Chapter 11 – The Produsage Game: Harboring the Hive of Produsers
Gaming is the leader in applying produsage.
The Sims – game to decorate houses. Difference between this and Wiki is that it is commercial (Maxis and Electronic Arts).
Trainz – simulator. Participants developed their own 3D models – there are now vast amounts of “in-game” objects. There are “lead users”. One motivation is to see your own work on the game.
Produsing in the Space
Multiplayer online games (MMOGs). Players produse in-game assets but also create a shared history, sociality, society.
EverQuest – simulates fictional world of Norrath. Produsers develop their own approach to playing the game. The users collaborate to “tell the story”.
Raises moral and ethical issues. Sony tried to prohibit sales of Norrath stuff. Caused a reaction from the community. Highlighted the identify confusion between EverQuest as owned by the corporation or owned by the community. Now Sony tolerates auctions.
“Software providers as harborers of community”
Second Life – blank canvas to be populated with own interests and ideas. “Virtually every object is the creative work of its membership. It goes beyond gaming because you can pretty much create anything. Another word for it is MUVE – multi-user virtual environment. Operates according to principles of produsage.
Created by Linden Labs. Produsers retain property rights to their content.
New Internal and External Economies
Second Life is emerging as a test bed for new ideas, where real world prototypes can be released at low cost with direct feedback from users.
Imagining a Produsage-Based World
All the principles of produsage
Variety of local self-government approaches
“Federated Model” – civic communities act like federated states with an overall govt.
Produsing Socially
The question of governance: how are the assets governed? How do the communities view themselves? How does this relate to the producers?
Second Life and such give the appearance of openness but really they are like gated communities. It is important not to apply traditional governmental approaches to these spaces. Need to encourage further exploration of how to govern it.
The governance issue applies to other produsage areas: wikipedia over policy, YouTube and controversies over EULAs, Flickr, commu
Friday, July 31, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Chapter Ten Notes
Chapter 10 – Media and Creative Industries: New Opportunities or Casual Collapse?
Produsage approach to marketing media has led to making more available non mainstream merchandise, which people are buying a lot more than when it was not available. Bruns calls this “a wider phenomenon of the long tail”.
Greatest changes are occurring within consumption communities. Move toward consumption as a networked practice.
Copyright
iTunes demonstrates that commercial distrib of digital content is possible
Many users now understand media industries to be highly exploitative. Arguments for people to act morally depend on the institutions acting morally. Ha!
Factors affecting whether someone will pay for tunes if they could get them for free:
- Ease and safety
- Relative cost in terms of time, effort, broadband service
- User’s loyalty to the content creator
iTunes has a good reputation and found the right price
DGMLive successful because of the fan/musician relationship, not audience/distributor.
It is likely that for industry attempts to employ ethical rather than legal appeals – success will come outside the mainstream. (I doubt it.)
Produser to Producer
It appears that new rather than traditional players in the media industries are most likely to harness the creativity of produsage communities. Example – Current.tv (I guess Al Gore participates in this so it may draw his sway of politicos.)
Music sites have emerged that provide a space for unsigned, semi-pros to make a name. Sites include GaragebandPurevolume. Musicians might tend to stay here instead of going mainstream and dealing with the corporate exploitation.
Possible result of produsage distributed media is less a “popular/un-popular” continuum but more a fall away from a peak to a “gentle slope of mediated cultural communities”.
“If the 20th century was about hits, the 21st century will be equally about misses.”
The New Creative Industries
“Interactions are more important than broadcasts.” i.e., effectiveness is based on your ability to make fruitful connections.
Fall away from the peak towards the periphery. This could allow for innovation in the content and style of the text and other material.
Detaching Authorship from Ownership
Tragedy of the anticommons – multiple owners each have a right to exclude others and no one has an effective privilege of use. Negative effect proven when the restrictions are lifted and there has been significant growth.
Patent thicket – network of restrictions – preventing protection. Could discourage investment in research and advancement.
