The real cost of switching to Linux
Quote: "No matter which model you use, the financial benefit of switching to Linux from Unix or Windows is driven by four main cost categories: acquisition, migration, management, and support."
Comment: A balanced discussion of decision making criteria for transitioning to Linux...without the usual hype (from either side of the fence).
Nice resource site: Elearning: Research and Resources. Covers elearning, simulation, wearable computing, and pedagogy.
I thought I had posted this before, but I couldn't find it...so here it is (again?): Plagiarism (via GNU) - everything you'll ever need to know...
A great exploration of seeds of innovation - diversity, varying fields, varied experiences: Are You Looking in All the Wrong Places?
Q&A: Innovative Growth:
Quote: "What we discovered was that the sparks for big new ideas were coming from the knowledge, ideas, insights, art and cultures of multiple disciplines, not from the stale fumes circulating within a particular industry."
Comment: An excellent point, supporting the need for open environments that allow for sharing of content across fields and industries. Erecting barriers to the free flow of information (based on restrictive copyrights/patents) is an attack on innovation.
This also has valuable insight for learning. The stale, closed structure of "formal courses" do not offer the rich experiences and exposure to diverse and contrasting view points of communities of practice. It's about smashing ideas together. The future of learning will look much more like communities of practice than it will like existing classrooms. For this reason alone, I favor the selection of informal communication tools (blogs, wikis, collaborative spaces) over structured LMS' for creating a learner-centered climate.
In Between: Metadata Demystified (.pdf). Overview of metadata, focused on publishing industry, but certainly worth skimming.
Linux vs. Windows: Choice vs. Usability: "...the open source community must recognize that its primary goals: freedom of choice, freedom of source code, and freedom to alter applications, are not the goals of the average user." Know your end user...
SmartMobs links to this article: A New Battleground In Web Privacy War: Ads That Can Snoop: "Each time she switched on her home computer, a software program silently flickered into action, keeping track of the Web sites she clicked on and the ones she used to make a purchase. Later, when she went to certain other Web sites, the program would go to work and show "pop up" ads. But these weren't typical pop-up ads, which are generated by the visited Web site itself, and which are the same for every user. Instead, these ads were tailored to Ms. Kolaya's particular interests, based on a database of her Web-surfing history that the program had been keeping."
With E-mail Dying, RSS Offers Alternative (via lockergnome)
Quote: "Who'd have thought that things could get this bad? E-mail -- long touted as the "killer app" of the Internet and the best online channel for publishers -- is rapidly being decimated by spammers and virus writers. Yes, "decimated" is an accurate word. The evidence is quickly mounting that e-mail is no longer an efficient means for ethical publishers to reach subscribers."
Comment: The article provides an overview of the functional use (most articles focus on technical specifications) of RSS. It's a great idea, it's simple...but the terminology can scare starting users away (RSS, syndication, aggregators, etc.)
Wikis, Grafitti, and Process: "Every time I show a wiki to someone who has never seen one, I invariably see the same two reactions: "That's pretty cool", followed seconds later by "It'll never work." "
Meaning, Use and Metadata
Quote: "Meaning is use. What the term means is determined by how it is used. Do you want to know the meaning of the term ? Then you go and look at how it is used...Right now, people are trying to determine the meaning of, say, a learning object, a priori by means of attaching metatags."
Comment: The deeper we get into technology, the more we need to start dialoguing about the types of things that people have dialogued about for centuries. The capacity of a computer to intelligently communicate meaning is still mainly a theory. XML (data format standard) and RDF (semantics and meaning of data) (see this graphic)help, but language and understanding (especially on a level required to communicate complex and varied meanings) are currently incapable of being accurately portrayed in computer language.
Jettison: The Road to Open Source...the blog author promises to chronicle the experience of moving from Microsoft to Linux. Should be interesting to watch (I still rely mainly on Windows for personal computing, use Linux as web server...and have been experimenting with Linux Terminal Server as a home network).
The Network is the Market: "Social Networks (unlike Political or Creative Networks) are fundamentally transactional. We each have a group of people, no larger that 150, that we passively track and trade with. We have relationships of a kind with each of them and are aware of their relationships with each other."
Usability 101
Quote: "Usability has five quality components:
Where Ware
Quote: "Soon, hardware and software that track your location will be providing directions, offering shopping discounts, and aiding rescue workers-services that promise a windfall for ailing telecom carriers.
