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Giving Flock a Chance

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In the past, the deal-breaker with Flock has been the WordPress.com bug. Basically, I would get nagged by Flock every time I visited my main blog. After a number of months, it was enough for me to put Flock on the backburner. Besides, on Mac OS X 10.4.11, Safari shows excellent performance, which didn’t tend to be the case with Flock.
On Twitter, a member of the Flock team noticed that I had issues with Flock. So I thought I’d give the browser another chance. What made me do it now is Mahalo’s Firefox plugin.
We’ll see how all of this works.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

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Ethnography, geek crowd, ramblings, sociocentrism

Is Search Broken? Some Mahalo Insight

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Interesting Scoblevision video about “human-powered search” firm Mahalo.
Part I of Inside Mahalo, the Human Produced Search Engine | FastCompany.TV
An interesting section (at about 13 minutes) is with Eric Stephens, who’s “director of user experiences” for Mahalo. In the Mahalo “lab,” Stephens does something very close to an open-ended interview. Don’t know if Stephens has a background in ethnography but his methods are pretty ethnographic. In fact, those methods are even closer to what is done in British ethnography these days than to typical North American ethnography. Maybe just a coincidence but, in my mind, a good point for Mahalo as a company.

Most of the interview focuses on Jason Calacanis, Mahalo’s founder and CEO.
To be honest, Mahalo and Calacanis are kind of growing on me. One set of reasons has to do with JaCal’s most recent TWiT contributions and Véronique Belmont‘s role in the startup. Doesn’t sound very rational but at least I acknowledge these biases.

There’s another side to my enhanced appreciation for Mahalo and Calacanis, and this side is more rational. I recently got this strange feeling recently that search was broken. I began to notice that my Google or Yahoo searches weren’t as effective as before. After blaming myself, I came to a conclusion which resonates with what Calacanis is saying here. The need for more and more reformulation of queries (with more and more words), SEO/result-spam, information overload, etc. One outcome of this “search is broken” feeling is that I spend more time going directly to a Wikipedia page by typing the URL directly instead of trying a search. Another is that I’m progressively giving Mahalo a chance.
Though I haven’t really integrated Mahalo in my routine yet, I do feel a bit like I felt when I first saw a beta version of Google.
Did I drink the Kool-Aid? Maybe a few sips.

Another point I can connect with: the blogging community as peanut gallery. Of course, some people talk about reactions to the Lacy/Zuckerberg interview as displaying mob mentality. But there’s more to it than that. In the aforementioned video, Calacanis talks about ignoring bloggers because they don’t represent the core user group for his company’s main product. Even though I blog quite frequently and now consider blogging a part of my identity, I can’t help but agree with Calacanis on this. In fact, some of that sentiment was behind my “geek niche” post just before SXSWi. Sure, bloggers and other ‘Net-savvy people are fascinating and influential in the context of online services. But they (we) still tend to represent a small proportion of the global population. Because of idealism and sociocentrism, several people would probably argue that despite clustering effect and limited demography, bloggers and geeks are “winning.” But social Darwinism has no place in this scenario.

amateurs, Anthropology, Apple, comment-fishing, critical thinking, Ethnography, Learning, linkfest, performance, playfulness, shameless plug, techno lust, Touch devices, wishful thinking

Playfully Noted

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Got a number of things about which I want to blog. Many of them in notes/outline form. Might have to wait a bit.

But one thing which keeps coming up is the notion of playfulness. Been blogging about it a bit over the years,  especially since this February 2006 post which was connected with my teaching. The next day, I was posting a short entry in French about playfulness in music. Music playing in the strongest sense. Free play.