Communities as Copyright Holders
“A move toward true collective ownership of prodused resources would mean that communities would be better able to enforce their full set of IP rights.”
Shopwork – represents the full combination of all version of the produsage project.
Issues of commercial exploitation:
Is the creator being recognized?
Who profits?
Sanger, “What I want to urge is that society respect and, through its laws, support the existence of the presently-nascent general institution of shopwork.”
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Week Five Question
How do issues such as authorship, copyright and open access impact your desire, ability and willingness to engage in produsage, both personally and professionally?
Authorship and copyright wouldn’t really affect my participation in produsage. I think it’s one of those things that yeh, maybe once in a blue moon you’d get someone who did something uncool, but 99.99% of the time people would be fair, courteous, and professional. I’m thinking most of the time the produsage project itself would attract like people – both in terms of knowledge and skills as well as mentality or behavior.
Another thought - word of mouth travels fast and is pretty effective – just like other forums. Even in the broad world of the Web, I think shenanigans would catch up with someone sooner or later.
Also, I think these issues would be minimized with produsage since there is always a record or origination and participation – like the history aspect of the Wikipedia. It would be harder to falsely claim authorship.
Authorship and copyright wouldn’t really affect my participation in produsage. I think it’s one of those things that yeh, maybe once in a blue moon you’d get someone who did something uncool, but 99.99% of the time people would be fair, courteous, and professional. I’m thinking most of the time the produsage project itself would attract like people – both in terms of knowledge and skills as well as mentality or behavior.
Another thought - word of mouth travels fast and is pretty effective – just like other forums. Even in the broad world of the Web, I think shenanigans would catch up with someone sooner or later.
Also, I think these issues would be minimized with produsage since there is always a record or origination and participation – like the history aspect of the Wikipedia. It would be harder to falsely claim authorship.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Week Four Question
Week 4
How do you judge the value of expertise on the Web? Does it differ from your notion of expertise in face-to-face settings? Why or why not?
I hadn’t thought about it prior to this course or being posed the question directly, but I think I judge expertise on the web the same as I do in f2f settings. How much care I take to judge a situation depends on the topic. For instance, if someone is telling me it’s going to rain this afternoon, I would just take their word for it, except perhaps if I were planning to attend an outdoor BBQ or something. In that case, I would question the source of the information.
I think my importance thermometer is gauged by the effect to me (or others) personally and/or to my value system. For example, I’ve become more interested in the health care reform debate in recent weeks. I find it difficult to understand what the real differences and options are between the choices. One thing that is said a lot is “such and such an organization endorses/doesn’t endorse this bill.” At first, I took that as a strong case for one side or the other, but since I’ve heard it so much I now want to know more about the credentials and other info about these organizations. This would be the same as whether I heard it f2f or read it on the web.
Regarding the Wiki, now that I understand more about how information is generated, I take it less as “fact” than I did before. However, the same readings on the Wiki made me think about how I judged expertise prior to the Web, in that ancient all-f2f world. I took everything in the encyclopedia as fact. Now I see that one could question information there as well. So, once again, I’m back to judging expertise the same on the Web as in f2f.
How do you judge the value of expertise on the Web? Does it differ from your notion of expertise in face-to-face settings? Why or why not?
I hadn’t thought about it prior to this course or being posed the question directly, but I think I judge expertise on the web the same as I do in f2f settings. How much care I take to judge a situation depends on the topic. For instance, if someone is telling me it’s going to rain this afternoon, I would just take their word for it, except perhaps if I were planning to attend an outdoor BBQ or something. In that case, I would question the source of the information.
I think my importance thermometer is gauged by the effect to me (or others) personally and/or to my value system. For example, I’ve become more interested in the health care reform debate in recent weeks. I find it difficult to understand what the real differences and options are between the choices. One thing that is said a lot is “such and such an organization endorses/doesn’t endorse this bill.” At first, I took that as a strong case for one side or the other, but since I’ve heard it so much I now want to know more about the credentials and other info about these organizations. This would be the same as whether I heard it f2f or read it on the web.