Comment:Great potential for positive use...great potential for abuse. Our "private self" is under constant pressure for exploitation by commercial interests (for example, our spending habits/history are very valuable to marketers).
While the article has nothing to do with elearning, it's worth noting that in many areas of our lives, we have the ability to influence what is said about us (i.e. credit report - a process is in place to update, review). Unfortunately, we don't have a learning record available that we control. Our history of learning is typically kept by the institution we attended...and doesn't reflect our informal learning and life experiences. Our learning history (formal and informal) is very valuable in demonstrating our competence to potential employers...I'm surprised a more structured process has not been developed to express our learning (we still rely on resumes...and the occasional portfolio).
Net gains
Quote: "First came information, then opinion. The Internet's next step may be electing a president"
Comment: The author explores the growing clout of the Internet as a source of information (an alternative to consoliation in existing media). I agree with the potential being expressed...but I have to realize that not everyone lives and breathes the Internet (people who do, sometimes overlook this). I have acquaintances who don't have email. The Internet, as big as it is, still has a fringe element to it.
Open Access, Content, Publishing, Learning.
Quote: "Over the last few weeks we've been looking at aspects of intellectual freedom, largely from ethical and legal standpoints . In the long run, however, there looms the danger that commercial interests may succeed in rewriting the civil rights code to their own advantage, and will command undue sway over our levels of access to information . "
Smartphones will kill off PDAs - IDC
Quote: "IDC's analysis: "From mobile phones to converged mobile devices, which combine the data capabilities of PDAs with the voice communication capabilities of mobile phones, competing device types will draw buyers away from traditional handheld devices.""
Comment: Mobile phones are expanding functionality almost monthly - camera, PDA, MP3 player, etc. It looks as if the cell phone will become the centerpiece of a mobile economy. It's interesting that Microsoft has yet been unable to penetrate this market with it's operating system...
Articles bashing PowerPoint are showing up everywhere...here's another: Grist: More Power Than Point - "It's probably closer to the truth to see PowerPoint as the symptom of a deeper disease, a syndrome marked by a shortage of reflection and insufficient critical thinking."
Gender Genie (via Kairosnews)...an algorithm intended to predict the gender of an author by analyzing writing style. Simply enter a few lines of text and click submit. Interesting.
Public Policy, Research and Online Learning
Quote: "In other words, what is happening is that the use of the new innovation is tested according to its capacity to do the old thing...The fact is, there will never be a nice neat set of criteria for success in education...Success in education, like any network phenomenon, can only be defined against a context...It is identified by structural properties in the network as a whole...Even the criteria for success -- what counts as a successful methodology in education, what counts as a failure -- can be measured only via system-wide phenomena beyond the narrow domain of educational attainment itself."
Comment: An involved article that begins by tackling the issue of traditional vs. online learning, then moves to questioning the criteria used to evaluate online learning, summarizes new elements in a new medium, and ends by suggesting a five-step "what's next" (and in the process, moves from discussing evaluation to discussing public policy and intent of education).
I like Stephen Downes' comments on this article - The ''Other'' Knowledge: "The mind is a complex layering of tapestries the patterns which are in a constant flux and intermingling, an interplay only the surface features of which we are aware. The design of a knowledge management system ought to reflect this reality, not some arrangement of internal homonculi that explain nothing."
Technology with Social Skills:
Quote: "No technology, no matter how advanced, can solve world poverty or social justice. But putting the right tools in the right hands at the right price is a start."
Comment: Depressing article about the state much of the world's population lives in...and optimistic in terms of how technology is helping to make a difference.
Communities of Practice Documents: "The Community of Practice resources identified below represent some of the finest work available on communities of practice research and development."
From managing knowledge to coaching knowledge workers
Quote: "I'm continuing to work out the implications of shifting attention from knowledge management to knowledge work. It may not sound like a big difference, but I believe it will prove to be a crucial shift in perspective."
Comment: What Jim McGee talks about (the need to shift from "one answer, always right" to "unique approach based on circumstance") in regard to knowledge management is paralelled in learning. It gets back to the recurring debate of lecture vs. exploration, I vs. we, centralized vs. decentralized, managed vs. fostered, rules vs. environment, controlled vs. supported, sage vs. guide.
Email is Dead: "As email trends of volume and spam continue unabaited, these costs are compounded. Until recently there has not been an alternative. As consumers and enterprises adopt weblogs and aggregators a critical mass of users is already available in early adopter segments."