That was over two years ago. Flies are being timed.
Still thinking about playfulness quite a bit. In music, learning, technology…
What I mean by playfulness is rather simplistic, but it works: free, undirected, aimless, open behavior. Acts of playfulness, in my mind, appear not to be goal-oriented nor competitive. Extremely low stakes. Failure isn’t even registered. No evaluation whatsoever. The opposite of performance, to go back to performance theory which inspired part of that first entry.
Of course, my notion of playfulness might be different to that of many of the people who work on and “play with” games. Some people conceive of fun as embedded in competition. As I’m personally not very competition-driven, my conception and perception are different.
I’m neither a game theorist nor an avid gamer. At best, I’d be labelled as one of those “casual gamers” game developers are finally trying to reach. So: I’m no expert. But I do enjoy discussions of playfulness facilitated by those who work on game. Thanks in part to the video game industry, playfulness is making its way into the technology/education confluence as well as in corporate circles.
Some recent things I’ve thought about in terms of playfulness.
Playing music on Touch devices or other handhelds. My French post on “easy musicking” mentioned Electroplankton. Other forms of handheld musicking:

Can’t help but think that handheld music can really “spring up,” especially in terms of casual musicking. With the release of the software development kit for Apple’s Touch devices, there’s mindshare for handhelds as ultimate interface.

Of course, music games are gaining attention and people are jumping on the bandwagon. After all, music games may mean big business. Usually, I blog about music at Critical World or at my ethnomusicology course blog. Here, I’m mostly thinking about playfulness. And music games aren’t really playful in my sense of the term. Too competitive.

In terms of playful learning, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about “playing with data.” In part thanks to Gapminder, that I just discovered through Google Spreadsheets (even though Gapminder’s Trendalyzer software has been acquired by Google over a year ago). In my mind, Hans Rosling’s 2006 and 2007 TED presentations about Gapminder really capture the spirit of playful learning. Especially in connection to critical thinking, open-mindedness, creativity, and cultural awareness. (Anthro FTW!)

Now, if I could only get paid to do a project on using Touch devices for playful musicking in learning contexts… 😉

Blogging, comment-fishing, commenting, Creative Commons, Facebook, ramblings, social, social capital, social contract, social media, social networks, social publishing, sophistication, trust, Twitter, Web 2.0, YouTube

Obvious Concept: Confidentiality (Draft)

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In response to Émilie Pelletier, who replied to my previous post on “intimacy.” That previous post of mine wasn’t  well thought out and I hesitated before pushing the “Publish” button. But given Émilie’s thoughtful response, I’m glad I posted it. It makes for a somewhat more “interactive conversation” (!)  than the typical blogging session.

What seems in what I describe is that “social media” are about managing the way “content” is transmitted (on Twitter, YouTube, del.icio.us, Facebook, BitTorrent, LinkedIn…). In this sense, “social media” are quite easy to understand, even though the diversity of “social media” systems  available obscures this simplicity. Hence the cyclical discussions about what constitutes “Web 2.0” and what is coming next.

The “obvious concept” I was trying to describe in my previous is a simplified version of the concept of “intimacy” we all seem to have in mind. Émilie did a good job at describing important dimensions of intimacy in social life and I should address those later. Admittedly, my use of the term “intimacy” was quite confusing and not at all obvious. The concept I tried to describe seems to me rather obvious but it doesn’t make it easy to describe or name. I know, some people might jump at this and say that what is easy to understand must be easy to explain. Yet many concepts are rather easy to grasp and quite hard to explain, especially in a “one-way conversation” such as a blogpost.

Anyhoo.

“Intimacy” isn’t such a good word for what I meant. I didn’t want to use “privacy” because it’s being used for slightly different purposes, in those social media. I could have worked to define “privacy” more precisely but I thought the term itself would have prevented further discussion since “privacy” is so well-known, in “social media.” Again, I agree with Émilie that “intimacy” isn’t more accurate, but it seems to have worked in making people think. Nice!

