Category: technology stewardship

Sueetie – .NET Open Source Online Community Development

My Vermont buddie, Dave Burke, was tantalizing me last September with the kit of open source .net tools he was blending into a community platform. Well, the cat is out of the bag. Or the chocolate is out of the wrapper… because Sueetie has arrived!

Sueetie: The Future in .NET Open Source Online Community Development – Home Page

I was VERY happy to see that Dave included a wiki, something I was begging for when he showed me his prototypes.

I also enjoyed the Manifesto:

  • Sueetie is a movement that promotes the creation of online communities using .NET Open Source software.
  • Sueetie developers are dedicated to the success of the .NET Open Source applications that comprise the Sueetie online community suite.
  • No commercial or Open Source community application ever meets the requirements of a community without additional custom development.
  • All enhancements made to .NET Open Source applications on a Sueetie project are given back to the original application community.
  • Sueetie developers write original code or leverage code from Open Source resources. Sueetie developers never use code from source-available commercial .NET products in Sueetie communities.
  • The Sueetie feature set grows with the development of each new Sueetie site, as Sueetie developers share their application code in a common Sueetie code library.
  • Sueetie development is about freedom and collaboration. All accomplished .NET developers who are dedicated to the principles of Open Source development are welcome to join the Sueetie Movement.

So if you are looking for an open source collection of online interaction/community tools rolled into a single sign on platform, check out Sueetie. Even better, contribute to it. Dave can’t do this alone… so ping all your friends who are both Open Source and .Net.

Twitter, being cool and a great video

If you haven’t already heard about Twitter, the microblogging tool, it is never too late. I’ve been focusing on it as a tool for collaboration, learning and social presence.

With a lot of self-effacing charm, James Clay brings us this delightful video: Are you on Twitter?. I’m not sure this will increase your comprehension of the tool if you are new, but if you are already on, you’ll probably appreciate the humor. But it brings up the issue of adopting a new technology because it is “cool.” Take a look at the video, then I’ll continue below…

There are early adopters who will try anything. The second wave come from people who learn about a tool from a friend who has recommended it or hear about it and sense it is the new cool thing. There is temptation to try because of the coolness factor. That can be a pro or a con. It can tip us off to something useful. Or it can lead to “yet another thing to attend to.”

How do YOU tell the difference?

Guesting with Connectivism & Connective Knowledge

ConnectToday I am a guest conversationalist (??) in the Connectivism & Connective Knowledge course run by Stephen Downes and George Siemens. This is the course I was hoping to participate in, but the flurry of travel killed that idea. We had the first session this morning, and we’ll have another later today. The details:

You won’t want to miss the online sessions this week. Nancy White is our scheduled guest. We have two Elluminate discussions (both sessions can be accessed via this link): 11 am CST (see time zone conversions) and 7 pm CST (see time zone conversions).

Christy Tucker took some great notes, and the recording will be up later. Thanks, Christy. I agree that the brainstorming at the end was really good. I am kicking myself for not saving a set of the annotated slides, which included the brainstorm. Stephen, are they available? In the meantime, here are the unannotated slides plus the chat. (Connectivism Chat #1) As I mentioned at the end of the hour, there were TONS of rich, un-mined veins in the chat.

The chairs Christy talks about are on the first slide. After everyone was in, they all had names under them, pictures of coffee and food and all sorts of comments. It was a very convivial group!

Cck08 Individual, Community and Network

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: cck08 networks)

Photo: Creative commons on Flickr by the infatuated

Edited Nov 6: A few more links related to this post

A huge sigh of relief – a title

Warning – this is a venting blog post!

For nearly four years my dear friends and colleagues John Smith and Etienne Wenger and I have been writing this thing that became a book. You’ve heard me periodically obsessing about it here in my blog. Writing communally is one of the hardest and most rewarding practices I’ve ever done, especially when done with smart, diverse people. It is both heaven and hell. It is almost unending. But the end is in site.

We finally picked a title. FINALLY. FINAL-FRICKEN-TASTICALLY. What started out as Stewarding Technology for Communities, (site to be renamed today!), then veering around many ideas, including the recent “Digital Nests” theme, we landed today on something that both brought the warmth and natural world and a metaphor that works with the topic of the book.

So drum roll pleasssseeeee!

“Digital Habitats: stewarding technology for communities”

Now, I dare ask, what do you think?

I could not resist searching for a few Flickr creative commons images for the post … not intended as book images, but just … just… because I CAN!

Haworthia viscosa in habitat
Haworthia viscosa in habitat
Linda Lanes Habitat
Linda Lane's Habitat

Flickr Creative Commons Photo Credits: