Maremel Musings

Comics as Tech Humor and Social Digestion

noreply@blogger.com (Gigi Johnson) — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 16:00:00 +0000

Humor can help translate and digest social angst, in this case about technology in everyday life. Today’s comics in the Los Angeles Times included several embedded comments about technology and its twists.

For example, Blondie today is about Dagwood Bumstead learning Twitter from his young neighbor and you should be able to catch it on Blondie.com at this link. He is nervous about the experience and trying to put on a good face.

Thanks to Comics.com, I can embed today’s JumpStart (though it is a bit wider than this column). It discusses web etiquette and ends up being lampooned by the character’s son as a Facebook post at the end of the cartoon. It reminded me of some marvelous conversations that I had yesterday with some lovely ladies over 60 who were discussing their frustrations with learning and embracing technology.

What to Do with 2010's Ideas for 2011 - Gems, Silt, Clouds, and Mañana

noreply@blogger.com (Gigi Johnson) — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 20:03:00 +0000

What can we do with all of our great, unwashed and unrinsed ideas from 2010 as we head into 2011?

Is it a question of ignoring the silt of our lives? Or finding new ways to sift and regroup them at our beck and call?

I recently bought a DVD set from Judy Carter, which gave me some great ideas for 2011. She recently sent an e-newsletter item out about when and how to chase around new ideas. The December 2010 rumblings by Yahoo about closing or selling Delicious.com pushed me into shopping for new solution for this same question:

What should we do with all our ideas throughout the year?

I used to be queen of lists. I hate all my lists – I would write ideas for new projects and creative work down, yet would either consider them “done” or never find them again.

Cloud Tools: So far, I'm trialing both Evernote and Diigo in my search for the perfect cloud computing solution with all of my devices -- cell phone, laptop, desktop (for video editing and research), iPad, and computers while at other people's offices. I like the concept of cloud solutions with my own folksonomy of tagging. I can save and tag ideas from the web or emails, then actually FIND them again later by topic on ANY computer in the “cloud.” I can send them to the cloud from my phone, iPad, or whatever, with tags – so I can actually nurture them and find them when you want them. Each solution has its own quick buttons and macro key clicks to do this quickly, so I'm building new habits.

They don't help, however, with the 6” stack of idea notes that I’ve assembled and left unnurtured in 2010…

Do I read them all? Highlight? Scan and injest into the cloud?

Big Stuff: I do have another solution for my BIG projects, like books, research, video shows, and classes. For these bigger projects, I’m somewhat addicted to Microsoft’s OneNote on my main computer. I just print to OneNote2010 what I’m working on and have a gigantic archive of searchable items that I can ‘folderize’ and visualize. In any of these tools, I can tag or label things the way MY funky brain works and feed the beast when I’m looking for something cool later. These often are big squishy messes of ideas and details to wrestle with, so I benefit from a big, squishy tool.

Mañana: What can we do with the "other" stuff? I am blessed with something that Julie Schulman and I coined a decade ago -- mañana lists. We would create a mañana list of all the things we knew needed to be done that we agreed could always be done tomorrow. I love to use the tag “mañana.” That’s for the interesting things for “if I have time later.” It’s the “no guilt tag.”

I welcome other suggestions. Productivity software is one of the big growth areas in this time of tsunamis of information. Lots of services will help you filter what comes in from the outside. This challenge is what to do with the gems and silt from the inside...and how to think about re-gifting and sorting them with others.

Have a great 2011 with your new adventures. And may all your ideas be bountiful AND taggable.

Sleigh Bells -- a safety device?

noreply@blogger.com (Gigi Johnson) — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 17:10:00 +0000

My husband, who shares my love of technology and history, pointed out a recent Los Angeles Times article on the sleigh bell industry. The article focused on the Bevin Bros., a Connecticut-based company that has been making sleigh bells since 1832.

I was most intrigued by the paragraph on how the industry grew in the 19th century. Sleigh runners were nearly silent and glided quietly along the snow. Many states passed laws requiring harness bells to announce the approach of sleighs to pedestrians and others.

Maybe we need them on Priuses?

Then, the bells became associated with Christmas due to James Lord Pierpoint's "The One Horse Open Sleigh" in 1857 (link to Library of Congress copy), which became "Jingle Bells" two years later.

Who knew?

Holiday Letters = Progressive Trends + Gender Parity and Power?

noreply@blogger.com (Gigi Johnson) — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 16:55:00 +0000

As a socio-technology fan, I am intrigued by the morphing of holiday cards and letters with new technologies. This, of course, has been changing for quite a few years. Desktop publishing has brought us pictures of our lives within cards and letters for a while now. They almost are like the old portrait paintings, where you were pictured with your favorite objects that described to the future who you were by the things you liked. Here, we have pictures with kids and musical instruments, families on trips, and all the trappings of "who we are" in evidenced pictures.

This year, I began to get holiday digital cards around Hanukkah from my Jewish friends, which became the harbinger of the full holiday season to come. I got a lovely anime self-portrait by one of the daughters of one of my long-time friends, superimposed on their home. Charming and original - and very current tech.

Then came the deluge of emailed jpgs to my business email from a swath of companies that I've never done business with, reminding me that they are thoughtful and cool this time of year. Who are these companies? What did they think I would do in getting their email? "Boy, I really did need that mailing list service -- I should give them a call?"

Now, as we get closer to Christmas, I am getting all of the digitized photo cards. In the recent past, creative- and technology-focused friends have created marvelous montages and nearly homemade lovelies that were a mash up of design and digital photography. This year, other friends seem to have found companies to do this for them. LOVELY choices, but an intriguing mix of the holiday card and letter, with professional services mixed in.