Come to think of it, “confidentiality” would possibly work better. In these same social media (e.g, Facebook), «confidentialité» is the translation of “privacy” but there are differences between the two concepts. Putting “trust” and “confidant” in relation to “confidentiality” gets closer to the slightly more subtle transmission management I had in mind. Some items are shared “in private” based on a level of trust that nothing will leak out, neither the content nor the fact that content was transmitted. Other items can be shared through controlled (semi-private) channels with the intention of “spreading out” the item and making the transmission known. Quite frequently, such transmission is more effective at “becoming viral” because content is properly contextualized. The “contract” of any transmission of information has such rules embedded in them and “sharing content online” is simple enough a process to be formalized in these ways.
The other dimension we tend to embed in “online content transmission” is what’s often called “reputation” or “authority” in those same “social media.” Again, very simplified versions of what happens in communication broadly, but the simple social models work well in those simplified “social media.” The “receiver” of the content may trust the “sender” based on a series of simple criteria. Trained to think that we should never “trust information” based on the sender, I used to (and still) react negatively to notions of “trust,” “authority,” or “reputation.” Slashdot’s concept of “karma” seemed somewhat better at the time because it sets apart the social capital from a notion of “blind faith.” I now understand more clearly what role trust might play in receiving content, especially in preventing malware to spread or managing our concentration. Simplified, this concept of trust is only indirectly about the value of the content itself. It’s more about assessing the risks involved in the content transmission event. In other words, we should only open email attachments from  people we trust and, even then, we know there are risks involved in opening attachments.

So, going back to the obvious concept I’m circling around. What Facebook just did in terms of privacy controls  does seem to connect with what I have in mind. Not only can we group contacts but we can finally use these groups to manage how widely some content may be distributed. Neat and rather easy. But some dimensions could be added to make content transmission approximate a bit better the sophistication of social life. For instance, there could be ways to make intermediate receivers understand how widely the content can be “redistributed.” Is it “for your eyes only” or is it “please distribute to all like-minded people?” An easy step to take, here, would be to add a type of license-control reminiscent of Creative Commons, on user-generated content. There could be something about the original creator of the content (“I’m only posting this because I like, I don’t claim ownership”). Ratings, which are so common in “social media” could be added and fleshed out so that a creator could key her/his work in the right frame.

Ok, I’m rambling even more now than before. So I’ll leave this post as-is and see what happens.

No, I won’t even replace all those quotation marks or correct my mistakes. RERO.

Do with this post as you want. I’m just thinking out loud.  And laughing on the inside.

audience, Facebook, ramblings, social media, social networks, Web 2.0

Obvious Concept: Intimacy

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Quite obvious a concept, but it could simplify some things in so-called “social media” and other online applications of social network analysis. In simple terms, why can’t we control (“slide up and down”) the “degree of friendship” implied in sharing an item? Because some people, North Americans especially, have an ideal of “equalization” in social relationships? Fair enough. “Friendship” in the U.S. often means “friendliness” or mere “reciprocity.” But, as most people realize, the content we share (microblog posts, funny pictures, academic references, music files…) is meant for a specific audience which can range from an audience of one (for archiving or “private communication”) to an audience of millions (everyone who can read English, for instance).
Most “social media” systems out there allow users to share items in private or to “the whole wide world.” Some systems have “privacy settings” so that one can distribute items selectively to a number of people without “leaking” the item to the public sphere. And the “social network” dimension often implies that people’s “inner circle” serves as the primary audience for items which are semi-public.
Contrary to what some people seem to assume (especially in educational contexts), these systems often mean that users think about privacy quite a lot. In fact, strategies to control how private or how public an item should become run at the center of those online systems.
Yet, most people have much more elaborate concepts of privacy and intimacy, much more “granular” ways to approach information sharing than what is involved in almost any online tool available. Put simply, users often know very precisely how widespread they want an item to become and how fast it can spread but they often don’t have ways to control these.
We all have strategies to cope with these issues in face-to-face relationships (what some like to call “meatspace”). For instance, breaching secrets is often considered a serious offence resulting in loss of face which, in turn, leads to avoidance strategies and other social control mechanism. Our social tools are more advanced than our online tools.
What’s funny is that some very simple solutions could be found to overcome discrepancies in sophistication between social and online relationships. An obvious example is the use of “groups,” “tags,” and “scopes.” These are already available and we can select a specific audience for a specific message (at least on Facebook, not on Twitter). But this “audience selection” process is rather cumbersome and most people end up posting things for much larger audiences to hear than what was originally intended. Some entrepreneurs are also thinking about the economic and ludic aspects of social capital, reifying “importance” with a form of currency in symbolic exchange.
All good and well. But adoption of these solutions depends on a number of factors, including the “transaction costs” and the “workflow integration.”
If these all fail, we’ll just have to bet on the ingenuity of teenagers to come up with new ways to use what was once known as “Web 2.0 technologies.”
Ah, well…

Food, food philosophy, personal

Textured Away

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Not my usual type of blogpost, but… Why not?

