Welcome to the Gurteen Knowledge Weblog. This log is a
weblog
in which I blog items of interest that I have found on the web, experiences or insights that I think you will find useful mainly but not strictly limited to the area of knowledge management and learning. Like the rest of my site - it an eclectic mix.
Recent research shows that our behaviors and habits are more strongly influenced by friends and relatives than we might imagine. Furthermore, it seems that behaviors, ill-health and even moods pass through friendship networks across several degrees of separation, and we are almost bound to "catch" them.
The research applies to our face to face social networks but what intrigues me is the unanswered question: What about our on-line social networks, mediated through FaceBook, discussion forums and the like? What influence do these networks have on our behaviors? I suspect they too have an influence albeit to a lesser degree.
In the article, they offer five tips for a healthier social network:
Choose your friends carefully.
Choose which of your existing friends you spend the most time with. For example, hang out with people who are upbeat, or avoid couch potatoes.
Join a club whose members you would like to emulate (running, healthy cooking), and socialise with them.
If you are with people whose emotional state or behaviours you could do without, try to avoid the natural inclination to mimic their facial expressions and postures.
Be aware at all times of your susceptibility to social influence - and remember that being a social animal is mostly a good thing.
So what to do? Well first I have merged; removed duplicates and sorted Patrick's lists and turned them into links to the individual's tweet page. This allows me and others to quickly click through to their page and check them out. See the list at the bottom of this page.
In clicking through on these folk - many are clearly not focused on KM - a place to browse, a place to start but not a top 80 by any means. And this is a general problem, as many KMers like myself and Nimmy tweet on a wide range of topics but only some on KM. So I am trying to remember to tag my KM tweets with a #KM tag to make them easy to find.
The criteria for my list? That's difficult, but mainly people whom I know and respect; who I follow myself and who frequently post good, relevant KM tweets even if they would not label themselves a KM person as such.
If you consider yourself a "KM tweeter" and are not on any of these lists or you know of others who should be here then please let me know.
So a first crack at my list. But note I will be updating it. (last update: rev 4: 16:34, 02 Jan 2009)
David Gurteen's top ten KM tweeters (in no particular order)
In a recent conversation with Dominic Kelleher in Brussels we discovered a joint appreciation of the poems and songs of Leonard Cohen and Dominic told me of one of his favorite songs and a quote from it that I too particularly liked. This was the quote.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
But then in googling the song and the quote I found this fragment from an interview with Leonard Cohen that brought the words even more to live for me.
In another song you also say "There's a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in". It is not a very happy thought to believe that something will always have to break, to open a crack, in order to the light gets in...
It is a happy thought if we enjoy the truth. There is always something that will have to break. Usually it is our personal pride.
A Buddhist thinker said that disappointment is a great way to illumination. Other masters said: "from the broken débris of my heart I will erect an altar to the Lord".
The idea that there is a staircase of gold and marble, which leads to knowledge is seductive, but seems to me that the idea of something needing to get broken before we can learn anything is a more true idea. It is my experience, maybe you can escape it, but I doubt it. Unless the heart breaks, we will never know anything about love. As long as our objective universe doesn't collapse, we'll never know anything about the world.
We think that we know the mechanism, but only when it fails we understand how intricate and mysterious is the operation. So, it is true, "there's a crack in everything", all human activity is imperfect and unfinished. Only that way we can have the notion that there's something inside us that can only be located through disillusion, bad luck and defeat. Unfortunately, that seems to be the case.
I hate the bags usually given out at conferences. Most of the time I don't need them. I empty the contents into my own bag and hand the conference bag back. What I dislike is all the advertising over the bag that pretty much ensures you would never want to use it again and certainly not give it to say to a child or friend who might otherwise appreciate it.
But when I arrived exceptionally early at an event (Tsiba Appreciation Breakfast) in Langa on the outskirts of Cape Town a few weeks back I was asked if I minded to help pack the delegate bags which of course I was only too happy to do especially as the bags were something special. They were designed and made locally and were simple and colorful - unfortunately I cannot recall the name of the supplier. Here is a photo of a small selection of some I helped pack!
Some interesting thoughts via Harold Jarche on the changes we might see in the next 20 years.
