Municipalist

Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies

Here is a new book government can certainly learn from. In "Groundswell: Winning in a World of Social Media Technologies," Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff describe how to turn a new challenge for business into opportunity. The book has its own blog. From the book's description:

Corporate executives are struggling with a new trend: people using online social technologies (blogs, social networking sites, YouTube, podcasts) to discuss products and companies, write their own news, and find their own deals. This groundswell is global, it is unstoppable, it affects every industry and it is utterly foreign to the powerful companies running things now ...

The dumbest generation

Saw this guy on C-SPAN this weekend. He is Max Bauerlein, a professor at Emory University, author of "The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future." Very smart guy. Sounds like a very smart book. Main Web site for the book is here.

News coverage here. Very entertaining slide show about the book at Boston Globe Web site.

Here is a Q & A with Bauerlein from the Emory University site. Vigorous debates about the book on the Amazon review pages.

Craig Colgan piece featured in new book

The roster of contributors to this book is impressive, so I am very happy to be a part of it. The title is "Current Controversies: Blogs," one in a series of books by Gale Publishing and Greenhaven Press on controversial topics. [Amazon listing is here.] Here is the table of contents. We're on the fourth page. The topic is blogs in the culture, the impact of blogs on mainstream media, blogs and free speech issues, etc. Terry Teachout, Nicholas Lemman, J.D. Lasica, Andrew Keen, Byron York, etc. Wow. A heady list. These are top thinkers and writers. The piece by me is here. More of Craig Colgan's published writing is here. More on this soon. I need a drink.

Senator Edward Kennedy: Internet pioneer

The Sunlight Foundation's In Broad Daylight blog has the story:

It sounds silly, but it is, in fact, true. In this month of May, fifteen years ago, Ted Kennedy became the first Senator to communicate with constituents over the Internet. Back in 1993, this was no small feat. At the time there were no congressional offices connected to the Internet. (The House launched a pilot program on June 2, 1993, hooking up seven members to an Internet network.) One dedicated staffer and the technology hubs of MIT and other top-level educational institutions made Kennedy into the first digital Senator.

The rest of the post is interesting, and references Chris Casey's book, The Hill on the Net. Check it out. And we are praying for you, Senator.

Q & A: Will Richardson, author, speaker, blogger

Will Richardson is certainly among the top thinkers, authors, and speakers about blogging in any context, but likely heads the lists of experts on blogging in the K-12 classroom. His book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms offers plenty of insight for any blogger. [Check out some video of Will speaking here.]

Richardson left teaching/administration two years ago and is now speaking, writing, consulting, and blogging full time. Most recently, he co-founded Powerful Learning Practice with Sheryl Nussbaum Beach, "through which we offer long-term, job-embedded professional development for teachers and administrators to help them understand and use Web 2.0 tools in their own learning practice," Richardson said.

What is the brief history of your blog? Also: Why do you blog? I started blogging about seven years ago and quickly began to focus my writing on how these technologies change teaching and learning. According to Technorati.com, the leading blog ranking service on the Web, mine is the number one educational technology related blog in the world, which is pretty amazing considering its very humble beginnings as the ramblings of a classroom teacher trying to make sense of these changes. I blog because it's a great way for me to learn, not just by reflecting on what I read and what I experience but by interacting with readers from around the world.

What has blogging taught you? How has it connected you to anybody or anything? Blogging is the foundation of my network which is the foundation of my learning these days. It has connected me to thousands of other people from around the world who are passionate about these ideas as well. It's taught me a great deal about the power of publishing and the importance of being able to connect to people and ideas anytime and anywhere I have a connection.

Can public sector bloggers learn from corporate bloggers?

Here is a useful Q & A with Debbie Weil, author of "The Corporate Blogging Book." Public sector bloggers should listen up. For a quick read, Weil offers eight tips for corporate blogging in 2008.