Been using dry granular textured vegetable protein (TVP) quite a bit, recently. Versatile, cheap , durable, easy, and quick. Better tasting than I remember. Still not that tasty by itself, of course, but it takes the flavor of whatever you add to it. In other words, it “carries” taste instead of contributing much to it.

Been mixing TVP with different spices and other ingredients. With soy, garlic, and ginger. Or with chili spices and onions. Even with homemade gravy or with store-bought BBQ sauce. Works really well on a tortilla. Easy to use in soups.

Perfect for quick snacks. With my GERD, eating small portions several times a day is very beneficial. My TVP snacks tend to fill me just enough to feel satiated without feeling full.

Since I’m a meat eater, I ‘ll probably start mixing TVP with meat products. My perception is that, with TVP, I can cut on fat a bit while having enough protein to make it feel like a meal. Given my girth, this practice might pave the way to other neat things in my nutrition and health.

At the same time, it’s not like I’ll go full-TVP all the way. I like to vary my diet as much as possible.

Unfortunately, I don’t find TVP in the USDA’s Nutrients Database. No idea why, actually.

Ah, well…

Austin, Twitter

Waiting for Zuckerberg/Lacy Transcript

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Started watching the video but I really want to wait until I can read the transcript. Chances are that the transcript may reveal a different story from the “trainwreck” consensus opinion. It seems to me rather likely that the interview itself was barely mediocre until people started reacting through audible groans and shared tweets.

Ah, well…

In the meantime, here’s the complete video.

Clips: The complete Mark Zuckerberg/Sarah Lacy video

[viddler id=e7440ffc&h=370&w=437]

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Learning Interviews and Ethnography

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As an ethnographer, I care a fair bit about interviewing techniques and styles. Not that interviews are the only method we use. We do participant-observation, preliminary research, quantitative analysis, genealogy… But skills at conducting open-ended interviews come in handy in ethnographic disciplines.

It then follows that I enjoy finding examples of effective and ineffective interviewing. Typically, interviews in mainstream media (MSM) contain useful material on what not to do in an interview.

This is exactly what I consider yesterday’s Lacy-Zuckerberg “keynote” to be: an example of what should be avoided at all costs while doing an insightful interview. Not so bad if all you want to do is dig dirt. But abysmal in terms of insight.

Apparently, jscholars and media experts agree about the value of the Lacy-Zuck fiasco for learning moments:

Even though I’m local to SXSW, I wasn’t at the keynote (I don’t have a SXSWi badge). I mostly looked at live reactions after they had been posted and briefly discussed the session with someone who did attend. I’m still trying to make sense of what happened which is a bit difficult in the fickleness of media (“geek” or mainstream).

Some of the most impactful live reactions were posted on Twitter, with Robert Scoble as a central figure. Some of those reactions were rather harsh, even insulting. Given my cynicism toward MSM, I assumed that part of those reactions were exacerbated by the situation. And while I now think that the interview was even more inappropriate than I thought it had been, I still think part of the groaning was self-generated. After all, it’s not like MSM weren’t already filled with I-Show self-congratulatory interviews.

To be honest (and I can certainly be wrong): my guess is that what started as relatively mild disappointment at the way the interview was going transformed into audible/visible reactions as well as “tweets” (text updates on Twitter), which then caused a sort of feedback loop. Those who weren’t twittering at the point might still have reacted audibly and/or visibly. Since, as human beings, we’re quite clueful in terms of people’s paralanguage (“body language”), this scenario doesn’t sound as absurd as some attendees might assume.

In fact, people keep mentioning Sarah Lacy’s paralanguage (including proxemics and kinesics), which makes me suspect that the communication break may have spilled over from non-linguistic clues.

I sure hope the Language Log gang will pick this story up as it can make for a very interesting discussion among language scientists. Should probably send something to the Linguistic Anthropology blog.