Here's my headscratcher of the season: two nag holiday letters. Two female holiday letter-writers (who shall remain nameless) took the opportunity of their holiday letter to gripe at their husbands through the text.

Is this a strange reflection of the gender bias in the role of holiday card creator? In my family and in many of the families I know, the wife in a duo is socially expected to create the card, update the list, add the handwritten notes, and get the darned things mailed out. She, in essence, becomes the family narrator. Here, two lovely ladies have taken that narration to a deeper level, providing (not flattering) holiday context to the letter.

Power grab? Acting out? Attempting to add humor? All three? :)

I had thought it to be a Facebook status warping of a non-Facebook medium, but then realized that neither of the women are active Facebook users.

However, has Facebook and all of this constant update dialog changed the nature of the holiday letter? For many people, I know a lot of this information about them already from their posts and photos uploaded.

Collection of Digital Goodies This Week: Visualization, Productivity Alternatives, Download or Buy?

noreply@blogger.com (Gigi Johnson) — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 16:18:00 +0000

I've been playing the some data driven visualization tools, Delicious replacements, and Dan Gillmor's new downloadable book this week.

Playing with Visuals: Two data-driven visualization tools caught my attention:

Centuries of Books at a Glance: This week's announcement of Google Books Ngram Viewer and the associated New York Times story: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/17/books/17words.html. Google has made 500 million books now searchable online through this new tool. I have been playing with things like searching for the word "technology" and comparing it to the history noted in Kevin Kelly's What Technology Wants book, where he notes how recent technology is as a social phrase. Intriguing!
Who's in School: I spent some time tinkering with the selectable visualization tool on demographics of U.S. undergraduates from The Chronicle of Higher Education: http://chronicle.com/article/Who-Are-the-Undergraduates-/123916/. This reminds me of many aspects of U.S. education, including that most college students are white and in 2 year programs. I also was fascinated by the comments, which included how obvious some of this was to some people (and not others).

Rumors and Alternatives: I also spent some time yesterday finding alternatives to Delicious, a social bookmarking tool. The rumor of the demise of Delicious, which has been part of my own life since 2006. Various articles and shout outs from competitors have arisen quickly. I have been trying Licorize, Evernote, YourVersion, and Diigo as imports of my data. I have exported all of my bookmarks for future alternatives that may surface.

Download or buy?: Dan Gillmor's new book, Mediactive, is now available online and for purchase. I did the download, I sheepishly comment, and will be reading it this coming week.

The perfect local television station in the Internet era?

noreply@blogger.com (Gigi Johnson) — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 13:47:00 +0000

I have been watching the public dance about KCET and PBS squaring off about tithing rates for programming. This tension challenges some of KCET's biggest assets: goodwill and cross-promoted programming brands. KCET's potential future as an independent station changes everything: cost structure, programming, audience, donor support, etc. This transition also can allow it, however, to start fresh.

If you were going to start anew with a local television station in this current digital era, what would you build?

Real online/offline community engagement?
Partnerships with local colleges for a marvelous science show?
Partnerships with local arts organizations to cover Los Angeles arts, including in-depth bios and community engagements?
Partnerships with local newspapers for marvelous public affairs shows?
Engaging with the donor community more actively participate with the brand?
Finding the best of other cities' local content?
Picking up good next-level down kids' branded content?
Breaking away from the over 65 and under 5 crowd and program for another audience?

What is the face of the new brand? How would you quickly have to change your organization's strengths? How do you build new local brands and personalities? How do you syndicate this production, or do you and to whom?

If you aren't Sesame Street, McNeil Lehrer News Hour, Frontline, what are you?

Their website's "Ask Al" discussion with the CEO (http://www.kcet.org/about/ask-al/ask-al-kcet-goes-independent.html) is filled with responses that are very negative with a few hurrays that someone finally might program for the real Southern California community. Perhaps the opportunity here is to break KCET away from this narrow set of expectations and very narrow demographic to build the next generation public television station for the local community?

The challenge is . . . what will that be? And how will the station make the short- and long- term organizational changes to run it, market it, and thrive?

Abundant Data Visualization and Storytelling Tools

noreply@blogger.com (Gigi Johnson) — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 16:52:00 +0000

As some of you know, I'm fairly anti-PowerPoint. Done well with engaging pictures and messaging, it can be a fabulous medium. Used by most people, it is a grinding parade of bullet points, read-aloud slides, and missed interactive thought. Presentations aren't locked to a 11x8-1/2 inch format with a heading on top, disconnected bullet points, and canned charts. But if you don't know more is possible or your company bows down to PowerPoint, you may have been stuck.

Data visualization is not new and has been embraced by many companies around the cutting edge, but hasn't reached the organizational presentation mainstream. I'm meandering through many tools right now to find the right method for visualizing a complex series of research outcomes to a group of individuals. Here are some visual metaphors and tools that might add to your working vocabulary:

Webspiration: Currently in a public beta under Mywebspiration.com, this tool strikes my current fancy among the many Concept Map tools. I also like VUE and others, but I've been using Inspiration for two years and enjoy the interface. This app takes it on the road for collaboration and integration into group process. Very cool. http://mywebspiration.com/
DebateGraph: I had missed this when CNN had embraced it to "locate" debate with visual graphs and metaphors and am fascinated by it. http://debategraph.org/Stream.aspx?mID=1243
Prezi: Very visual storytelling with a very different set of metaphors than PowerPoint. Imagine your presentation world as a GIGANTIC whiteboard and your presentation metaphor as a lens that can zoom in, pull back, and swirl around the board. You can present it on the fly or automate your lens patterns. http://prezi.com
Popplet: Popplet is in beta on the Internet and is cool to play with as a very cute concept map tool. I enjoy it more on the iPad as Popplet Lite. Very easy to use as a basic concept map with clean graphics and use of images that you can use to share ideas with others. http://popplet.com/
Brainshark: One of my business-to-business sales friends swears by this. You can "can" your presentation and have it present for you with private links. http://presentation.brainshark.com/
TechSmith's Camtasia: I adore Camtasia in how I can capture screen images, do call outs, etc., record my webcam, and package a full presentation with easy editing. While I was traveling in China back in the Spring, I Camtasia'd my course introduction and even a daily pre-test with this tool. For simple video editing, I find it very crisp and clean. This isn't free, but worth every penny (especially at the educator or student price, of course). http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp.
Soytuaire still charms me and made Time Magazine's 50 best websites of 2010 in August. It breaks the visual metaphor for Flash video in rolling sideways and allowing tactile interaction through your mouse to change the "flow." http://www.soytuaire.labuat.com
Gapminder: I've written on this many times, but I find most people don't know you can have access to its tools via Google Docs as Motion Chart. Like many people, I found it through Hans Rosling's 2006 TED presentation (link here and below. http://www.gapminder.org/

TriVergence: And lastly, I would be remiss if I didn't mention Dr. George Geis' TriVergence. I watched yet another group of executives drop their jaws when he used it this summer to show the timeline-based succession of acquisitions by Apple in the music business. For a decade or so, he has been gathering data and visually mapping an amazing number of M&A deals in media, communications, and technology sectors into this user-friendly tool. It isn't as sexy as some of these above, but holds key data in a communication-friendly form. http://www.trivergence.com/

I know this is just the tip of the iceberg. I could go on at length (and may later) about tag clouds (e.g., visualizing the Twitter data streams on Twitscoop), word sculptures (e.g. Wordle, or more at the ), and other data visualization tools (e.g. more at IBM Visualization Lab...http://vizlab.nytimes.com/visualizations). I'll stop here for now, but please feel free to comment or email me at gigi [at] maremel.com with other suggestions and recommendations.

But for a word -- keywords in strange context

noreply@blogger.com (Gigi Johnson) — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 17:57:00 +0000

Keywords and taxonomies can bite us in the rear end. We spend lots of time making assumptions about what we know, but so much of the time we get tangled up in the unspoken assumptions around the labels.

I am researching and writing on two arenas now. First, I'm writing on how search, Google, and what we create as learning experiences in schools are building up friction for change. That research has delved into the worlds of keywords, natural language, and the politics of taxonomies and knowledge. I'm a big fan of Morgan's work on organizational metaphor (Images of Organization, 1996), so this examination of taxonomy of words as knowledge drivers resonates strongly with me.

The second project is about how we use narrative in organizational routines. I did not know clearly that this was about "routines" until this week. I had been dwelling and searching on pre-decisional structures, decision making, knowledge management, information bias, politics of information, organizations, and all sorts of other great keywords and concepts. The keywords within those circles all play into each other and lead me into other research papers in other related journals in the same realm.

This week, I delved into a musty library copy of Nelson & Winter's Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change (1982) to re-think about routines as core structures of narratives of how organizations function. I then tucked into research referring to that work from 2005 until now. A whole world unfolded that interrelated with my second project and that had not unveiled itself as I was not looking for "routines."

A rose by any other name...might never get found!

Touching My Content - New Habits, Old Screens

noreply@blogger.com (Gigi Johnson) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 13:31:00 +0000

I am enjoying my new iPad tremendously. I've gotten the hang of sliding my fingers to scroll, as well as pinching and unpinching to zoom in and out.

Yet twice yesterday I turned to my lovely computer flatscreen on my desktop computer with the absentminded control action of sliding my hand or tapping. A few seconds each time would pass before I realized that I've already tried adapting that behavior to my oh-so-last year tried and true computer.

I chuckled. Part of my amusement was my slow recognition of the gaffe itself as I stared blankly at the screen.

My mental glitches also reminded me of the days of my first digital video recorder, now many years ago. I caught myself at movie theaters trying to grab the DVR remote to rewind to see a scene again. I caught myself doing that five times before my brain caught up and adjusted my user interface context expectations again.

I'm also amused at the sight of my teenagers tinkering with my iPad's user interface, though with different assumptions. They expect the iPad to ride along in their lap like their cellphone does while they are on the laptop at the same time. They love the slick shifts between elements, but have voiced frustration that it can't multitask on the same screen like their traditional computers. Having to focus on one screen at a time for them is their cognitive break.

Pardon me while I tap on the screen again to publish this post...

Understand and Take Action About Your Online Privacy with NPR and NAI

noreply@blogger.com (Gigi Johnson) — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 18:17:00 +0000

Maremel's blog has been quiet of late. As its primary writer, I've been entangled with too many hours working on research projects about 1) attitudes about technology and 2) search as a new context learning need in formal education. I also have been too addicted to my own community of engagement and attention in Facebook, which has been a real help in much of my current work. (Thanks!) We'll try to stir the pot here more regularly as our current media and education projects heat up.

Dr. Alea Fairchild of the Constantia Institute sent us these two links as food for thought:

NPR Piece on Tracking Companies that Track Us (story plus link to listen): http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129298003
NAI's way to see how they really are tracking you: http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp

The first piece was a clear presentation of old news that many Internet users don't clearly understand in their vision of a lovely, neutral web. NPR has created a very easy-to-understand piece that walks readers/listeners through how these elements -- cookies, ad networks, etc. -- all work together.