Regarding the Wiki, now that I understand more about how information is generated, I take it less as “fact” than I did before. However, the same readings on the Wiki made me think about how I judged expertise prior to the Web, in that ancient all-f2f world. I took everything in the encyclopedia as fact. Now I see that one could question information there as well. So, once again, I’m back to judging expertise the same on the Web as in f2f.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Folks and Experts
Chapter Eight - Folks and Experts: Notes
What is the role of traditional experts in the folksonomic created knowledge? Do bona fide experts need to re-earn their status?
Two different systems: the expert paradigm (universally accepted, internally consistent; folksonomic paradisgm (multiplicity, conflicts of interpretation, alternative representations accepted by a subset of a community)
Opponents of folksonomies: something can’t have credibility without the oversight of experts.
Problems with this view: prevents community from developing organically with its own procedures. Also, how are experts recognized? Also, where is the line between pros and ams? It is more on a continuum.
Establishing policies to define experts goes against the “fluidity” and heterarchy pillars of produsage. It would be too hard to manage. More realistic to rely on the community to identify expert status. This would be based more on contribution and less on credential as well. Also, produsage does have rules: Verifiability and no Original Research.
Citizendum is as vulnerable to systemic shortcomings inherent in its hierarchy as Wikipedia is to abuse from ad hoc or a posteriori processes of governance.
One solution – open entry this is universally writable with a section vetted by experts, and providing citations of those experts. This would only be in keeping with produsage if there were no restrictions on entries.
Shirky – You need barriers to participation. But not in the traditional sense, more based on contributions and gauged by the community.
Risk: “It can still seem as though the user who spends the most time on the site – or who yells the loudest wins.” Squeaky wheel syndrome just like in the non eworld.
People must be responsible in making contributions: the responsibility to ensure that contributions are made only where individuals have a reasonable indication that their contribution will be constructive and useful to the common aim. Page 113
How many subjects are non-experts truly unable to make any contributions of value? Scientific facts are a minute component of the wider range of human knowledge. Most other fields are more open to interpretation, discussion, and debate.
What is the role of traditional experts in the folksonomic created knowledge? Do bona fide experts need to re-earn their status?
Two different systems: the expert paradigm (universally accepted, internally consistent; folksonomic paradisgm (multiplicity, conflicts of interpretation, alternative representations accepted by a subset of a community)
Opponents of folksonomies: something can’t have credibility without the oversight of experts.
Problems with this view: prevents community from developing organically with its own procedures. Also, how are experts recognized? Also, where is the line between pros and ams? It is more on a continuum.
Establishing policies to define experts goes against the “fluidity” and heterarchy pillars of produsage. It would be too hard to manage. More realistic to rely on the community to identify expert status. This would be based more on contribution and less on credential as well. Also, produsage does have rules: Verifiability and no Original Research.
Citizendum is as vulnerable to systemic shortcomings inherent in its hierarchy as Wikipedia is to abuse from ad hoc or a posteriori processes of governance.
One solution – open entry this is universally writable with a section vetted by experts, and providing citations of those experts. This would only be in keeping with produsage if there were no restrictions on entries.
Shirky – You need barriers to participation. But not in the traditional sense, more based on contributions and gauged by the community.
Risk: “It can still seem as though the user who spends the most time on the site – or who yells the loudest wins.” Squeaky wheel syndrome just like in the non eworld.
People must be responsible in making contributions: the responsibility to ensure that contributions are made only where individuals have a reasonable indication that their contribution will be constructive and useful to the common aim. Page 113
How many subjects are non-experts truly unable to make any contributions of value? Scientific facts are a minute component of the wider range of human knowledge. Most other fields are more open to interpretation, discussion, and debate.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Chapter 7 - Knowledge Structures
Chapter Notes:
How do we collate, process, evaluate, combine, and synthesize the diverse range of content not available to us?
