Archive for category SociALCHEMY

The flow of the stream – being in it and watching it

I was inspired recently by this post by Adrian Chan on his Gravity 7 blog.  He describes a curious social dynamic that shows up vividly in social media – flow.
In the early days of the WELL, when we were first involved in – and simultaneously observing – the participation of members in multiple conversations on [...]

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The mismatch between what science knows and what business does

In this presentation, Dan Pink at the TED conference in July 2009, makes the case that traditional carrot-and-stick incentives only work in a narrow range of business applications, and that what truly motivates workers to do better and to be more loyal are:

autonomy
mastery
purpose

Indeed, using social media as a business tool, in providing the means to [...]

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Culture, Fear, Learning and Social Media

Following up on the post about the priority of culture over strategy in organizational planning, I’m drawing from another of the acknowledged gurus, this time from the non-profit universe: Beth Kanter. I’m also a subscriber to Beth’s Blog, which is a constant treasure trove of good stories and ideas, often by guest bloggers.
In yesterday’s post, [...]

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IBM’s Social Media Evangelist

I’ve been subscribed to Luis Suarez’s blog for almost a month now. I usually give a blogger a month’s trial to convince myself that they’re worth following. His job is to help educate, encourage and guide IBM employees in using social tools productively, but much of what he does is expose other peoples’ work and [...]

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Extreme Community 3.0

What is XC ?

The convergence of local needs with global media
The next necessary stage of local collaboration
Proactive and urgent local engagement to build resilience in a fast-changing world
Awareness that all local communities can and should share new knowledge

Extreme Community is going beyond simply living in proximity; it is a consciousness of local interdependence and shared [...]

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Twenty Years After – the Quake and the WELL

October 17 will mark the 20-year anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake here in the Bay Area. Though most of the damage happened south and east of Marin County, we got a lot of movement nonetheless. I had just gassed up the car on the way home from the WELL office in Sausalito and was [...]

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Twitter and influence

Here’s an attempt to get quite a bit deeper into Twitter than the previous 60-second video cram course.
How individuals influence others in online environments has always been a fascinating aspect of the social Web. Twitter’s structure provides some new perspectives of how influence works, but it may not be as obvious as the follower-followee dynamic [...]

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Video: Twitter in 60 seconds

I wouldn’t give this an Emmy, but I’m a fan of brevity and I tend to pay attention to people who at least attempt to keep such explanations short. The creator says it was done in response to a challenge.

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Gov 2.0 must be essentially local

There’s been a lot of action since Obama took office in the development of the idea of Government 2.0 – an increasingly transparent and open sharing of information collected by the federal government with its citizens.
Extreme communities must be closely involved with the actions of government at all levels. Government – to the extent that [...]

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Extreme Community – social life at the edge

I’ve been thinking about where we’re headed, what with the approaching climate changes and the irreconcilable balance sheets for national debt, health care costs, aging population, deteriorating infrastructure…the list goes on.
For years I’ve agreed with those who see the necessity of greater localization – more interdependency and collaboration among people living in the same place. [...]

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