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Installing BuddyPress on a Webhost

January 25, 2010 dispar 3 Comments

[Jump here for more technical details.]

A few months ago, I installed BuddyPress on my Mac to try it out. It was a bit of an involved process, so I documented it:

WordPress MU, BuddyPress, and bbPress on Local Machine « Disparate.

More recently, I decided to get a webhost. Both to run some tests and, eventually, to build something useful. BuddyPress seems like a good way to go at it, especially since it’s improved a lot, in the past several months.

In fact, the installation process is much simpler, now, and I ran into some difficulties because I was following my own instructions (though adapting the process to my webhost). So a new blogpost may be in order. My previous one was very (possibly too) detailed. This one is much simpler, technically.

One thing to make clear is that BuddyPress is a set of plugins meant for WordPress µ (“WordPress MU,” “WPMU,” “WPµ”), the multi-user version of the WordPress blogging platform. BP is meant as a way to make WPµ more “social,” with such useful features as flexible profiles, user-to-user relationships, and forums (through bbPress, yet another one of those independent projects based on WordPress).

While BuddyPress depends on WPµ and does follow a blogging logic, I’m thinking about it as a social platform. Once I build it into something practical, I’ll probably use the blogging features but, in a way, it’s more of a tool to engage people in online social activities. BuddyPress probably doesn’t work as a way to “build a community” from scratch. But I think it can be quite useful as a way to engage members of an existing community, even if this engagement follows a blogger’s version of a Pareto distribution (which, hopefully, is dissociated from elitist principles).

But I digress, of course. This blogpost is more about the practical issue of adding a BuddyPress installation to a webhost.

Webhosts have come a long way, recently. Especially in terms of shared webhosting focused on LAMP (or PHP/MySQL, more specifically) for blogs and content-management. I don’t have any data on this, but it seems to me that a lot of people these days are relying on third-party webhosts instead of relying on their own servers when they want to build on their own blogging and content-management platforms. Of course, there’s a lot more people who prefer to use preexisting blog and content-management systems. For instance, it seems that there are more bloggers on WordPress.com than on other WordPress installations. And WP.com blogs probably represent a small number of people in comparison to the number of people who visit these blogs. So, in a way, those who run their own WordPress installations are a minority in the group of active WordPress bloggers which, itself, is a minority of blog visitors. Again, let’s hope this “power distribution” not a basis for elite theory!

Yes, another digression. I did tell you to skip, if you wanted the technical details!

I became part of the “self-hosted WordPress” community through a project on which I started work during the summer. It’s a website for an academic organization and I’m acting as the organization’s “Web Guru” (no, I didn’t choose the title). The site was already based on WordPress but I was rebuilding much of it in collaboration with the then-current “Digital Content Editor.” Through this project, I got to learn a lot about WordPress, themes, PHP, CSS, etc. And it was my first experience using a cPanel- (and Fantastico-)enabled webhost (BlueHost, at the time). It’s also how I decided to install WordPress on my local machine and did some amount of work from that machine.

But the local installation wasn’t an ideal solution for two reasons: a) I had to be in front of that local machine to work on this project; and b) it was much harder to show the results to the person with whom I was collaborating.

So, in the Fall, I decided to get my own staging server. After a few quick searches, I decided HostGator, partly because it was available on a monthly basis. Since this staging server was meant as a temporary solution, HG was close to ideal. It was easy to set up as a PayPal “subscription,” wasn’t that expensive (9$/month), had adequate support, and included everything that I needed at that point to install a current version of WordPress and play with theme files (after importing content from the original site). I’m really glad I made that decision because it made a number of things easier, including working from different computers, and sending links to get feedback.

While monthly HostGator fees were reasonable, it was still a more expensive proposition than what I had in mind for a longer-term solution. So, recently, a few weeks after releasing the new version of the organization’s website, I decided to cancel my HostGator subscription. A decision I made without any regret or bad feeling. HostGator was good to me. It’s just that I didn’t have any reason to keep that account or to do anything major with the domain name I was using on HG.

Though only a few weeks elapsed since I canceled that account, I didn’t immediately set out to transition to a new webhost. I didn’t go from HostGator to another webhost.

But having my own webhost still remained at the back of my mind as something which might be useful. For instance, while not really making a staging server necessary, a new phase in the academic website project brought up a sandboxing idea. Also, I went to a “WordPress Montreal” meeting and got to think about further WordPress development/deployment, including using BuddyPress for my own needs (both as my own project and as a way to build my own knowledge of the platform) instead of it being part of an organization’s project. I was also thinking about other interesting platforms which necessitate a webhost.

(More on these other platforms at a later point in time. Bottom line is, I’m happy with the prospects.)

So I wanted a new webhost. I set out to do some comparison shopping, as I’m wont to do. In my (allegedly limited) experience, finding the ideal webhost is particularly difficult. For one thing, search results are cluttered with a variety of “unuseful” things such as rants, advertising, and limited comparisons. And it’s actually not that easy to give a new webhost a try. For one thing, these hosting companies don’t necessarily have the most liberal refund policies you could imagine. And, switching a domain name between different hosts and registrars is a complicated process through which a name may remain “hostage.” Had I realized what was involved, I might have used a domain name to which I have no attachment or actually eschewed the whole domain transition and just try the webhost without a dedicated domain name.

Doh!

Live and learn. I sure do. Loving almost every minute of it.

At any rate, I had a relatively hard time finding my webhost.

I really didn’t need “bells and whistles.” For instance, all the AdSense, shopping cart, and other business-oriented features which seem to be publicized by most webhosting companies have no interest, to me.

I didn’t even care so much about absolute degree of reliability or speed. What I’m to do with this host is fairly basic stuff. The core idea is to use my own host to bypass some limitations. For instance, WordPress.com doesn’t allow for plugins yet most of the WordPress fun has to do with plugins.

I did want an “unlimited” host, as much as possible. Not because expect to have huge resource needs but I just didn’t want to have to monitor bandwidth.

I thought that my needs would be basic enough that any cPanel-enabled webhost would fit. As much as I could see, I needed FTP access to something which had PHP 5 and MySQL 5. I expected to install things myself, without use of the webhost’s scripts but I also thought the host would have some useful scripts. Although I had already registered the domain I wanted to use (through Name.com), I thought it might be useful to have a free domain in the webhosting package. Not that domain names are expensive, it’s more of a matter of convenience in terms of payment or setup.

I ended up with FatCow. But, honestly, I’d probably go with a different host if I were to start over (which I may do with another project).

I paid 88$ for two years of “unlimited” hosting, which is quite reasonable. And, on paper, FatCow has everything I need (and I bunch of things I don’t need). The missing parts aren’t anything major but have to do with minor annoyances. In other words, no real deal-breaker, here. But there’s a few things I wish I had realized before I committed on FatCow with a domain name I actually want to use.

Something which was almost a deal-breaker for me is the fact that FatCow requires payment for any additional subdomain. And these aren’t cheap: the minimum is 5$/month for five subdomains, up to 25$/month for unlimited subdomains! Even at a “regular” price of 88$/year for the basic webhosting plan, the “unlimited subdomains” feature (included in some webhosting plans elsewhere) is more than three times more expensive than the core plan.

As I don’t absolutely need extra subdomains, this is mostly a minor irritant. But it’s one reason I’ll probably be using another webhost for other projects.

Other issues with FatCow are probably not enough to motivate a switch.

For instance, the PHP version installed on FatCow (5.2.1) is a few minor releases behind the one needed by some interesting web applications. No biggie, especially if PHP is updated in a relatively reasonable timeframe. But still makes for a slight frustration.

The MySQL version seems recent enough, but it uses non-standard tools to manage it, which makes for some confusion. Attempting to create some MySQL databases with obvious names (say “wordpress”) fails because the database allegedly exists (even though it doesn’t show up in the MySQL administration). In the same vein, the URL of the MySQL is <username>.fatcowmysql.com instead of localhost as most installers seem to expect. Easy to handle once you realize it, but it makes for some confusion.

In terms of Fantastico-like simplified installation of webapps, FatCow uses InstallCentral, which looks like it might be its own Fantastico replacement. InstallCentral is decent enough as an installation tool and FatCow does provide for some of the most popular blog and CMS platforms. But, in some cases, the application version installed by FatCow is old enough (2005!) that it requires multiple upgrades to get to a current version. Compared to other installation tools, FatCow’s InstallCentral doesn’t seem really efficient at keeping track of installed and released versions.

Something which is partly a neat feature and partly a potential issue is the way FatCow handles Apache-related security. This isn’t something which is so clear to me, so I might be wrong.

Accounts on both BlueHost and HostGator include a public_html directory where all sorts of things go, especially if they’re related to publicly-accessible content. This directory serves as the website’s root, so one expects content to be available there. The “index.html” or “index.php” file in this directory serves as the website’s frontpage. It’s fairly obvious, but it does require that one would understand a few things about webservers. FatCow doesn’t seem to create a public_html directory in a user’s server space. Or, more accurately, it seems that the root directory (aka ‘/’) is in fact public_html. In this sense, a user doesn’t have to think about which directory to use to share things on the Web. But it also means that some higher-level directories aren’t available. I’ve already run into some issues with this and I’ll probably be looking for a workaround. I’m assuming there’s one. But it’s sometimes easier to use generally-applicable advice than to find a custom solution.

Further, in terms of access control… It seems that webapps typically make use of diverse directories and .htaccess files to manage some forms of access controls. Unix-style file permissions are also involved but the kind of access needed for a web app is somewhat different from the “User/Group/All” of Unix filesystems. AFAICT, FatCow does support those .htaccess files. But it has its own tools for building them. That can be a neat feature, as it makes it easier, for instance, to password-protect some directories. But it could also be the source of some confusion.

There are other issues I have with FatCow, but it’s probably enough for now.

So… On to the installation process… 😉

It only takes a few minutes and is rather straightforward. This is the most verbose version of that process you could imagine…

Surprised? 😎

Disclaimer: I’m mostly documenting how I did it and there are some things about which I’m unclear. So it may not work for you. If it doesn’t, I may be able to help but I provide no guarantee that I will. I’m an anthropologist, not a Web development expert.

As always, YMMV.

A few instructions here are specific to FatCow, but the general process is probably valid on other hosts.

I’m presenting things in a sequence which should make sense. I used a slightly different order myself, but I think this one should still work. (If it doesn’t, drop me a comment!)

In these instructions, straight quotes (“”) are used to isolate elements from the rest of the text. They shouldn’t be typed or pasted.

I use “example.com” to refer to the domain on which the installation is done. In my case, it’s the domain name I transfered to FatCow from another registrar but it could probably be done without a dedicated domain (in which case it would be “<username>.fatcow.com” where “<username>” is your FatCow username).

I started with creating a MySQL database for WordPress MU. FatCow does have phpMyAdmin but the default tool in the cPanel is labeled “Manage MySQL.” It’s slightly easier to use for creating new databases than phpMyAdmin because it creates the database and initial user (with confirmed password) in a single, easy-to-understand dialog box.

So I created that new database, user, and password, noting down this information. Since that password appears in clear text at some point and can easily be changed through the same interface, I used one which was easy to remember but wasn’t one I use elsewhere.

Then, I dowloaded the following files to my local machine in order to upload them to my FatCow server space. The upload can be done through either FTP or FatCow’s FileManager. I tend to prefer FTP (via CyberDuck on the Mac or FileZilla on PC). But the FileManager does allow for easy uploads.

(Wish it could be more direct, using the HTTP links directly instead of downloading to upload. But I haven’t found a way to do it through either FTP or the FileManager.)

At any rate, here are the four files I transfered to my FatCow space, using .zip when there’s a choice (the .tar.gz “tarball” versions also work but require a couple of extra steps).

WordPress MU (wordpress-mu-2.9.1.1.zip, in my case)
Buddymatic (buddymatic.0.9.6.3.1.zip, in my case)
EarlyMorning (only one version, it seems)
EarlyMorning-BP (only one version, it seems)

Only the WordPress MU archive is needed to install BuddyPress. The last three files are needed for EarlyMorning, a BuddyPress theme that I found particularly neat. It’s perfectly possible to install BuddyPress without this specific theme. (Although, doing so, you need to install a BuddyPress-compatible theme, if only by moving some folders to make the default theme available, as I explained in point 15 in that previous tutorial.) Buddymatic itself is a theme framework which includes some child themes, so you don’t need to install EarlyMorning. But installing it is easy enough that I’m adding instructions related to that theme.

These files can be uploaded anywhere in my FatCow space. I uploaded them to a kind of test/upload directory, just to make it clear, for me.

A major FatCow idiosyncrasy is its FileManager (actually called “FileManager Beta” in the documentation but showing up as “FileManager” in the cPanel). From my experience with both BlueHost and HostGator (two well-known webhosting companies), I can say that FC’s FileManager is quite limited. One thing it doesn’t do is uncompress archives. So I have to resort to the “Archive Gateway,” which is surprisingly slow and cumbersome.

At any rate, I used that Archive Gateway to uncompress the four files. WordPress µ first (in the root directory or “/”), then both Buddymatic and EarlyMorning in “/wordpress-mu/wp-content/themes” (you can chose the output directory for zip and tar files), and finally EarlyMorning-BP (anywhere, individual files are moved later). To uncompress each file, select it in the dropdown menu (it can be located in any subdirectory, Archive Gateway looks everywhere), add the output directory in the appropriate field in the case of Buddymatic or EarlyMorning, and press “Extract/Uncompress”. Wait to see a message (in green) at the top of the window saying that the file has been uncompressed successfully.

Then, in the FileManager, the contents of the EarlyMorning-BP directory have to be moved to “/wordpress-mu/wp-content/themes/earlymorning”. (Thought they could be uncompressed there directly, but it created an extra folder.) To move those files in the FileManager, I browse to that earlymorning-bp directory, click on the checkbox to select all, click on the “Move” button (fourth from right, marked with a blue folder), and add the output path: /wordpress-mu/wp-content/themes/earlymorning

These files are tweaks to make the EarlyMorning theme work with BuddyPress.

Then, I had to change two files, through the FileManager (it could also be done with an FTP client).

One change is to EarlyMorning’s style.css:

/wordpress-mu/wp-content/themes/earlymorning/style.css

There, “Template: thematic” has to be changed to “Template: buddymatic” (so, “the” should be changed to “buddy”).

That change is needed because the EarlyMorning theme is a child theme of the “Thematic” WordPress parent theme. Buddymatic is a BuddyPress-savvy version of Thematic and this changes the child-parent relation from Thematic to Buddymatic.

The other change is in the Buddymatic “extensions”:

/wordpress-mu/wp-content/themes/buddymatic/library/extensions/buddypress_extensions.php

There, on line 39, “$bp->root_domain” should be changed to “bp_root_domain()”.

This change is needed because of something I’d consider a bug but that a commenter on another blog was kind enough to troubleshoot. Without this modification, the login button in BuddyPress wasn’t working because it was going to the website’s root (example.com/wp-login.php) instead of the WPµ installation (example.com/wordpress-mu/wp-login.php). I was quite happy to find this workaround but I’m not completely clear on the reason it works.

Then, something I did which might not be needed is to rename the “wordpress-mu” directory. Without that change, the BuddyPress installation would sit at “example.com/wordpress-mu,” which seems a bit cryptic for users. In my mind, “example.com/<name>,” where “<name>” is something meaningful like “social” or “community” works well enough for my needs. Because FatCow charges for subdomains, the “<name>.example.com” option would be costly.

(Of course, WPµ and BuddyPress could be installed in the site’s root and the frontpage for “example.com” could be the BuddyPress frontpage. But since I think of BuddyPress as an add-on to a more complete site, it seems better to have it as a level lower in the site’s hierarchy.)

With all of this done, the actual WPµ installation process can begin.

The first thing is to browse to that directory in which WPµ resides, either “example.com/wordpress-mu” or “example.com/<name>” with the “<name>” you chose. You’re then presented with the WordPress µ Installation screen.

Since FatCow charges for subdomains, it’s important to choose the following option: “Sub-directories (like example.com/blog1).” It’s actually by selecting the other option that I realized that FatCow restricted subdomains.

The Database Name, username and password are the ones you created initially with Manage MySQL. If you forgot that password, you can actually change it with that same tool.

An important FatCow-specific point, here, is that “Database Host” should be “<username>.fatcowmysql.com” (where “<username>” is your FatCow username). In my experience, other webhosts use “localhost” and WPµ defaults to that.

You’re asked to give a name to your blog. In a way, though, if you think of BuddyPress as more of a platform than a blogging system, that name should be rather general. As you’re installing “WordPress Multi-User,” you’ll be able to create many blogs with more specific names, if you want. But the name you’re entering here is for BuddyPress as a whole. As with <name> in “example.com/<name>” (instead of “example.com/wordpress-mu”), it’s a matter of personal opinion.