Metadata – has become the defining feature of Web 2.0.
Metadata in a produsage context operates through the three core practices of tagging, linking, and browsing
There are sites that aggregate data from blogs: Technorati, TextMap, TechMeme, and Findory. Google extracts metadata from client and server side tools. 2+ billion Google searches/month.
Commercial harnessing of metadata. Best example is Amazon. Mines search and purchase patterns and generates listings and recommendations for other related products. Amazon’s catalog is basically prodused by customers.
We are approaching a cosmopedia. Raises the crucial question of how the knowledge structures are going to be determined and curated. Knowledge is equated with power, and the structures of knowledge in the cosmopedia will substantially affect the ability of participants (to form opinions, hold discussions, etc.)
Cheap Metadata (ad hoc metadata) – metadata that is prodused through randomness, as opposed to the active formations of tags. It is produsage-basead – broad range of equipotential contributors; highly fluid; loose heterarchy.
Folksonomy – new fluid dialogic, pluralistic form of user-driven, user-generated, prodused content taxonomies. (Name comes from the broad range of users.)
Metadata may be skewed by the generation of tags created from web use and from personal use – such as people tagging their personal photos on Flickr.
Ad hoc nature of folksonomy more responsive to rapid changes in the range, depth, and topical make-up of available knowledge.
Problems with folksonomies: exposure to deliberate disruptions by spammers, broad range of users with different vocabularies and terms. Still, may be the best available method.
Return to taxonomies highly unlikely.
There are still people involved in the process (even though its user prodused). However, they are more guides of the process as opposed to creators of it.
How do we collate, process, evaluate, combine, and synthesize the diverse range of content not available to us?
Metadata – has become the defining feature of Web 2.0.
Metadata in a produsage context operates through the three core practices of tagging, linking, and browsing
There are sites that aggregate data from blogs: Technorati, TextMap, TechMeme, and Findory. Google extracts metadata from client and server side tools. 2+ billion Google searches/month.
Commercial harnessing of metadata. Best example is Amazon. Mines search and purchase patterns and generates listings and recommendations for other related products. Amazon’s catalog is basically prodused by customers.
We are approaching a cosmopedia. Raises the crucial question of how the knowledge structures are going to be determined and curated. Knowledge is equated with power, and the structures of knowledge in the cosmopedia will substantially affect the ability of participants (to form opinions, hold discussions, etc.)
Cheap Metadata (ad hoc metadata) – metadata that is prodused through randomness, as opposed to the active formations of tags. It is produsage-basead – broad range of equipotential contributors; highly fluid; loose heterarchy.
Folksonomy – new fluid dialogic, pluralistic form of user-driven, user-generated, prodused content taxonomies. (Name comes from the broad range of users.)
Metadata may be skewed by the generation of tags created from web use and from personal use – such as people tagging their personal photos on Flickr.
Ad hoc nature of folksonomy more responsive to rapid changes in the range, depth, and topical make-up of available knowledge.
Problems with folksonomies: exposure to deliberate disruptions by spammers, broad range of users with different vocabularies and terms. Still, may be the best available method.
Return to taxonomies highly unlikely.
There are still people involved in the process (even though its user prodused). However, they are more guides of the process as opposed to creators of it.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Palimpsest
Palimpsest – a parchment or the like from which writing has been partially or completely erased to make room for another text. The title of this chapter calls the Wikipedia the “palimpsest” of human knowledge.
Wikipedia is not a product, it is a system. The content must be approached as such. If you want to navigate the "truth" via Wikipedia, you have to use the history and discuss pages.
Governing Wikipedia
There is a lack of clarity around governance structures. I think that’s the preference for the Wiki to stay flexible. There is a structure, though, that goes something like this:
Anonymous contributors
Registered users
Administrators
Bureaucrats
Stewards
Superelites
Jimmy Wales
As long as the equipotentiality of participants is respected and users have the ability to join the ranks, then the produsage model is not threatened.