In just twenty years, between 2000 and 2020, some 75% of our lives will change dramatically. We know this because it happened once before. Between 1900 and 1920, life changed.
Nine Shift explores the uncanny parallels between today and 100 years ago, examining the changes between the two transition periods and the forces that restructure society in the new economic era.
Some interesting thoughts via Harold Jarche on the changes we might see in the next 20 years.
In just twenty years, between 2000 and 2020, some 75% of our lives will change dramatically. We know this because it happened once before. Between 1900 and 1920, life changed.
Nine Shift explores the uncanny parallels between today and 100 years ago, examining the changes between the two transition periods and the forces that restructure society in the new economic era.
But did I, when I was twenty-something? To a large degree yes. I was by and large quite conventional and a little afraid "to ask" but I wanted all the other things - especially the freedom "to do what I loved". I guess that's why, today, I am working for myself!
As Gen Y enters the professional world, we bring a whole new set of rules. We’re often criticized for our restless job-jumping or our sense of entitlement. The truth is, we might play the game differently, but that doesn’t mean we’re not every bit as bright, innovative, and hardworking. Here’s why.
I find myself using Twitter more and more these days since on Dave Snowden's advise I installed TweetDeck as my primary user interface.
TweetDeck just runs in background and every so often I pop it up so see what my friends are up to. It also allows me to follow a large number of people and not be overwhelmed. I have two groups: my core network of about a dozen people and then several hundred others.
So if you like to tweet - take a look. And if you are not doing so already follow me on Twitter.
If the rest of the world wants to help, it should run toward the explosion. It should fly to Mumbai, and spend money. Where else are you going to be safe? New York? London? Madrid?
So I’m booking flights to Mumbai. I’m going to go get a beer at the Leopold, stroll over to the Taj for samosas at the Sea Lounge, and watch a Bollywood movie at the Metro. Stimulus doesn’t have to be just economic.
I think over the coming years we are going to see more and more social businesses as capitalism evolves and they will go a long way towards alleviating many of the sustainability issues we face in the world!
For most of us, business means one type of organization--the for-profit company that is the backbone of the free enterprise system. Ranging in size from a one-person corner store to a giant corporation like Wal-Mart, such companies recognize one fundamental purpose: to maximize profits. To be sure, they create other benefits along the way: they employ workers, provide useful goods, and pay taxes. But the bottom line is, precisely, the bottom line--the profits generated for owners and shareholders.
But we all know this is an incomplete pictue of human nature. People are driven by the profit motive, of couse. But they are driven by many other forces as well. Among these are the desire to do good for others, to help the needy, to make the world a better place--in fact, to solve all the unsolved problems that challenge humanity around the world. Yet today's capitalism is powerless to act on these motives, because it makes no place for them.
Unlike an NGO or a charity, a social business produces goods and services, sells them for a fair price, competes in the market for customers, and strives to cover its costs through revenues generated. But unlike a traditional profit-maximizing business, it exists to serve a social goal: to feed the hungry, house the homeless, provide health care for the sick, or clean the environment. What's more, it does not generate profits. Instead, any surplus generated goes right back into the business, enabling it to serve more customers and expand the benefits it provides. Hence this simple definition of a social business: a non-loss, non-dividend business with a social objective.
Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of The Grameen Bank, explains his "social business" model, a plan for addressing social issues through entrepreneurship.
Dave Snowden has worked hard to try to establish a high quality KM article in Wikipedia but it still needs a great deal of work to bring it up to an acceptable standard.
I have agreed with Dave that I will get involved and help achieve this but we could do with few more collaborators to help ensure a balanced view point.
Take a look at the article and if you would like to play your part introduce yourself at the bottom of the discussion page.
Have you discovered Common Craft yet? I am surprised just how many people are unaware of them! Their videos are short, simple and focused on making complex ideas easy to understand.
There are a range of videos but many of them focus on explaining Social Tools in simple entertaining ways. Take a look, its a great resource. You will find them in my media player.
Online 2008 and London Knowledge Cafe - Comments (0)
If you are attending Online Information 2008 in London in November then although I will not be at the event this year I will be holding a Knowledge Cafe in central London on Wednesday 3rd December that coincides with Online.