Something I noticed with the EarlyMorning theme is that it’s a good idea to keep the main blog’s name relatively short. I used thirteen characters and it seemed to fit quite well.

Once you’re done filling in this page, WPµ is installed in a flash. You’re then presented with some information about your installation. It’s probably a good idea to note down some of that information, including the full paths to your installation and the administrator’s password.

But the first thing you should do, as soon as you log in with “admin” as username and the password provided, is probably to the change that administrator password. (In fact, it seems that a frequent advice in the WordPress community is to create a new administrator user account, with a different username than “admin,” and delete the “admin” account. Given some security issues with WordPress in the past, it seems like a good piece of advice. But I won’t describe it here. I did do it in my installation and it’s quite easy to do in WPµ.

Then, you should probably enable plugins here:

example.com/<name>/wp-admin/wpmu-options.php#menu

(From what I understand, it might be possible to install BuddyPress without enabling plugins, since you’re logged in as the administrator, but it still makes sense to enable them and it happens to be what I did.)

You can also change a few other options, but these can be set at another point.

One option which is probably useful, is this one:

Allow new registrations	Disabled Enabled. Blogs and user accounts can be created. Only user account can be created.

Obviously, it’s not necessary. But in the interest of opening up the BuddyPress to the wider world without worrying too much about a proliferation of blogs, it might make sense. You may end up with some fake user accounts, but that shouldn’t be a difficult problem to solve.

Now comes the installation of the BuddyPress plugin itself. You can do so by going here:

example.com/<name>/wp-admin/plugin-install.php

And do a search for “BuddyPress” as a term. The plugin you want was authored by “The BuddyPress Community.” (In my case, version 1.1.3.) Click the “Install” link to bring up the installation dialog, then click “Install Now” to actually install the plugin.

Once the install is done, click the “Activate” link to complete the basic BuddyPress installation.

You now have a working installation of BuddyPress but the BuddyPress-savvy EarlyMorning isn’t enabled. So you need to go to “example.com/<name>/wp-admin/wpmu-themes.php” to enable both Buddymatic and EarlyMorning. You should then go to “example.com/<name>/wp-admin/themes.php” to activate the EarlyMorning theme.

Something which tripped me up because it’s now much easier than before is that forums (provided through bbPress) are now, literally, a one-click install. If you go here:

example.com/<name>/wp-admin/admin.php?page=bb-forums-setup

You can set up a new bbPress install (“Set up a new bbPress installation”) and everything will work wonderfully in terms of having forums fully integrated in BuddyPress. It’s so seamless that I wasn’t completely sure it had worked.

Besides this, I’d advise that you set up a few widgets for the BuddyPress frontpage. You do so through an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface here:

example.com/<name>/wp-admin/widgets.php

I especially advise you to add the Twitter RSS widget because it seems to me to fit right in. If I’m not mistaken, the EarlyMorning theme contains specific elements to make this widget look good.

After that, you can just have fun with your new BuddyPress installation. The first thing I did was to register a new user. To do so, I logged out of my admin account, and clicked on the Sign Up button. Since I “allow new registrations,” it’s a very simple process. In fact, this is one place where I think that BuddyPress shines. Something I didn’t explain is that you can add a series of fields for that registration and the user profile which goes with it.

The whole process really shouldn’t take very long. In fact, the longest parts have probably to do with waiting for Archive Gateway.

The rest is “merely” to get people involved in your BuddyPress installation. It can happen relatively easily, if you already have a group of people trying to do things together online. But it can be much more complicated than any software installation process… 😉

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Homeroasting and Coffee Geekness

January 12, 2010 dispar Leave a comment

I’m a coffee geek. By which I mean that I have a geeky attitude to coffee. I’m passionate about the crafts and arts of coffee making, I seek coffee-related knowledge wherever I can find it, I can talk about coffee until people’s eyes glaze over (which happens more quickly than I’d guess possible), and I even dream about coffee gadgets. I’m not a typical gadget freak, as far as geek culture goes, but coffee is one area where I may invest in some gadgetry.

Perhaps my most visible acts of coffee geekery came in the form of updates I posted through diverse platforms about my home coffee brewing experiences. Did it from February to July. These posts contained cryptic details about diverse measurements, including water temperature and index of refraction. It probably contributed to people’s awareness of my coffee geek identity, which itself has been the source of fun things like a friend bringing me back coffee from Ethiopia.

But I digress, a bit. This is both about coffee geekness in general and about homeroasting in particular.

See, I bought myself this Hearthware i-Roast 2 dedicated homeroasting device. And I’m dreaming about coffee again.

Been homeroasting since December 2002, at the time I moved to Moncton, New Brunswick and was lucky enough to get in touch with Terry Montague of Down Esst Coffee.

Though I had been wishing to homeroast for a while before that and had become an intense coffee-lover fifteen years prior to contacting him, Terry is the one who enabled me to start roasting green coffee beans at home. He procured me a popcorn popper, sourced me some quality green beans, gave me some advice. And off I was.

Homeroasting is remarkably easy. And it makes a huge difference in one’s appreciation of coffee. People in the coffee industry, especially baristas and professional roasters, tend to talk about the “channel” going from the farmer to the “consumer.” In some ways, homeroasting gets the coffee-lover a few steps closer to the farmer, both by eliminating a few intermediaries in the channel and by making coffee into much less of a commodity. Once you’ve spent some time smelling the fumes emanated by different coffee varietals and looking carefully at individual beans, you can’t help but get a deeper appreciation for the farmer’s and even the picker’s work. When you roast 150g or less at a time, every coffee bean seems much more valuable. Further, as you experiment with different beans and roast profiles, you get to experience coffee in all of its splendour.

A popcorn popper may sound like a crude way to roast coffee. And it might be. Naysayers may be right in their appraisal of poppers as a coffee roasting method. You’re restricted in different ways and it seems impossible to produce exquisite coffee. But having roasted with a popper for seven years, I can say that my poppers gave me some of my most memorable coffee experiences. Including some of the most pleasant ones, like this organic Sumatra from Theta Ridge Coffee that I roasted in my campus appartment at IUSB and brewed using my beloved Brikka.

Over the years, I’ve roasted a large variety of coffee beans. I typically buy a pound each of three or four varietals and experiment with them for a while.

Mostly because I’ve been moving around quite a bit, I’ve been buying green coffee beans from a rather large variety of places. I try to buy them locally, as much as possible (those beans have travelled far enough and I’ve had enough problems with courier companies). But I did participate in a few mail orders or got beans shipped to me for some reason or another. Sourcing green coffee beans has almost been part of my routine in those different places where I’ve been living since 2002: Moncton, Montreal, Fredericton, South Bend, Northampton, Brockton, Cambridge, and Austin. Off the top of my head, I’ve sourced beans from:

And probably a few other places, including this one place in Ethiopia where my friend Erin bought some.

So, over the years, I got beans from a rather large array of places and from a wide range of regional varietals.

I rapidly started blending freshly-roasted beans. Typically, I would start a blend by roasting three batches in a row. I would taste some as “single origin” (coffee made from a single bean varietal, usually from the same farm or estate), shortly after roasting. But, typically, I would mix my batches of freshly roasted coffee to produce a main blend. I would then add fresh batches after a few days to fine-tune the blend to satisfy my needs and enhance my “palate” (my ability to pick up different flavours and aromas).

Once the quantity of green beans in a particular bag would fall below an amount I can reasonably roast as a full batch (minimum around 100g), I would put those green beans in a pre-roast blend, typically in a specially-marked ziplock bag. Roasting this blend would usually be a way for me to add some complexity to my roasted blends.

And complexity I got. Lots of diverse flavours and aromas. Different things to “write home about.”

But I was obviously limited in what I could do with my poppers. The only real controls that I had in homeroasting, apart from blending, consisted in the bean quantity and roasting time. Ambient temperature was clearly a factor, but not one over which I was able to exercise much control. Especially since I frequently ended up roasting outside, so as to not incommodate people with fumes, noise, and chaff. The few homeroast batches which didn’t work probably failed because of low ambient temperature.

One reason I stuck with poppers for so long was that I had heard that dedicated roasters weren’t that durable. I’ve probably used three or four different hot air popcorn poppers, over the years. Eventually, they just stop working, when you use them for coffee beans. As I’d buy them at garage sales and Salvation Army stores for 3-4$, replacing them didn’t feel like such a financially difficult thing to do, though finding them could occasionally be a challenge. Money was also an issue. Though homeroasting was important for me, I wasn’t ready to pay around 200$ for an entry-level dedicated roaster. I was thinking about saving money for a Behmor 1600, which offers several advantages over other roasters. But I finally gave in and bought my i-Roast as a kind of holiday gift to myself.

One broad reason is that my financial situation has improved since I started a kind of partial professional reorientation (PPR). I have a blogpost in mind about this PPR, and I’ll probably write it soon. But this post isn’t about my PPR.

Although, the series of events which led to my purchase does relate to my PPR, somehow.

See, the beans I (indirectly) got from Roastmasters came from a friend who bought a Behmor to roast cocoa beans. The green coffee beans came with the roaster but my friend didn’t want to roast coffee in his brand new Behmor, to avoid the risk of coffee oils and flavours getting into his chocolate. My friend asked me to roast some of these beans for his housemates (he’s not that intensely into coffee, himself). When I went to drop some homeroasted coffee by the Station C co-working space where he spends some of his time, my friend was discussing a project with Duncan Moore, whom I had met a few times but with whom I had had few interactions. The three of us had what we considered a very fruitful yet very short conversation. Later on, I got to do a small but fun project with Duncan. And I decided to invest that money into coffee.

A homeroaster seemed like the most appropriate investment. The Behmor was still out of reach but the i-Roast seemed like a reasonable purchase. Especially if I could buy it used.

But I was also thinking about buying it new, as long as I could get it quickly. It took me several years to make a decision about this purchase but, once I made it, I wanted something as close to “instant gratification” as possible. In some ways, the i-Roast was my equivalent to Little Mrs Sommers‘s “pair of silk stockings.”

At the time, Mon café vert seemed like the only place where I could buy a new i-Roast. I tried several times to reach them to no avail. As I was in the Mile-End as I decided to make that purchase, I went to Caffè in Gamba, both to use the WiFi signal and to check if, by any chance, they might not have started selling roasters. They didn’t, of course, homeroasters isn’t mainstream enough. But, as I was there, I saw the Hario Ceramic Coffee Mill Skerton, a “hand-cranked” coffee grinder about which I had read some rather positive reviews.

For the past few years, I had been using a Bodum Antigua conical burr electric coffee grinder. This grinder was doing the job, but maybe because of “wear and tear,” it started taking a lot longer to grind a small amount of coffee. The grind took so long, at some points, that the grounds were warm to the touch and it seemed like the grinder’s motor was itself heating.

So I started dreaming about the Baratza Vario, a kind of prosumer electric grinder which seemed like the ideal machine for someone who uses diverse coffee making methods. The Vario is rather expensive and seemed like overkill, for my current coffee setup. But I was lusting over it and, yes, dreaming about it.

One day, maybe, I’ll be able to afford a Vario.

In the meantime, and more reasonably, I had been thinking about “Turkish-style mills.” A friend lent me a box-type manual mill at some point and I did find it produced a nice grind, but it wasn’t that convenient for me, partly because the coffee drops into a small drawer which rapidly gets full. A handmill seemed somehow more convenient and there are some generic models which are sold in different parts of the World, especially in the Arab World. So I got the impression that I might be able to find handmills locally and started looking for them all over the place, enquiring at diverse stores and asking friends who have used those mills in the past. Of course, they can be purchased online. But they end up being relatively expensive and my manual experience wasn’t so positive as to convince me to spend so much money on one.

The Skerton was another story. It was much more convenient than a box-type manual mill. And, at Gamba, it was inexpensive enough for me to purchase it on the spot. I don’t tend to do this very often so I did feel strange about such an impulse purchase. But I certainly don’t regret it.

Especially since it complements my other purchases.

So, going to the i-Roast.

Over the years, I had been looking for the i-Roast and Behmor at most of the obvious sites where one might buy used devices like these. eBay, Craig’s List, Kijiji… As a matter of fact, I had seen an i-Roast on one of these, but I was still hesitating. Not exactly sure why, but it probably had to do with the fact that these homeroasters aren’t necessarily that durable and I couldn’t see how old this particular i-Roast was.

I eventually called to find out, after taking my decision to get an i-Roast. Turns out that it’s still under warranty, is in great condition, and was being sold by a very interesting (and clearly trustworthy) alto singer who happens to sing with a friend of mine who is also a local beer homebrewer. The same day I bought the roaster, I went to the cocoa-roasting friend’s place and saw a Behmor for the first time. And I tasted some really nice homemade chocolate. And met other interesting people including a couple that I saw, again, while taking the bus after purchasing the roaster.

The series of coincidences in that whole situation impressed me in a sense of awe. Not out of some strange superstition or other folk belief. But different things are all neatly packaged in a way that most of my life isn’t. Nothing weird about this. The packaging is easy to explain and mostly comes from my own perception. The effect is still there that it all fits.

And the i-Roast 2 itself fits, too.

It’s clearly not the ultimate coffee geek’s ideal roaster. But I get the impression it could become so. In fact, one reason I hesitated to buy the i-Roast 2 is that I was wondering if Hearthware might be coming out with the i-Roast 3, in the not-so-distant future.

I’m guessing that Hearthware might be getting ready to release a new roaster. I’m using unreliable information, but it’s still an educated guess. So, apparently…

Hearthware has been in business since 1997.
In the past thirteen years, they have released four models of homeroasters:
- Gourmet
- Precision
- i-Roast
- i-Roast 2
The i-Roast 2 was released at least four years ago.
The i-Roast 2 is out of stock.

I could just imagine what the i-Roast 3 might be. As I’m likely to get, I have a number of crazy ideas.

One “killer feature” actually relates both to the differences between the i-Roast and i-Roast 2 as well as to the geek factor behind homeroasting: roast profiles as computer files. Yes, I know, it sounds crazy. And, somehow, it’s quite unlikely that Hearthware would add such a feature on an entry-level machine. But I seriously think it’d make the roaster much closer to a roasting geek’s ultimate machine.

For one thing, programming a roast profile on the i-Roast is notoriously awkward. Sure, you get used to it. But it’s clearly suboptimal. And one major improvement of the i-Roast 2 over the original i-Roast is that the original version didn’t maintain profiles if you unplugged it. The next step, in my mind, would be to have some way to transfer a profile from a computer to the roaster, say via a slot for SD cards or even a USB port.

What this would open isn’t only the convenience of saving profiles, but actually a way to share them with fellow homeroasters. Since a lot in geek culture has to do with sharing information, a neat effect could come out of shareable roast profiles. In fact, when I looked for example roast profiles, I found forum threads, guides, and incredibly elaborate experiments. Eventually, it might be possible to exchange roasting profiles relating to coffee beans from the same shipment and compare roasting. Given the well-known effects of getting a group of people using online tools to share information, this could greatly improve the state of homeroasting and even make it break out of the very small niche in which it currently sits.

Of course, there are many problems with that approach, including things as trivial as voltage differences as well as bigger issues such as noise levels:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c88nEXYCbfs]

But I’m still dreaming about such things.

In fact, I go a few steps further. A roaster which could somehow connect to a computer might also be used to track data about temperature and voltage. In my own experiments with the i-Roast 2, I’ve been logging temperatures at 15 second intervals along with information about roast profile, quantity of beans, etc. It may sound extreme but it already helped me achieve a result I wanted to achieve. And it’d be precisely the kind of information I would like to share with other homeroasters, eventually building a community of practice.

Nothing but geekness, of course. Shall the geek inherit the Earth?

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Groupthink in Action

December 8, 2009 dispar 1 Comment

An interesting situation which, I would argue, is representative of Groupthink.

As a brief summary of the situation: a subgroup within a larger group is discussing the possibility of changing the larger group’s structure. In that larger group, similar discussions have been quite frequent, in the past. In effect, the smaller group is moving toward enacting a decision based on perceived consensus as to “the way to go.”

No bad intention on anyone’s part and the situation is far from tragic. But my clear impression is that groupthink is involved. I belong to the larger group but I feel little vested interest in what might happen with it.

An important point about this situation is that the smaller group seems to be acting as if the decision had already been made, after careful consideration. Through the history of the larger group, prior discussions on the same topic have been frequent. Through these discussions, clear consensus has never been reached. At the same time, some options have been gaining some momentum in the recent past, mostly based (in my observation) on accumulated frustration with the status quo and some reflection on the effectiveness of activities done by subgroups within the larger group. Members of that larger group (including participants in the smaller group) are quite weary of rehashing the same issues and the “rallying cry” within the subgroup has to do with “moving on.” Within the smaller group, prior discussions are described as if they had been enough to explore all the options. Weariness through the group as a whole seems to create a sense of urgency even though the group as a whole could hardly be described as being involved in time-critical activities.