The paralinguistic dimension reminds me of the history of televised debates, especially the Nixon-Kennedy case. Haven’t seen the Zuckerberg-Lacy transcript yet but it does sound like the verbal component of the interview was less problematic than the aural and visual dimensions. Maybe I’m too much of a fan of orality, but I’m looking forward to reading the complete transcript. And watching the complete video.

Interestingly, Lacy herself seems to focus on the “written” content, in response to the controversy. Quite clear in this video, even more so in her twittered reply. Both the video and the tweet are already (in)famous. Hopefully they can help people take a step back and look at the situation as a whole. The authority/legitimacy/jschool-cred angles are easy to follow. And the “in my book” comment is too funny in context to pass up (Lacy kept promoting her hardcopy book). The “high profile” comment is very intriguing. Maybe Lacy expected something more out of “South-by” than a chance to “moderate a keynote” in front of highly-involved participants.

Ah, well…

My motto remains: “Don’t get angry. Get a Clue!”

Hadn’t realized until just now that Sarah Lacy was the same journalist who wrote about her sour grapes over the TED conference. That one was another story I found interesting, especially in terms of the geek niche. Lacy, and others, seem to worry about “geek fame.” Reactions to her “Zuck” interview seem to imply she’s easily star-struck.

Which brings us to gender. Many people, including or even especially women, are referring to Lacy as a ditz. Many talk about her Valley Girl speech (part paralanguage, of course). Not to mention that her BusinessWeek column is called Valley Girl. Plus, the apparently-flirtatious behavior is clearly gendered. Not that her gender was the root cause of the fiasco. But the fiasco has an obvious gender dimension. A man acting the same way would probably not have fared much better but the reactions would have been quite different. Not kinder, just different.

The “mob mentality” and “flashmob” aspects can also lead to insight into geek culture. In simple terms, this is what anybody would call a “tough crowd.” “Lions in the arena” sounds like a fitting analogy. Was Lacy an amazone? Clearly, there are parallels to make with Michelle Madigan at DefCon. In that situation, a self-assured MSM journalist was shunned from a hacker conference for failing to play by the rules set by the audience. Sarah Lacy is being burnt partly because she failed to play to her audience.

The larger lesson is: context is key.

 

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academic podcasting, Apple, collaborative learning, Education, educational technology, eLearning, enthusiasm, iPhone, iPod touch, learning materials, playfulness, podcasting, ramblings

Educational Touch: Handhelds in Schools

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The more I think about it, the more Touch-style handhelds seem to make sense in educational and academic contexts. They don’t need to be made by Apple. But Apple’s devices are inspiring in this respect.

Here’s a thought, which would be a deal-maker for many an instructor: automatically turn off all student cellphones. A kind of “classroom mode,” similar to the “airplane mode” already on the iPhone. And it could apply to non-phone devices (i.e., the iPod touch and future models in those Touch lines). An instructor could turn off all audio out from the all the handheld devices in the room. Or turn them all on, if needed. This could even be location-based, if the devices have sufficiently precise positioning systems.
To go even further, one might imagine some control over what apps may be used during class. Turning off games, for instance. Or chat. Or limit browsing to the LAN. Not “always off,” mind you. But selectively opting out of some of the handhelds’ features. Temporarily.

In most situations, such controls seem overly restrictive to me. Apart from preventing cellphones from ringing during lecture, I typically want to let students as free as possible. But I do know that many of my colleagues (not just admins) would just love it if they could limit some of the things students can do during class with such devices.

One obvious context for such limits is an in-class exam. If they could easily prevent students from using non-allowed materials during an exam, many teachers would likely appreciate the convenience of exams on handhelds. Just imagine: automatic grading and grade reporting, easy transfer of answers, access to rich multimedia content, seamless interface…
As was obvious to me during the Apple event yesterday, Touch-style handhelds could be excellent tools for “distance education.” Learners and teachers could be anywhere and the handhelds could make for more direct collaboration than large lectures. Advantages of handhelds over laptops are less obvious here than in classroom contexts but it’s easy to think of fieldwork situations in which learners could collaborate with experts from just about anywhere there is a wireless connection. Immediate access to learning materials at almost any moment.