The Kafe is hosted by Deloitte and starts at 18:00 for 18:30 and goes through to about 20:30 with drinks in a local pub afterwards for diehards :-)
Do register and come along if you can make it. I can assure you a great evening with plenty of intellectual stimulation with a great bunch of people. And hey even if you are not attending Online - you are still invited!
I will be staying in London the week 1-5 December. If you would like to meet with me - please get in touch.
He makes some good points but I just don't agree that this is a generation war. I have run scores of knowledge cafes and knowledge sharing workshops around the planet these last few years and although I have met people of all ages: Boomers; Gen-Xers and Millennials - I have not seen attitudes and behaviors differentiated by chronological age.
As Mark Gould commented in his blog post Oh good grief… "Date of birth does not determine a generation. Where you fit in the generations will depend on a range of personal factors — personal responsibilities (are you a carer or a parent, or are you fancy-free), political focus (do you tend to respect authority, or do you seek your own gurus), and age (not when you were born, but how old are you)."
Personally, I think the post is nicely argued but it is a crude stereotype and is wrong but take a read and decide for yourself from your own experience.
I love this concept of "service learning". Why can't most learning be like this. It seems to me that teaching in its quest to be objective is too academic; too theoretical and simply not grounded in the real world and this strips it of its context and relevance and to put it bluntly makes it dull and boring. Service-learning not only brings learning back to life but achieves worthy social goals at the same time and we have those in abundance that need addressing.
Service-learning combines service objectives with learning objectives with the intent that the activity change both the recipient and the provider of the service. This is accomplished by combining service tasks with structured opportunities that link the task to self-reflection, self-discovery, and the acquisition and comprehension of values, skills, and knowledge content.
For example, if school students collect trash out of an urban streambed, they are providing a service to the community as volunteers; a service that is highly valued and important. When school students collect trash from an urban streambed, then analyze what they found and possible sources so they can share the results with residents of the neighborhood along with suggestions for reducing pollution, they are engaging in service-learning. In the service-learning example, the students are providing an important service to the community AND, at the same time, learning about water quality and laboratory analysis, developing an understanding of pollution issues, learning to interpret science issues to the public, and practicing communications skills by speaking to residents. They may also reflect on their personal and career interests in science, the environment, public policy or other related areas. Thus, we see that service-learning combines SERVICE with LEARNING in intentional ways.
Benjamin Zander was the closing keynote at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland. In this short inspirational talk, amongst other things, he explains how he gives all his students an "A" grade at the start of each year and how it transforms his relationship with them! Take the time to watch the clip, I think you will love it.
Benjamin Zander was the closing keynote at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland. In this short inspirational talk, amongst other things, he explains how he gives all his students an "A" grade at the start of each year and how it transforms his relationship with them! Take the time to watch the clip, I think you will love it.
Having watched the video Money as Debt, I now realize that if we are to create a sustainable world we have to fix the money system first! I had often wondered how money was created and why it was never taught in schools - now to my horror I understand!
Paul Grignon's 47-minute animated presentation of "Money as Debt" tells in very simple and effective graphic terms what money is and how it is being created.
Google have launched a new service called Google SMS Channels. It is only available in India.
With it, you can create SMS groups to communicate with your friends, family, and co-workers.
Google SMS Channels are free both for content publishers as well as mobile phone users who subscribe to text updates via SMS.
It seems they have only released it in India because Indian Telcos have made SMS free.
This seems like an interesting development. It raises two questions in my mind. What does it mean for services like Twitter and how long will it be before other Telcos make SMS a free service.
Because there’s poverty, and war, and hunger, and AIDS, and because when adolescent girls in the developing world have a chance, they can be the most powerful force of change for themselves, their families, communities, countries, and even the planet.
But while those 600 million adolescent girls are the most likely agents of change, they are often invisible to their societies and the world.
So what can you do about that? Help make girls visible. Tell the world that you think the 600 million girls in the developing world deserve better – for themselves, and for the end of poverty.
That’s a start. Ready to learn and do more? Head over to girleffect.org.
This seems to be building on the philosophy of Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank in lending primarily to women as women are far more likely to spend the money wisely on their family then men ever are.