The second was a breath of fresh air and one of the growing numbers of websites that in a creepy way can show you who has information on you or tells you how to disentangle yourself. I have considered myself fairly good about blocking or checking cookies, but found that nearly every one of NAI's member companies had cookies tracking me. With a Check All and Submit, an opt-out cookie was set in place for each of them. I now should go into my master cookie list and see what's all there.

Do I care? Should I care? I care in that those cookies limit what I actually see and try to craft my experience on the web toward their products. These companies also connect my dots together, which makes decisions about me whether I want those conclusions driven or not.

Thanks, Alea!

Precious Communication -- Some Online Choices for Communities of Concern and Support

noreply@blogger.com (Gigi Johnson) — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 00:21:00 +0000

I wish this topic wasn't top-of-mind. I have several friends facing major health challenges right now, with each family following different pathways to communicate to friends and concerned loved ones. In this era of instant communication, how do you keep people apprised on the heart-wrenching changes in traumatic health issues?

Each family has been pursuing different paths:

Google Connect with Blogger -- Sadly, the most recent addition to this story is from the family of a friend this weekend. In her 40's, she collapsed during one of her kids' sports events, needed CPR, and has just come out of a hospital-induced coma. Her immediately family is dealing with hour-by-hour issues as well as all of the well-wishers who are very concerned. They chose Blogger/Blogspot and Google Connect for people to subscribe to updates. Just implemented, the blog already has more than 60 people signed up as Followers and it has been read by nearly 250 people. I cried just reading the fragile updates. Things are looking up, but with gigantic uncertainty on what happened or where things are going.
Caring Bridge -- This is a full service for these types of issues: http://www.caringbridge.org/. I'm aware that it exists, but have found no friends using it, at least right now. Many know of it, but have chosen other solutions.
Plain old email -- Another friend has nearly 100 people following his chemotherapy. His lovely wife is sending a bulk email out every week or so to everyone, with very detailed updates. She is aware of services like Caring Bridge, but feels this is more personal.
Nothing -- The flip side is one of my dearest friends, who is having an awful battle with complications from chemotherapy and surgery. He has stopped communicating with people and often won't answer his phone. He....doesn't want to both people. He....doesn't want to keep answering the same questions. This breaks my heart. I've been sending him updates from my trips and adventures and occasionally get a quick note back, but he has pulled back from communication.
Facebook -- I've been part of quick bursts of support for sick children, car accidents, surgeries -- the abrupt traumas of life -- that have been shared by caregivers/loved ones on Facebook to garner support. The beauty of telling the story once and having outpourings of digital support within minutes has such power and heart-felt warmth.

None of our traumas are new. We're all getting older and our threads of lives more fragile.

We have always picked up the phone, but the connections were one-by-one or saved for the tragic story after the fact to share in a Holiday Letter. We now live immediate, connected lives. Instead of the "reach out and touch someone" world of long-distance calls, we now have quick touches and digital gestures of warmth and support.

We don't just share the funny games and today's news, but we also share our hearts, health, love, and amazement at the brittle details of our worlds and lives.

May you not need this post and may you think of how to build support around others from it. And may you add other suggestions into the mix that you see in your worlds.

#CUE10 #3: Google vs. Grok -- Information Literacy Standards, but not Standards?

noreply@blogger.com (Gigi Johnson) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:45:00 +0000

I've been working on several pieces tentatively titled "Google vs. Grok." I love telling people this. I get one of two reactions to Grok. Either people light up or look at me quite perplexed. Grok is from Robert Heinlein's 1961 Hugo-Award Winning Stranger in a Strange Land and speaks to a true, deep understanding. In the book, it also has to do with eating people when they die to truly understand them, but that's a little off topic... :) (It is also fun that I can look at all the 100 uses and contexts of grok in the book from the Google word cloud.)

I'm writing some research in this space for my Fielding Graduate University work, hopefully finishing a piece for a media journal this week, and presenting at TechEd here in the Pasadena area on April 13 about its implications on teaching organizations. I'll be talking about information literacy and its implications just in time for the proposed May "launch" of the new California state information literacy standards (noted below).

At CUE10 this past week, I found the issues illustrated by two very different but back-to-back panels on the subject:

1) First, Heather Wolpert-Gawron (http://tweenteacher.com) shared her insights from teaching information literacy to Southern California middle schoolers in San Gabriel. From her engaging and humorous work in the classroom, she has created and published two workbooks on the subject, available at Teacher Created Resources. She has some marvelous illustrations and exercises to get students to decode the web and think of its many layers in very real terms to that age group. She found a gap and has filled it.

She also shared some interesting sites with "wrong" information that are great examples to share with students. My favorite example was about the extinction of the Tree Octopus at http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus.

2) In a room down the hall just following Heather's presentation, a panel discussed these new state "standards." Behind the table, we had voices ranging from California PTA to UC to a school board member to the California School Library Association. The whole session was focused on the proposed School Library Standards and the contained Information Literacy Standards for the state of California: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/lb/documents/schlibstandrevdraft.doc.

However, the group repeated over and over that these aren't Standards that will be tested. Instead, these are meant to be guidelines or models for behavior.

What you don't test, we don't tend to get.

I found this entire session frustrating and all about how to set up goals with no resources, no funding, and no professional development for teachers. Everyone is happy to wave the flag around the idea, but it is shoved into the world of school libraries as the change agents. They are and can be, but on the school pecking order, aren't in the right political position of funding and influence to really affect changing how we learn. This discussion wasn't a cry to integrate this thinking and learning into the balance of the school day, but focused on parking this into the funding-beleaguered school libraries. Yet this seemed a big battle or task to even get to this point, having taken a reported 17 years to achieve.

