Month: January 2008

Attention, Attention

From Tricycle Magazine’s Daily Dharma…Attention, Attention. Do read the whole thing. It is short. Here is the quote that starts today’s message:

There’s an old Zen story: a student said to Master Ichu, “Please write for me something of great wisdom.” Master Ichu picked up his brush and wrote one word: “Attention.” The student said, “Is that all?” The master wrote, “Attention Attention.”…

It is not for nothing that people say “attention is the coin of cyberspace.” We have so many things we COULD pay attention to, but what DO we pay attention to. What would be wise to pay attention to.

The wise use of attention is definitely a 21st century skill.

Flow of Donations from a Networked Response

As a follow up to a post from a few weeks ago, here is an update from Andrius Kulikauskas, Minciu Sodas.

Pyramid of Peace
Ways to help Kenyans, Kenyans to call, latest news organized by city

The latest emails from Kenya and around the world

Send phone credits to Kenya – purchase them from mamamikes.com or sambazanow.com

Click on the image above to see a diagram of part of our Pyramid of Peace. We’re thinking through how best to show all the data.

So here is the image referenced above. First, it is really helpful to me to see the impact of Andrius’ fundraising efforts. This is an interesting sort of “front end” of the ROI problem Beth Kanter is wrestling with these days. Second, and more interesting to me, is how we can visualize in some tiny way our impact in a network. A lot of what made me donate was simply trust. But to see this image, it is a positive reinforcement to make the effort again in future situations.

It is not “verified” data, but insomuch that I trust my network, the visualization offers me both a community indicator that together we can do more than I can do alone.

Donation Flow

Obsidian Wings: Andy Olmsted

I had put a draft blog note to link to this amazing community indicator – a post created “in case I died” and posted by a friend on the blog of an US soldier in Iraq. There is much more to the story – the fact that Andy Olmstead has been blogging from Iraq, for a newspaper. But the humanity of the final post, the act of community in posting and responding to that post by friends and strangers, is what really took me. Take a peek. Obsidian Wings: Andy Olmsted by hilzoy (Andy’s friend who posted the final post.)

Andrew Olmsted, who also posted here as G’Kar, was killed yesterday in Iraq. Andy gave me a post to publish in the event of his death; the last revisions to it were made in July.

Conference Call Practices for Learning and Knowledge

My friends John Smith and Shawn Callahan have put together a great resource for communities of practice, teams and other groups who use teleconferences calls. Conference call practices to generate knowledge and record learning

True to form in our informal network, Caren amplifies, and we continue to build on our old history .

Pretty cool…

Spock Deletes Me (finally)

Back in December I wrote about my recent experiences with Spock. Full Circle Associates » Dislikeing Spock Even More (Oh jeeze, I love that I made a type on the title. I’ll have to go back and fix that.

I have not gone back to see what people wrote about me. I asked to be unsubscribed from their emails. And look what I get. Oi vey! Here is the email from Spock telling me I have been deleted. But look at the REASON! I am a VIOLATOR of their guidelines (but no specificity of what exactly)!! This is interesting because I’ve done nothing on the site. And I wonder who the “Spock users” are who “flagged” me. Sigh. This is a complicated world and we try and do interesting things (including Spock) and look what it gets us.

From: Spock Team
To: nancyw@fullcirc.com
Subject: Your user account has been removed

Hi Nancy,

Spock users have flagged and deleted your account. This could occur for a number of reasons including:

  • Impersonating another person
  • Using a fake name or identity
  • Inappropriate behavior
  • Presenting private information

For more information please visit our community guidelines.

If you believe that an error has occurred please contact us at info@corp.spock.com.

–

Unsubscribe: (link deleted)

Hm, considering I asked them in December to delete my account, I find this strange. Here is the email I sent them December 17th:

1. Please do not send me any more requests from “trusted contacts wanting to invite me to spock.” As it turns out, many of them did not understand your invite process and were embarrassed that mail was sent on their behalf. Your invite process leads a person to believe that if they found a friend in search, that meant they were members. In fact it only means you have indexed them.

2. Please delete my account – you seemed to have created one and sent me a password despite the fact that I did not request one. I do not want an account. I do not want to appear as if I am a member.

3. No, I do not want to log in to change my email settings because I do not want an account. Please, allow me to opt out without having to join your service.

Thank you

Uh, I continued to get requests from “trusted associates. I never heard from Spock. Here is my latest response to them:
To: info@corp.spock.com
Subject: Fwd: Your user account has been removed

Dear Spockites

1. I asked for my account to be removed in an email to you on Dec 17th, 2007. Happy to forward it to you if you lost your copy.
2. I have not been on the site since then, so whomever is violating your community guidelines, it is not me. I’d appreciate it if you would look into your system that sends emails to people who don’t use your system accusing them of misusing your system. I know you are working out the bugs.

Good luck

Nancy

Will that be the end of it? I hope so.