... a beginner at something

Tom Peters: "Done 15 books. Now the blog conversation is my book."

via http://ip.com Quick Links from the 27th annual Inc. 5000 conference in Washington DC.


Economics is conversation, with customers. I believe everyone should [blog].


Straight to the source: Tom Peters: Blogging Has Changed My Life | Debbie Weil on Corporate Blogging and Social Media

Blogging almost as easy as browsing - Scribefire

A colleague showed me how easy it is to grab a piece of information from what you see on screen. Like it?  Highlight it and post the quote to your blog. Below is the trial piece.  Nifty. If only images were drag-and-drop.


ScribeFire

ScribeFire - How It Works

ScribeFire Blog Editor

ScribeFire, an extension of Firefox ®, enables users to easily drag and drop formatted text from the Web into their blog(s), post entries, take notes, and optimize their ad inventory, directly through the Firefox browser.

Blogging is Like Bicycling

In the almost two hundred years since its introduction, the bicycle made it so much easier to meet in person. Bicycling reduced the time to get to the next village from, say, 1 hour on foot to 20 minutes. For a modest investment, some training in its use and regular maintenance, the users of bicycles effectively gained time, reduced cost and expanded radius of networking and convenience.

Railways and even more the automobile gained more time for people to meet in person and expanded their radius of interaction. Although, in today's urban settings, including the extra work time needed to pay for automotive expenses  its average speed has dwindled to some 6 km/h (4 mph) and is about to decline further.

In the past few decades, millions could meet over continental distances with the jet airplane.  Cheaper transportation gains time for people.

Telegraph, telephone, fax and e-mail almost removed time needed to virtually connect. One very frequent use is to make appointments, to get together in person.

The (www) Internet helps us connect in even wider ways, like the telephone, now mobile, and it removes much interruption. WWW pages add choices and expand the radius of low-cost interaction.

The Web gives everyone a presence, visible planet-wide, at will. Now we get congestion on the attention highway.

Enter blogging and other two-way media, like social networking and more, that give us the Web 2.0. Why do hundreds of thousands take the plunge to blog every day? And how is it like bicycling?

For a modest investment, some training in its use and regular maintenance, the users of blogs effectively gain time, reduced cost and expanded radius of networking and convenience.

How can I say that, in just five days of blogging out in the open?  It is because I notice small changes in the way  I surf the wwwaves. Blogging changes my viewpoint and how I focus/filter information. "Is this worth my time?" and "How would sharing this help those I care for?" are much stronger considerations now. (Hint: first link definitely is what it says. Second link was found just now searching for resonance on the web.)

A first similarity

Repeated bicycling, like any reasonable exercise, strengthens muscles, breathing and the heart. And it removes belly ballast.  Repeated reasonable writing exercise seems to strengthen the thinking facilities and helps remove mental ballast. Climbing up just got easier.

See you latr,

CoCreatr

who rides this recumbent for recreation

Oh my gosh! Her picture’s in a museum!

This is for Judy Vorfeld (picture), who publishes the Communication Expressway Ezine. Judy posted the very first comment ever on this blog. Thank you, it feels encouraging.

So I went to Judy's blog thinking to leave a comment in turn. Front and center today was her museum piece post, but alas, to leave a comment, need to be logged in to Wordpress. No go (everyone tries to lock their customers in, it seems). The other option is trackback, so I try that here. 

Judy, you are so right to feel young. Anyone who runs a blog and an ezine should, and especially the first commenter on a brand new blog. For that I award you this  special barnstar.

Note to blog: Would have liked to include a direct link to her online pictures, but could not figure out how to do that in typepad. The workaround to download the picture and upload from my computer is too cumbersome and I feel it would be proper to ask permission for the copy. So there it goes, less pictures. Don't know if I can live with that and the substandard  preview on this platform.

175,000 new blogs created every day

Wow, really "here comes everybody" as Clay Shirky titled his 2008 book.

The provider of this new blog you are reading right now (courtesy of their 14-day free trial) writes,

...finding fresh blogs that are well-written, relevant, and appeal to our passions is no easy feat. ... we have to help readers find the best content available on the web. ...

Blogs.com is a guide of the best blogs on the web (including lots of TypePad blogs!), picked by a passionate group of editors and organized by topic.