I love the concept but I need to figure out how best to personally take action though lending some money to Elitza Naidenova to buy a cow a while back was one teeny-weeny contribution.
Because there’s poverty, and war, and hunger, and AIDS, and because when adolescent girls in the developing world have a chance, they can be the most powerful force of change for themselves, their families, communities, countries, and even the planet.
But while those 600 million adolescent girls are the most likely agents of change, they are often invisible to their societies and the world.
So what can you do about that? Help make girls visible. Tell the world that you think the 600 million girls in the developing world deserve better – for themselves, and for the end of poverty.
That’s a start. Ready to learn and do more? Head over to girleffect.org.
This seems to be building on the philosophy of Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank in lending primarily to women as women are far more likely to spend the money wisely on their family then men ever are.
I love the concept but I need to figure out how best to personally take action though lending some money to Elitza Naidenova to buy a cow a while back was one teeny-weeny contribution.
Because there’s poverty, and war, and hunger, and AIDS, and because when adolescent girls in the developing world have a chance, they can be the most powerful force of change for themselves, their families, communities, countries, and even the planet.
But while those 600 million adolescent girls are the most likely agents of change, they are often invisible to their societies and the world.
So what can you do about that? Help make girls visible. Tell the world that you think the 600 million girls in the developing world deserve better – for themselves, and for the end of poverty.
That’s a start. Ready to learn and do more? Head over to girleffect.org.
This seems to be building on the philosophy of Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank in lending primarily to women as women are far more likely to spend the money wisely on their family then men ever are.
I love the concept but I need to figure out how best to personally take action though lending some money to Elitza Naidenova to buy a cow a while back was one teeny-weeny contribution.
Because there’s poverty, and war, and hunger, and AIDS, and because when adolescent girls in the developing world have a chance, they can be the most powerful force of change for themselves, their families, communities, countries, and even the planet.
But while those 600 million adolescent girls are the most likely agents of change, they are often invisible to their societies and the world.
So what can you do about that? Help make girls visible. Tell the world that you think the 600 million girls in the developing world deserve better – for themselves, and for the end of poverty.
That’s a start. Ready to learn and do more? Head over to girleffect.org.
This seems to be building on the philosophy of Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank in lending primarily to women as women are far more likely to spend the money wisely on their family then men ever are.
I love the concept but I need to figure out how best to personally take action though lending some money to Elitza Naidenova to buy a cow a while back was one teeny-weeny contribution.
When I run my knowledge sharing workshops - one of the sessions is about networking and more often than not the question of ethics is raised. Some people falsely see networking as unethical as they seem to think that networking is about making friends with other people for personal gain - they don't quite understand that although its possible to behave like that - genuine networkers approach networking with a mindset of "mutual advantage" - they as much want to help the other person as they wish for help from them.
The question of ethics also gets raised in other KM settings. Storytelling is one of them. Is it ethical to use storytelling to say sell an idea to another person? Another might be is it OK to reward people with tangible rewards such as money or intangible rewards such as praise to get them to do what you want.
It seems to me that we all have agendas; we all have the need, for good or for bad, to influence people; to get their buy-in on an idea or to obtain budget or resource from them. If we wish to get things done in life then we need to be good at gaining the support we need.
But is persuasion or influence, inherently manipulative and unethical? Well of course not; so much depends on the intent. `But what is the yardstick? How do you question yourself to determine if you are being unethical or not?
The test in this blog post seems a good stating point: “Would it lose its power if people knew exactly what you were doing and why?”
I held one of the most energetic knowledge cafes for a long time in London recently. It took place at the end of the first day of a Unicom Web 2.0: Practical Applications for Business Benefit conference that I was chairing. (Sue Charman-Anderson blogged the conference). The speaker was Luis Suarez of IBM (whom I got to meet for the first time after many years of cyber-contact) who spoke on the subject of email overload and proposed the question "Could you stop using email?".
As you can imagine, a lively debate ensued Several folks have blogged the Cafe in a little detail see Nick Bush and Jon Mell. And also the Gurteen Forum.