In reality, “the core administrative arrangements are ‘far from strictly bottom up. In face a close inspection of Wiki’s process reveals that it has an elite at its center.’”
Accrediting Wikipedians - How does Wiki evaluate the merit of its contributors?
This is sort of in development. There’s a resistance to the idea that contributors have to prove their claimed credentials.
One suggestion is for individual communities to develop their own merit system.
The German wiki makes a distinction among contributions: notable, excellent
Beyond Wikipedia - Where does it go from here, and what of the question of quality of content?
Several other sites have formed that do not maintain the NPOV view. None have been very successful so far.
Non-encyclopedic sites have been created.
Everything 2 – users create articles on anything and can include their point of view.
Do-it-yourself hobbyists
Daytipper
Wikipedia is not a product, it is a system. The content must be approached as such. If you want to navigate the "truth" via Wikipedia, you have to use the history and discuss pages.
Governing Wikipedia
There is a lack of clarity around governance structures. I think that’s the preference for the Wiki to stay flexible. There is a structure, though, that goes something like this:
Anonymous contributors
Registered users
Administrators
Bureaucrats
Stewards
Superelites
Jimmy Wales
As long as the equipotentiality of participants is respected and users have the ability to join the ranks, then the produsage model is not threatened.
In reality, “the core administrative arrangements are ‘far from strictly bottom up. In face a close inspection of Wiki’s process reveals that it has an elite at its center.’”
Accrediting Wikipedians - How does Wiki evaluate the merit of its contributors?
This is sort of in development. There’s a resistance to the idea that contributors have to prove their claimed credentials.
One suggestion is for individual communities to develop their own merit system.
The German wiki makes a distinction among contributions: notable, excellent
Beyond Wikipedia - Where does it go from here, and what of the question of quality of content?
Several other sites have formed that do not maintain the NPOV view. None have been very successful so far.
Non-encyclopedic sites have been created.
Everything 2 – users create articles on anything and can include their point of view.
Do-it-yourself hobbyists
Daytipper
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Week Three Questions
What uses might a collaborative wiki or blog have in your chosen (current or desired) work environment? How would they support learning and/or performance? What would be the design and implementation challenges if management tried to do this? What would be the design and implementation challenges of a user-initiated effort?
I currently work as a contract instructional designer for an IT implementation at a large school district in Florida. We have just completed “go-live” so the system is up and running and people involved in the project (these are future users of the system) are like kids making it down to the end of the street without training wheels for the first time – a great accomplishment but a little more riding is needed to smooth out the process.
I think a wiki or blog would be timely here for people to share their experiences, post tips as well as admonitions. It could also be a place for administrators to post updates, reminders, and progress reports. I think it would help people use the system as prescribed and so reduce the error rate. It would also affirm users that they are doing the right thing, as well as give administrators a sense of how the system is being received.
I could see the wiki being initially created by the Information Systems department. I think the main challenge would be getting people to participate. They are already feeling overloaded with work, so it would be important to communicate and demonstrate the value of the wiki. The other challenge would be to create the proper social environment and acceptable etiquette. There have been a couple squeaky wheels on the project who tend to frame things in a negative way. It would be bad for morale if they had a predominant voice on the site.
The user-initiated aspect of it would be interesting because the system is integrated, meaning there is one system for all departments. This replaces the separate systems that existed before, and is forcing people to work together where they did not before. The design of the wiki would have to present an image of a team and invite participants equally. It would have to be implemented such that each department was given equally response and responsibility. Maybe the project director could provide input to individuals across departments equally.
I currently work as a contract instructional designer for an IT implementation at a large school district in Florida. We have just completed “go-live” so the system is up and running and people involved in the project (these are future users of the system) are like kids making it down to the end of the street without training wheels for the first time – a great accomplishment but a little more riding is needed to smooth out the process.
