Category: archives

From the Archives: Reason, Purpose and Getting to the NUBBINS!

Close up of a piece of driftwood on the beach that appears to have a face on it.
What do we see when we look in new ways?

This draft post from 2013 was worth my time to go revisit and read the three blog posts in the list below (two from 2006, one from 2013, one re-found via the Wayback Machine/Internet Archive – donate!) I’ve decided to pluck one thing from each list and comment on it below (in italics). These three lists, these three BLOG POSTS still open up new vistas for me. For you?

I am not a fan of lists, but I appreciate the value of the form. What I really dig is when the lists open up a new vista or light up a light for me.

  • Half an Hour: Things You Really Need to Learn, Stephen Downes, 2006  
    • Stephen’s post still rings true, and one of his bullet points relates to a conversation-in-comments that Alan Levine, Ton Zylstra and I have been having in a recent post of mind about what we pay attention to and how we pay attention. #3, How to Read and #10, How to Live Meaningfully seen particularly salient and poignant in our times where consumerism meets climate change meets pandemic meets threats of war. What matters. I know I want to pay more attention to what matters. And WHAT MATTERS. 
  • Ten Things to Learn This School Year 2006 Guy Kawasaki (Via the Wayback Machine)
    • I agree with Stephan that Guy’s list is more about how to succeed in business. It doesn’t inspire. But I have to chuckle when I see #2, How to Survive a Poorly Run Meeting and #3, How to Run a Meeting. We really don’t learn, do we. Why is this still an issue? Oi!
  • How to Create Your Reason by Umair Haque, 2013
    • Umair is regularly thought provoking and this is no exception. Plucking one from his list is as hard as plucking two from Stephens, but I’m going to hit one that has resonance for me, right now, as I reexamine my work/life. Radical Simplicity. What can I/we stop doing, right now, to make space for what matters? Creative destruction, my friends, is a super power. 

From the Blog Archives: Dave Pollard’s Model of Identity and Community

Dave’s thinking and writing is pretty damned evergreen. I’ll leave this here for your consideration!

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A Model of Identity and Community « how to save the world.

So as Aaron explains, where there are strong ‘overlaps’ between these aspects of self among members of a group, that group will emerge to be a community (note the names applied to these four types of community below are mine, not Aaron’s):

  • If the overlap is mainly common interests, it will emerge as a Community of Interest. Learning and recreational communities are often of this type.

  • If the overlap is mainly common capacities, it will emerge as a Community of Practice. Co-workers, collaborators and alumni are often of this type.

  • If the overlap is mainly common intent, it will emerge as a Movement. Project teams, ecovillages and activist groups are often of this type.

  • If the overlap is mainly common identity, it will emerge as a Tribe. Partnerships, love/family relationships, gangs and cohabitants are often of this type.

From the Archives: The modules in our networks

From the archives – I can’t figure out why I never posted this one. Here it is, as it was drafted in 2013. (Yes, I’m up to 2013!)

Jessica Lipnack blogged about a National Geographic article on networks that really caught my eye. The Parts of Life – Phenomena: The Loom.

Jessica wrote:

Carl Zimmer’s National Geographic article, “The Parts of Life,” merits reading — and rereading. The structure of networks, meaning their level of complexity, is difficult to understand but Zimmer moves carefully to lay out an experiment conducted by Jeff Clune (University of Wyoming), Jean-Baptiste Mouret (Pierre and Marie Curie University, Paris), and Hod Lipson (Cornell University). If I’ve got this right, their experiments indicated that “minimally-linked networks spontaneously produce[s] modules.”

From there I hopped to the National Geographic article.  I was hoping it was referencing social networks, but it was natural, biological networks. But the ideas provoked some reflection.

Jessica also reminded me about a paper she was part of, Organizing on the Edge of Chaos. That old magnetic radar turned on again thinking “this will be helpful later this month!” Thanks, Jessica!

From the Archives: Twitter Creates a Social Sixth Sense (NO!)

From the Draft Blog Post Archives: Well, this is interesting from 2013. I think instead of helping us sense ourselves, it helps us blind ourselves to others different from us. This one has NOT aged well!

Random picture of me as a kid just for fun…

It’s like proprioception, your body’s ability to know where your limbs are. That subliminal sense of orientation is crucial for coordination: It keeps you from accidentally bumping into objects, and it makes possible amazing feats of balance and dexterity.

Twitter and other constant-contact media create social proprioception. They give a group of people a sense of itself, making possible weird, fascinating feats of coordination.

via Clive Thompson on How Twitter Creates a Social Sixth Sense.