I held one of the most energetic knowledge cafes for a long time in London recently. It took place at the end of the first day of a Unicom Web 2.0: Practical Applications for Business Benefit conference that I was chairing. (Sue Charman-Anderson blogged the conference). The speaker was Luis Suarez of IBM (whom I got to meet for the first time after many years of cyber-contact) who spoke on the subject of email overload and proposed the question "Could you stop using email?".
As you can imagine, a lively debate ensued Several folks have blogged the Cafe in a little detail see Nick Bush and Jon Mell. And also the Gurteen Forum.
I held one of the most energetic knowledge cafes for a long time in London recently. It took place at the end of the first day of a Unicom Web 2.0: Practical Applications for Business Benefit conference that I was chairing. (Sue Charman-Anderson blogged the conference). The speaker was Luis Suarez of IBM (whom I got to meet for the first time after many years of cyber-contact) who spoke on the subject of email overload and proposed the question "Could you stop using email?".
As you can imagine, a lively debate ensued Several folks have blogged the Cafe in a little detail see Nick Bush and Jon Mell. And also the Gurteen Forum.
I am not all that hot at predictions but the one thing to me that does seem obvious is that as more and more devices such as laptops, digital cameras and of course mobile phones such as the Apple iPhone have GPS and Wi-Fi built in, we are going to see some interesting applications.
I am looking forward to the day when most people have GPS enabled devices.Unlike some, I would like others to know where I am in real time and have the ability to connect with me though I also like the idea of being in control and having the ability to "hide" at times.
Someone told me recently of a person they had met who had given them his business card and suggested that she called him to talk further but had also given her a password. He explained, that when she phoned, her call would be answered by his secretary and unless she quoted the password, his secretary would not put the call through to him!
I guess one good way to prevent "sales calls" but I am not so sure i like it!
Note-Taking: A Fundamental Skill of the Independent Learner via Stephen Downes.
Some time back I wrote about the importance of note taking - Simplest KM Tool - in a Gurteen Perspective article for Inside Knowledge magazine. So I am delighted to see that others recognize the importance also.
I find it odd that so few people take notes. At an academic KM conference recently, I looked around the room of maybe 120 people during the opening key note talk - I noticed only one lap top open and just a hand full of people taking notes - most just sat and listened and the audience was mainly students and academics. I was also the only one taking photos and video. It was the same throughout the conference.
I don't care how you take notes. Use the computer, like I did today. Use paper and ink, like I did at the collaboration workshop last week. Take photographs, as I do when I travel. The main thing is, if you want to learn, take notes. Learning is not a passive act; it is an act of engagement, where you involve yourself physically and mentally, where you struggle to understand and integrate the material. Note-taking is your contribution to what is a two-way communication with the source of the learning. Maybe you'll review them again, maybe not. Keep your notes in good order, just in case. But the main this is, that you take them.
Note-Taking: A Fundamental Skill of the Independent Learner via Stephen Downes.
Some time back I wrote about the importance of note taking - Simplest KM Tool - in a Gurteen Perspective article for Inside Knowledge magazine. So I am delighted to see that others recognize the importance also.
I find it odd that so few people take notes. At an academic KM conference recently, I looked around the room of maybe 120 people during the opening key note talk - I noticed only one lap top open and just a hand full of people taking notes - most just sat and listened and the audience was mainly students and academics. I was also the only one taking photos and video. It was the same throughout the conference.
I don't care how you take notes. Use the computer, like I did today. Use paper and ink, like I did at the collaboration workshop last week. Take photographs, as I do when I travel. The main thing is, if you want to learn, take notes. Learning is not a passive act; it is an act of engagement, where you involve yourself physically and mentally, where you struggle to understand and integrate the material. Note-taking is your contribution to what is a two-way communication with the source of the learning. Maybe you'll review them again, maybe not. Keep your notes in good order, just in case. But the main this is, that you take them.
Like Patrick Lambe, I loved this story of telling stories to hear stories. Only wish I had thought of it when my children were younger. It's a great technique - well actually its not a technique at all - that would soon be seen through and is manipulative. What it is really about, is treating the person you are talking to with as an equal; not talking down to them or patronizing them. When you do that then you can have a conversation of equals.