I think a wiki or blog would be timely here for people to share their experiences, post tips as well as admonitions. It could also be a place for administrators to post updates, reminders, and progress reports. I think it would help people use the system as prescribed and so reduce the error rate. It would also affirm users that they are doing the right thing, as well as give administrators a sense of how the system is being received.
I could see the wiki being initially created by the Information Systems department. I think the main challenge would be getting people to participate. They are already feeling overloaded with work, so it would be important to communicate and demonstrate the value of the wiki. The other challenge would be to create the proper social environment and acceptable etiquette. There have been a couple squeaky wheels on the project who tend to frame things in a negative way. It would be bad for morale if they had a predominant voice on the site.
The user-initiated aspect of it would be interesting because the system is integrated, meaning there is one system for all departments. This replaces the separate systems that existed before, and is forcing people to work together where they did not before. The design of the wiki would have to present an image of a team and invite participants equally. It would have to be implemented such that each department was given equally response and responsibility. Maybe the project director could provide input to individuals across departments equally.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
WikiLove
Word of the day – WikiLove. Images of tie-dye and long hair are coming up.
The idea of WikiLove and the three governing laws of Wikipedia are positive aspects of the site. The three governing laws: Neutral Point of View, Verifiability, and No Original Research. Together the idea is that wiki pages cannot promote or be positioned by a bias belief, gender, and other such things. I thought this at least created a forum for fair debate.
Difference between traditional encyclopedia and wikipedia is that the former attempts to present the current state of accepted knowledge, whereas the latter attempts to present representations of knowledge. The best I understand this is that the communities associated to each wiki do their best to provide accurate information, but they like to leave open the chance that it may not by accurate, comprehensive, and that it could change tomorrow. No responsibility I guess.
Wikipedia is produsage as it fits the governing principals:
- Open participation – anyone can participate, although there is a socialization process that controls contributions
- Fluid heterarchies – dev process ultimately driven by content creation and community discussion
- Unfinished artifacts – Wiki is “self healing” in that errors are caught and controlled by the community. There’s a lot of reliance on community and the policy of NPOV to monitor the content. There really are not standards per se.
“The best articles are typically written by a single or a few authors.” From there a community develops.
Wiki leaves it open for communities to form and create their content, so it’s possible that readers could intepret a “fringe” theory as mainstream. Can’t believe Bruns called Intelligent Design a fringe theory.
Wikipedia is also different from the encyclopedia for its range of content. It is driven by “stuff that matters to people now”.
Critics of wikipedia point to the open user policy – that there is no standard for quality. Bruns points to the ability to look at the history of a wiki.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Open Source Key Points
Equipotentiality – proposes that although contributors skills are necessarily varied, all participants do have the potential to make a unique contribution, and must be invited through the design and structure of the shared project to do so where this is most appropriate.
All contributions to an open source or produsage project are evaluated by the community at large
Depends crucially on the efficiency of evaluation processes themselves
Contributions must be granular
The basic law of open source is that debugging is parallelizable
Long tail
Ad hoc decisions
Leaders come and go - driven by content
Forking – same code; different product
Quote of the day: “Unloved software can’t be built using Open Source methods.” Ha ha.
Is it a contradiction, then, when he says, “One way to get people to do things they wouldn’t do for love is to pay them.”
Most widely used free platform is SourceForge.net
Much open source software produsage itself builds at least on initial material produced in a traditional mode.
All contributions to an open source or produsage project are evaluated by the community at large
Depends crucially on the efficiency of evaluation processes themselves
Contributions must be granular
The basic law of open source is that debugging is parallelizable
Long tail
Ad hoc decisions
Leaders come and go - driven by content
Forking – same code; different product
Quote of the day: “Unloved software can’t be built using Open Source methods.” Ha ha.
Is it a contradiction, then, when he says, “One way to get people to do things they wouldn’t do for love is to pay them.”
Most widely used free platform is SourceForge.net
Much open source software produsage itself builds at least on initial material produced in a traditional mode.
