Monthly Archives: May 2006

American Thinkers, continued

Fantastic suggestions, interesting discussion. If you didn’t read through the comments, the original prompt was, “Who could help the Democratic Party think about a ‘narrative’ that would help the party connect more powerfully with established, deeply historical, strains of thought … Continue reading

Posted in Politics | 22 Comments

Tenure, Costs, Workloads

Quantifying the expense, as well as benefits, of tenure is a dicey business. I’ve been thinking some about Robert Dickeson’s white paper prepared for the Future of Higher Education Commission, which puts a $1 million per faculty member cost on … Continue reading

Posted in Academia | 7 Comments

American Thinkers

Quick question for you all reading. I’m trying to think of current, living, vital writers, thinkers, public figures, artists, entrepreneurs, inventors, scientists, etc., who are uncommonly sensitive to the deep zeitgeist of American life, able to communicate easily and powerfully … Continue reading

Posted in Miscellany, Politics | 61 Comments

Bloggers and Journalists

I’ve been thinking a bit about a chance conversation I got involved in at the Social Computing Symposium. There’s so much anxiety among journalists working for mainstream newspapers and magazines about bloggers and blogs. I think a lot of the … Continue reading

Posted in Blogging | 6 Comments

Liveblogging at the Social Computing Symposium Conclusion

Clay Shirky closes with some observations. First, too many social spaces online are either too big or too granular in the level of discussion and interactions they promote. What he and his graduate students are working on is to try … Continue reading

Posted in Blogging, Information Technology and Information Literacy | 2 Comments

Liveblogging at the Social Computing Symposium 7

Clay Shirky and Danah Boyd are wrapping up the meeting by collating questions that participants think could profitably be future research questions. Here are some of them: 1) How can we measure the success of different types of online communities? … Continue reading

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Liveblogging at the Social Computing Symposium 6

Good discussions following the third lightning round session: I would say the third set of presentations were the ones that stimulated the richest slate of follow-up conversations. One cool concrete idea that came out of Julian Dibbell’s presentation was something … Continue reading

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Liveblogging at the Social Computing Symposium 5

Julian Dibbell asks, “What is the place of games in social spaces, in virtual community? What difference does a game make?” He points to something that I think is really important, what he calls an authenticity problem: it is still … Continue reading

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Liveblogging at the Social Computing Symposium 4

Next session doesn’t begin for a while, but I’m thinking here at breakfast about how this meeting accelerates my sensation of being a misfit toy in academia. I mean, in the context of my everyday practice, I think quite a … Continue reading

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Liveblogging at the Social Computing Symposium 3

From an afternoon session on mobile and pervasive social computing. Rich Ling suggests that mobile computing or communication creates social cohesion better than other computer-mediated communication. I don’t really buy that, for a variety of reasons. Perhaps partly because I … Continue reading

Posted in Blogging, Games and Gaming, Information Technology and Information Literacy, Miscellany | 1 Comment