Noted here to check out if it helps find things faster.

Hours later:  Not bad. Led me to bump into, for example, 13 Ways to Promote Your Next Blog Post where I added a comment asking whether it is acceptable to use "trackback".

Two questions:

1. Do you think "trackback" is acceptable, or is it "out"?
2. Other than the beginnings you see here so far, what do you think this new blogger should do to add more value ?  (To his credit, Seth Godin commented here, on day one!)

Did You know? 2.0 - in German

Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod got millions of educational discussions going using YouTube and on-line video to spread their message "Shift Happens" in the English-speaking world. A colleague told me in spring 2007. I watched it in the office.

Browsed into Did You know? 2.0, the same theme, but looks much nicer. Its message: With changes happening so fast, are our methods of teaching adequate at all? 

And how to spread the word in German, my mother language? Synchronicity should help. After almost 12 years of daily use, I finally replaced my Windows 95 machine at home (a Micron PC, still runs). Started really enjoying on-line video. Had video editing tools now and elected to translate  Did You Know 2.0 as a study project. Oh, the learning curve. Watch the mash-up here.

Edit 2012-01-10: Teachertube not accessible, embedding from youtube

 

 

 

Wusstest Du? (Did You Know 1.9.de)

German version of Did You Know? 2.0 (a.k.a. Shift Happens) by Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod. Now with the fine music, but still without the graphics by XPLANE.

Another inspiration were the minutes well spent on the quick explanation videos made by Commoncraft. A colleague had sent me a hyperlink in summer 2007. I was so blown away by the speed and clarity of understanding these videos leave behind. I got it, the purpose, benefits and basics of modern work-together tools like wiki and RSS . Explaining this easy way may become a new benchmark in education.

Did You know? Three obstacles to learning

The three main obstacles to learning (from memory) most important first:

1. Words - not defined, misunderstood, unsuspected meaning.

Symptoms: brain fog following reading or hearing such a word or symbol. May feel stupid. In severe repeated cases, gives up subject.

Remedy: go back, locate the confusion, look up the definition, make the word yours, use it in examples.

Take-away: Certainty on a fundamental bit of understanding.

2. Going too fast - skipping steps

Symptom: grind, drudgery, lack of progress, dip.

Remedy: Learn to do simple bits, the basics, right, until comfortable, then add difficult bits gradually.

Take-away: Build your basics first, then build on your basics.

3. Theory alone - can't learn to bicycle with just a book.

Symptom: growing uncertainty or unease, no fun learning, goal seems to go fuzzy, why do it at all?

Remedy: Get your hands-on, grab the things you are about to learn.

Take-away: If you wish to learn cycling, remove the pedals first, put the saddle low  and dandy horse it on level ground until it goes where you want, comfortably. For an airplane find an experienced flight instructor.

Dictionaries and encyclopedias are almost everywhere. Use them, the slow way is the faster way. Imagine what may happen to education when you take all three obstacles effectively out of the system.

Co-Creating Online Again

It's been just 12 years, from hammering out my first few home pages, back in 1996, to going on-line again, 2.0 style, with nothing in between but occasional comments on the blogs of others.

From HTML handwritten and an early trial version of NetObjects Fusion then to a blog provider now.

Borrowed part of the motto for these pages from the late Roger Boisvert, internet pioneer in Japan and founder of GlobalOnLine who used to say,

Everyone is a beginner - at something.

So, why do I re-start an on-line presence after more than a decade years of abstinence?  Lee LeFever's explanations in plain English helped a lot. Seth Godin's work has been a powerful inspiration to me and today, after a few weeks on his Triiibes.com, I took his post on The small-minded vision of the technology elite  as the final push over the hump.

Beginning a blog, my blog. Like so many others, caring to share with a fuzzy goal, working on the focus and no clear end in sight.

Disclosure: Currently I have nothing to sell, no commercial intentions and no books to my credit. My handle is CoCreatr.

When I began, a decade ago, I posted following on my opening page. Was proud when it got quoted a few times. Hope it holds true.

"At any given time in history, science was only so far advanced and sometimes violently denied the findings of advanced thinkers - only to come back later to the exact same point - to prove now the truth of what was previously denied."

Bernd Nurnberger, Japan, 1996.