Friday, July 10, 2009
The Concept of Produsage
Finished the chapters on produsage. Think I’m getting the concept. Before this class, I hadn’t thought of social media tools holistically so I’m kind of putting wrapping paper around a lot of pieces. Coming together though. Key points I took from Chapter Two.
- Produsage – the collaborative and continuous building and extending of existing content in pursuit of further improvement.
- Producers and users of media content are both simply nodes in a neutral network and communicate with one another on an equal level
- Consumers themselves are now no longer just that, but active users and participants in the creation as well as the usage of media and culture.
- Communal project crucially rely on the granularity of available tasks
- Projects are never really complete
I thought Bruns went out on a limb, though, on page 31 where he quotes Trendwatching.com, in effect saying produsage will lead to the ongoing demise of many beliefs and alluding to "conservative thought"….I thought it was a pretty strong statement and politicized these ideas.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Week 2 - Am I a Produser - not yet
How might the concept of produsage be applied in your life (personal and/or professional) as it stands today? Are you already a produser? If yes, what do you do? If no, why not?
I am not already a produsage user yet. I think the only reason is that the need to participate in produsage has not yet presented itself, and I have not had the time (work, school, etc.) for non-essential activity. However, I can see that I will be a produsage participant professionally and personally in the near future. Professionally, I can see applying produsage by providing tools for communities of practice to discuss problems, share experiences, and create solutions that could evolve with changing business needs. I work in a corporate environment so that is my reference point. The only direct involvement I’ve had in creating such a thing was six years ago, helping my then-employer communicate the implementation and benefits of a Knowledge Management System (KMS). The capability of that KMS was posting artifacts and instant messaging. It did not allow for all users to have input to the content, nor was that really how the KMS was conceptualized. Today, I can see the KMS being used in a whole different way, where posts (such as successful sales proposals) are made and then continually adapted.
On a personal level, I can see being an active participant in some community that matters to me – providing input, creating things, evolving ideas over time. It would have to be something that was an important issue to me though. I can’t see myself participating, for example, in the story that Shirky opens his book with.
I am not already a produsage user yet. I think the only reason is that the need to participate in produsage has not yet presented itself, and I have not had the time (work, school, etc.) for non-essential activity. However, I can see that I will be a produsage participant professionally and personally in the near future. Professionally, I can see applying produsage by providing tools for communities of practice to discuss problems, share experiences, and create solutions that could evolve with changing business needs. I work in a corporate environment so that is my reference point. The only direct involvement I’ve had in creating such a thing was six years ago, helping my then-employer communicate the implementation and benefits of a Knowledge Management System (KMS). The capability of that KMS was posting artifacts and instant messaging. It did not allow for all users to have input to the content, nor was that really how the KMS was conceptualized. Today, I can see the KMS being used in a whole different way, where posts (such as successful sales proposals) are made and then continually adapted.
On a personal level, I can see being an active participant in some community that matters to me – providing input, creating things, evolving ideas over time. It would have to be something that was an important issue to me though. I can’t see myself participating, for example, in the story that Shirky opens his book with.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
The Media
Shirky - social media has changed the way news is delivered. "Mass amateurization" alows anyone with a social media tool to spread a news story.
Raises a number of issues. Legal questions - Kevin Sites. Fired from CNN for blogging then started a blog on his own. Who is going to control the future of news? Shirky discusses tenets of a profession - norms, processes, practices. What of these when the profession itself has been changed to such a degree?
Article in Tallahassee Democrat reinforces this concept. Friday, July 3, 2009. Associate editor Meredith Clark describes that journalism has trailed behind the public relations field in terms of adopting social media.
Raises a number of issues. Legal questions - Kevin Sites. Fired from CNN for blogging then started a blog on his own. Who is going to control the future of news? Shirky discusses tenets of a profession - norms, processes, practices. What of these when the profession itself has been changed to such a degree?
