[image by Mike Licht]

Sometime while I was sleeping, Simon Owens of Bloggasm was kind enough to drop a note pointing out his recent article on the PBS MediaShift blog regarding Scott Rosenberg’s upcoming book on the history of blogs and blogging (noted in conjunction with last week’s Friday Focus post). Owens’s article makes me even more interested in Rosenberg’s book because, as I expected, it looks like it will be a meaty and thoughtful volume, not a puff-piece nor a regurgitation of the typical blog history mantra, e.g. "In the beginning was Jorn Barger or Dave Winer, then everyone was doing it, and now there’s no way to know what blogs are."

Incidentally, I’d heard various possible titles in different stories, but my favorite is the one Scott R himself confirmed: Say Everything.

I find myself expressing regret and a strong urge to withdraw from communication each time I make a political post, not least because I tend to do so only when I’m feeling really provoked, which can lead readers to a rather one-sided perspective on my views (for instance, while I’ve expressed skepticism about Obama, I’ve not come close to expressing the extent of my feelings, which only got worse with his capitulations after effectively winning the primary). But each time, people who I respect and trust– some of whom are not of the same political persuasions– urge me not to quit, or at least that it’s not a bad thing.

The promise of the participatory web is that it gives many more (but not everyone, sadly) people a place to speak out and, if their words merit it, gain an audience. My duty– our duty– is to honesty and sincerity and as much objectivity as we can muster given our philosophies and beliefs. Beyond that, there are many things upon which reasonable people will continue to disagree, and I need to believe that finally it is the multiplicity of personal voices– not a univocal objective voice coming from me or anyone else– that has the potential to matter. I don’t need to be a dispassionate, clinical observer to make a contribution; I need to be passionate and partial as long as I remain as fair and honest as I can. The ultimate judge is the social mirror and whether I can stand the reflection of myself in it.

So, I’m not going to stop making political posts. I’m also no longer going to refrain from vocalizing my activism in various less traditionally political areas (intellectual property issues, for instance). I am right, I think, that alone such posts do not matter a bit… but, in conjunction– if not at all in agreement– with others, it is part of an obligation and an opportunity I should pay attention to.

The bottom line: I am who I am. The alternative to sharing that person is to go back to my experimental posture of the last few months and disconnect completely. Disconnection has many positive attributes, but would also mean leaving this job (which I almost always like and sometimes love) and the community that I’ve grown fond of. A few months should determine what my best course is!

Today is Day 1 of The Bamboo Project’s 31-Day Comment Challenge. I don’t know that I will be participating (I’m humiliated by my poor performance with NaPoWriMo last month) but it’s not a bad idea at all. If you don’t neglect your blog as often as I do, Alan’s Pledge of Blog Abstinence where you take a week off from your own blog and contribute only through comments on others’ blogs (blogments… or, if they are good, perhaps blaugments) is a related good idea.

[photo by drp]

My intentions list (label stolen shamelessly from Dave Pollard) has many items, but they could all be accurately gathered together under the dual imperative do right; be better which itself is just as accurate in its wonderland form: be right; do better. Actually paying attention to this list has a variety of effects, but I’m feeling a few of them keenly right now.

First is the natural consequence that approaching the world with more humility seems to result in having much less to say. If I honestly examine my thoughts and am deliberate in the process of figuring out whether something I am about to share out with the world is something that comes from a good place borne of good intention– even if highly speculative– then not much survives. Too much of my speech consists of subtle (or not) attempts to get attention and/or elevate myself in some way. Too much ego.

[photo by Christi Nielsen]

Then comes the reality that, in a medium that invites debate that I don’t want to– and more importantly am not ready to– engage in, anything I say becomes more akin to the disembodied voice that comes out of a  one-way public address system than an invitation to discussion. Debate can be healthy… it just too often isn’t when it’s in (and on) my hands.

[photo by me*voila]

Finally, anything that makes it past those considerations, necessarily making it something that is truly of and representative of me, feels less and less at home in the split personality embodied by the division of my “twittering ed tech geek” and “writing art design wannabe” blogs. The “does it go here or there” question gets vexing when it’s all just me. I realize that many readers of Ruminate would probably be annoyed if I moved all the furniture of Cosmopoetica back here… but who am I writing for anyway?

[photo by Kris Krug]

I’ve long used this famous quote from Leaves of Grass to explain (and explain away) my rather marked inconsistencies:

Do I contradict myself?
Very well, then, I contradict myself;
(I am large—I contain multitudes.)

I feel a need to justify my inconsistency because most of the people I follow and admire could be fairly grouped together based on their amazing surety. If they knowingly contradict themselves or, as I sometimes do, forget their former position and come to something new, it’s not something a lot of them (with some obvious exceptions) choose to share with the rest of us. For reasons that aren’t relevant to this particular discussion, my mental model has been one that not only equated consistency with being “right” but put changing one’s mind in the same class as intellectual weakness.