Nothing personal about anyone involved and it’s possible that I’m off on this one. Where some of those involved would probably disagree is in terms of the current stage in the decision making process (i.e., they may see themselves as having gone through the process of making the primary decision, the rest is a matter of detail). I actually feel strange talking about this situation because it may seem like I’m doing the group a disservice. The reason I think it isn’t the case is that I have already voiced my concerns about groupthink to those who are involved in the smaller group. The reason I feel the urge to blog about this situation is that, as a social scientist, I take it as my duty to look at issues such as group dynamics. Simply put, I started thinking about it as a kind of “case study.”

Yes, I’m a social science geek. And proud of it, too!

Thing is, I have a hard time not noticing a rather clear groupthink pattern. Especially when I think about a few points in Janis‘s description of groupthink.


.	Antecedent Conditions	Symptoms	Decisions Affected
.	Insulation of the group	Illusion of invulnerability	Incomplete survey of alternatives
.	High group cohesiveness	Unquestioned belief in the inherent morality of the group	Incomplete survey of objectives
.	Directive leadership	Collective rationalization of group’s decisions	Failure to examine risks of preferred choice
.	Lack of norms requiring methodical procedures	Shared stereotypes of outgroup, particularly opponents	Failure to re-appraise initially rejected alternatives
.	Homogeneity of members’ social background and ideology	Self-censorship; members withhold criticisms	Poor information search
.	High stress from external threats with low hope of a better solution than the one offered by the leader(s)	Illusion of unanimity (see false consensus effect)	Selective bias in processing information at hand (see also confirmation bias)
.		Direct pressure on dissenters to conform	Failure to work out contingency plans
.		Self-appointed “mindguards” protect the group from negative information
.

A PDF version, with some key issues highlighted.

Point by point…

Observable

Antecedent Conditions of Groupthink

Insulation of the group

A small subgroup was created based on (relatively informal) prior expression of opinion in favour of some broad changes in the structure of the larger group.

Lack of norms requiring methodical procedures

Methodical procedures about assessing the situation are either put aside or explicitly rejected.
Those methodical procedures which are accepted have to do with implementing the group’s primary decision, not with the decision making process.

Symptoms Indicative of Groupthink

Illusion of unanimity (see false consensus effect)

Agreement is stated as a fact, possibly based on private conversations outside of the small group.

Direct pressure on dissenters to conform

A call to look at alternatives is constructed as a dissenting voice.
Pressure to conform is couched in terms of “moving on.”

Symptoms of Decisions Affected by Groupthink

Incomplete survey of alternatives

Apart from the status quo, no alternative has been discussed.
When one alternative model is proposed, it’s reduced to a “side” in opposition to the assessed consensus.

Incomplete survey of objectives

Broad objectives are assumed to be common, left undiscussed.
Discussion of objectives is pushed back as being irrelevant at this stage.

Failure to examine risks of preferred choice

Comments about possible risks (including the danger of affecting the dynamics of the existing broader group) are left undiscussed or dismissed as “par for the course.”

Failure to re-appraise initially rejected alternatives

Any alternative is conceived as having been tried in the past with the strong implication that it isn’t wort revisiting.

Poor information search

Information collected concerns ways to make sure that the primary option considered will work.

Failure to work out contingency plans

Comments about the possible failure of the plan, and effects on the wider group are met with “so be it.”

Less Obvious

Antecedent Conditions of Groupthink

High group cohesiveness

The smaller group is highly cohesive but so is the broader group.

Directive leadership

Several members of the smaller group are taking positions of leadership, but there’s no direct coercion from that leadership.

Positions of authority are assessed, in a subtle way, but this authority is somewhat indirect.

Homogeneity of members’ social background and ideology

As with cohesiveness, homogeneity of social background can be used to describe the broader group as well as the smaller one.

High stress from external threats with low hope of a better solution than the one offered by the leader(s)

External “threats” are mostly subtle but there’s a clear notion that the primary option considered may be met with some opposition by a proportion of the larger group.

Symptoms Indicative of Groupthink

Illusion of invulnerability

While “invulnerability” would be an exaggeration, there’s a clear sense that members of the smaller group have a strong position within the larger group.

Unquestioned belief in the inherent morality of the group

Discussions don’t necessarily have a moral undertone, but the smaller group’s goals seem self-evident in the context or, at least, not really worth careful discussion.

Collective rationalization of group’s decisions

Since attempts to discuss the group’s assumed consensus are labelled as coming from a dissenting voice, the group’s primary decision is reified through countering individual points made about this decision.

Shared stereotypes of outgroup, particularly opponents

The smaller group’s primary “outgroup” is in fact the broader group, described in rather simple terms, not a distinct group of people.
The assumption is that, within the larger group, positions about the core issue are already set.

Self-censorship; members withhold criticisms

Self-censorship is particularly hard to observe or assess but the group’s dynamics tends to construct criticism as “nitpicking,” making it difficult to share comments.

Self-appointed “mindguards” protect the group from negative information

As with leadership, the process of shielding the smaller group from negative information is mostly organic, not located in a single individual.
Because the smaller group is already set apart from the larger group, protection from external information is built into the system, to an extent.

Symptoms of Decisions Affected by Groupthink

Selective bias in processing information at hand (see also confirmation bias)

Information brought into the discussion is treated as either reinforcing the group’s alleged consensus or taken to be easy to counter.
Examples from cases showing clear similarities are dismissed (“we have no interest in knowing what others have done”) and distant cases are used to demonstrate that the approach is sound (“there are groups in other contexts which work, so we can use the same approach”).

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How I Got Into Beer

August 29, 2009 dispar 2 Comments

Was doing some homebrewing experimentation (sour mash, watermelon, honey, complex yeast cultures…) and I got to think about what I’d say in an interview about my brewing activities.

It’s a bit more personal than my usual posts in English (my more personal blogposts are usually in French), but it seems fitting.

I also have something of a backlog of blogposts I really should do ASAP. But blogging is also about seizing the moment. I feel like writing about beer. 😛

So…

As you might know, the drinking age in Quebec is 18, as in most parts of the World except for the US. What is somewhat distinct about Qc with regards to drinking age is that responsible drinking is the key and we tend to have a more “European” attitude toward alcohol: as compared to the Rest of Canada, there’s a fair bit of leeway in terms of when someone is allowed to drink alcohol. We also tend to learn to drink in the family environment, and not necessarily with friends. What it means, I would argue, is that we do our mistakes in a relatively safe context. By the time drinking with peers becomes important (e.g., in university or with colleagues), many of us know that there’s no fun in abusing alcohol and that there are better ways to prove ourselves than binge drinking. According to Barrett Seaman, author of Binge: What Your College Student Won’t Tell You, even students from the US studying at McGill University in Montreal are more likely to drink responsibly than most students he’s seen in the US. (In Montreal, McGill tends to be recognized as a place where binge drinking is most likely to occur, partly because of the presence of US students. In addition, binge drinking is becoming more conspicuous, in Qc, perhaps because of media pressure or because of influence from the US.)

All this to say that it’s rather common for a Québécois teen to at least try alcohol at a relatively age. Because of my family’s connections with Switzerland and France, we probably pushed this even further than most Québécois family. In other words, I had my first sips of alcohol at a relatively early age (I won’t tell) and, by age 16, I could distinguish different varieties of Swiss wines, during an extended trip to Switzerland. Several of these wines were produced by relatives and friends, from their own vineyards. They didn’t contain sulfites and were often quite distinctive. To this day, I miss those wines. In fact, I’d say that Swiss wines are among the best kept secrets of the wine world. Thing is, it seems that Swiss vineyards barely produce enough for local consumption so they don’t try to export any of it.

Anyhoo…

By age 18, my attitude toward alcohol was already quite similar to what it is now: it’s something that shouldn’t be abused but that can be very tasty. I had a similar attitude toward coffee, that I started to drink regularly when I was 15. (Apart from being a homebrewer and a beer geek, I’m also a homeroaster and coffee geek. Someone once called me a “Renaissance drinker.”)

When I started working in French restaurants, it was relatively normal for staff members to drink alcohol at the end of the shift. In fact, at one place where I worked, the staff meal at the end of the evening shift was a lengthy dinner accompanied by some quality wine. My palate was still relatively untrained, but I remember that we would, in fact, discuss the wine on at least some occasions. And I remember one customer, a stage director, who would share his bottle of wine with the staff during his meal: his doctor told him to reduce his alcohol consumption and the wine only came in 750ml bottles. 😉

That same restaurant might have been the first place where I tried a North American craft beer. At least, this is where I started to know about craft beer in North America. It was probably McAuslan‘s St. Ambroise Stout. But I also had opportunities to have some St. Ambroise Pale Ale. I just preferred the Stout.

At one point, that restaurant got promotional beer from a microbrewery called Massawippi. That beer was so unpopular that we weren’t able to give it away to customers. Can’t recall how it tasted but nobody enjoyed it. The reason this brewery is significant is that their license was the one which was bought to create a little microbrewery called Unibroue. So, it seems that my memories go back to some relatively early phases in Quebec’s craft beer history. I also have rather positive memories of when Brasal opened.

Somewhere along the way, I had started to pick up on some European beers. Apart from macros (Guinness, Heineken, etc.), I’m not really sure what I had tried by that point. But even though these were relatively uninspiring beers, they somehow got me to understand that there was more to beer than Molson, Labatt, Laurentide, O’Keefe, and Black Label.

The time I spent living in Switzerland, in 1994-1995, is probably the turning point for me in terms of beer tasting. Not only did I get to drink the occasional EuroLager and generic stout, but I was getting into Belgian Ales and Lambics. My “session beer,” for a while, was a wit sold in CH as Wittekop. Maybe not the most unique wit out there. But it was the house beer at Bleu Lézard, and I drank enough of it then to miss it. I also got to try several of the Trappists. In fact, one of the pubs on the EPFL campus had a pretty good beer selection, including Rochefort, Chimay, Westmalle, and Orval. The first lambic I remember was Mort Subite Gueuze, on tap at a very quirky place that remains on my mind as this near-cinematic experience.

At the end of my time in Switzerland, I took a trip to Prague and Vienna. Already at that time, I was interested enough in beer that a significant proportion of my efforts were about tasting different beers while I was there. I still remember a very tasty “Dopplemalz” beer from Vienna and, though I already preferred ales, several nice lagers from Prague.

A year after coming back to North America, I traveled to Scotland and England with a bunch of friends. Beer was an important part of the trip. Though I had no notion of what CAMRA was, I remember having some real ales in diverse places. Even some of the macro beers were different enough to merit our interest. For instance, we tried Fraoch then, probably before it became available in North America. We also visited a few distilleries which, though I didn’t know it at the time, were my first introduction to some beer brewing concepts.

Which brings me to homebrewing.

The first time I had homebrew was probably at my saxophone teacher’s place. He did a party for all of us and had brewed two batches. One was either a stout or a porter and the other one was probably some kind of blonde ale. What I remember of those beers is very vague (that was probably 19 years ago), but I know I enjoyed the stout and was impressed by the low price-quality ratio. From that point on, I knew I wanted to brew. Not really to cut costs (I wasn’t drinking much, anyway). But to try different beers. Or, at least, to easily get access to those beers which were more interesting than the macrobrewed ones.

I remember another occasion with a homebrewer, a few years later. I only tried a few sips of the beer but I remember that he was talking about the low price. Again, what made an impression on me wasn’t so much the price itself. But the low price for the quality.

At the same time, I had been thinking about all sorts of things which would later become my “hobbies.” I had never had hobbies in my life but I was thinking about homeroasting coffee, as a way to get really fresh coffee and explore diverse flavours. Thing is, I was already this hedonist I keep claiming I am. Tasting diverse things was already an important pleasure in my life.

So, homebrewing was on my mind because of the quality-price ratio and because it could allow me to explore diverse flavours.

When I moved to Bloomington, IN, I got to interact with some homebrewers. More specifically, I went to an amazing party thrown by an ethnomusicologist/homebrewer. The guy’s beer was really quite good. And it came from a full kegging system.

I started dreaming.

Brewpubs, beerpubs, and microbreweries were already part of my life. For instance, without being a true regular, I had been going to Cheval blanc on a number of occasions. And my “go to” beer had been Unibroue, for a while.

At the time, I was moving back and forth between Quebec and Indiana. In Bloomington, I was enjoying beers from Upland’s Brewing Co., which had just opened, and Bloomington Brewing Co., which was distributed around the city. I was also into some other beers, including some macro imports like Newcastle Brown Ale. And, at liquor stores around the city (including Big Red), I was discovering a few American craft beers, though I didn’t know enough to really make my way through those. In fact, I remember asking for Unibroue to be distributed there, which eventually happened. And I’m pretty sure I didn’t try Three Floyds, at the time.

So I was giving craft beer some thought.

Then, in February 1999, I discovered Dieu du ciel. I may have gone there in late 1998, but the significant point was in February 1999. This is when I tried their first batch of “Spring Equinox” Maple Scotch Ale. This is the beer that turned me into a homebrewer. This is the beer that made me changed my perspetive about beer. At that point, I knew that I would eventually have to brew.

Which happened in July 1999, I think. My then-girlfriend had offered me a homebrewing starter kit as a birthday gift. (Or maybe she gave it to me for Christmas… But I think it was summer.) Can’t remember the extent to which I was talking about beer, at that point, but it was probably a fair bit, i.e., I was probably becoming annoying about it. And before getting the kit, I was probably daydreaming about brewing.

Even before getting the kit, I had started doing some reading. The aforementioned ethnomusicologist/homebrewer had sent me a Word file with a set of instructions and some information about equipment. It was actually much more elaborate than the starter kit I eventually got. So I kept wondering about all the issues and started getting some other pieces of equipment. In other words, I was already deep into it.

In fact, when I got my first brewing book, I also started reading feverishly, in a way I hadn’t done in years. Even before brewing the first batch, I was passionate about brewing.

Thanks to the ‘Net, I was rapidly amassing a lot of information about brewing. Including some recipes.

Unsurprisingly, the first beer I brewed was a maple beer, based on my memory of that Dieu du ciel beer. However, for some reason, that first beer was a maple porter, instead of a maple scotch ale. I brewed it with extract and steeped grain. I probably used a fresh pack of Coopers yeast. I don’t think I used fresh hops (the beer wasn’t supposed to be hop-forward). I do know I used maple syrup at the end of boil and maple sugar at priming.

It wasn’t an amazing beer, perhaps. But it was tasty enough. And it got me started. I did a few batches with extract and moved to all-grain almost right away. I remember some comments on my first maple porter, coming from some much more advanced brewers than I was. They couldn’t believe that it was an extract beer. I wasn’t evaluating my extract beer very highly. But I wasn’t ashamed of it either.

Those comments came from brewers who were hanging out on the Biéropholie website. After learning about brewing on my own, I had eventually found the site and had started interacting with some local Québécois homebrewers.

This was my first contact with “craft beer culture.” I had been in touch with fellow craft beer enthusiasts. But hanging out with Bièropholie people and going to social events they had organized was my first foray into something more of a social group with its associated “mode of operation.” It was a fascinating experience. As an ethnographer and social butterfly, this introduction to the social and cultural aspects of homebrewing was decisive. Because I was moving all the time, it was hard for me to stay connected with that group. But I made some ties there and I still bump into a few of the people I met through Bièropholie.

At the time I first started interacting with the Bièropholie gang, I was looking for a brewclub. Many online resources mentioned clubs and associations and they sounded exactly like the kind of thing I needed. Not only for practical reasons (it’s easier to learn techniques in such a context, getting feedback from knowledgeable people is essential, and tasting other people’s beers is an eye-opener), but also for social reasons. Homebrewing was never meant to be a solitary experience, for me.

I was too much of a social butterfly.

Which brings me back to childhood. As a kid, I was often ostracized. And I always tried to build clubs. It never really worked. Things got much better for me after age 15, and I had a rich social life by the time I became a young adult. But, in 2000-2001, I was still looking for a club to which I could belong. Unlike Groucho, I cared a lot about any club which would accept me.

As fun as it was, Bièropholie wasn’t an actual brewclub. Brewers posting on the site mostly met as a group during an annual event, a BBQ which became known as «Xè de mille» (“Nth of 1000”) in 2001. The 2000 edition (“0th of 1000”) was when I had my maple porter tasted by more advanced brewers. Part of event was a bit like what brewclub meetings tend to be: tasting each other’s brews, providing feedback, discussing methods and ingredients, etc. But because people didn’t meet regularly as a group, because people were scattered all around Quebec, and because there wasn’t much in terms of “contribution to primary identity,” it didn’t feel like a brewclub, at least not of the type I was reading about.

