i’m sorry, i just don’t know

via Dion Hinchcliffe…

So I’ve run across a very cool post by the Open Innovators blog that lists a variety of sites where folks are using open, innovative technologies and processes to solve problems, answer questions, and basically get work done. A few of my favorites from this list…

• TekScout Open Innovation Exchange- companies can post development challenges and an associated reward for solving them in science and engineering
• Yahoo Answers - an old fave of mine
• Idea Crossing - connect your business to spectacularly innovative minds.
• SellaBand- crowd funded bands
• BurdaStyle - open source sewing.  really.

See the entire list.

This video, put out by Flat World Knowledge, LLC describes their approach to social learning. It’s sort of the lulu/digg of university textbooks.

from www.flatworldknowled posted with vodpod

Clay Shirky talks about what motivates people to participate in social media creation.

from blip.tv posted with vodpod

Outback’s Ausssie Cheese Fries with Ranch Dressing. Eat this and you’ll pack down 2,900 calories, 182 g fat, and 240 g carbs. Men’s Health ranked the 20 worst foods in America.

Writing this post is making me hungry.  Via BoingBoing

A new study found that there are more harmful bacteria on many computer keyboards than there are on toilet seats.  Please, wash your hands.  Video Report Link

A recent report by G. Oliver Young from Forrester Research shows an increasing trend in organizations purchasing and using Web 2.0 tools (Blogs, wikis, widgets, podcasting software, etc.).

It is interesting that there seems to be a direct correlation between the size of the organization and whether or not they are actually buying Web2.0 apps. The larger the organization, the more likely it is to be buying or considering Web 2.0 applications.

via WebGuild

I’m not a programmer.  I’m a novice mash-upper.  I needed to figure out how to gather, aggregate, and publish the blog posts of community members to my existing website.  My constraints:  I couldn’t just set up a wordpress blog to do it.  I had to display this aggregation in our existing community website.  And, my current site did not support any additional forms.  So here’s how I did it…

1. We have a Society website up built on Wild Apricot that lets me set up members only pages.  I set up a “Submit your Blog” page there.
2. Since Wild Apricot has no API (boo!) into their data, I had to find an external form service, enter:  Wufoo.  The free account lets us build up to three forms.  They store the data (which I’m not concerned about because it is publicly available blogs) which we can access via an online API.
3. I manually (here’s the clunky part) add the feeds to Yahoo Pipes which publishes them out as one aggregated RSS feed.
4. This feed gets turned into a widget by me and Widgetbox.
5. I copy the code for the widget into my community site, and everything is right in the world.

Why a community site is good for an Association…  We want to be clear that we support collaborative engagement around issues relevant to our industry.  Only our MEMBERS can contribute to the conversation.  People are motivated to do this because it builds their online reputation- a powerful motivator as can be seen by the popularity of Web 2.0 apps that support online identity development and social presence (think Facebook- a multi-billion dollar company).

Intel has new technology that boosts the signal reach of WiFi using radio signals.  It’s cheap, it stretches for tens of miles further than anything else, and it will mean good things for rural environments (and that’s not just Cache Valley, where I live with the cows… Think India, South America, Africa, Asia…).  One step at a time and we’ll get everyone to join our club (you know… Google, Starbucks, MySpace, and eCommerce).  And, of course, this is good news for anyone interested in things like breaking down barriers to entry, allowing for participatory dialogue between individuals in developing areas, and opening up access to education.

via Kate Green

Adobe Photoshop Express is a streamlined, browser-based photo editing and sharing site that currently gives you 2GB of storage just for signing up. You can browse through other people’s galleries already. The editing capabilities are pretty good for the average human. Of course, there’s no comparison to the actual Photoshop, but who uses all of those features anyway? (Other than my lovely designer friends.) Here’s what it can do…