And we wonder why many of my graduate students still use the first few items in their 2.5-word Google search to find truth for their thinking and assignments.

#CUE10 #2: Challenging assumptions between creative works and technology

noreply@blogger.com (Gigi Johnson) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:30:00 +0000

What assumptions do we make in how we can create by the rules of our technologies?

At the end of March, I begin to teach my Digital Content, Commerce, and Culture course at UCLA Anderson. This year, I'm morphing it into an examination from a media business perspective of the interplay between assumptions of creativity and technology. I have a marvelous group of speakers planned and am fairly excited about it. I'm also working on doctoral research in this arena, so the fibers of my interests are connecting well here.

Many things sparked that interest at CUE 2010 this week. I am including below some of the links that were shared by intriguing speakers as well as off-site from cohorts and friends. Most of the elements below tinker with the assumptions that we make between creativity and technology:

Paradigm shifts in how we connect technology and action: TED talk from November in India -- http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/685. Pranav Mistry is one of the 2010 Creativity 50 (http://creativity-online.com/news/the-2010-creativity-50/142647). If you haven’t explored TED.com, plan a bottle of wine and a few hours...

Assumptions of how we interact with online video: http://soytuaire.labuat.com/. I was introduced to this by Roger Wagner, the creator behind HyperStudio. He showed this to me as an example of where we may be going in terms of interactivity. Play with this by moving your cursor. See what assumptions it challenges about (a) a screen-shaped rectangular image and (b) what we can do as users and how to plan for alternate interaction.

Rock Our World: Take a look how a teacher used Apple's GarageBand, the Internet, and crowdsourced creativity to create music at http://www.rockourworld.org. I just heard the founder speak on Saturday – amazing, especially from where she started as just being able to do email.

Shared by Tweenteacher (Heather Wolpert-Gawron): challenging our assumptions of the rules of the medium: http://www.youtube.com/user/oceanking97

#CUE10 #1: Changing gear-driven assumptions on Creativity and Learning

noreply@blogger.com (Gigi Johnson) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:16:00 +0000

I spent Thursday through Saturday at Computer-Using Educators (CUE) out in the desert here in California and met a wonderful group of thoughtful and somewhat rebellious teachers. Many had to take their own days off to come and paid their own ways. Each was working in their own path to make the education better for the students in their classes. Most were pursuing project-based learning (PBL), using social constructivist activities to ferment and expand the learning experience.

The dialog had thankfully moved beyond getting Interactive Whiteboards in the classroom (where many sit unused) and instead how to get the students to be the ones doing the discovery and inquiry.

More in IWBs and that transition....
Vistors wouldn't have known that from the show floor, where IWB's were abundant...but so were alternatives to attach them to rolling carts (Royal iRover) to share as well as Epson coming out with a $1,800 IWB projector (BrightLink 450Wi) that didn't need a specific anything on the wall. I got to play with the Hitachi StarBoard interactive wireless tablet ($400-ish) and saw lots of excitement around the InterwriteMobi, and other devices that let the interactivity come out to the student in the room instead of the "sage on the stage," or the teacher being the dominant thinker at the front of the room. Halleluiah!

And more on saving $$$$ and changing assumptions....
I found two treats that made me smile. Both are created and distributed directly by small companies:

The first (which I bought and brought home) was the HoverCam. For less than $200, you have a combination document camera and scanner. It is lightweight and rather elegant -- and miles below the pricing of the distribution-driven cameras. I'll be testing this and will share more as my tinkering continues.

The other was a software product called GradeCam, which rocked. You can create input forms for quizzes on the fly, have the students fill them out, then throw them in front of a document cam for instant grading, feedback, and even graphics of results. Very cool and both save money and time versus the traditional options. You can get a single-user software for less than $400, or you can get it for your whole school at a very small amount per child per year. They are getting ready to launch a SaaS (online web) model in the near future. This alternative might be a good mix or substitute with the clicker-driven systems, and feeds directly into most gradebook programs, saving lots of time for teachers and giving direct feedback to the students immediately without a lot of preparation programming questions into a computer interface.

Tracking Memes: the Great Humbling vs. the New Normal

noreply@blogger.com (Gigi Johnson) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:42:00 +0000

My husband has been amused how many times he has heard "the New Normal" since I wrote about that thought some time ago (March 2009). You can search for it on Google Trends (http://www.google.com/trends?q=new+normal) and see that though it was searched for since 2005, it was a news topic increasing in 2009. Interestingly, the Beijing Review recently attributed as an idea conceived by Mohamed El-Erian, CEO of the global investment management company PIMCO, and said it had become a main idea at the Davos World Economic Forum this past month.