The MontreAlers brewclub was formed at about that time. For some reason, it took me a while to learn of its existence. I distinctly remember looking for a Montreal-based club through diverse online resources, including the famed HomeBrew Digest. And I know I tried to contact someone from McGill who apparently had a club going. But I never found the ‘Alers.

I did eventually find the Members of Barleyment. Or, at least, some of the people who belonged to this “virtual brewclub.” It probably wasn’t until I moved to New Brunswick in 2003, but it was another turning point. One MoB member I met was Daniel Chisholm, a homebrewer near Fredericton, NB, who gave me insight on the New Brunswick beer scene (I was teaching in Fredericton at the time). Perhaps more importantly, Daniel also invited me to the Big Strange New Brunswick Brew (BSNBB), a brewing event like the ones I kept dreaming about. This was partly a Big Brew, an occasion for brewers to brew together at the same place. But it was also a very fun social event.

It’s through the BSNBB that I met MontreAlers Andrew Ludwig and John Misrahi. John is the instigator of the MontreAlers brewclub. Coming back to Montreal a few weeks after BSNBB, I was looking forward to attend my first meeting of the ‘Alers brewclub, in July 2003.

Which was another fascinating experience. Through it, I was able to observe different attitudes toward brewing. Misrahi, for instance, is a fellow experimental homebrewer to the point that I took to call him “MadMan Misrahi.” But a majority of ‘Alers are more directly on the “engineering” side of brewing. I also got to observe some interesting social dynamics among brewers, something which remained important as I moved to different places and got to observe other brewclubs and brewers meetings, such as the Chicago Beer Society’s Thirst Fursdays. Eventually, this all formed the backdrop for a set of informal observations which were the corse of a presentation I gave about craft beer and cultural identity.

Through all of these brewing-related groups, I’ve been positioning myself as an experimenter. My goal isn’t necessarily to consistently make quality beer, to emulate some beers I know, or to win prizes in style-based brewing competitions. My thing is to have fun and try new things. Consistent beer is available anywhere and I drink little enough that I can afford enough of it. But homebrewing is almost a way for me to connect with my childhood.

There can be a “mad scientist” effect to homebrewing. Michael Tonsmeire calls himself The Mad Fermentationist and James Spencer at Basic Brewing has been interviewing a number of homebrewer who do rather unusual experiments.

I count myself among the ranks of the “Mad Brewers.” Oh, we’re not doing anything completely crazy. But slightly mad we are.

Through the selective memory of an adult with regards to his childhood, I might say that I was “always like that.” As a kid, I wanted to be everything at once: mayor, astronaut, fireman, and scholar. The researcher’s spirit had me “always try new things.” I even had a slight illusion of grandeur in that I would picture myself accomplishing all sorts of strange things. Had I known about it as a kid, I would have believed that I could solve the Poincaré conjecture. Mathematicians were strange enough for me.

But there’s something more closely related to homebrewing which comes back to my mind as I do experiments with beer. I had this tendency to do all sorts of concoctions. Not only the magic potions kids do with mud and dishwashing liquid. But all sorts of potable drinks that a mixologist may experiment with. There wasn’t any alcohol in those drinks, but the principle was the same. Some of them were good enough for my tastes. But I never achieved the kind of breakthrough drink which would please masses. I did, however, got my experimentation spirit to bear on food.

By age nine, I was cooking for myself at lunch. Nothing very elaborate, maybe. It often consisted of reheating leftovers. But I got used to the stove (we didn’t have a microwave oven, at the time). And I sometimes cooked some eggs or similar things. To this day, eggs are still my default food.

And, like many children, I occasionally contributing to cooking. Simple things like mixing ingredients. But also tasting things at different stages in the cooking or baking process. Given the importance of sensory memory, I’d say the tasting part was probably more important in my development than the mixing. But the pride was mostly in being an active contributor in the kitchen.

Had I understood fermentation as a kid, I probably would have been fascinated by it. In a way, I wish I could have been involved in homebrewing at the time.

A homebrewery is an adult’s chemistry set.

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Beer Eye for the Coffee Guy (or Gal)

August 25, 2009 dispar 5 Comments

Judged twelve (12) espresso drinks as part of the Eastern Regional Canadian Barista Championship (UStream).

[Never watched Queer Eye. Thought the title would make sense, given both the “taste” and even gender dimensions.]

Had quite a bit of fun.

The experience was quite similar to the one I had last year. There were fewer competitors, this year. But I also think that there were more people in the audience, at least in the morning. One possible reason is that ads about the competition were much more visible this year than last (based on my own experience and on several comments made during the day). Also, I noticed a stronger sense of collegiality among competitors, as several of them have been different things together in the past year.

More specifically, people from Ottawa’s Bridgehead and people from Montreal’s Café Myriade have developed something which, at least from the outside, look like comradery. At the Canadian National Barista Championship, last year, Myriade’s Anthony Benda won the “congeniality” prize. This year, Benda got first place in the ERCBC. Second place went to Bridgehead’s Cliff Hansen, and third place went to Myriade’s Alex Scott.

Bill Herne served as head judge for most of the event. He made it a very pleasant experience for me personally and, I hope, for other judges. His insight on the championship is especially valuable given the fact that he can maintain a certain distance from the specifics.

The event was organized in part by Vida Radovanovic, founder of the Canadian Coffee & Tea Show. Though she’s quick to point to differences between Toronto and Montreal, in terms of these regional competitions, she also seemed pleased with several aspects of this year’s ERCBC.

To me, the championship was mostly an opportunity for thinking and talking about the coffee world.

Met and interacted with diverse people during the day. Some of them were already part of my circle of coffee-loving friends and acquaintances. Some who came to me to talk about coffee after noticing some sign of my connection to the championship. The fact that I was introduced to the audience as a blogger and homeroaster seems to have been relatively significant. And there were several people who were second-degree contacts in my coffee-related social network, making for easy introductions.

A tiny part of the day’s interactions was captured in interviews for CBC Montreal’s Daybreak (unfortunately, the recording is in RealAudio format).

“Coffee as a social phenomenon” was at the centre of several of my own interactions with diverse people. Clearly, some of it has to do with my own interests, especially with “Montreal’s coffee renaissance.” But there were also a clear interest in such things as the marketshare of quality coffee, the expansion of some coffee scenes, and the notion of building a sense of community through coffee. That last part is what motivated me to write this post.

After the event, a member of my coffee-centric social network has started a discussion about community-building in the coffee world and I found myself dumping diverse ideas on him. Several of my ideas have to do with my experience with craft beer in North America. In a way, I’ve been doing informal ethnography of craft beer. Beer has become an area of expertise, for me, and I’d like to pursue more formal projects on it. So beer is on my mind when I think about coffee. And vice-versa. I was probably a coffee geek before I started homebrewing beer but I started brewing beer at home before I took my coffee-related activities to new levels.

So, in my reply on a coffee community, I was mostly thinking about beer-related communities.

Comparing coffee and beer is nothing new, for me. In fact, a colleague has blogged about some of my comments, both formal and informal, about some of those connections.

Differences between beer and coffee are significant. Some may appear trivial but they can all have some impact on the way we talk about cultural and social phenomena surrounding these beverages.

Coffee contains caffeine, beer contains alcohol. (Non-alcoholic beers, decaf coffee, and beer with coffee are interesting but they don’t dominate.) Yes: “duh.” But the difference is significant. Alcohol and caffeine not only have different effects but they fit in different parts of our lives.
Coffee is often part of a morning ritual, frequently perceived as part of preparation for work. Beer is often perceived as a signal for leisure time, once you can “wind down.” Of course, there are people (including yours truly) who drink coffee at night and people (especially in Europe) who drink alcohol during a workday. But the differences in the “schedules” for beer and coffee have important consequences on the ways these drinks are integrated in social life.
Coffee tends to be much less expensive than beer. Someone’s coffee expenses may easily be much higher than her or his “beer budget,” but the cost of a single serving of coffee is usually significantly lower than a single serving of beer.
While it’s possible to drink a few coffees in a row, people usually don’t drink more than two coffees in a single sitting. With beer, it’s not rare that people would drink quite a few pints in the same night. The UK concept of a “session beer” goes well with this fact.
Brewing coffee takes a few minutes, brewing beer takes a while (hours for the brewing process, days or even weeks for fermentation).
At a “bar,” coffee is usually brewed in front of those who will drink it while beer has been prepared in advance.
Brewing coffee at home has been mainstream for quite a while. Beer homebrewing is considered a hobby.
Historically, coffee is a recent phenomenon. Beer is among the most ancient human-made beverages in the world.

Despite these significant differences, coffee and beer also have a lot in common. The fact that the term “brew” is used for beer and coffee (along with tea) may be a coincidence, but there are remarkable similarities between the extraction of diverse compounds from grain and from coffee beans. In terms of process, I would argue that beer and coffee are more similar than are, say, coffee and tea or beer and wine.

But the most important similarity, in my mind, is social: beer and coffee are, indeed, central to some communities. So are other drinks, but I’m more involved in groups having to do with coffee or beer than in those having to do with other beverages.

One way to put it, at least in my mind, is that coffee and beer are both connected to revolutions.

Coffee is community-oriented from the very start as coffee beans often come from farming communities and cooperatives. The notion, then, is that there are local communities which derive a significant portion of their income from the global and very unequal coffee trade. Community-oriented people often find coffee-growing to be a useful focus of attention and given the place of coffee in the global economy, it’s unsurprising to see a lot of interest in the concept (if not the detailed principles) of “fair trade” in relation to coffee. For several reasons (including the fact that they’re often produced in what Wallerstein would call “core” countries), the main ingredients in beer (malted barley and hops) don’t bring to mind the same conception of local communities. Still, coffee and beer are important to some local agricultural communities.

For several reasons, I’m much more directly involved with communities which have to do with the creation and consumption of beverages made with coffee beans or with grain.

In my private reply about building a community around coffee, I was mostly thinking about what can be done to bring attention to those who actually drink coffee. Thinking about the role of enthusiasts is an efficient way to think about the craft beer revolution and about geeks in general. After all, would the computer world be the same without the “homebrew computer club?”

My impression is that when coffee professionals think about community, they mostly think about creating better relationships within the coffee business. It may sound like a criticism, but it has more to do with the notion that the trade of coffee has been quite competitive. Building a community could be a very significant change. In a way, that might be a basis for the notion of a “Third Wave” in coffee.

So, using my beer homebrewer’s perspective: what about a community of coffee enthusiasts? Wouldn’t that help?

And I don’t mean “a website devoted to coffee enthusiasts.” There’s a lot of that, already. A lot of people on the Coffee Geek Forums are outsiders to the coffee industry and Home Barista is specifically geared toward the home enthusiasts’ market.

I’m really thinking about fostering a sense of community. In the beer world, this frequently happens in brewclubs or through the Beer Judge Certification Program, which is much stricter than barista championships. Could the same concepts apply to the coffee world? Probably not. But there may still be “lessons to be learnt” from the beer world.

In terms of craft beer in North America, there’s a consensus around the role of beer enthusiasts. A very significant number of craft brewers were homebrewers before “going pro.” One of the main reasons craft beer has become so important is because people wanted to drink it. Craft breweries often do rather well with very small advertising budgets because they attract something akin to cult followings. The practise of writing elaborate comments and reviews has had a significant impact on a good number of craft breweries. And some of the most creative things which happen in beer these days come from informal experiments carried out by homebrewers.

As funny as it may sound (or look), people get beer-related jobs because they really like beer.

The same happens with coffee. On occasion. An enthusiastic coffee lover will either start working at a café or, somewhat more likely, will “drop everything” and open her/his own café out of a passion for coffee. I know several people like this and I know the story is quite telling for many people. But it’s not the dominant narrative in the coffee world where “rags to riches” stories have less to do with a passion for coffee than with business acumen. Things may be changing, though, as coffee becomes more… passion-driven.

To be clear: I’m not saying that serious beer enthusiasts make the bulk of the market for craft beer or that coffee shop owners should cater to the most sophisticated coffee geeks out there. Beer and coffee are both too cheap to warrant this kind of a business strategy. But there’s a lot to be said about involving enthusiasts in the community.

For one thing, coffee and beer can both get viral rather quickly. Because most people in North America can afford beer or coffee, it’s often easy to convince a friend to grab a cup or pint. Coffee enthusiasts who bring friends to a café do more than sell a cup. They help build up a place. And because some people are into the habit of regularly going to the same bar or coffee shop, the effects can be lasting.

Beer enthusiasts often complain about the inadequate beer selection at bars and restaurants. To this day, there are places where I end up not drinking anything besides water after hearing what the beerlist contains. In the coffee world, it seems that the main target these days is the restaurant business. The current state of affairs with coffee at restaurants is often discussed with heavy sighs of disappointment. What I”ve heard from several people in the coffee business is that, too frequently, restaurant owners give so little attention to coffee that they end up destroying the dining experience of anyone who orders coffee after a meal. Even in my own case, I’ve had enough bad experiences with restaurant coffee (including, or even especially, at higher-end places) that I’m usually reluctant to have coffee at a restaurant. It seems quite absurd, as a quality experience with coffee at the end of a meal can do a lot to a restaurant’s bottom line. But I can’t say that it’s my main concern because I end up having coffee elsewhere, anyway. While restaurants can be the object of a community’s attention and there’s a lot to be said about what restaurants do to a region or neighbourhood, the community dimensions of coffee have less to do with what is sold where than with what people do around coffee.

Which brings me to the issue of education. It’s clearly a focus in the coffee world. In fact, most coffee-related events have some “training” dimension. But this type of education isn’t community-oriented. It’s a service-based approach, such as the one which is increasingly common in academic institutions. While I dislike customer-based learning in universities, I do understand the need for training services in the coffee world. What I perceive insight from the beer world can do is complement these training services instead of replacing them.

An impressive set of learning experiences can be seen among homebrewers. From the most practical of “hands-on training” to some very conceptual/theoretical knowledge exchanges. And much of the learning which occurs is informal, seamless, “organic.” It’s possible to get very solid courses in beer and brewing, but the way most people learn is casual and free. Because homebrewers are organized in relatively tight groups and because the sense of community among homebrewers is also a matter of solidarity. Or, more simply, because “it’s just a hobby anyway.”

The “education” theme also has to do with “educating the public” into getting more sophisticated about what to order. This does happen in the beer world, but can only be pulled off when people are already interested in knowing more about beer. In relation with the coffee industry, it sometimes seems that “coffee education” is imposed on people from the top-down. And it’s sometimes quite arbitrary. Again, room for the coffee business to read the Cluetrain Manifesto and to learn from communities.

And speaking of Starbucks… One draft blogpost which has been nagging me is about the perception that, somehow, Starbucks has had a positive impact in terms of coffee quality. One important point is that Starbucks took the place of an actual coffee community. Even if it can be proven that coffee quality wouldn’t have been improved in North America if it hadn’t been for Starbucks (a tall order, if you ask me), the issue remains that Starbucks has only paid attention to the real estate dimension of the concept of community. The mermaid corporation has also not doing so well, recently, so we may finally get beyond the financial success story and get into the nitty-gritty of what makes people connect through coffee. The world needs more from coffee than chains selling coffee-flavoured milk.

One notion I wanted to write about is the importance of “national” traditions in both coffee and beer in relation to what is happening in North America, these days. Part of the situation is enough to make me very enthusiastic to be in North America, since it’s increasingly possible to not only get quality beer and coffee but there are many opportunities for brewing coffee and beer in new ways. But that’ll have to wait for another post.

In Western Europe at least, coffee is often associated with the home. The smell of coffee has often been described in novels and it can run deep in social life. There’s no reason homemade coffee can’t be the basis for a sense of community in North America.

Now, if people in the coffee industry would wake up and… think about actual human beings, for a change…

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Actively Reading: "Teach Naked" sans PowerPoint

August 19, 2009 dispar 1 Comment

Some Diigo comments on a Chronicle piece on moving lectures out of the classroom. (Or, if you ask the piece’s author and some commenters, on PowerPoint as a source of boredom.)

I’d like to transform some of my own comments in a standalone blog entry, especially given the discussions Pamthropologist and I have been having through comments on her blog and mine. (And I just noticed Pamthropologist had written her own blogpost about this piece…) As I’m preparing for the Fall semester, I tend to think a lot about learning and teaching but I also get a bit less time.

Semi-disclaimer: John Bentley, instructional developer and programme coordinator at Concordia’s CTLS pointed me to this piece. John used to work for the Open University and the BBC. Together, John and I are currently developing a series of workshops on the use of online tools in learning and teaching. We’ve been discussing numerous dimensions of the connection between learning, teaching, and online tools. Our current focus is on creating communities of learners. One thing that I find especially neat about this collaboration is that our perspectives and spheres of expertise are quite different. Makes for interesting and thoughtful discussions.

