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One way to look at online social activity, via our lovely Corrine Beaumont, the Mayor of Lemonland. This model includes user profiles, tools used by each, the process of locating and sharing online resources, and the types of “flowers” online. (You’ll have to actually look at the image to sort that last bit out :) Read corrijo’s discussion of the image.
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…
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…
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.
Thanks Christin for pointing us to the Smithsonian’s response to the Colbert portrait phenomenon…
What do the Smithsonian, Steven Colbert, and Flickr all have in common?
“National Treasure: Portrait of Stephen” depicted Stephen Colbert’s quest to have his portrait accepted by one of the Smithsonian’s museums. Colbert bargained with director Brent Glass, and played hackey sack with Marc Pachter, director at the National Portrait Gallery. Colbert’s portrait now hangs in the Portrait Gallery through April.” -Smithsonian NMAH newsletter
Steven’s portrait now hangs between the bathrooms and above the water fountain outside the Gallery of the Presidents. You can go see it and add your picture to the Flickr group sponsored by NMAH on Flickr. People are lining up to take pictures, pretty much ignoring the portrait of George Washington.
Colbert
Originally uploaded by flipperman75
nice work Matt!
All of my flickr images are licensed under Creative Commons, and it’s always fun to see where they end up. Thanks Dave for leaving me a note and letting me know where and how you’ve used my photo.
There was a Star Trek episode where Geordi La Forge (the blind, but brilliant engineer) was kidnapped by smallish round people who looked like weeble-woobles. They took him because, in their own words, “You’re smart. You make things go.” Good job Creative Commons. You made my picture go. (and please don’t tell my that I like Star Trek. He already thinks I’m a sci-fi nerd because of Firefly).
Marion has brought me out of blog writing funk by showing me Whereigo…
Wherigo is a toolset for creating and playing GPS-enabled adventures in the real world. Use GPS technology to guide you to physical locations and interact with virtual objects and characters -Whereigo site
This allows for legitimate crossover interactions between humans, locations, and literally anything a person can imagine virtually. I can see this being big with virtual gamers, but also with people like my mom who takes tours to Europe every summer. My mother can take a tour of people to the Louvre where they go on a treasure hunt for famous artwork. There are very cool applications with history, as well… Imagine taking a 6th grade class to an Anasazi ruin in the Four Corners area. As they walk through the ruins, they encounter a 12 year old Anasazi boy going through a coming of age ritual and become a part of his experience.
Location anchored virtual experiences. Cool. Marion put together a tour of Temple Square in Salt Lake City. If you are traveling this way, download it and enjoy!
Researchers in Massachusetts have developed a mathematical model that can accurately predict where violence will break out between members of different cultures/ethnicities.
“We identify a process of global pattern formation that causes regions to differentiate by culture. Violence arises at boundaries between regions that are not sufficiently well defined. ” link
I also recently read an article in Good Magazine about a game theorist who also, very accurately, predicts human behaviour based on mathematical models. Maybe we aren’t as independently minded as we thought.
Last weekend Rob (my handsome husband) organized a group of volunteers to do a wetlands delineation project for Ann and John Ribera. It made the front page of the local newspaper! link
Pictures coming soon to my flickr account. Congratulations Rob!!
