Author: Nancy White

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…