‘Teach Naked’ Effort Strips Computers From Classrooms – Technology – The Chronicle of Higher Education

Not to be too snarky but… I can’t help but feel this is typical journalism. Take a complex issue, get a diverse array of comments on it, boil it down to an overly simplistic point about some polarizing question (PPT: is it evil?). Tadaa! You got an article and you’ve discouraged critical thinking.Sorry. I’m bad. I really shouldn’t go there.But I guess I’m disappointed in myself. When I first watched the video interview, I was reacting fairly strongly against Bowen. After reading (very actively!) the whole piece, I now realize that Jeff Young is the one who set the whole thing up.The problem with this is that I should know better. Right?Well, ok, I wasn’t that adamantly opposed to Bowen. I didn’t shout at my computer screen or anything. But watching the video interview again, after reading the piece, I notice that I interpret as much more open a discussion than the setup made it sound like. In other words, I went from thinking that Bowen was imposing a radical view on members of his faculty to hearing Bowen proposing ideas about ways to cope with social changes surrounding university education.The statement about most on-campus lectures being bad is rather bold, but it’s nothing we haven’t heard and it’s a reasonable comment to make in such a context. The stronger statement against PPT is actually weakened by Bowen himself in two ways: he explicitly talks about using PPT online and he frames his comment in comparison with podcasts. It then sounds like his problem isn’t with PPT itself. It’s with the use of PPT in the classroom by comparison to both podcasts and PPTs online. He may be wrong about the relative merits of podcasts, online “presentations,” and classroom lectures using PPT. But his opinion is much less radical than what I originally thought.Still, there’s room for much broader discussion of what classroom lectures and PPT presentations imply in teaching. Young’s piece and several Diigo comments on it focus on the value of PPT either in the abstract or through appropriate use. But there’s a lot more ground to cover, including such apparently simple issues as the effort needed to create compelling “presentation content” or students’ (and future employers’) expectations about PPT presentations.

Mr. Bowen wants to discourage professors from using PowerPoint, because they often lean on the slide-display program as a crutch rather using it as a creative tool.
- damn you got there first! comment by dean groom
- I think the more important point that’s being made by the article – is something that many of us in edtech world realised very quickly – that being able to teach well is a prerequisite to being able to effectively and creatively engage technology to help others learn…Powerpoint is probably the most obvious target because oif its ubiquity – but I suspect that there will also be a backlash when the masses start adopting other technologies… they’ll be misused just as effectively as PPT is.When we can assume that all university lecturers/tutors are effective teachers then the argument will be moot… until then we’ll continue to see death by powerpoint and powerpointlessness…I’m a drama teacher and love the idea of active rooms filled with proactive engaged learners… and if we have proactive engaged learners we can more effectively deploy technology in the mix…The world of teaching and learning is far from perfect and expectations seem to be geared towards a paradigm that says : “professors should tell me every last thing I need to know in order to get good grades and if students sat still and shut up long enough they might just learn something useful.”I even had one “lecturer” recently tell me “I’m a subject specialist, why do I need to know about pedagogy?” – sadly he was serious. comment by Kim FLINTOFF
- On the subject specialist uninterested in pedagogy…It’s not an uncommon perspective, in university teaching. In fact, it might be more common among French-speakers, as most of those I’ve heard say something like this were French-speakers.I reacted quite negatively when I first heard some statement about university teachers not needing pedagogy. Don’t they care about learning?But… Isn’t there a point to be made about “non-pedagogy?”Not trying to be contrarian, here. Not playing devil’s advocate. Nor am I going on the kind of “anti-anti” PoMo mode which seems not to fit too well in English-speaking communities. I’m just thinking about teacher-less learning. And a relativist’s attitude to not judge before I know more. After all, can we safely assume that courses given by someone with such a reluctant attitude to learning pedagogy are inherently bad?There are even some people out there who take constructivism and constructionism to such an extreme that they’d say teachers aren’t needed. To an extent, the OLPC project has been going in that direction. “Students will teach themselves. We don’t need to train teachers or to engage with them in building this project.”There’s also a lot of discussion about learning outside of formal institutions. Including “on-the-job training” but also all sorts of learning strategies which don’t rely on the teacher/student (mentee, apprentice, pupil…) hierarchy. For instance, actual learning occurs in a large set of online activities. Enthusiastic people learn about things that passion them by reading about the subject, participating in online discussions, presenting their work for feedback, etc. Oftentimes, there is a hierarchy in terms of prestige, but it’s mostly negotiated through actions and not set in advance. More like “achieved status” than “ascribed status” (to use a convenient distinction from SOC101 courses). As this kind of training not infrequently leads to interesting careers, we’d be remiss to ignore the trend.Speaking of trends… It’s quite clear that many universities tend toward a more consumer-based approach. Students register and pay tuition to get “credentials” (good grades and impressive degrees). The notion that they might be there to do the actual learning is going by the wayside. In some professional contexts, people are quite explicit about how little they learnt in classrooms. It makes for difficult teaching contexts (especially at prestigious universities in the US), but it’s also something with which people learn to cope.My personal attitude is that “learning happens despite teachers.” I still think teachers make a difference, that we should learn about learners and learning, that pedagogy matters a whole lot. In fact, I’m passionate about pedagogy and I do what I can to improve my teaching.Yet the bottomline is: do people learn? If they do, does it matter what pedagogical training the teacher has? This isn’t a rhetorical question. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
A study published in the April issue of British Educational Research Journal
- http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a902053143 comment by Alexandre Enkerli
PowerPoint was one of the dullest methods they saw.
- Can somebody post links to especially good PowerPoint files? comment by Bill Chapman
- I don’t think this is really about PPT, but more about blind use of technology. It’s not the software to blame but the user.Also if you’re looking for great PPT examples, check out slideshare.net comment by Dean Shareski
- Looking forward to reading what their criteria are for boredom.And the exact justification they give for lectures needing not to be boring.Or if they discuss the broad implications of lecturing, as opposed to the many other teaching methods that we use.Now, to be honest, I do use PPT in class. In fact, my PPT slides are the very example of what many people would consider boring: text outlines transformed into bullet points. Usually black on white, without images.But, overall, students seem to find me engaging. In student evaluations, I do get the occasional comment about the course being boring, but that’s also about the book and the nature of what we discuss.I upload these PPT files to Slideshare before going to class. In seminars, I use the PPT file to outline some topics, themes, and questions brought up by students and I upload the updated file after class.The PPT files on Slideshare are embedded into Moodle and serve as “course notes,” in conjunction with the audio recordings from the class meetings. These slides may include material which wasn’t covered in class.During “lecture,” I often spend extend periods of time discussing things with the class as a whole, leaving a slide up as a reminder of the general topic. Going from a bullet point to an extended discussion has the benefit of providing context for the discussion. When I started teaching, several students were saying that I’m “disorganized.” I still get a few comments like that but they’re much less frequent. And I still go on tangents, based on interactions with the group.Once in a while, I refrain from using PPT altogether. Which can lead to interesting challenges, in part because of student expectations and the fact that the screen becomes an indicator that “teaching is going on.”Perhaps a more important point: I try to lecture as little as possible. My upper-level courses are rapidly transformed into seminars. Even in large classes, the last class meetings of the semester involve just a few minutes of lecturing.This may all sound like a justification for my teaching method. But it’s also a reaction to the frequent discussions about PPT as evil. I do hate PPT, but I still use it.If only Google Wave could be released soon, we could use it to replace PPT. Wikis and microblogging tools are good and well, but they’re not as efficient in terms of real-time collaboration on complex material. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
seminars, practical sessions, and group discussions
In other words, tech-free classrooms were the most engaging.
- Does it follow so directly? It’s quite easy to integrate technology with “seminars, practical sessions, and group discussions.” comment by Alexandre Enkerli
better than many older classroom technologies, like slate chalkboards or overhead transparencies
- Which seems to support a form of technological determinism or, at least, a notion of a somewhat consistent improvement in the use of tools, if not in the tools themselves. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
But technology has hardly revolutionized the classroom experience for most college students, despite millions of dollars in investment and early predictions that going digital would force professors to rethink their lectures and would herald a pedagogical renaissance.
- If so, then it’s only because profs aren’t bringing social technologies into their classrooms. Does the author of this article understand what’s current in ed tech? comment by Shelly Blake-Plock
- the problem here is that in higher education, student satisfaction drives a service mentality – and students WANT summised PPTs and the want PODCASTS. Spoooon feeeeeed me – for I am paying. comment by dean groom
- A rather broad statement which might be difficult to support with evidence.If we look at “classroom experience” in different contexts, we do notice large differences. Not necessarily in a positive sense. Technology is an integral part of all sorts of changes happening in, around, and away from the classroom.It would be quite different if that sentence said: “But institutional programs based on the adoption of specific tools in the classroom have hardly revolutionized…” It’s still early to assess the effectiveness of these programs, especially if we think about lifelong learning and about ongoing social changes related to technology use. But the statement would make more sense if it were more directly tied to specific programs instead of being a blanket critique of “technology” (left undefined). comment by Alexandre Enkerli
dream of shaking up college instruction
- One of the most interesting parts of the interview with Bowen has to do with the notion that this isn’t, in fact, about following a dream. It’s about remaining relevant in a changing world. There’s a lot about Bowen’s perspective which sounds quite strange, to me. But the notion that universities should “wake up and smell the coffee” is something I wish were the object of more discussion in academic circles. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
Here’s the kicker, though: The biggest resistance to Mr. Bowen’s ideas has come from students, some of whom have groused about taking a more active role during those 50-minute class periods.
- Great points, here. Let’s wish more students were involved in this conversation. It’s not just “about” them.One thing we should probably not forget about student populations is that they’re diverse. Chances are, some students in Meadows are delighted by the discussion focus. Others may be puzzled. It’s likely an adaptation for most of them. And it doesn’t sound like they were ever consulted about those changes. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
lecture model is pretty comfortable
- And, though many of us are quick to criticize it, it’s difficult to avoid in the current systems of formal education in which we work. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
cool gadgets
- The easiest way to dismiss the social role of technology is to call tools “gadgets.” But are these tools really just gadgets? In fact, some tools which are put to good use really aren’t that cool or even new. Are we discussing them enough? Are we aware of how they fit in the grand scheme of things?An obvious example would be cellphones. Some administrators and teachers perceive them as a nuisance. Rather few people talk about educational opportunities with cellphones, even though they already are used by people in different parts of the World to empower themselves and to learn. Negroponte has explicltly dimissed the educational potential of cellphones but the World isn’t waiting for approval from designers. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
seasoned performer,
- There’s a larger point to be about performance in teaching. Including through a reference to Dick Bauman’s “Verbal Art as Performance” or other dimensions of Performance Theory.There’s also a more “mundane” point about a kind of conflict in universities between academic material and performance. In French-speaking universities, at least, it’s not uncommon to hear teachers talk about the necessity to be a “performer” as something of a distraction in teaching. Are teachers in front of the class to entertain students or is the classroom an environment in which to think and learn about difficult concepts? The consumer approach to universities, pushed in part by administrators who run universities like businesses, tends to emphasize the “entertainment paradigm,” hence the whole “boredom” issue.Having said all of this, Bowen’s own attitude goes beyond this simplistic “entertainment paradigm.” In fact, it sounds like he’s specifically not advocating for lectures to become a series of TEDtalks. Judging from the interview, it sounds like he might say that TEDtalk-style presentation should be put online and classroom-time should be devoted to analyzing those presentations.I do consider myself a performer, as I’ve been playing saxophone in a rather broad range of circumstances, from outdoor stages at festivals to concert halls. And my experience as a performer does influence the way I teach large classes. At the same time, it probably makes more salient the distinction between teaching and performing. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
The goateed administrator sported a suit jacket over a dark T-shirt
- Though I’d be the first one to say that context is key, I fail to see what Bowen’s clothes contribute to the discussion. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
philosophical argument about the best way to engage students, he grounded it
- A novel way to bring in grounded theory. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
information delivery common in today’s classroom lectures should be recorded and delivered to students as podcasts or online videos before class sessions
- Fully agreed. Especially if we throw other things in the mix such as journal articles and collaboratively-created learning material. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
short online multiple-choice tests.
- I don’t think he’s using the mc tests with an essessment focus rather an engagement focus – noit necessarily the most sophisticated but done playfully and creatively it can be a good first step to getting reluctatnt students to engage in first instance… comment by Kim FLINTOFF
- I would also “defend” the use of MCTs in this context. Especially if the stakes are relatively low, the questions are well-crafted, and students do end up engaging.Like PPT, MCTs have some advantages, including because of student expectations.But, of course, it’s rather funny to hear Bowen talk about shaking things up and find out that he uses such tools. Still, the fact that these tests are online (and, one would think, taken outside of class time) goes well with Bowen’s main point about class time vs. tech-enabled work outside of class. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
Introduce issues of debate within the discipline and get the students to weigh in based on the knowledge they have from those lecture podcasts, Mr. Bowen says.
- This wouldn’t be too difficult to do in social sciences and there are scenarios in which it would work wonderfully for lab sciences (if we think of “debate” as something similar to “discussion” sections in scientific articles).At the same time, some people do react negatively to such approaches based not on discipline but on “responsibilities of the university.” Some people even talk about responsibilities toward students’ parents! comment by Alexandre Enkerli
But if the student believes they can contribute, they’re a whole lot more motivated to enter the discourse, and to enter the discipline.
- Sounds a bit like some of the “higher” positions in William Perry’s scheme. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
don’t be boring
- Is boredom induced exclusively by the teacher? Can a student bored during a class meeting still be motivated and engaged in the material at another point? Should we apply the same principle to the readings we assign? Is there a way to efficiently assess the “boredom factor” of an academic article? How can we convince academic publishers that fighting boredom isn’t necessarily done through the addition of pretty pictures? comment by Alexandre Enkerli
you need a Ph.D. to figure it out
- While I agree that these panels are difficult to use and could afford a redesign, the joke about needing a PhD sounds a bit strange in context. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
plug in their laptops
- There’s something of a more general move toward getting people to use their own computers in the workplace. In fact, classroom computers are often so restricted as to be quite cumbersome to use in teaching. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
allow students to work in groups more easily
- Not a bad idea. A good number of classrooms are structured in a way that makes it very hard to get students to do group work. Of course, it’s possible to do group work in any setting, but it’s remarkable how some of these seemingly trivial matters as the type of desk used can be enough to discourage some teachers from using certain teaching strategies. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
The classroom computers were old and needed an upgrade when Mr. Bowen arrived, so ditching them instead saved money.
- Getting into the core of the issue. The reason it’s so important to think about “new ways” to do things isn’t necessarily that “old ways” weren’t conducive to learning. It’s because there are increased pressures on the system and some seem to perceive that cost-cutting and competition from online learning, making the issue so pressing. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
eliminate one staff position for a technician
- Sounds sad, especially since support staff is already undervalued. But, at the same time, it does sound like relatively rational cost-cutting. One would just wish that they replaced that position with, say, teaching support. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
gave every professor a laptop
- Again, this is a rather common practise outside of universities. Knowing how several colleagues think, this may also function as a way to “keep them happy.” comment by Alexandre Enkerli
support so they could create their own podcasts and videos.
- This is where the tech support position which was cut could be useful. Recording and podcasting aren’t difficult to set up or do. But it’s an area where support can mean more than answering questions about which button to press. In fact, podcasting projects are an ideal context for collaboration between tech, teach, and research. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
lugging their laptops to class,
- It can be an issue, especially if there wasn’t a choice in the type of laptop which could be used. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
She’s made podcasts for her course on “Critical Scholarship in Communication” that feature interviews she recorded with experts in the field.
- One cool thing about these podcasting projects is that people can build upon them, one semester after the other. Interviews with practitioners do help provide a multiplicity of voices. And, yes, getting students to produce their own content is often a good way to go, especially if the topic is somehow related to the activity. Getting students in applied communication to create material does sound appropriate. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
they come in actually much more informed
- Sounds effective. Especially since Bowen’s approach seems to be oriented toward pre-class preparation. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
if they had been assigned a reading.
- There’s a lot to be said about this. One reason this method may be more efficient than reading assignments could have to do with the particularities of written language, especially the very formal style of those texts we often assign as readings. Not that students shouldn’t read, of course! But there’s a case to be made for some readings being replaced by oral sources, especially those which have to do with people’s experience in a field. Reading primary source material, integrating some reference texts, and using oral material can all be part of an appropriate set of learning strategies. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
created podcast lectures
- An advantage of such “lecturecasts,” “profcasts,” and “slidecasts” is that they’re relatively easy to build and can be tightly structured. It’s not the end-all of learning material, but it’s a better substitute for classroom lectures than one might think.Still, there’s room for improvement in the technology itself. For instance, it’d be nice to have Revver-style comments in the timeline. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
shows movie clips from his laptop
- This one is slightly surprising because one would expect that these clips could easily be shown, online, ahead of class. It might have to do with the chilling effect of copyright regulation or Heffernan’s strategy of getting “fresh” feedback. There would have been good questions to ask Heffernan in preparation for this piece. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
“Strangely enough, the people who are most resistant to this model are the students, who are used to being spoon-fed material that is going to be quote unquote on the test,” says Mr. Heffernan. “Students have been socialized to view the educational process as essentially passive. The only way we’re going to stop that is by radically refiguring the classroom in precisely the way José wants to do it.”
- This interpretation sounds a tiny bit lopsided. After all, aren’t there students who were already quite active and engaged in the “old system” who have expressed some resistance to the “new system?” Sounds likely to me. But maybe my students are different.One fascinating thing is the level of agreement, among teachers, about the necessity to have students who aren’t passive. I certainly share this opinion but there are teachers in this World who actually do prefer students who are somewhat passive and… “obedient.” comment by Alexandre Enkerli
The same sequence of events
- That part is quite significant: Bowen was already a reformer and already had gone through the process. In this case, he sounds more like one of those CEOs who are hired to save a company from a difficult situation. He originally sounded more like someone who wanted to impose specific views about teaching. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
‘I paid for a college education and you’re not going to lecture?'”
- A fairly common reaction, in certain contexts. A combination of the infamous “sense of entitlement,” the “customer-based approach to universities,” and student expectations about the way university teaching is supposed to go.One version I’ve had in student evaluations is that the student felt like s/he was hearing too much from other students instead of from me. It did pain me, because of the disconnect between what I was trying to do and that student’s notion of what university courses are supposed to bring her/him. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
PowerPoint lecture
- As a commenter to my blog was saying about lectures in general, some of us (myself included) have been building a straw man. We may have negative attitudes toward certain teaching strategies, including some lecturing techniques. But that shouldn’t prevent us from discussing a wide array of teaching and learning strategies.In this case, it’s remarkable that despite the radical nature of Bowen’s reform, we learn that there are teachers who record PPT-based presentations. It then sounds like the issue isn’t so much about using PPT as it is about what is done in the classroom as opposed to what is done during the rest of the week.Boring or not, PPT lectures, even some which aren’t directly meant to engage students, can still find their place in the “teaching toolbox.” A dogmatic anti-PPT stance (such as the one displayed by this journalist) is unlikely to foster conversations about tools and learning. Based on the fact that teachers are in fact doing PPT lectures to be used outside the classroom, one ends up seeing Bowen’s perspective as much more open than that of the Chronicle’s editorial staff. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
Sandi Mann, the British researcher who led the recent study on student attitudes toward teaching, argues that boredom has serious implications in an educational setting.
- Unsurprising perspective. Wonder if it had any impact on Mann’s research results. Makes the research sound more oriented than one might hope. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
according to some studies
- Wow. Just… Wow. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
low-cost online alternatives to the traditional campus experience
- This could have been the core issue discussed in an article about Bowen. Especially if we are to have a thoughtful conversation about the state of higher education in a changing context. Justification for high tuition fees, the latent functions of “college life,” the likely outcome of “competing with free,” the value of the complete learning experience as opposed to the value of information transmission… comment by Alexandre Enkerli
give away videos
- This is the “competing with free” part, to which record companies have been oblivious for so long but which makes OCW appear like quite a forward-looking proposition. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
colleges must make sure their in-person teaching really is superior to those alternatives
- It’s both a free-market argument, which goes so well with the customer-based approach to learning, and a plea to consider learning in a broader way than the mere transmission of information from authoritative source to passive mass. An old saw, for sure, but one which surprisingly hasn’t been heard by everyone. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
add value
- This might be appropriate language to convince trustees. At some institutions, this might be more important than getting students’ or teachers’ approval. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
not being online
- Although, they do have an online presence. The arguments used have more to do with blended learning than with exclusively face-to-face methods. comment by Alexandre Enkerli
might need to stay a low-tech zone to survive.
- Rubbish there is no reason to dumb down learning; and he obviously is not teaching 2500 students at one time. PPT is not the problem here, and this really is a collection of facile arguements that are not ironically substantiated. Lowering his overhead does not increase student learning – wheres the evidence? comment by dean groom
- Come to think of it, it sounds like the argument was made more forcefully by Young than by Bowen himself. Bowen is certainly quite vocal but the “need… to survive” sounds a tad bit stronger than Bowen’s project.What’s funny is that the video made Bowen sound almost opinionated. The article makes Young sound like he has his own axe to grind comment by Alexandre Enkerli