And podcasting. While podcasting got a big boost when iTunes began podcast support, there’s a lot which could be done to improve podcasting and podcast management. As iPod media devices, Touch handhelds have good playback features already. But there could be so much more in terms of interacting with (multimedia) content. Transcripts, tags, associated slides, audio comments, fast-speed playback, text notes, video responses, links, cross-references, playback statistics, waveform-based navigation…

Podcasting can still become big.  It’s now a “household concept” but it’s not as mainstream nor as life-changing as many hoped it’d become, back in 2005. I’m not really forecasting anything but I can envision contexts in which enhance podcasting feautres could make our lives easier. Especially in schools.

Education in general (and university education in particular) may be the context where podcasting’s potential is most likely to be realized. Though the technological basis for podcasting is quite general in scope (RSS enclosures, podcatching software, etc.), podcasting often feels like an educational solution, first and foremost.

A lot has been said about educational uses of podcasting. Early reports showed some promising results with those teachers who were willing to think creatively about the technology. I personally enjoyed a number of advantages of podcasting in my own courses, including several imponderables. Software packages meant for lecturecasts (podcast lectures) already exist. Apple’s own iTunes U is specifically geared toward university education using podcasts.

But there’s still something missing. Not just for podcasts. For handheld “educational technology.”
Momentum? Possibly. Where would it come from, though?

Killer devices? Apple already pushes its own devices (including the iPod touch) for “Mobile Learning.”

Cool apps? Haven’t really looked at the Web apps but it seems likely that some of them can already lead to epiphanies and “teaching moments.” Not to mention that tons of excellent learning software will surely come out of Cocoa Touch development.

Funding? My feeling is that apart from providing financial support for user-driven and development projects, “educational technology” monies are often spent unwisely. The idea isn’t to spend money but to “unleash the potential” of learners and teachers.

Motivation? Many learners and teachers are ready and it would be absurd to force anyone to become enthusiastic about a specific tool or technology.

My guess is that the main thing we need to make “mobile learning” a reality is to take a step back and look at what is already possible. Then look at what can become possible. And just start playing around with ideas and tools.

Learning is a component of playfulness.

Apple, Education, educational technology, iPhone, iPod touch, OLPC, ramblings, schools, Touch devices

Touch Devices in Education

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Repost from: Lounge: Apple Touch Devices in the Classroom?

(Some redundant parts from the last post.)

Watched and blogged about Apple’s enterprise and development media event, yesterday. The event was about what I call “Touch” products (iPhone and iPod Touch).
One thing which struck me is that Phil Schiller started the enterprise section of that presentation with some comments about Stanford. Now, I’m not one to favor the customer-based model of education. I still see Stanford as being about knowledge more than about financial profit.
Still, this all got me thinking: What if we started using Apple’s Touch products in the classroom? Distributing and sharing documents around the group as we are working on diverse projects. Streaming lecture material (audio, video, slides) directly to learners’ handhelds on which they can take notes. Synchronous and asynchronous chats. Collaborative editing. Task management…
For that matter, even Microsoft Exchange could make sense in this context. Some campuses already use it for faculty but it’d make perfect sense to have push email, calendars, and contacts on school devices. Secure connections. Global address list. Remote wiping if the device gets stolen or lost.
Even the application distribution system (using the App Store), which may make some developers cringe, could make some sense for schools. Controlling which applications are on school devices sounds awful from the perspective of many a tech enthusiasts, but it could sound really good to school IT managers.
In this sense, Touch devices could make more sense than traditional laptop programs for education. Better battery life, somewhat lower cost, better security, easier maintenance… A Touch program could even have some advantages over newer generation laptop programs, especially in terms of “control.”

I know, I know… I’m sounding like a Pointy-Haired Boss. I’m surprised myself. I guess that, as an ethnographer, I tend to put myself in someone else’s shoes. In this case, it happens to be the shoes of a school administrator.
Of course, I prefer Open devices. In this sense, Google’s Android would satisfy my Open-loving side more than Apple’s Touch products. It’s just that admins tend not to like openness so much and they’re the ones who need to be convinced.