Nov. 2004 -- It began percolating as a blog/book/website -- http://www.thenewnormal.com/
March 2009 -- McKinsey Quarterly piece with Ian Davis (worldwide managing director) asking us to think about the New Normal
March 13, 2009 -- I wrote http://musings.maremel.com/2009/03/new-normal-or-great-panic-of-2009-2011.html, which evidently was read by at least two people, which debated whether this was the New Normal or the Great Panic of 2009-2011 (and the comments supported Great Panic). I was probably starting to channel the gestalt.
May 2009 -- PIMCO published on El-Erian's comments -- http://www.pimco.com/LeftNav/PIMCO+Spotlight/2009/Secular+Outlook+May+2009+El-Erian.htm

Business Insider Article, May 2009: http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-pimcos-el-erian-explains-the-new-normal-global-stagflation-2009-5
May 14: http://financialjoyride.blogspot.com/2009/05/pimcos-mohamed-el-erian-on-new-normal.html

May 2009 -- ABC News began asking their readers about it -- http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Economy/story?id=7639021
June 2009 -- Baron's Article with JP Morgan -- http://online.barrons.com/article/SB124424132188690295.html#articleTabs_panel_article%3D1

Yesterday, my husband was reading an online article yesterday and was intrigued by "the Great Humbling" as a related meme, but couldn't remember where it came from. It doesn't yet show up on Google Trends. So I thought I would search it to see its incarnations:

Feb. 1, 2009: http://elitrope.wordpress.com/2009/02/01/the-great-humbling/ noted that he had been using it back Feb. 1 and actually noted in his blog that "you heard it here first."
Dec. 15, 2009: US News: http://www.usnews.com/money/blogs/flowchart/2009/12/15/how-to-live-happily-on-75-percent-less.html
It then was picked up here and lots of links to this piece instead of US News: http://www.politicalhotwire.com/forum/index.php?/topic/2743-the-great-humbling/ -- This seems to have stirred a lot of the pot, as well as comes up WELL above US News in searches for this
Dec. 16, 2009: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_121609/content/01125106.guest.html -- ah, the ever-beloved Rush Limbaugh has moved to give this both legs and spin
http://greathumbling.com/ -- the "domain name is for sale" on the website.

Interesting...

Tweet turns into NYT mini-interview: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/nyregion/17JFK.html

noreply@blogger.com (Gigi Johnson) — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 19:42:00 +0000

Funny things happened on the way to Madrid and Pamplona....

I was just chatting with the charming lady next to me, a New Yorker returning home, as we were taxing in at JFK Airport in New York. Then the plane stopped and the pilot came on, saying there had been an airport security breach at Terminal 8 and we would be waiting to find a space to pull in for 30 minutes to up to several hours. Groans were heard throughout the cabin. I quickly calculated that I had about a three-hour cushion for my next flight, which was heading to Madrid to catch my connection to Pamplona. The crew made other announcements about avoiding lines to use the toilets -- not my present concern -- and didn't tell us anything else.

I got on my Blackberry. Four other people around me got on their version of Smartphones and we all began to contact friends and check out the situation. We quickly learned from a blend of Twitter, Yahoo, friends' notes, the Washington Post online, and Reuters that some guy two hours earlier had accidentally gone through a airport employee door. The pilot -- did he know for those last two hours and didn't want to tell us until he knew more information?

I tweeted at @maremel my frustration with the scene. My Twitter feeds to my Facebook, and I got some nice commiserating comments. About two hours later, after an hour of waiting on the tarmac, another 15-20 minutes waiting for the jetway to be rolled out, walk time to cut around the massive crowds in the Terminal to get to the AirTrain to get to Terminal 7 to wait for my next flight.

So, over a sandwich, I read my email on my Blackberry. Lo and behold, a very nice New York Times reporter had read my Tweet and wanted to talk with me about my experience. She and I had two quick phone calls from my waiting spot on the floor of the Iberia Airlines gate. I called my husband afterwards to chuckle at the irony of my heading to Spain to teach about digital media and having a Twitter note turn into a NY Times interview!

It turned into a few lines of the article itself: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/nyregion/17JFK.html. that's turned into emails and Facebook comments from friends to see if that was me. (I supposed there probably is another 47-year-old Gigi Johnson somewhere.) What a way to start a trip!

It also is ironic that a year ago when I was here I Tweeted about my masters' class, and that Tweet was read by the Higher Universities of Technology in Abu Dhabi, who is having me come there to teach next month. The world is small and Twitter is making it smaller in all sorts of weird, wired ways.

Lack of Passion? 10 Years Post-AOL/TWX: CNBC Interview - http://tinyurl.com/aoltwx0110

noreply@blogger.com (Gigi Johnson) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 21:03:00 +0000

Interesting 10 year reflection on AOL/TWX by Gerry Levin and Steve Case. You can enjoy it yourself with the embedded video below from CNBC, but here's some snippets of interesting quotes and comments:

-- "Worst deal of the decade...apparently" (referring to recent NYT article)
-- "It's not a supermarket -- it's a mall" (describing what the Internet business became versus what they had anticipated as a valued walled garden)
-- "We're not a capitalist country anymore" (commenting on how government regulation has taken control of major companies)

Mea culpa with comments about needs for compassion and missionary zeal -- seemingly at a loss from other people and not themselves -- and evidently Levin's fault that the company didn't have it. Would that have made a difference? Very interesting rear-view mirror...
Compassion and love? Vision and execution. Losing that when they put the companies together. Blaming it today on the baggage, Wall Street, and not innovating for customers. Who was going to innovate and how were they rewarded for it? Not much on too much hype and not enough creating something new.
Citing positive examples of Time and Turner integrations -- not the best of examples either and the level of friction and loss had been tremendous.
"Going to the mountaintop of expectations" and "falling from grace" -- strangely self-grandiose, biblical, and not a rolling-up-the-sleeves humility
Comparing community of AOL to Twitter..."AOL was the Internet." Sounded vaguly like "coulda been a contenda."
"I would want to be on the forefront of the media somewhere and not holding the old media bag."

You'd think that they were reading what I just spent the last week writing...which will show up as excerpts here soon. Happy 2010.