So I found myself glued to the monitor when I discovered that the Edge World Question Center’s annual question for 2008 was “What have you changed your mind about and why?”  Seeing so many incredible thinkers sharing details of sometimes sweeping changes of mind was inspiring. If they’re OK with it, why shouldn’t I be? This thought, in combination with my recent experience at Northern Voice– where I had the opportunity to learn from so many peers, colleagues and intellectual idols whose passion is clear and strong without being dogmatic– has proven to be a heady and unnerving potion. Some part of me has been opened up that was formerly barely open a crack. If you know me, you might find this literally unbelievable, but I was actually hugging friends– and not just as a barely-tolerated gesture, but the real thing– and making sure I got my share of the hugging action. I hadn’t willingly hugged another person in that way, recognizing deep, Platonic kinship, for years (except for one glaring exception that happened at at Northern Voice last year)!

So here are some things I’ve changed my mind about relatively recently– some exceedingly large and some small and unremarkable:

• It’s OK to need people. I have a lot of weaknesses… refusing the benefits of friendship doesn’t have to be one of them. Even lone wolves and introverts can have friends… they probably need them. Ultimately tied to this is the realization that:
• I have something unique to offer. I’ve done a lot of teaching and given a lot of presentations. I know I have a minor talent for it. But only recently have I begin to believe that my work has lead to a powerful and unique (or very rare) combination of skills, knowledge, and obsessions.
• Tackling the big problems directly isn’t necessarily an act of hubris. What do Lawrence Lessig, Barack Obama and Barbara Ganley have in common? They’re all willing– in very different ways and approaches– to tackle the big, abstract problems. I have to reconcile my  belief in transformation and innovation with the acts of the individuals that can make that happen.
• The power of individual talent and genius shouldn’t be overlooked. I believe in the power of collective intelligence, social networks and group sense-making (thus it follows that Andrew Keen and Lee Siegel are dorks). That being said, many of the things I love most– such as great works of art– are the product of immense individual effort by often less-than-admirable individuals. In our understandable rush to realize the power of the social, let’s leave more than just room for these misfit impulses to operate… let’s embrace them. Then each of us can embrace them within ourselves.
• The possibility of the Divine… and my need to make sense of that possibility even if it means uncomfortable changes follow in my life.

What have you changed your mind about?

[photo by Alan Levine]

The opening night Tiki-themed dinner at Northern Voice was a loud affair but it’s always good to meet new people and re-connect with others I haven’t– despite our oh-so-social Web 2.0 world– had occasion to interact much with. Shiny new friends I finally met after connecting online through blogs and Twitters include Alan (who I’ve been following since my days of Macromedia Director more than a decade ago), Jen, and Bill. And I was fortunate enough to have a bit of time to talk with Alex Waterhouse-Hayward, a local photographer and iconoclastic blogger whose presentation here last year worked its way deep into my thoughts months later.

Since I’m supposed to be at breakfast right now, I’ll just note that it was great to see everyone I’ve seen so far– many more should be recognized and will be when I have time– and the idea of having bloggers sharing their favorite posts, poems, stories, and reasons for blogging and being at a conference like this was a great one. It leads to a paradox for me, though, that the more I share in their passion the less I feel I belong here… this is the feeling that wormed into my blogging heart last year at this very event. More on that later.

[photo by VictoriaPeckham]

I have a standard non-standard disclaimer but considering some of the discussions of late, let me make something as clear as possible w/r/t my posts involving education and technology: if I appear combative I’ve missed my mark. I assume, probably wrongly, that my words will be taken in the spirit of a good pub conversation. I may not agree and things might get intense, but I’m not intending to put anyone down or inspire anger. I imagine people discussing things in the best table-pounding, rolling on the floor ("WHAT IS EDU-GLU") fashion as friends and colleagues who remain friends and colleagues at the end of the night. When I ask a question, I really mean it as a question, not as veiled criticism. I have to… most discussions center around ideas coming from a group of people that I barely feel I am adequate enough to call peers. I do listen and I do reserve the right to change my mind at any time.

I can’t say the same about politics though…

My quest for a good Windows-based blogging client that could seamlessly handle images and take advantage of WordPress’s native tags ended with the one application I had foolishly discounted from the beginning: Windows Live Writer. Led astray by my instinctual assumption that if it has to do with the web, Microsoft couldn’t have gotten it right and a mistaken assumption that Windows Live Writer was tied only to proprietary Microsoft services, I finally gave WLW a serious look only after every other client failed. In fact, I only found one other client that could handle WP tags properly (i.e. insert them as native WP tags, not categories) and development on it has ended with a note to "check out Windows Live Writer."