Center for Excellence in Enterprise eLearning : "The e-learning industry is on a collision course with the enterprise application (EA) industry."
Ph.Ds in IT - Good or Bad for a Career? - this slashdot discussion is focused on degrees in IT, but certainly applicable to anyone getting a formal education. Questions: What is the value of degrees in improving work opportunities? What is the value of less education and more experience? What is the value of a reputation?
...and now for something completely different: Taxonomy of Ignorance "The purpose is to increase awareness of both knowledge and ignorance that help shape decision processes."
Learning and Training Innovations I was a bit cynical when I first came across this format for an online magazine, but after spending time with it...I think it's interesting. It's surprising how the simple act of simulated page flipping gives the process of reading online a dramatically different feel. For now it's neat...if everyone does it, it may be irritating.
The future of learning?:
Quote: "At Sandia National Laboratories, new "smart" machines can accurately infer your intents and help you to take better decisions or avoid mistakes...Over the past five years a team led by Sandia cognitive psychologist Chris Forsythe has been developing cognitive machines that accurately infer user intent, remember experiences with users and allow users to call upon simulated experts to help them analyze situations and make decisions."
Comment: Artificial intelligence is "back in style"...but this time it's without the hype...and with results. It's bitter sweet for me when I read articles like this - on the one hand, I see the incredible potential to improve learning (though it's years away from wide spread use). On the other hand, learning is a vibrant, interactive, social process...and a part of me doesn't trust that organizations will make the right decisions in promoting balance. Look at the type of tools being purchased to "do elearning" - LMS' are teaching (and management) tools...not learning tools. They (LMS) are important...but their history is in creating control/organization (though, in fairness, some are beginning to add more communication/collaboration tools to their offerings - but I'm still convinced that LMS' need to collide with Groove to be functional for both teachers and learners - oh, and in the process, become easier to use).
Disruption (It's all about people and networks)
Quote: "Innovation by the entrepreneur, argued Schumpeter, led to gales of 'creative destruction' as innovations caused old inventories, ideas, technologies, skills, and equipment to become obsolete. The question, as Schumpeter saw it, was not 'how capitalism administers existing structures,... [but] how it creates and destroys them.' This creative destruction, he believed, caused continuous progress and improved standards of living for everyone."
Comment: Creative destruction is a great term...and it applies to learning, not only capitalism. I've often found that existing understanding causes an inability to grasp a new concept or idea. I have to do away with the knowledge that no longer works...in order to acquire what does. Much of learning is unlearning.
10 Tips for Driving Innovation by Managing Knowledge (via Column Two)...a sampling:
Top ten tips for implementing e-learning - Jay Cross posts a short list by Jane Knight of e-Learning Centre
Throwing Stones at it:
"Daddy - has anybody ever measured how much anybody knew?
Oh yes. Often. But I don't quite know what the answers meant. They do it with examinations and tests and quizzes, but it's like trying to find out how big a piece of paper is by throwing stones at it.
How do you mean?
I mean - if you throw stones at two pieces of paper from the same distance and you find that you hit one piece more often than the other, then probably the one that you hit most will be bigger than the other. In the same way, in an examination you throw a lot of questions at the students, and if you find that you hit more pieces of knowledge in one student than in the others, then you think that student must know more. That's the idea."
Unnecessary complexity - I've been thinking about why some online courses are successful...why some technology tools are adopted by "the majority"...how the type of technology selected can assist in better learning...
It's a tool sophistication vs. user needs issue. Consider Microsoft Word - it's a feature rich program...it can be used for collaboration, commenting, change tracking, document merging, etc. Yet, most people use it as a word processor - typing out documents and applying basic formatting. Most people probably only use about 10% of the functionality of Word.
There is a correlation between user comfort with a tool and user need for using the tool (tool complexity vs. learner need). Dreamweaver is an excellent web design program. For simple webpages, most people are better off using a tool like Netscape Composer. Why? Composer provides only the functionality needed by a new user. It's simple to learn...and it works. The Dreamweaver interface can be intimidating (in fairness, software designers attempt overcome the complexity/need concern by keeping core functionality prominent and "hiding" complex features in drop down menus).