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A Glocal Network of City-States?

April 14, 2009 dispar 2 Comments

This one should probably be in a fictive mode, maybe even in a science-fiction genre. In fact, I’m reconnecting with literature after a long hiatus and now would be an interesting time to start writing fiction. But I’ll still start this as one of those “ramblings” blogposts that I tend to build or which tend to come to me.

The reason this should be fiction is that it might sound exceedingly naïve, especially for a social scientist. I tend to “throw ideas out there” and see what sticks to other ideas, but this broad idea about which I’ve been thinking for a while may sound rather crazy, quaint, unsophisticated.

See, while my academic background is rather solid, I don’t have formal training in political science. In fact, I’ve frequently avoided several academic activities related to political science as a discipline. Or to journalism as a discipline. Part of my reluctance to involve myself in academic activities related political science relates to my reaction to journalism. The connection may not seem obvious to everyone but I see political science as a discipline in the same frame, and participating in the same worldview, as what I find problematic in journalism.

The simplest way to contextualize this connection is the (“modern”) notion of the “Nation-State.” That context involves me personally. As an anthropologist, as a post-modernist, as a “dual citizen” of two countries, as a folklorist, as a North American with a relatively salient European background, as a “citizen of the World,” and as a member of a community which has switched in part from a “nationalist” movement to other notions of statehood. Simply put: I sincerely think that the notion of a “Nation-State” is outdated and that it will (whether it should or not) give way to other social constructs.

A candidate to replace the conceptual apparatus of the “Nation-State” is both global and local, both post-modern and ancient: a glocal network of city-states (GNoCS).

Yes, I know, it sounds awkward. No, I’m not saying that things would necessarily be better in a post-national world. And I have no idea when this shift from the “nation-states” frame to a network of city-states may happen. But I sincerely think that it could happen. And that it could happen rather quickly.

Not that the shift would be so radical as to obliterate the notion of “nation-state” overnight. In this case, I’m closer to Foucault’s épistémè than to Kuhn’s paradigm. After all, while the “Democratic Nation-State” model is global, former social structures are still present around the Globe and the very notion of a “Nation-State” takes different values in different parts of the world. What I envision has less to do with the linear view of history than with a perspective in which different currents of social change interact with one another over time, evoking shifts in polarity for those who hold a binary perspective on social issues.

I started “working on” this post four months ago. I was just taking some notes in a blog draft, in view of a blogpost, instead of simply keeping general notes, as I tend to do. This post remained on my mind and I’ve been accumulating different threads which can connect to my basic idea. I now realize that this blogpost will be more of a placeholder for further thinking than a “milestone” in my reflection on the topic. My reluctance to publish this blog entry had as much to do with an idiosyncratic sense of prudence as with time-management or any other issue. In other words, I was wary of sticking my neck out. Which might explain why this post is so personal as compared to most of my posts in English.

As uninformed as I may seem of the minutiae of national era political science, I happen to think that there’s a lot of groupthink involved in the way several people describe political systems. For instance, there’s a strong tendency for certain people, journalists especially, to “count countries.” With relatively few exceptions (especially those which have to do with specific international institutions like the United Nations or the “G20”) the number of countries involved in an event only has superficial significance. Demographic discrepancies between these national entities, not tio mention a certain degree of diversity in their social structures or even government apparatus, makes “counting countries” appear quite misleading, especially when the issue has to do with, say, social dynamics or geography. It sounds at times like people have a vague “political map of the World” in their heads and that this image preempts other approaches to global diversity. This may sound like a defensive stance on my part, as I try to position myself as “perhaps crazy but not more than others are.” But the issue goes deeper. In fact, it seems that “countries” are so ingrained in some people’s minds and political borders are so obvious that local and regional issues are perceived as micro-version of what happens at the “national level.” This image doesn’t seem so strange when we talk about partisan politics but it appears quite inappropriate when we talk about a broad range of other subjects, from epidemiology to climate change, from online communication to geology, from language to religion.

An initial spark in my thinking about several of these issues came during Beverly Stoeltje‘s interdisciplinary Ph.D. seminar on nationalism at Indiana University Bloomington, back in 2000. Not only was this seminar edifying on many levels, but it represented a kind of epiphany moment in my reflections on not only nationalism itself (with related issues of patriotism, colonialism, and citizenship) but on a range of social issues and changes.

My initial “realization” was on the significance of the shift from Groulx-style French-Canadian nationalism to what Lévesque called «souveraineté-association» (“sovereignty-association”) and which served as the basis for the Quebec sovereignty movement.

While this all connects to well-known issues in political science and while it may (again) sound exceedingly naïve, I mean it in a very specific way which, I think, many people who discuss Quebec’s political history may rarely visit. As with other shifts about which I think, I don’t envision the one from French-Canadian nationalism (FCN) to Quebec sovereignty movement (QSM) to be radical or complete. But it was significant and broad-reaching.

Regardless of Lévesque’s personal view on nationalism (a relatively recent television series on his life had it that he became anti-nationalist after a visit to concentration camps), the very idea that there may exist a social movement oriented toward sovereignty outside of the nationalist logic seems quite important to me personally. The fact that this movement may only be represented in partisan politics as nationalism complicates the issue and may explain a certain confusion in terms of the range of Quebec’s current social movements. In other words, the fact that anti-nationalists are consistently lumped together with nationalists in the public (and journalistic) eye makes it difficult to discuss post-nationalism in this part of the Globe.

But Quebec’s history is only central to my thinking because I was born and Montreal and grew up through the Quiet Revolution. My reflections on a post-national shift are hopefully broader than historical events in a tiny part of the Globe.

In fact, my initial attempt at drafting this blogpost came after I attended a talk by Satoshi Ikeda entitled The Global Financial Crisis and the End of Neoliberalism. (November 27, 2008, Concordia University, SGW H-1125-12; found thanks to Twistory). My main idea at this point was that part of the solution to global problems were local.

But I was also thinking about The Internet.

Contrary to what technological determinists tend to say, the ‘Net isn’t changing things as much as it is part of a broad set of changes. In other words, the global communication network we now know as the Internet is embedded in historical contexts, not the ultimate cause of History. At the risk of replacing technological determinism with social determinism, one might point out that the ‘Net existed (both technologically and institutionally) long before its use became widespread. Those of us who observed a large influx of people online during the early to mid-1990s might even think that social changes were more significant in making the ‘Net what it is today than any “immanent” feature of the network as it was in, say, 1991.

Still, my thinking about the ‘Net has to do with the post-national shift. The ‘Net won’t cause the shift to new social and political structures. But it’s likely to “play a part” in that shift, to be prominently places as we move into a post-national reality.

There’s a number of practical and legal issues with a wide range of online activities which make it clear that the ‘Net fits more in a global structure than in an “international” one. Examples I have in mind include issues of copyright, broadcast rights, “national content,” and access to information, not to mention the online setting for some grassroots movements and the notion of “Internet citizenry.” In all of these cases, “Globalization” expands much beyond trade and currency-based economy.

Then, there’s the notion of “glocalization.” Every time I use the term “glocal,” I point out how “ugly” it is. The term hasn’t gained any currency (AFAICT) but I keep thinking that the concept can generate something interesting. What I personally have in mind is a movement away from national structures into both a globally connected world and a more local significance. The whole “Think Local, Act Global” idea (which I mostly encountered as “Think Global, Drink Local” as a motto). “Despite” the ‘Net, location still matters. But many people are also global-looking.

All of this is part of the setup for some of my reflections on a GNoCS. A kind of prelude/prologue. While my basic idea is very much a “pie in the sky,” I do have more precise notions about what the future may look like and the conditions in which some social changes might happen. At this point, I realize that these thoughts will be part of future blogposts, including some which might be closer to science-fiction than to this type semi- (or pseudo-) scholarly rambling.

But I might still flesh out a few notes.

Demographically, cities may matter more now than ever as the majority of the Globe’s population is urban. At least, the continued urbanization trend may fit well with a city-focused post-national model.

Some metropolitan areas have become so large as to connect with one another, constituting a kind of urban continuum. Contrary to boundaries between “nation-states,” divisions between cities can be quite blurry. In fact, a same location can be connected to dispersed centres of activity and people living in the same place can participate in more than one local sphere. Rotterdam-Amsterdam, Tokyo-Kyoto, Boston-NYC…

Somewhat counterintuitvely, urban areas tend to work relatively as the source of solutions to problems in the natural environment. For instance, some mayors have taken a lead in terms of environmental initiatives, not waiting for their national governments. And such issues as public transportations represent core competencies for municipal governments.

While transborder political entities like the European Union (EU), the African Union (AU), and the North American Free-Trade Agreement (NAFTA) are enmeshed in the national logic, they fit well with notions of globalized decentralization. As the mayor of a small Swiss town was saying on the event of Switzerland’s official 700th anniversary, we can think about «l’Europe des régions» (“Europe of regions”), beyond national borders.

Speaking of Switzerland, the confederacy/confederation model fits rather well with a network structure, perhaps more than with the idea of a “nation-state.” It also seems to go well with some forms of participatory democracy (as opposed to representative democracy). Not to mean that Switzerland or any other confederation/confederacy works as a participatory democracy. But these notions can help situate this GNoCS.

While relatively rare and unimportant “on the World Stage,” micro-states and micro-nations represent interesting cases in view of post-nationalist entities. For one thing, they may help dispel the belief that any political apart from the “nation-state” is a “reversal” to feudalism or even (Greek) Antiquity. The very existence of those entities which are “the exceptions to the rule” make it possible to “think outside of the national box.”

Demographically at the opposite end of the spectrum from microstates and micronations, the notion of a China-India union (or even a collaboration between China, India, Brazil, and Russia) may sound crazy in the current state of national politics but it would go well with a restructuring of the Globe, especially if this “New World Order” goes beyond currency-based trade.

Speaking of currency, the notion of the International Monetary Fund having its own currency is quite striking as a sign of a major shift from the “nation-state” logic. Of course, the IMF is embedded in “national” structures, but it can shift the focus away from “individual countries.”

The very notion of “democracy” has been on many lips, over the years. Now may be the time to pay more than lipservice to a notion of “Global Democracy,” which would transcend national boundaries (and give equal rights to all people across the Globe). Chances are that representative democracy may still dominate but a network structure connecting a large number of localized entities can also fit in other systems including participatory democracy, consensus culture, republicanism, and even the models of relatively egalitarian systems that some cultural anthropologists have been constructing over the years.

I still have all sorts of notes about examples and issues related to this notion of a GNoCS. But that will do for now.

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Présence féminine et culture geek (Journée Ada Lovelace) #ald09

March 24, 2009 dispar 13 Comments

En 2009, la journée de la femme a été hypothéquée d’une heure, dans certaines contrées qui sont passées à l’heure d’été le 8 mars. Pourtant, plus que jamais, c’est aux femmes que nous devrions accorder plus de place. Cette Journée internationale en l’honneur d’Ada Lovelace et des femmes dans les domaines technologiques est une excellente occasion pour discuter de l’importance de la présence féminine pour la pérennité sociale.

Pour un féministe mâle, le fait de parler de condition féminine peut poser certains défis. Qui suis-je, pour parler des femmes? De quel droit pourrais-je m’approprier de la parole qui devrait, selon moi, être accordée aux femmes? Mes propos ne sont-ils pas teintés de biais? C’est donc d’avantage en tant qu’observateur de ce que j’ai tendance à appeler la «culture geek» (voire la «niche geek» ou la «foule geek») que je parle de cette présence féminine.

Au risque de tomber dans le panneau du stéréotype, j’oserais dire qu’une présence accrue des femmes en milieu geek peut avoir des impacts intéressants en fonction de certains rôles impartis aux femmes dans diverses sociétés liées à la culture geek. En d’autres termes, j’aimerais célébrer le pouvoir féminin, bien plus fondamntal que la «force» masculine.

Je fais en cela référence à des notions sur les femmes et les hommes qui m’ont été révélées au cours de mes recherches sur les confréries de chasseurs, au Mali. En apparence exclusivement mâles, les confréries de chasseurs en Afrique de l’ouest accordent une place prépondérante à la féminité. Comme le dit le proverbe, «nous sommes tous dans les bras de nos mères» (bèè y’i ba bolo). Si le père, notre premier rival (i fa y’i faden folo de ye), peut nous donner la force physique, c’est la mère qui nous donne la puissance, le vrai pouvoir.