WLW has all the standard features of course: multiple blog support (with good auto-setup for all the blog types I tried), basic formatting, easy insertion of links, tables, lists and other markup, and post management for drafts and recent posts:

So far, WLW has done everything I’ve asked of it… and then some. In addition to the "normal" view (seen above), which uses your blog’s layout to determine column width and fonts but otherwise avoids the rest of the published cruft and a minimal HTML view, you get two other useful views, a full preview that sucks in your blog’s format for display as it will actually look when published:

And a "normal" view that is basically a drafting mode:

Image inclusion and upload is seamless… just drag or browse to images and WLW does the rest, including some optional border and basic image adjustment effects:

The post options are very complete, including categories, keywords, comment options, post slug, post password, date/time, etc.

I have yet to have any need to go to my blog’s dashboard to set anything.

I was surprised to discover that there are even nearly 100 plugins to expand its capabilities:

Don’t get me wrong… WLW isn’t perfect. In addition to a number of small, but irritating, interface annoyances (a Microsoft speciality it seems. Two examples: you can choose default sizes for images you bring in but not a default to just keep images at their original size, no alignment buttons on the toolbar), there is also essentially no application customization, not even of basic toolbars. It would also be nice if there were some tag "recall" the same way that categories are read and listed.

If there are other blogging client applications I should consider, let me know! For now, Windows Live Writer will be my standard recommendation for Windows users. Next up: the same challenge on the Macintosh side of the house. Suggestions?

At one of the HICSS sessions today a paper was presented analyzing personal blogs. The research question was whether personal bloggers brought the same expectations and norms of reciprocity and attention to the strong ties in their blog network (family, friends) that people typically do in face-to-face communication. So the research team took a random sample of 1000 personal blogs hosted at blogspot.com and did a content analysis and a short survey and found that, indeed, bloggers had the same expectations of their family and friends online as off… they tended to share intimate information and expect similar intimacies in return. Further, men and women both shared equally about all the topic areas (don’t remember them all, but a few were: relationships, sex, family) except health, where women tended to share significantly less than men. Political discussions tended to occur so infrequently as to be statistically insignificant.

So far, so good. Like a lot of quantitative research that lags behind practices, it wasn’t news but confirmation of what many of us already intuited to be true.

Then the speaker made a strange statement that caused me (and pretty much only me– most of the folks here know a fair amount about blogs and blogging but do not themselves blog) to just about jump out of my chair in agitation. He said (quoting as exactly as I can recall):

I don’t really know why anyone would maintain a personal blog for any amount of time… the more you share about yourself, the more limited you are in what you can do.

For clarification he said:

For instance, if I wanted to come off as a literate professional but then blogged all kinds of personal details, I wouldn’t look professional.

And, yes, he did use the phrase “come off as”…

This phrase, and the general agreement with which it was received, illustrates the huge gulf between blogger and non-blogging observer. And I think it represents a difference in mind-set that explains a fair amount of blogging (and other blog-like) activity. On the one hand is the traditional culture of scarcity, of defaulting to not sharing information, of selective disclosure and executive privilege. On the other are those who recognize the value that returns from sharing, the value of network effects, of participation and the presence that emerges from them.

Of course we all share traits from both “sides”– these aren’t absolutes. Still, I can’t help but think that the limits that come from sharing and participating in social networks are essentially limits on deceptive practices. It foregrounds a fundamental issue of character that remains a deep concern of educational practice because it is a significant part of learning and becoming who we want to be: authenticity. Perhaps the researcher should be more concerned with what he actually is and less with how he “comes off.” Perhaps we need to be more concerned with the things we really do and say, with the person we each– in all our beautiful conflicting, contradictory constituent bits– are… rather than who we could, by holding back, pretend to be.

Doris Lessing is a worthy and fitting winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Her acceptance speech makes clear that she is both engaged in extraordinary work and mired in an old conception of writing, creativity, and the web:

What has happened to us is an amazing invention - computers and the internet and TV. It is a revolution. This is not the first revolution the human race has dealt with. The printing revolution, which did not take place in a matter of a few decades, but took much longer, transformed our minds and ways of thinking. A foolhardy lot, we accepted it all, as we always do, never asked: “What is going to happen to us now, with this invention of print?” In the same way, we never thought to ask, “How will our lives, our way of thinking, be changed by the internet, which has seduced a whole generation with its inanities so that even quite reasonable people will confess that, once they are hooked, it is hard to cut free, and they may find a whole day has passed in blogging etc?”

Very recently, anyone even mildly educated would respect learning, education and our great store of literature. Of course we all know that when this happy state was with us, people would pretend to read, would pretend respect for learning. But it is on record that working men and women longed for books, evidenced by the founding of working-men’s libraries, institutes, and the colleges of the 18th and 19th centuries. Reading, books, used to be part of a general education. Older people, talking to young ones, must understand just how much of an education reading was, because the young ones know so much less.

We all know this sad story. But we do not know the end of it. We think of the old adage, “Reading maketh a full man” - reading makes a woman and a man full of information, of history, of all kinds of knowledge.