These two need a mud pit and a referee: Mainstream media and blogging

Municipalist is quite confident that this is the only time the New York Review of Books will be referenced here. Trust that. But check out Sarah Boxer's fine but at times frustrating piece here on a slew of books about blogging, several of which have been referenced here recently or in my recent Washington Post piece. (Her own book on blogging will be published this month.)

One annoyance: Boxer writes as if spellbound by those online who obsessively use emoticons, "WTF," etc. Boxer informs us that this is how "bloggers" write. Which is why Municipalist often cringes when he sees references in mainstream media to the term, as if it is a single entity. "The bloggers love Ron Paul," etc. Ridiculous. This stuff goes a long way to killing consideration of blog usage in the public sector, and by those who are otherwise, uh, grownups. Who wants to create something still seen by many as little more than a juvenile indulgence?

Weil on the Fairfax County shrieker

Debbie Weil is a Washington, D.C-based consultant, author, and blogger. Her focus is corporate and CEO blogging, so not surprisingly, her fine book is entitled The Corporate Blogging Book. Municipalist asked Debbie to share her thoughts on the social media kerfuffle involving Fairfax County, Virginia Public Schools, (background here and here) and to peruse this suggestion: Shouldn't large public sector institutions such as school districts investigate new ways to engage their communities including use of social media platforms such as blogging, in attempts to head off such silliness? Her reply:

Obviously, many people aren't familiar with the phrase "social media." They continue to think Facebook and YouTube and MySpace are for teenagers or weirdos. So it's not surprising that the Fairfax County School District isn't participating in the online conversation.

More to the point, what school officials and many others are not "getting" is the power of Google. Everything is *sharable* and everyone is *findable.* As more and more incidents like this are highlighted in mainstream media, more folks will have an aha moment and begin to understand why blogging and RSS and online video are relevant to everyone.

The reason more public officials and executives aren't engaging in the online conversation is because they don't understand that it's no longer optional. Everyone has a digital identity. Participate online and you can control or at least manage it. Ignore it at your peril!

Fairfax County school district, right next door to Washington, D.C., is one of the higher performing districts in the country. The dangerous Web 2.0 app that sunk the ship for the school district was You Tube. So, for instance: Why are there not dozens of videos from the Fairfax School District on You Tube? Videos that address issues, that include interviews with students and teachers and district leaders on any topic of interest, big ideas, district accomplishments, etc.? Then the district could work the blogosphere, especially locally, to get those videos posted out there on local blogs. Be proactive. Answer questions before they are asked. Fat, unaccountable, distant public institutions such as too many public school districts can do this.

This story is about much more than a snide phone call exchange. The issue that the mainstream media is missing here is the technological backwardness of public institutions, as smart-ass kids with cellphones take down the grownups one at a time.

Blogs and echo chambers

Cass Sunstein's recent book Republic.com 2.0 pushes forward some smart ideas about the Internet, and particularly blogs as well as the whole of Web. 2.0. [The book is an update of Republic.com, published in 2001.] Sunstein suggests that this new platform is actually impinging on democracy, and serving as little more than an echo chamber, a destination for like-minded angry people to meet, greet, and rant. Sound a little grim? Publisher's Weekly put it this way, in describing the first book: "The counterintuitive claim that the Internet causes us to become more extremist and close-minded, rather than exposing us to a haphazardly unbiased array of unexpected viewpoints, is the cornerstone of this challenging and dense book."

Sunstein's publisher offers an informative Q & A here. Here is Sunstein on blogs:

I like blogs, and even contribute to a few. It's great if there's more information out there (and self-expression is good too). Also blogs can and do correct errors by the major media--and hold them to account. But I have to say that blogs have also increased the echo chamber effect. Many people just jump from one echo chamber to another, convincing themselves that one or another narrow view, of politics or consumer products or movies or more, offers them the whole picture. That's a big problem.

"Many" people do this? Maybe. Who knows? Sunstein certainly doesn't. To the extent that happens, fine, some people obviously enjoy hanging out with those who think like they do. I would argue that is certainly not the whole of the Internet experience for most people online. Where is the research?