphorical (?) narrative, this translates to the underworld Word, which serves as a kind of global passkey. Used properly, two criminals who may never have met can communicate many shades of meaning, from a greeting to a warning. The Word changes every thirty days, and is always the name of a semi-precious stone. The Word is distributed/created by the Singers, who are public poet/performers with the ability to improvise a song to celebrate or memorialize a major event. Such Singers are highly prized in society, and are much sought after as guests at fashionable parties. All of this predates the World Wide Web, but there are certain parallels with today’s Internet memes. We establish communities of interest and perhaps communities trust by means of commonly mediated experience, and by our familiarity with the tools used to create and exchange these experiences. The LOLcat that begins this post really makes sense only if you’re familiar with the LOLcat Bible, and makes a different sort of sense if you’re one of the contributors to that translation. There are more parties and more ways to participate than there used to be. Community in this context is probably a bad signifier. As Ze Frank points out, the shifting nodes of awareness and interest look something like community but are actually a different Heideggerian ”thing” entirely. What I find interesting, is that the meme markers now function as works of art; they define a kind of common and agreed upon humanness. To share the awareness and appreciation of a meme is to enter into an assumed agreement of likeness. By which measure, you may be experiencing this writing has wandering about, drifting as though searching for some point or conclusion, which would put you in good company with its author. Memes multiply, and when they function as the work of art, this abundance redefines the work. Meaning and understanding is what we crave, but what we are given is mere experience; what we need to share is enough: Calcite… I’ve been meaning the jump on-board the Beloit Colleie Mindset meme, but as we all know I’m easily distracted. However, I was reminded of it’s significance by this post from The Bloggess: UPDATED: I’m running out of grocery stores I’m allowed to go back to;
it’s best to read the whole post but if you’re pressed for time, here the bottom line:
see more Lolcats and funny pictures The above is (obviously) an in joke, and probably a misuse of the SC meme, but you shouldn’t assume that that makes it less useful. Strange times are ahead, and the main danger is that we too rapidly assume common knowledge and culture. Life can be thought of as a series of introductions; some of you know me and for some of you this text is your first encounter. However, since I don’t have a terribly good handle on who I am, I don’t expect that your previous experience, or lack thereof, is going to be a major factor in our relationship; in either case we are about to embark together on a difficult, challenging, and I hope rewarded journey. Our mission is to introduce transformative technology into the University. It would be nice if I had a handle on what that meant, but unfortunately it’s about as mysterious as identity and motivation. Our CIO recently accused me of having the standard technologists answer “we should use technology because technology is good, and we know that technology is good because it’s technology.” Danah Boyd who is going to keep coming up in these posts has some thoughts on technophilia and you are highly encouraged to follow the links and read the entire article rather than just the excerpt below:
In my terms this translates to, “it’s a mammal thing,” We like to smell each other and technology allows us, and perhaps encourages us, to do that, smell each other, a remarkably great distances. This is important and the mysterious, but it’s not hard to understand or to make use of. Technology can help us form communities, communities of practice or of common interest; here again is Danah Boyd on Teens Don’t Tweet… Or Do They?
Meta Don: Hold on DD, I thought this was supposed to be a an introduction to the folks that work for you, you were going to tell them about your vision, and direction, and how you were all going to create a bright new day and save the University and just generally make things better; and now you’re talking about multilingual foreign teens who tweet, and nobody’s going to make a connection. Daily Don: I wasn’t talking about MFTWT, Dana Boyd was, and I’m pretty sure everybody is following right along, and besides MD you’re supposed to be helping me get across the message and not just telling me that I’m being confusing, after all criticism comes easy and we all know that. MD: True, but growth starts with a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. DD: Oh Lord, are you going to start with the whole 12 step thing again; I thought we had agreed that we were going to avoid patriarchy and stick to the Goddess approach this time, you know, less obedience more weirdness. MD: A higher power is a higher power, and I wouldn’t be Meta if I always colored inside the lines all the time, so stop complaining and and figure out what you’re trying to say. DD: Yeah, but it feels like we got our HP off an Oprah rerun. MD: You stole that line; I sense a certain level of avoidance. DD: Appropriated, channeling PM Don, and you’re the one who started the BHJ thread. MD: Post-Modernity’s a bit past the sell-by date; focus, what’s your message? DD: Well, I guess what I’m trying to say is sort of, like, if we’re going to succeed we need to build a community, and in order to build a community need to have things in common, tools, goals, and maybe you know a…a… MD: A philosophy? DD: A philosophy, right, and they’ll all understand that, won’t they? see more Lolcats and funny pictures The I Ching makes a not so subtle distinction between the “easy” and the “simple”. By way of example: lets say that there’s a mountain and for whatever reason we need to get to the top. The “easy” solution is to rent a helicopter, or if you’d prefer we could design and build a funicular which would allow us to make multiple trips, and perhaps make it possible to sell tickets to future tourists. Easy solutions, both. On the other hand, the “simple” solution is to start walking/climbing. What you’ll notice is that the simple solution doesn’t require much thought, just a bit of work and a lot of determination.