What does this have to do with elearning? In this forum, I advocate for simple teaching tools (blogs, RSS, wikis, simple social technologies) and for flexible/extendable learning environments (communities of practices). Selecting complex tools that are beyond a learner's needs result in learner frustration. The tools should be utilitarian and largely unnoticed. Simplicity is the easiest on-ramp to technology adoption and use. I teach a course at RRC called Teaching Online...and I've had greatest success staying with simple tools. Acceptance of tool complexity is proportional to use/need. Deciding on the tools is an instructional design issue...using them well is an instructor issue.
Building Academic Skills and Information Competency through Learning Communities: "Instead of adding more requirements to an already full curriculum, learning communities seamlessly blend these workplace skills into a course, simply by changing the method of instruction and presentation of material."
How Tech Aids Innovation: "It is important to understand that experimentation matters to managing change and uncertainty"
Information Pollution: "Excessive word count and worthless details are making it harder for people to extract useful information. The more you say, the more people tune out your message."
News Sites Still Figuring Out What to Do With Online Communities. Some interesting implications for learning - participants in news sites visit five times more often when they participate in interactive forums (and view four times as many pages). If those statistics transfer even partially into online courses, there is great motivation to add communities to the instructional process - largely as a means of fostering greater involvement (time on task) with course content.
Search Engines: Weblog search engines: Lists various options for blog searching...nice references if you're trying to find something in your specific field.
IBM: 4-Tier Model (elearning) (.pdf) - via Trainingwatch.
Tier 1: Learn from information
Tier 2: Learn from interaction
Tier 3: Learn from collaboration
Tier 4: Learn from collocation
The Future of Life on the Road...discusses the impact of mobile technologies on how salespeople meet the needs of their clients. It's really about information availability - at the time and in the format needed...and that applies to any type of work.
I've almost purged the RSS-posting bug from my system over the last week, but here's another: RSS are continuing to change the way we access information online. - several links to RSS use.
Some humour from The Onion: Internet Social Networks
Reading Blogs on Your Palm: "So given that I blog pretty regularly one of my early experiments has been to figure out how I can read my RSS subscriptions on my PDA, and further on down the road how I can also write to my blog as well."
Denham Grey provided this link: OpenSpace: "Open Space Technology is one way to enable all kinds of people, in any kind of organization, to create inspired meetings and events. Over the last 15 years, it has also become clear that opening space, as an intentional leadership practice, can create inspired organizations, where ordinary people work together to create extraordinary results with regularity."
I've welcomed article contributions to elearnspace for the last year. Didn't receive any. These last few weeks, I've received four. Interesting.
I don't have an established policy for posting articles, but a colleague (Steve Yurkiw) was kind enough to fill the role of peer editor until I have a policy in place.
One of the articles has been posted here: What's Your Problem?: Increasing Student Motivation and Quality of Participation in Discussions through Problem-Based Learning. It's a short introduction to problem-based learning (PBL). Personally, I'm drawn to the concept of PBL because, like elearning, it requires an educator to shift from "lecturer" to "facilitator".
This causes me great joy: Google Introduces Synonym Searching (via Scott)...all you do is add a tilde (~) in front of the word (i.e. ~learning)...and Google returns search results that include synonyms of the word.
Syndicating Learning Objects with RSS and Trackback
When I hear RSS in education and learning objects, three names ALWAYS come up: Alan Levine, Brian Lamb, and D'Arcy Norman (and they always reference the work of Stephen Downes). They are the clearest voice speaking of RSS potential in education. I hope they keep pushing their vision...it's the one that makes the most sense in creating a learning object infrastructure.
Open Source as a Social Movement via infosophy
I've touched on this partially in various posts in the past, but the title from this article puts many pieces in place for me. As stated before, much of what happens with how we manage (are managed), how we organize, how we share, how we structure our activities, etc. is an expression of "how we view the world".
Open source as a social movement is an alternative to centralized command/control structures. It extends beyond our current ideological formations in terms of politics - I'd classify it as a meta-social movement...for example, existing political/social structures can adopt it as a means of furthering their own activities (think Dean's campaign). I don't think it's limited to either conservative/republican or liberal/democrat movements...the open source movement is an indication of what is happening at a deeper level in society...and existing power structures need to recognize it's presence, or risk obsolescence.
Update: Other facets of open source: "Open source software is just one manifestation of the open source philosophy, and the open source as a social movements is yet another manifestation of the open source philosophy--in a way more abstract than the open source software given the practical results, its products, as explained in Open Source as a Social Movement."
Social Networking Software: Have it Your Way
Quote: "The greatest challenge for developers of Social Network Enablement software will be to allow each of us to portray our knowledge and our network(s) any way we want to represent them."
Comment: Dave Pollard consistently posts interesting thoughts/views/diagrams relating to social networks. In this article, he expresses our need to have flexible tools in order to represent our knowledge in ways suitable to the context in which we are expressing it.
RSS Resource via weblogg-ed
Quote: "Distributing information through a pull channel that users access several times a day is simple to facilitate. Too simple. Now e-mail is overused as a publishing medium, and the people who are abusing it show no signs of stopping."
Comment: Terrific RSS resource. Check out the "about" page for reasons to use to RSS (simplified version: email sucks. It's being abused. RSS is the future)...as well as an extensive listing of tools and resources.
Knowledge Management (IBM Journals) via iaslash
If you have even a passing interest in knowledge management (KM), save this resource. It's quite extensive...and covers KM in terms of technologies, communities of practice, human/social factors, mining, etc. Excellent.
Stephen Downes has joined us as a contributor on the Learning Circuits blog. Jay Cross has done a nice job getting people on board...and getting discussion going. It's the most active blog for dialoguing on education/technology that I've come across.
Education may prevent Alzheimer's
Quote: "Brain images show that people who are more intelligent and better educated use their brains differently, which in turn may help explain why keeping the mind active protects against Alzheimer's disease..."
Comment: We are really only at the beginning stages of understanding how the brain works. Research in this area will continue to impact how we view learning (and good teaching practices). I think we'll get to the point where doctors will advocate for learning as a means of mental health...just as they now advocate for exercise as a means of physical health.
Are you a Web addict?...no comment...:)
E-Learning Needs Analysis
Quote: "It is important to establish right at the beginning that e-learning technology is not a total solution. Even its most ardent advocates will argue that e-learning technology is only part of the package. Regardless of the goals you set for this strategy, chances are that you will be looking at both technical and non-technical training assets."
Comment: Survey overview...covers content, customer, and infrastructure analysis. See this resource for more information on elearning readiness.
The Aeffability of Knowledge Management
Quote: "The challenge of knowledge management, and hence of online learning, therefore consists in this: of being able to capture those artefacts, of being able to recognize the salient features of the context of transmission, of being able to store them in digital form, and of being able to recognize new contexts in which the same transmission would be of value. Though this sounds daunting, it has already been accomplished in simple form; the trick is to make it work with the complexity and richness of actual human communication."
Collaborative Learning Environment Sourcebook (via Sebastian Fielder)
Lists concepts/theories, tools/technologies, and assessment, relating to collaborative learning environments. A very nice resource page.
RSS: Hot Fix for Info-Junkies
Quote: "Meet your next Web-based time-saver: customized news feeds that give news junkies their fix quickly and easily, without their having to scour the Web for all the latest bulletins. Called RSS, this standard could radically change the way you gather and manage information online."
Comment: Old news if you've been following this for a while...but RSS, like blogs, are getting mainstream exposure. As I said in February: "Blogs were the big thing last year...this year it will be RSS."
Wireless Streaming Standard...this is still a bit in the future (first products are only supposed to be available in 2004...but streaming media is still moving forward. Currently it's high cost to produce and distribute...give it time. It will alter how multimedia is used by consumers. It'll be like untethering your TV (much like cell phones opened new avenues for communication by becoming portable).
Is Patent Law Stifling Innovation?: "Patents are designed to encourage innovation by guaranteeing inventors some reward -- generally exclusive rights for 20 years. The idea must be considered useful, new and "non-obvious." In computers, the definition of "obvious" is blurry. That fuzziness has sparked concerns that too many "obvious" ideas are getting patented. "Too many small companies are spending their money on patent lawyers, not research," says Tim O'Reilly, another e-commerce pioneer whose
company invented the Internet banner ad. "It's not innovation. It's a business model of ripping off the patent system.""
Stealing the Internet (via Pat Delaney)
Quote: "Congress to Silicon Valley, the nation's largest communication and entertainment conglomerates -- and software firms that want their business -- are seeking to restructure the Internet, to charge people for high-speed uses that are now free and to monitor content in an unprecedented manner. This is not just to see if users are swapping copyrighted CDs or DVDs, but to create digital dossiers for their own marketing purposes."
I'm beginning to notice this from more and more sites: Business 2.0 offers a short introductory paragraph on an article...then when you click next page, registration is required. If these tactics are adopted large scale, it'll kill the functionality of the Internet. Even now, when I click a link to read an article, I'm never quite sure if it'll lead to something I can actually read - sometimes simple registration is required...other times, paid membership is needed. It reduces the effectiveness of the Internet as a source of information.
I've posted a new article on elearnspace: If I Wanted to Make Money in Elearning...Here's What I'd Do. It's a mess of thoughts on ways income can be earned in the elearning field.
Marc Prensky (of Digital Game-Based Learning fame) has a new weblog.
I've had experiences similar to what Robin Good details: Dawning Horizon: "...selling to the individual or the small company is much harder to sell to than large companies and organizations and it requires a lot more integrity, transparency and a true winning product in your hands."
This is one of the reasons I like open source so much - you can try before committing. Many of the tools I use today are the result of having been able to explore and experiment. Too many educational software vendors seem to have a distrust of the "end-user instructor". The communication and dialogue is geared to large-scale decision makers.
Resources from Stephen:
Design, Standards and Reusability
Quote: "In order to use a learning design with a set of objects, the learning design must specify the objects to be used, and if the objects to be used are specified, then the learning design is not reusable."
Comment: I appreciate this piece. Stephen covers a lot of ground - but the real issue addressed is the role of reusability and learning design. As I read the article, I was struck by the enormity of the task of standardizing learning design...
These thoughts are worth consideration: "It is the difference between telling people what to do and when to do it, and creating an environment where people decide for themselves what to do and when to do it." I agree. But, what would this model/design tool look like to create this environment? What kinds of mindsets do people need to hold to even begin to tackle learning as "environment design" vs. "telling what and how"? I'm asking because I want to know. I've lamented on this before in this forum - for me it gets back to previous posts I've made about centralization/decentralization. It's a "how do you look at the world" issue. Does it need to be controlled? Or is it best fostered? Do learners need set paths? Or playgrounds? In so many situations, our discussions are really just outgrowths of views held at a deeper level.
Educators Turn to Games for Help
Mixing games and education is an excellent idea. We've worked with several digital games in our department at RRC, and the response from students is incredible. Any educator doubting the value of games should observe students experiencing new concepts in this medium. They actually have fun learning!
The real question is whether students actually learn more through games. I know the they are more engaged and involved...so it's easy to assume that they learn more...but it's not conclusive. If you know of any studies on this, let me know...
Six degrees of separation or unification?
Quote: "...it is not always ideal for different networks of one's life to intertwine too much. We are all members of various social groups. We have family ties, workplace ties, friends from childhood, friends from high school, from college, possibly graduate school, not to mention our myriad of other social relations through other affiliations. There may be reasons people don't want to see these different worlds overlap too much...Even if someone does not have any major hidden identities, we all play different social roles depending on the situation and people around us so things can get complicated if these criss-cross too much without boundaries."
Best Set of Tools to Support Communities
Quote: "After interviewing a number of CoP builders from large global organizations and reading lots of publications on the subject, we're finding that the set of tools they use depends upon what they want to accomplish with the CoP. Some use proprietary tools. Others use expensive tools created expressly for CoPs...What we've found so far is that the specific tools don't matter so much as the capabilities they provide."
Comment: Good post about community tools and associated functionality. I was surprised, however, that attention wasn't given to blogs, RSS, and more informal (usually larger geographical) communities. For example, an informal community exists within the field of edutech bloggers. Most of them have never met face-to-face...but through blogging, RSS, and trackback, communications have been formed that allow for knowledge sharing and collaboration.
Seb points to this quote by Tom Peters: "Innovation is easy. Hang out with freaks." Innovation is a fringe element concept. The cool stuff in any organization is always happening in the outer limits...the small cubicles...the test labs...the dimly lit coffee tables. Mainstream is boring...and it should be. There is too much room for an organization to miscalculate when playing with innovation.
In regards to innovation, the organization needs to learn how to listen to the fringe...and give ideas an environment to flourish on there own - no unnecessary pressure to live/die. If the idea has merit...and it meets someone's needs...and the organization isn't hindering its development - the idea will grow on its own. If it's a poor idea (either in concept or timing)...and the organization doesn't hasten its "death" or force its adoption...then the idea will disappear on its own. But it never hurts to hang out with the passionate freaks. It's much more fun on the fringe...
(Fairly) New blog: HeadspaceJ - focus is on interaction design, learning, edu/tech. Only thing that is needed is an RSS feed...:).
Update: Jeremy set up an RSS feed.