Loin de moi l’idée d’assigner aux femmes un pouvoir qui ne viendrait que de leur capacité à donner naissance. Ce n’est pas uniquement en tant que mère que la femme se doit d’être respectée. Bien au contraire, les divers rôles des femmes ont tous à être célébrés. Ce qui donne à la maternité une telle importance, d’un point de vue masculin, c’est son universalité: un homme peut ne pas avoir de sœur, d’épouse ou de fille, il peut même ne pas connaître l’identité précise de son père, il a au minimum eu un contact avec sa mère, de la conception à la naissance.

C’est souvent par référence à la maternité que les hommes conçoivent le respect le plus inconditionnel pour la femme. Et l’image maternelle ne doit pas être négligée, même si elle est souvent stéréotypée. Même si le terme «materner» a des connotations péjoratives, il fait appel à un soi adapté et sans motif spécifique. La culture geek a-t-elle besoin de soins maternels?

Une étude récente s’est penchée sur la dimension hormonale des activités des courtiers de Wall Street, surtout en ce qui a trait à la prise de risques. Selon cette étude (décrite dans une baladodiffusion de vulgarisation scientifique), il y aurait un lien entre certains taux d’hormones et un comportement fondé sur le profit à court terme. Ces hormones sont surtout présentes chez de jeunes hommes, qui constituent la majorité de ce groupe professionnel. Si les résultats de cette étude sont valables, un groupe plus diversifié de courtiers, au niveau du sexe et de l’âge, risque d’être plus prudent qu’un groupe dominé par de jeunes hommes.

Malgré d’énormes différences dans le détail, la culture geek a quelques ressemblances avec la composition de Wall Street, du moins au point de vue hormonal. Si l’appât du gain y est moins saillant que sur le plancher de la Bourse, la culture geek accorde une très large place au culte méritocratique de la compétition et à l’image de l’individu brillant et tout-puissant. La prise de risques n’est pas une caractéristique très visible de la culture geek, mais l’approche «résolution de problèmes» (“troubleshooting”) évoque la décision hâtive plutôt que la réflexion approfondie. Le rôle du dialogue équitable et respectueux, sans en être évacué, n’y est que rarement mis en valeur. La culture geek est «internationale», en ce sens qu’elle trouve sa place dans divers lieux du Globe (généralement définis avec une certaine précision en cebuees névralgiques comme la Silicon Valley). Elle est pourtant loin d’être représentative de la diversité humaine. La proportion bien trop basse de femmes liées à la culture geek est une marque importante de ce manque de diversité. Un groupe moins homogène rendrait plus prégnante la notion de coopération et, avec elle, un plus grand soucis de la dignité humaine. Après tout, le vrai humanisme est autant philogyne que philanthrope.

Un principe similaire est énoncé dans le cadre des soins médicaux. Sans être assignées à des tâches spécifiques, associées à leur sexe, la présence de certaines femmes-médecins semble améliorer certains aspects du travail médical. Il y a peut-être un stéréotype implicite dans tout ça et les femmes du secteur médical ne sont probablement pas traitées d’une bien meilleure façon que les femmes d’autres secteurs d’activité. Pourtant, au-delà du stéréotype, l’association entre féminité et relation d’aide semble se maintenir dans l’esprit des membres de certaines sociétés et peut être utilisée pour rendre la médecine plus «humaine», tant dans la diversité que dans cette notion d’empathie raisonnée, évoquée par l’humanisme.

Je ne peux m’empêcher de penser à cette remarquable expérience, il y a quelques années déjà, de participer à un colloque académique à forte présence féminine. En plus d’une proportion élevée de femmes, ce colloque sur la nourriture et la culture donnait la part belle à l’image de la mère nourricière, à l’influence fondamentale de la sphère donestique sur la vie sociale. Bien que mâle, je m’y suis senti à mon aise et je garde de ces quelques jours l’idée qu’un monde un tant soit peu féminisé pouvait avoir des effets intéressants, d’un point de vue social. Un groupe accordant un réel respect à la condition féminine peut être associé à une ambiance empreinte de «soin», une atmosphère “nurturing”.

Le milieu geek peut être très agréable, à divers niveaux, mais la notion de «soin», l’empathie, voire même l’humanisme n’en sont pas des caractéristiques très évidentes. Un monde geek accordant plus d’importance à la présence des femmes serait peut-être plus humain que ce qu’un portrait global de la culture geek semble présager.

Et n’est-ce pas ce qui s’est passé? Le ‘Net s’est partiellement féminisé au cours des dix dernières années et l’émergence du média social est intimement lié à cette transformation «démographique».

D’aucuns parlent de «démocratisation» d’Internet, usant d’un champ lexical associé au journalisme et à la notion d’État-Nation. Bien qu’il s’agisse de parler d’accès plus uniforme aux moyens technologiques, la source de ce discours se situe dans une vision spécifique de la structure social. Un relent de la Révolution Industrielle, peut-être? Le ‘Net étant construit au-delà des frontières politiques, cette vision du monde semble peu appropriée à la communication mondialisée. D’ailleurs, qu’entend-on vraiment par «démocratisation» d’Internet? La participation active de personnes diversifiées aux processus décisionnels qui créent continuellement le ‘Net? La simple juxtaposition de personnes provenant de milieux socio-économiques distincts? La possibilité pour la majorité de la planète d’utiliser certains outils dans le but d’obtenir ces avantages auxquels elle a droit, par prérogative statistique? Si c’est le cas, il en reviendrait aux femmes, majoritaires sur le Globe, de décider du sort du ‘Net. Pourtant, ce sont surtout des hommes qui dominent le ‘Net. Le contrôle exercé par les hommes semble indirect mais il n’en est pas moins réel.

Cet état des choses a tendance à changer. Bien qu’elles ne soient toujours pas dominantes, les femmes sont de plus en plus présentes, en-ligne. Certaines recherches statistiques semblent d’ailleurs leur assigner la majorité dans certaines sphères d’activité en-ligne. Mais mon approche est holistique et qualitative, plutôt que statistique et déterministe. C’est plutôt au sujet des rôles joués par les femmes que je pense. Si certains de ces rôles semblent sortir en ligne direct du stéréotype d’inégalité sexuelle du milieu du XXè siècle, c’est aussi en reconnaissant l’emprise du passé que nous pouvons comprendre certaines dimensions de notre présent. Les choses ont changé, soit. La conscience de ce changement informe certains de nos actes. Peu d’entre nous ont complètement mis de côté cette notion que notre «passé à tous» était patriarcal et misogyne. Et cette notion conserve sa signifiance dans nos gestes quotidiens puisque nous nous comparons à un modèle précis, lié à la domination et à la lutte des classes.

Au risque, encore une fois, de faire appel à des stéréotypes, j’aimerais parler d’une tendance que je trouve fascinante, dans le comportement de certaines femmes au sein du média social. Les blogueuses, par exemple, ont souvent réussi à bâtir des communautés de lectrices fidèles, des petits groupes d’amies qui partagent leurs vies en public. Au lieu de favoriser le plus grand nombre de visites, plusieurs femmes ont fondé leurs activités sur la blogosphère sur des groupes relativement restreints mais très actifs. D’ailleurs, certains blogues de femmes sont l’objet de longues discussions continues, liant les billets les uns aux autres et, même, dépassant le cadre du blogue.

À ce sujet, je fonde certaines de mes idées sur quelques études du phénomène de blogue, parues il y a déjà plusieurs années (et qu’il me serait difficile de localiser en ce moment) et sur certaines observations au sein de certaines «scènes geeks» comme Yulblog. Lors de certains événements mettant en contacts de nombreuses blogueuses, certaines d’entre elles semblaient préférer demeurer en groupe restreint pour une part importante de la durée de l’événement que de multiplier les nouveaux contacts. Il ne s’agit pas ici d’une restriction, certaines femmes sont mieux à même de provoquer l’«effet du papillon social» que la plupart des hommes. Mais il y a une force tranquille dans ces petits regroupements de femmes, qui fondent leur participation à la blogosphère sur des contacts directs et forts plutôt que sur la «pêche au filet». C’est souvent par de très petits groupes très soudés que les changements sociaux se produisent et, des “quilting bees” aux blogues de groupes de femmes, il y a une puissance ignorée.

Il serait probablement abusif de dire que c’est la présence féminine qui a provoqué l’éclosion du média social au cours des dix dernières années. Mais la présence des femmes est liée au fait que le ‘Net ait pu dépasser la «niche geek». Le domaine de ce que certains appellent le «Web 2.0» (ou la sixième culture d’Internet) n’est peut-être pas plus démocratique que le ‘Net du début des années 1990. Mais il est clairement moins exclusif et plus accueillant.

Comme ma tendre moitié l’a lu sur la devanture d’une taverne: «Bienvenue aux dames!»

Les billets publiés en l’honneur de la Journée Ada Lovelace devaient, semble-t-il, se pencher sur des femmes spécifiques, œuvrant dans des domaines technologiques. J’ai préféré «réfléchir à plume haute» au sujet de quelques éléments qui me trottaient dans la tête. Il serait toutefois de bon ton pour moi de mentionner des noms et de ne pas consigner ce billet à une observation purement macroscopique et impersonnelle. Étant peu porté sur l’individualisme, je préfère citer plusieurs femmes, plutôt que de me concentrer sur une d’entre elles. D’autant plus que la femme à laquelle je pense avec le plus d’intensité dit désirer garder une certaine discrétion et, même si elle blogue depuis bien plus longtemps que moi et qu’elle sait très bien se débrouiller avec les outils en question, elle prétend ne pas être associée à la technologie.

J’ai donc décidé de procéder à une simple énumération (alphabétique, j’aime pas les rangs) de quelques femmes dont j’apprécie le travail et qui ont une présence Internet facilement identifiable. Certaines d’entre elles sont très proches de moi. D’autres planent au-dessus de milieux auxquels je suis lié. D’autres encore sont des présences discrètes ou fortes dans un quelconque domaine que j’associe à la culture geek et/ou au média social. Évidemment, j’en oublie des tonnes. Mais c’est un début. Continuons le combat! 😉

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Social Networks and Microblogging

March 4, 2009 dispar 4 Comments

Microblogging (Laconica, Twitter, etc.) is still a hot topic. For instance, during the past few episodes of This Week in Tech, comments were made about the preponderance of Twitter as a discussion theme: microblogging is so prominent on that show that some people complain that there’s too much talk about Twitter. Given the centrality of Leo Laporte’s podcast in geek culture (among Anglos, at least), such comments are significant.

The context for the latest comments about TWiT coverage of Twitter had to do with Twitter’s financials: during this financial crisis, Twitter is given funding without even asking for it. While it may seem surprising at first, given the fact that Twitter hasn’t publicized a business plan and doesn’t appear to be profitable at this time,

Along with social networking, microblogging is even discussed in mainstream media. For instance, Médialogues (a media critique on Swiss national radio) recently had a segment about both Facebook and Twitter. Just yesterday, Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart made fun of compulsive twittering and mainstream media coverage of Twitter (original, Canadian access).

Clearly, microblogging is getting some mindshare.

What the future holds for microblogging is clearly uncertain. Anything can happen. My guess is that microblogging will remain important for a while (at least a few years) but that it will transform itself rather radically. Chances are that other platforms will have microblogging features (something Facebook can do with status updates and something Automattic has been trying to do with some WordPress themes). In these troubled times, Montreal startup Identi.ca received some funding to continue developing its open microblogging platform. Jaiku, bought by Google last year, is going open source, which may be good news for microblogging in general. Twitter itself might maintain its “marketshare” or other players may take over. There’s already a large number of third-party tools and services making use of Twitter, from Mahalo Answers to Remember the Milk, Twistory to TweetDeck.

Together, these all point to the current importance of microblogging and the potential for further development in that sphere. None of this means that microblogging is “The Next Big Thing.” But it’s reasonable to expect that microblogging will continue to grow in use.

(Those who are trying to grok microblogging, Common Craft’s Twitter in Plain English video is among the best-known descriptions of Twitter and it seems like an efficient way to “get the idea.”)

One thing which is rarely mentioned about microblogging is the prominent social structure supporting it. Like “Social Networking Systems” (LinkedIn, Facebook, Ning, MySpace…), microblogging makes it possible for people to “connect” to one another (as contacts/acquaintances/friends). Like blogs, microblogging platforms make it possible to link to somebody else’s material and get notifications for some of these links (a bit like pings and trackbacks). Like blogrolls, microblogging systems allow for lists of “favourite authors.” Unlike Social Networking Systems but similar to blogrolls, microblogging allow for asymmetrical relations, unreciprocated links: if I like somebody’s microblogging updates, I can subscribe to those (by “following” that person) and publicly show my appreciation of that person’s work, regardless of whether or not this microblogger likes my own updates.

There’s something strangely powerful there because it taps the power of social networks while avoiding tricky issues of reciprocity, “confidentiality,” and “intimacy.”

From the end user’s perspective, microblogging contacts may be easier to establish than contacts through Facebook or Orkut. From a social science perspective, microblogging links seem to approximate some of the fluidity found in social networks, without adding much complexity in the description of the relationships. Subscribing to someone’s updates gives me the role of “follower” with regards to that person. Conversely, those I follow receive the role of “following” (“followee” would seem logical, given the common “-er”/”-ee” pattern). The following and follower roles are complementary but each is sufficient by itself as a useful social link.

Typically, a microblogging system like Twitter or Identi.ca qualifies two-way connections as “friendship” while one-way connections could be labelled as “fandom” (if Andrew follows Betty’s updates but Betty doesn’t follow Andrew’s, Andrew is perceived as one of Betty’s “fans”). Profiles on microblogging systems are relatively simple and public, allowing for low-involvement online “presence.” As long as updates are kept public, anybody can connect to anybody else without even needing an introduction. In fact, because microblogging systems send notifications to users when they get new followers (through email and/or SMS), subscribing to someone’s update is often akin to introducing yourself to that person.

Reciprocating is the object of relatively intense social pressure. A microblogger whose follower:following ratio is far from 1:1 may be regarded as either a snob (follower:following much higher than 1:1) or as something of a microblogging failure (follower:following much lower than 1:1). As in any social context, perceived snobbery may be associated with sophistication but it also carries opprobrium. Perry Belcher made a video about what he calls “Twitter Snobs” and some French bloggers have elaborated on that concept. (Some are now claiming their right to be Twitter Snobs.) Low follower:following ratios can result from breach of etiquette (for instance, ostentatious self-promotion carried beyond the accepted limit) or even non-human status (many microblogging accounts are associated to “bots” producing automated content).

The result of the pressure for reciprocation is that contacts are reciprocated regardless of personal relations. Some users even set up ways to automatically follow everyone who follows them. Despite being tricky, these methods escape the personal connection issue. Contrary to Social Networking Systems (and despite the term “friend” used for reciprocated contacts), following someone on a microblogging service implies little in terms of friendship.

One reason I personally find this fascinating is that specifying personal connections has been an important part of the development of social networks online. For instance, long-defunct SixDegrees.com (one of the earliest Social Networking Systems to appear online) required of users that they specified the precise nature of their relationship to users with whom they were connected. Details escape me but I distinctly remember that acquaintances, colleagues, and friends were distinguished. If I remember correctly, only one such personal connection was allowed for any pair of users and this connection had to be confirmed before the two users were linked through the system. Facebook’s method to account for personal connections is somewhat more sophisticated despite the fact that all contacts are labelled as “friends” regardless of the nature of the connection. The uniform use of the term “friend” has been decried by many public commentators of Facebook (including in the United States where “friend” is often applied to any person with whom one is simply on friendly terms).

In this context, the flexibility with which microblogging contacts are made merits consideration: by allowing unidirectional contacts, microblogging platforms may have solved a tricky social network problem. And while the strength of the connection between two microbloggers is left unacknowledged, there are several methods to assess it (for instance through replies and republished updates).

Social contacts are the very basis of social media. In this case, microblogging represents a step towards both simplified and complexified social contacts.

Which leads me to the theme which prompted me to start this blogpost: event-based microblogging.

I posted the following blog entry (in French) about event-based microblogging, back in November.

Microblogue d’événement

I haven’t received any direct feedback on it and the topic seems to have little echoes in the social media sphere.

During the last PodMtl meeting on February 18, I tried to throw my event-based microblogging idea in the ring. This generated a rather lengthy between a friend and myself. (Because I don’t want to put words in this friend’s mouth, who happens to be relatively high-profile, I won’t mention this friend’s name.) This friend voiced several objections to my main idea and I got to think about this basic notion a bit further. At the risk of sounding exceedingly opinionated, I must say that my friend’s objections actually comforted me in the notion that my “event microblog” idea makes a lot of sense.