I’ve suggested that we need to become community organizers, and given you a tool to help you get started; my assumption being that we need to get our own community going before we can start helping others organize and manage theirs. I’m fairly certain that my suggestion has caused a good deal paranoia and paralysis, because you don’t know how to make a community or how to use the tool. I’m equally certain that the real problem is that you’re looking for an easy solution when what’s required is simplicity; all you have to do is share something. It can be a link, a picture, a thought, an idea, a tweet, or a LOLcat. It really is that simple; share something on a daily basis and community will happen. It’s not easy, because it feels new, different, not something you’re used to doing, but it is simple, sharing is always simple …
Well, it would appear that everyone, myself included, has survived the first week of the new management paradigm. It actually feels like the week lasted about a month, but maybe that’s just me. Before we take off on practical and more directly related topics I thought it might be fun to take a quick look at the backchannels that have been running around in my head during the last 36 hours. The backchannel phenomena is one of the interesting things that technology makes possible; it’s a catchall phrase for the now shareable conversations that happen during a conference presentation or a lecture; twitter, IRC,cell phones, and texting in all formats come into play. Usually within the academy the backchannel is seen as disruptive, but that maybe because we’re not paying attention. Here’s Danah Boyd with a meditation on that possibility. I’ve been falling behind on my news reader, so thanks to Mike Morrison from the other end of the hall for reminding me to take a look in the old aggregator. Mike commented that he didn’t imagine that the Boyd post would be of interest to most of the folks in the unit; if that’s the case, I’m hoping that it doesn’t remain the case. I think our eventual success will depend on all of us being interested in this sort of thing. This because there’s a loud and lively conversation going on about technology and learning, and we need some local participants. Here’s a post from Ryan Bretag by way of John Pederson; the core being:
BTW, and just so there’s no confusion, the leader I have in mind is you. The specific you in this case being the folks who work with me. It’s a little odd to have a specific target audience; blogs normally operate under the illusion that they’re talking to everyone on the Internet, in much the same way that books and posts on leadership pretend to be news rather than simply the flavor of the week. Not that there’s anything wrong with the FOTW mind you; it’s just that after a while it can feel like you’re reading an extended AA aphorism. But then as David Foster Wallace reminds us, the secrets of life are pretty banal . Benjamin Zander likes to point out that you can lead the orchestra from any position, even if all you’ve got is a kettle drum. He also notices that the only person in the orchestra that doesn’t make noise is the conductor. Anytime you feel a little down and wonder what we’re doing or why, or whether it’s worth it, watch one of the Zander videos; they tend to run a little long, but you’re guaranteed to have a more or less life-changing moment, or your money back. Speaking of videos; Ze Frank goes legit as a video commentator with some thoughts on being a progressive. As Peterson points out however, Waves is still the best Ze piece ever: Of course it would be kind of pointless to have an aggregator without having the Gibson blog in it so you can find things like:
On a more serious note, after all you are reading this at work as part of a job assignment, right? You might want to take a look at Enterprise 2.0 & Social Computing I apologize for the 2.0 reference, but hey, we’re wandering around inside my mind, remember? This has probably gone on long enough, possibly longer than that, so I will leave you with one last link to something that we definitely will need to pay attention to as things develop Wikimedia is about to make wikivideo, or if that’s too serious for you might want to head over to Rock, Paper, Sonehotgun and check out what’s really happening. You wouldn’t think that jet fighter combat had much to do with manufacturing efficiency, let alone with how we’re going to rework a university help center. OODA stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act; the OODA Loop was discovered/invented/proposed by Colonel John Boyd also known as “Genghis John”, the “Ghetto Colonel”, and “Forty Second Boyd” for his standing bet as an instructor pilot that beginning from a position of disadvantage, he could defeat any opposing pilot in air combat maneuvering in less than forty seconds, which if you think about it, brings new meaning to “Agile”. For our purposes the key to the OODA loop is the second “O”; Orientation covers our ability to get inside the mind of the other, what you might think of as the “enemy they”, and getting inside the mind of the our clients and colleagues is critical to our success. The key is what they think; the danger is what we think. Actually’ I’m just getting started with all this, and rather that go into how I think we can use the OODA-loop, I’m going to break off here and use it as an entry point to the Theory of Constraints. Contextual digression: I’m not sure what it means that combat turns out to be the analogy of choice for business; first Miyamoto Musashi with The Book of Five Rings and now John Boyd. It’s particularly odd given that one of the fundamental precepts of constraint theory is that there are no conflicts in nature – only erroneous assumptions. It may be easier to sell this proposal to the lion pride than a herd of gazelle, but as long as the sun keeps coming up it’s an axiom that’s hard to argue with. I’ve managed to talk to most of the staff, and in my effort to emphasize the need for (rapid and radical) change, I may have encouraged a depressing paranoia. People keep asking me what the Enemy They think we are doing wrong, followed by what the ET would count as doing right. In sense these aren’t bad questions, but we’ll get more traction by asking, “How can we kick butt?” As Musashi points out, “The warrior succeeds by finding the heart of battle.” Actually what he says is, “…by seeking death,” but that takes a lot of processing. |
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