#DARPA #redballoon More Pix: #1 in SF (fake?) and #3 in Charlottesville (funny...)

noreply@blogger.com (Gigi Johnson) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 21:48:00 +0000

Funniest part so far: Charlottesville paper put their balloon's picture and location in their paper online: http://www.readthehook.com/blog/index.php/2009/12/05/ten-red-balloons-and-ones-in-charlottesville/

#1 in SF? Supposedly fake, but the pictures look good
From Nancy Broden (http://twitter.com/nancybroden) with photos of Union Square in SF, so assume they are too?

Lots of citings on the Red #Balloon #DARPA Search

noreply@blogger.com (Gigi Johnson) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 19:09:00 +0000

Very interesting search going on on-line and between people for these 10 DARPA red balloons. Started at 10 am EST today with various groups getting together to find them.

I'm using Twitscoop (http://www.twitscoop.com) and PicFrog (http://picfog.com/search/%22red%20balloon%22) to watch the scene.

Lots of publicly stated and Tweeted "finds":
- Albany, NY, NYS Museum (photo below)
- Santa Barbara, CA ?#4 (Beach) -- pic at http://ping.fm/p/RknvI --34d 24m 51s N; 119d, 41m, 05s, W -- another pic link
- Irvine Spectrum, CA (#5), near entrance -- appxo. -- link to photo
- University of Wyoming 510 East Flint Street, Laramie, WY (supposed #7)
- Delaware? - photo at http://tweetphoto.com/5891723 (another supposed #7)
- Portland, OR, Waterford Park (photo below) (#9)
- Nashville, TN -- ??
- Heinz Field, Pittsburgh
- Scottsdale, AZ
- Highland Park, Lafayette, IL
- Fanuell Hall or Dexbury, Boston -- ??
- Austin, TX
- Rochester, NY
- Bithlo Speedway, FL (supposedly false report)
- Near 14 Freeway, Marina Del Rey, CA (looks strange)
- Providence River, RI (photo below)
- Royal Oak, MI
- Louisville, KY, near Dixie Highway
- Troy, NY (250 Lark @ Jay)
- 4925 Ashley Park Drive, West Des Moines, supposedly #5 also

Photos posted on Twitpic include:

Santa Barbara, CA

Portland, OR

Albany, NY

Royal Oak, MI

Marina del Ray, CA

What's up with the Second Screen (computer video) and what is the 3rd screen now?

noreply@blogger.com (Gigi Johnson) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:00:00 +0000

I'm speaking at a panel this Wednesday at the Third Screen Film Festival, but a lot of the e-mails going back and forth among the speakers and moderator are talking about online video -- the "second" screen. I usually hear of the "third screen" as mobile and even conversations about a "fourth screen" (video, out-of-home video, car, and other ever-present screens).

I shot some random thoughts on both the "second" and "third" screen out to my fellow panelists yesterday and thought I might share some of them here.

Two of the live-action half hours for kids that I produced -- How2Kids.com and iKidTools.com -- are making a nice little sum each month now with a healthy CPM (cost per thousand) and revenue split with Blinkx, who is syndicating them around the web. The viewing numbers and money are going up each month. I'm about to launch my third Blinkx channel with Click2Discover (on local cable), a show on Internet exploration for older adults.
Demand Media is making money on live-action videos by second guessing what Google search is telling them about what people are interested in. On-demand non-fiction storytelling.
One of the questions for this event is how to get seen by Hollywood Gatekeeprs. I'm not sure why being seen by Hollywood Gatekeepers is important in the age ahead. Getting seen by sponsors who will fund you and by niche audience who will love you – more important.
Through Sarah Szalavitz' Delicious Digital Brunches, I’ve met very interesting people making a nice little living making online video who have turned down offers from cable and TV networks for their shows, who keep asking them “where do you get your audiences”?
I adored Dr. Horrible (2008) and am one of those folks who contacted everyone I knew that it was coming out…but I didn’t buy the album…and only memorized some of the lyrics. The sequel and an upcoming production studio make this more interesting….but here’s someone with street cred, not a newbie…
Sanctuary is one interesting example of jumping the fence from short-form broadband (8 webisodes in 2007) to Sci-Fi/Syfy, but it did have the Stargate SG-1 escapees with street cred and the benefits of a Vancouver shooting environment…and CGI, shooting cheaply with the RED camera, etc.
The Guild is another interesting example (http://www.watchtheguild.com)(recent Wall Street Journal article link), including the Sprint deal on MSN, Zune, and Xbox Live (Gold & Silver) (second, third, and fourth screens!) and Felicia owning her on IP in the Microsoft deal (and Microsoft even writing it up as a case study).
…and lots of sponsored storytelling in the news recently (NYT piece on the Disney Online/Clorox show plus others -- and the rebuttal mentioning Ctrl (http://www.nbc.com/ctrl) and Gemini Division.
But most of this is "second screen" -- except The Guild's migrations onto screens 3 and 4. Regarding that mobile third screen and storytelling – what is working on mobile video so far? Short-form comedy has gotten some traction, along with sports and immediate info (weather, news)….we’ve tinkered with soap opera formats and storytelling like that since at least the mid ‘00’s… but how will that supercharge with all these Smartphones and app stores?

Shooting at KGEM-TV...about Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Gigi Johnson) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:13:00 +0000

I'm working on my KGEM-TV show -- Click2Discover -- and getting ready to do a show about Twitter. This blog hooks up via open APIs with both my Facebook Notes and Twitter.

A new look at an old space -- birth of radio in the US

noreply@blogger.com (Gigi Johnson) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:10:00 +0000

It wasn't until I was working on materials for my Media 2015 class this week, which is on the past 100 years in broadcasting, that I had a dawning glimmer about early radio.