The basic idea is quite simple: microblogging instances tied to specific events. There are technical issues in terms of hosting and such but I’m mostly thinking about associating microblogs and events.

What I had in mind during the PodMtl discussion has to do with grouping features, which are often requested by Twitter users (including by Perry Belcher who called out Twitter Snobs). And while I do insist on events as a basis for those instances (like groups), some of the same logic applies to specific interests. However, given the time-sensitivity of microblogging, I still think that events are more significant in this context than interests, however defined.

In the PodMtl discussion, I frequently referred to BarCamp-like events (in part because my friend and interlocutor had participated in a number of such events). The same concept applies to any event, including one which is just unfolding (say, assassination of Guinea-Bissau’s president or bombings in Mumbai).

Microblogging users are expected to think about “hashtags,” those textual labels preceded with the ‘#’ symbol which are meant to categorize microblogging updates. But hashtags are problematic on several levels.

They require preliminary agreement among multiple microbloggers, a tricky proposition in any social media. “Let’s use #Bissau09. Everybody agrees with that?” It can get ugly and, even if it doesn’t, the process is awkward (especially for new users).
Even if agreement has been reached, there might be discrepancies in the way hashtags are typed. “Was it #TwestivalMtl or #TwestivalMontreal, I forgot.”
In terms of language economy, it’s unsurprising that the same hashtag would be used for different things. Is “#pcmtl” about Podcamp Montreal, about personal computers in Montreal, about PCM Transcoding Library…?
Hashtags are frequently misunderstood by many microbloggers. Just this week, a tweep of mine (a “peep” on Twitter) asked about them after having been on Twitter for months.
While there are multiple ways to track hashtags (including through SMS, in some regions), there is no way to further specify the tracked updates (for instance, by user).
The distinction between a hashtag and a keyword is too subtle to be really useful. Twitter Search, for instance, lumps the two together.
Hashtags take time to type. Even if microbloggers aren’t necessarily typing frantically, the time taken to type all those hashtags seems counterproductive and may even distract microbloggers.
Repetitively typing the same string is a very specific kind of task which seems to go against the microblogging ethos, if not the cognitive processes associated with microblogging.
The number of character in a hashtag decreases the amount of text in every update. When all you have is 140 characters at a time, the thirteen characters in “#TwestivalMtl” constitute almost 10% of your update.
If the same hashtag is used by a large number of people, the visual effect can be that this hashtag is actually dominating the microblogging stream. Since there currently isn’t a way to ignore updates containing a certain hashtag, this effect may even discourage people from using a microblogging service.

There are multiple solutions to these issues, of course. Some of them are surely discussed among developers of microblogging systems. And my notion of event-specific microblogs isn’t geared toward solving these issues. But I do think separate instances make more sense than hashtags, especially in terms of specific events.

My friend’s objections to my event microblogging idea had something to do with visibility. It seems that this friend wants all updates to be visible, regardless of the context. While I don’t disagree with this, I would claim that it would still be useful to “opt out” of certain discussions when people we follow are involved. If I know that Sean is participating in a PHP conference and that most of his updates will be about PHP for a period of time, I would enjoy the possibility to hide PHP-related updates for a specific period of time. The reason I talk about this specific case is simple: a friend of mine has manifested some frustration about the large number of updates made by participants in Podcamp Montreal (myself included). Partly in reaction to this, he stopped following me on Twitter and only resumed following me after Podcamp Montreal had ended. In this case, my friend could have hidden Podcamp Montreal updates and still have received other updates from the same microbloggers.

To a certain extent, event-specific instances are a bit similar to “rooms” in MMORPG and other forms of real-time many-to-many text-based communication such as the nostalgia-inducing Internet Relay Chat. Despite Dave Winer’s strong claim to the contrary (and attempt at defining microblogging away from IRC), a microblogging instance could, in fact, act as a de facto chatroom. When such a structure is needed. Taking advantage of the work done in microblogging over the past year (which seems to have advanced more rapidly than work on chatrooms has, during the past fifteen years). Instead of setting up an IRC channel, a Web-based chatroom, or even a session on MSN Messenger, users could use their microblogging platform of choice and either decide to follow all updates related to a given event or simply not “opt-out” of following those updates (depending on their preferences). Updates related to multiple events are visible simultaneously (which isn’t really the case with IRC or chatrooms) and there could be ways to make event-specific updates more prominent. In fact, there would be easy ways to keep real-time statistics of those updates and get a bird’s eye view of those conversations.

And there’s a point about event-specific microblogging which is likely to both displease “alpha geeks” and convince corporate users: updates about some events could be “protected” in the sense that they would not appear in the public stream in realtime. The simplest case for this could be a company-wide meeting during which backchannel is allowed and even expected “within the walls” of the event. The “nothing should leave this room” attitude seems contradictory to social media in general, but many cases can be made for “confidential microblogging.” Microblogged conversations can easily be archived and these archives could be made public at a later date. Event-specific microblogging allows for some control of the “permeability” of the boundaries surrounding the event. “But why would people use microblogging instead of simply talking to another?,” you ask. Several quick answers: participants aren’t in the same room, vocal communication is mostly single-channel, large groups of people are unlikely to communicate efficiently through oral means only, several things are more efficiently done through writing, written updates are easier to track and archive…

There are many other things I’d like to say about event-based microblogging but this post is already long. There’s one thing I want to explain, which connects back to the social network dimension of microblogging.

Events can be simplistically conceived as social contexts which bring people together. (Yes, duh!) Participants in a given event constitute a “community of experience” regardless of the personal connections between them. They may be strangers, ennemies, relatives, acquaintances, friends, etc. But they all share something. “Participation,” in this case, can be relatively passive and the difference between key participants (say, volunteers and lecturers in a conference) and attendees is relatively moot, at a certain level of analysis. The key, here, is the set of connections between people at the event.

These connections are a very powerful component of social networks. We typically meet people through “events,” albeit informal ones. Some events are explicitly meant to connect people who have something in common. In some circles, “networking” refers to something like this. The temporal dimension of social connections is an important one. By analogy to philosophy of language, the “first meeting” (and the set of “first impressions”) constitute the “baptism” of the personal (or social) connection. In social media especially, the nature of social connections tends to be monovalent enough that this “baptism event” gains special significance.

The online construction of social networks relies on a finite number of dimensions, including personal characteristics described in a profile, indirect connections (FOAF), shared interests, textual content, geographical location, and participation in certain activities. Depending on a variety of personal factors, people may be quite inclusive or rather exclusive, based on those dimensions. “I follow back everyone who lives in Austin” or “Only people I have met in person can belong to my inner circle.” The sophistication with which online personal connections are negotiated, along such dimensions, is a thing of beauty. In view of this sophistication, tools used in social media seem relatively crude and underdeveloped.

Going back to the (un)conference concept, the usefulness of having access to a list of all participants in a given event seems quite obvious. In an open event like BarCamp, it could greatly facilitate the event’s logistics. In a closed event with paid access, it could be linked to registration (despite geek resistance, closed events serve a purpose; one could even imagine events where attendance is free but the microblogging backchannel incurs a cost). In some events, everybody would be visible to everybody else. In others, there could be a sort of ACL for diverse types of participants. In some cases, people could be allowed to “lurk” without being seen while in others radically transparency could be enforced. For public events with all participants visible, lists of participants could be archived and used for several purposes (such as assessing which sessions in a conference are more popular or “tracking” event regulars).

One reason I keep thinking about event-specific microblogging is that I occasionally use microblogging like others use business cards. In a geek crowd, I may ask for someone’s Twitter username in order to establish a connection with that person. Typically, I will start following that person on Twitter and find opportunities to communicate with that person later on. Given the possibility for one-way relationships, it establishes a social connection without requiring personal involvement. In fact, that person may easily ignore me without the danger of a face threat.

If there were event-specific instances from microblogging platforms, we could manage connections and profiles in a more sophisticated way. For instance, someone could use a barebones profile for contacts made during an impersonal event and a full-fledged profile for contacts made during a more “intimate” event. After noticing a friend using an event-specific business card with an event-specific email address, I got to think that this event microblogging idea might serve as a way to fill a social need.

More than most of my other blogposts, I expect comments on this one. Objections are obviously welcomed, especially if they’re made thoughtfully (like my PodMtl friend made them). Suggestions would be especially useful. Or even questions about diverse points that I haven’t addressed (several of which I can already think about).

So…

What do you think of this idea of event-based microblogging? Would you use a microblogging instance linked to an event, say at an unconference? Can you think of fun features an event-based microblogging instance could have? If you think about similar ideas you’ve seen proposed online, care to share some links?

Thanks in advance!

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Student Engagement: The Gym Analogy (Updated: Credited)

November 21, 2008 dispar 5 Comments

Heard about this recently and probably heard it before. It’s striking me more now than before, for some reason.

[Update: I heard about this analogy through Peace Studies scholar Laurie Lamoureux Scholes (part-time faculty and doctoral candidate in Religion at Concordia University). Lamoureux Scholes’s colleague John Bilodeau is the intermediate source for this analogy and may have seen it on the RateYourStudents blog. There’s nothing like giving credit where credit is due and I’m enough of a folklorist to care about transmission. Besides, the original RYS gym-themed blog entry can be quite useful.]

Those of us who teach at universities and colleges (especially in North America and especially among English-speakers, I would guess) have encountered this “sense of entitlement” which has such deep implications in the ways some students perceive learning. Some students feel and say that, since they (or their parents) pay large sums for their post-secondary education, they are entitled to a “special treatment” which often involves the idea of getting high grades with little effort.

In my experience, this sense of entitlement correlates positively with the prestige of the institution. Part of this has to do with tuition fees required by those universities and colleges. But there’s also the notion that, since they were admitted to a program at such a selective school, they must be the “cream of the crop” and therefore should be treated with deference. Similarly, “traditional students” (18-25) are in my experience more likely to display a sense of entitlement than “non-traditional students” (older than 25) who have very specific reasons to attend a college or university.

The main statements used by students in relation to their sense of entitlement usually have some connection to tuition fees perceived to transform teaching into a hired service, regardless of other factors. “My parents pay a lot of money for your salary so I’m allowed to get what I want.” (Of course, those students may not realize that a tiny fraction of tuition fees actually goes in the pocket of the instructor, but that’s another story.) In some cases, the parents can easily afford that amount paid in tuitions but the statements are the same. In other cases, the statements come from the notion that parents have “worked very hard to put me in school.” The results, in terms of entitlement, are quite similar.

Simply put, those students who feel a strong sense of entitlement tend to “be there for the degree” while most other students are “there to learn.”

Personally, I tend to assume students want to learn and I value student engagement in learning processes very highly. As a result, I often have a harder time working with students with a sense of entitlement. I can adapt myself to work with them if I assess their positions early on (preferably, before the beginning of a semester) but it requires a good deal of effort for me to teach in a context in which the sense of entitlement is “endemic.” In other words, “I can handle a few entitled students” if I know in advance what to expect but I find it demotivating to teach a group of students who “are only there for the degree.”

A large part of my own position has to do with the types of courses I have been teaching (anthropology, folkloristics, and sociology) and my teaching philosophy also “gets in the way.” My main goal is a constructivist one: create an appropriate environment, with students, in which learning can happen efficiently. I’m rarely (if ever) trying to “cram ideas into students’ heads,” though I do understand the value of that type of teaching in some circumstances. I occasionally try to train students for a task but my courses have rarely been meant to be vocational in that sense (I could certainly do vocational training, in which case I would adapt my methods).

So, the gym analogy. At this point, I find it’s quite fitting as an answer to the “my parents paid for this course so I should get a high grade.”

Tuition fees are similar to gym membership: regardless of the amount you pay, you can only expect results if you make the effort.

Simple and effective.

Of course, no analogy is perfect. I think the “effort” emphasis is more fitting in physical training than in intellectual and conceptual training. But, thankfully, the analogy does not imply that students should “get grades for effort” more than athletes assume effort is sufficient to improve their physical skills.

One thing I like about this analogy is that it can easily resonate with a large category of students who are, in fact, the “gym type.” Sounds irrelevant but the analogy is precisely the type of thing which might stick in the head of those students who care about physical training (even if they react negatively at first) and many “entitled students” have a near Greek/German attitude toward their bodies. In fact, some of the students with the strongest sense of entitlement are high-profile athletes: some of them sound like they expect to have minions to take exams for them!

An important advantage of the gym analogy, in a North American context, is that it focuses on individual responsibility. While not always selfish, the sense of entitlement is self-centred by definition. Given the North American tendency toward independence training and a strong focus on individual achievement in North American academic institutions, the “individualist” character of the sense of entitlement shouldn’t surprise anyone. In fact, those “entitled students” are unlikely to respond very positively to notions of solidarity, group learning, or even “team effort.”

Beyond individual responsibility, the gym analogy can help emphasise individual goals, especially in comparison to team sports. In North America, team sports play a very significant role in popular culture and the distinction between a gym and a sports team can resonate in a large conceptual field. The gym is the locale for individual achievement while the sports team (which could be the basis of another analogy) is focused on group achievement.

My simplest definition of a team is as “a task-oriented group.” Some models of group development (especially Tuckman’s catchy “Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing“) are best suited in relation to teams. Task-based groups connect directly with the Calvinistic ideology of progress (in a Weberian perspective), but they also embed a “community-building” notion which is often absent from the “social Darwinism” of some capital-driven discourse. In other words, a team sports analogy could have some of the same advantages as the gym analogy (such as a sense of active engagement) with the added benefit of bringing into focus the social aspects of learning.

Teamwork skills are highly valued in the North American workplace. In learning contexts, “teamwork” often takes a buzzword quality. The implicit notion seems to be that the natural tendency for individuals to work against everybody else but that teams, as unnatural as they may seem, are necessary for the survival of broad institutions (such as the typical workplace). In other words, “learning how to work well in teams” sounds like a struggle against “human nature.” This implicit perspective relates to the emphasis on “individual achievement” and “independence training” represented effectively in the gym analogy.

So, to come back to that gym analogy…

In a gym, everyone is expected to set her or his own goals, often with the advice of a trainer. The notion is that this selection of goals is completely free of outside influence save for “natural” goals related to general health. In this context, losing weight is an obvious goal (the correlation between body mass and health being taken as a given) but it is still chosen by the individual. “You can only succeed if you set yourself to succeed” seems to be a common way to put it. Since this conception is “inscribed in the mind” of some students, it may be a convenient tool to emphasise learning strategies: “you can only learn if you set yourself to learn.” Sounds overly simple, but it may well work. Especially if we move beyond the idea some students have that they’re so “smart” that they “don’t need to learn.”

What it can imply in terms of teaching is quite interesting. An instructor takes on the role of a personal trainer. Like a sports team’s coach, a trainer is “listened to” and “obeyed.” There might be a notion of hierarchy involved (at least in terms of skills: the trainer needs to impress), but the main notion is that of division of labour. Personally, I could readily see myself taking on the “personal trainer” role in a learning context, despite the disadvantages of customer-based approaches to learning. One benefit of the trainer role is that what students (or their parents) pay for is a service, not “learning as a commodity.”

Much of this reminds me of Alex Golub’s blogpost on “Factory, Lab, Guild, Studio” notions to be used in describing academic departments. Using Golub’s blogpost as inspiration, I blogged about departments, Samba schools, and the Medici Effect. In the meantime, my understanding of learning has deepened but still follows similar lines. And I still love the “Samba school” concept. I can now add the gym and the sports teams to my analogical apparatus to use in describing my teaching to students or anybody else.

Hopefully, any of these analogies can be used to help students engage themselves in the learning process.

That’s all I can wish for.

Observable

Antecedent Conditions of Groupthink

Insulation of the group

Lack of norms requiring methodical procedures

Symptoms Indicative of Groupthink

Illusion of unanimity (see false consensus effect)

Direct pressure on dissenters to conform

Symptoms of Decisions Affected by Groupthink

Incomplete survey of alternatives

Incomplete survey of objectives

Failure to examine risks of preferred choice

Failure to re-appraise initially rejected alternatives

Poor information search

Failure to work out contingency plans

Less Obvious

Antecedent Conditions of Groupthink

High group cohesiveness

Directive leadership

Homogeneity of members’ social background and ideology

High stress from external threats with low hope of a better solution than the one offered by the leader(s)

Symptoms Indicative of Groupthink

Illusion of invulnerability

Unquestioned belief in the inherent morality of the group

Collective rationalization of group’s decisions

Shared stereotypes of outgroup, particularly opponents

Self-censorship; members withhold criticisms

Self-appointed “mindguards” protect the group from negative information

Symptoms of Decisions Affected by Groupthink

Selective bias in processing information at hand (see also confirmation bias)

A bilingual blog on disparate subjects. / Un blogue disparate bilingue.