Article in Tallahassee Democrat reinforces this concept. Friday, July 3, 2009. Associate editor Meredith Clark describes that journalism has trailed behind the public relations field in terms of adopting social media.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Shirky's Social Dilemnas
Contemplating Shirky’s discussion of social dilemmas in Chapter 8 of his book. If I understand his thought, the evolution of community in the United States goes something like:
1. People lived in cities where everything was close in proximity, so therefore it was easy to form groups >
2. People moved to the suburbs and that made it more difficult and more expensive (transaction cost) to gather >
3. Technology has solved this problem. Tools such as Meetup have allowed groups like Stay-At-Home-Moms (groups that share common interest plus geography) to meet.
Don’t know if this is the place for opinions or thoughts - I think Shirky’s observations are one possible scenario of how things have happened. I’m not sure that suburbia is the reason for dissolution of community – I would say greed and its by-products are 100x the culprit. I also don’t think technology is the solution just because it has been a solution. Couldn’t a mom meet another mom in the grocery store just as easily as she did before? Is it just the case that she’s looking for that community online, so when the opportunity presents itself to strike up a conversation while inspecting a box of eggs, she doesn’t seize it because she has found her community somewhere else? Also – have people exchanged the time they would spend physically out in community to create community with being online to create online community.
1. People lived in cities where everything was close in proximity, so therefore it was easy to form groups >
2. People moved to the suburbs and that made it more difficult and more expensive (transaction cost) to gather >
3. Technology has solved this problem. Tools such as Meetup have allowed groups like Stay-At-Home-Moms (groups that share common interest plus geography) to meet.
Don’t know if this is the place for opinions or thoughts - I think Shirky’s observations are one possible scenario of how things have happened. I’m not sure that suburbia is the reason for dissolution of community – I would say greed and its by-products are 100x the culprit. I also don’t think technology is the solution just because it has been a solution. Couldn’t a mom meet another mom in the grocery store just as easily as she did before? Is it just the case that she’s looking for that community online, so when the opportunity presents itself to strike up a conversation while inspecting a box of eggs, she doesn’t seize it because she has found her community somewhere else? Also – have people exchanged the time they would spend physically out in community to create community with being online to create online community.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Out of the gate
How exciting - I created a blog! I've never had a reason to do so before so am looking forward to using it. I feel like I’m learning to ride a bike. I'll start by answering the Week 1 prompt. Hopefully I won't fall off my bike.
Week 1 Prompt - response
I first learned of Web 2.0 in a previous course in the program - EME 5457. I haven’t heard or thought about it since in a holistic manner, but certainly am aware of the most popular new technologies such as Twitter and Facebook. The initial readings of this course have already given me a firmer grasp of 2.0 as an organized concept.
I would call myself a careful participant of Web 2.0. The Performance Technologist in me always has my guard up about focusing on the technology rather than the topic or the person. I recently attended a satellite video show hosted by a well-known talk radio guy. The show lasted one hour and used YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, email, and live audience to take questions. I found it distracting.
Ah! But I think these tools carefully chosen are great. My goal for this class is to learn more about the more popular ones like Twitter, and get a sense of the others that Dr. Dennen mentions in her syllabus.
Week 1 Prompt - response
I first learned of Web 2.0 in a previous course in the program - EME 5457. I haven’t heard or thought about it since in a holistic manner, but certainly am aware of the most popular new technologies such as Twitter and Facebook. The initial readings of this course have already given me a firmer grasp of 2.0 as an organized concept.
I would call myself a careful participant of Web 2.0. The Performance Technologist in me always has my guard up about focusing on the technology rather than the topic or the person. I recently attended a satellite video show hosted by a well-known talk radio guy. The show lasted one hour and used YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, email, and live audience to take questions. I found it distracting.
Ah! But I think these tools carefully chosen are great. My goal for this class is to learn more about the more popular ones like Twitter, and get a sense of the others that Dr. Dennen mentions in her syllabus.
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