There is a lot written and referred to about the various NBC radio networks and how the FCC from 1940 required them to spin off/sell NBC Blue, which became ABC over time (and after buying the name).

What is well written about but not focused on in the business lingo as much is how early radio was very much like early Internet. Individuals and small companies broadcast podcast-like music and discussions -- way before there was advertising or a business model to support it. Westinghouse's first radio station, often touted as the birth of broadcast radio, was from a shack built on the top of their building by one of their engineers, who had been broadcasting from home.

Also interesting was the interplay between newspapers and that early radio. At first, 2,000 newspapers were eager to showcase the playlists and schedule of the first radio station, that KDKA in Pittsburgh. Years later, radio news was thrown off of the wire services, as newspapers realized it was competing for customers.

We focus so much on the Internet and the "official" business models of Big Media that we sometimes forget that much of media in the US has been the world of small players and local interests. We also forget that this is a special place here...where much of media in other countries is government owned. And media is often family owned and not just the big corporate world that we seem to revere or fear.

The Internet brings back that peer-to-peer that actually thrived for the first time with early radio. And versus radio, which had to struggle with AT&T for national carriage across the miles, we have nearly instantaneous fibers, but with some of those same carriers, to carry those messages between communities...but take that speed of space and time for granted.

More to follow.

Wine and Computers at Philly Airport

noreply@blogger.com (Gigi Johnson) — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 21:22:00 +0000

I'm sitting at the lovely Vino Volo at the Philadelphia airport, enjoying the artificial ambiance of wine flights while on a long layover. I did my usual walk around the airport, looking at use of personal technology. There are the usual host of folks clustered around the wall plugs. In fact, the gentleman at the table next to me just changed tables to be near the wall plug in the restaurant.

More netbooks were evident than my last trip, not surprising. I'm also seeing more SmartPhones being used for between-flight entertainment.

What I haven't seen that much is the number of retail stores with "add ons," especially for power. An entire aisle of the cellular accessory store here is just energy cords and attachments for phones, netbooks, and laptops.

I mentioned this to the gentleman who just plugged in to the wall next to me. He called it "keeping us power happy."

Is this a big hurdle/revenue opportunity -- keeping us "power happy"? Or with the gentleman that was at the program in Lisbon with last week, who has a netbook with 6 "real" hours of usage?

So I'll keep watching for the power-happy users at my itinerant airport visits...and keep asking the question of social implications and challenges to this limit.

Or maybe this is just how we're supposed to meet people at airports....

16 Years Later -- Collapse of Time and Distance --and AT&T is maximizing this how?

noreply@blogger.com (Gigi Johnson) — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 23:22:00 +0000

Peter Shankman posted this on his post, and got that idea from Bad Pitch Blog. But this 1993 series of AT&T ads does ring a very strong bell as to 2009:

So we have collapsed time and distance -- and have gained what? Most of these ideas resonate with connection and transaction, carving out all the layers of distance and time, but making them instead invisible...and where is AT&T in most of this? Shifted into the mobile value chain of it, that isn't really highlighted here at all?

So does it help to see the future if you pass along the blessings to others instead of maximizing it yourself?

Wicked Messes in Non-Excel Thinking --- Designing Futures

noreply@blogger.com (Gigi Johnson) — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 17:45:00 +0000

I sometimes joke in class that Excel is the cause of most of our woes and frustrations. Everything seems so need and tidy with inputs and outputs clearly defined. My own experience as a banker for ten years told me that projections are never right -- of course they aren't. We know so little of the real inputs and outputs. But Excel, as Lotus 1-2-3 did during the go-go '80s LBO craze, give us an illusion of certainty and predictability.

We seem to apply this to everyday life, financial projections, career planning, and even scheduling our families. We seem to expect that if we have the right tools that we can find order in the chaos and tides of change.

I'm enjoying reading and re-reading systems theory thinkers right now. I'm enjoying Bela Banathy's Designing Social Systems in a changing World (1996), which among many other things looks at how Design works. He framed science as examining of the past, art as reexamining of the present, and design as changing elements to create different futures. I do like that framework. Once you realize that change is a tide pulling outward on our societal structures with creative destruction for new creations, you can start realizing that change can be affected.

But the world of Excel seems to illustrate that change can be predicted and mandated into place. Public policy and corporate activities crank out spreadsheets assuming that action A will create activity B and official actions will turn into official results.

Change happens, but isn't clean, pretty, and Excel-like. Change really happens when the systems we create are so out of alignment with the swirling changes in the systems around them that they crack. They break. Then new systems congeal and swirl, addressing the changed needs that have pressured the systems for so long.

Educational institutions mostly are designed for Excel-like repetition, adding new trials and budgeted elements but not creative destruction. That definitely applies to US K12 education, but also to many higher education institutes that I tinker with. Government? We budget versus prior year, with money driving the decisions instead of looser systems to reflect the needs of the community. Then we are surprised that we use the word Reform around both of these systems, as they are built without their own reform processes within...and projected based on Excel spreadsheets to replicate the year before...

My mother used to tell the story of the newlywed woman and her first Christmas ham in her new home. Her new husband said, "Why are you cutting 3 inches off of the end of the ham?" She replied, "That's what my mother always did." She called her mother who replied, "Well, that's what your grandmother always did." She then called Grandma, who thought for a minute before replying, "Dear, when I first got married, we had a very small stove..."

We have designed our banking systems, financial systems, based on Excel thinking, predictive modeling, and assuming more of the same.

How do we design our thinking without an Excel mentality? How frightening and awkward is that?

How does this free us to rethink our assumptions? Can we dwell in long moments of uncertainty and discomfort and design anew?