When I see my teenage daughter after school I would often ask how her day went, whether anything interesting happened at school, and the standard response is often monosyllabic: yep, nup. In fact the more questions I’d ask the shorter the answers. So I changed tack and rather than ask questions I simply recounted something that happened in my day. I would launch into something like, “I met a bearded lady today. This morning I drove down to Fitzroy to run an anecdote circle for …” and immediately my daughter would respond with an encounter from her day. A conversation starts and it’s delightful.
Its also what I try to do in my knowledge cafes - ensure that everyone is an equal - there are no table leaders; no people nominated to report back. Everyone has an equal voice and this helps free up the conversational flow.
I recently tweeted this talk of J.K. Rowling, author of the best-selling Harry Potter book series, delivering her Commencement Address, The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination, at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association.
Its a great address and I had several people who commented how much they enjoyed it. It was brought to my attention by Heather Davis - thank you Heather. Here is a quote from the transcript that Heather sent me:
You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is
inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless
you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in
which case, you fail by default.
I recently gave a keynote talk at KM Brasil titled "People 2.0: Working in a 2.0 World". I only got to take a few photos but you will find them here though many more here.
Here is a description of the talk and the slides. If you have seen my KM 2.0: KM goes social presentation then you will recognize the early slides but fast forward and you will find the new stuff.
People 2.0: Working in a 2.0 World
David Gurteen, Gurteen Knowledge
KM and the world of work is on the brink of a profound transformation.
Driven by new technology, increasingly, we are no longer consumers: of goods, services or education - we are prosumers - we can now both produce and consume. We have the potential to be participants in everything and not the “victims”. The emerging 2.0 work place will reflect this and be a fundamentally participatory world.
We are moving from an organizational world where we were told to do things; where things were structured and planned for us to a world where managers and staff work more closely together to decide what to do and how to do it.
This has deep implications for KM and already we see a move towards Social KM or KM 2.0 where new social tools such as blogs and wikis put the power and responsibility for knowledge sharing in the hands of the individual.
But the real challenge is in people's mindsets - both managers and individuals. Managers need to stop trying to manipulate people and doing things to them and to take a more participatory approach. On the other hand, individuals need to open up and grasp the potential that the new tools and mindset offers them - to be more proactive; to take responsibility for their work; to innovative and to work in new ways. It’s about a change of mindset, attitudes and behaviors.
If the central question asked by managers in the KM 1.0 world was “How do we make people share?” the question of the KM 2.0 era is “How do we get things done by better sharing, learning and working together?” And is asked by everyone!
In this talk, David will explore what it means to live and work in a 2.0 business world; to be a 2.0 worker and indeed a 2.0 manager. And what we need to do to make it a reality.
I gave a talk, well in fact two talks, back to back, to about 150 librarians at the IFLA conference (IFLA: The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions) in Quebec City in early August. My first talk was KM2.0 KM goes Social and the second was a rerun of a talk I gave at actKM Conference in Canberra last year where I look at how I use social tools. You can find the slides in SlideShare.
My talks were the lead in to three shorter talks from Mary Lee Kennedy, Executive Director, Knowledge and Library Services (KLS), Harvard Business School; Moira Fraser, Parliamentary Librarian & Group Manager, Information & Knowledge, New Zealand Parliament and Patrick Danowski, Project Manager, Statsbibliotek su Berlin. All ably chaired by Jane Dysart.
We then broke out into a panel Q&A and discussion. There was a huge amount of interest in KM and social tools from the librarians in the room. I think everyone was pretty much trying to figure out how they could apply social tools in their own organizations. And of course the perennial question came up : "how do you measure the benefits of social tools?"
There were some answers from the panel but my answer was that there are basically two approaches: 1. Was the traditional - figure out your business outcomes and measure against those and 2. if you don't understand social tools and what they can do for you then there is no way you can measure the benefits. So experiment and pilot first. (There is a short article or blog posty brewing in my head on this!)
In his travels he looks at the views of many different people and so if you are looking for a comprehensive overview of the state of thinking on KM 2.0 then this series of posts is well worth the read.
Lucas McDonnell has some interesting comments on what I have to say on KM 2.0 and "2.0" in general.
I understand his concerns. I too was hesitant, at first, to apply the "2.0" moniker more widely to KM and other areas. But I have come to believe that although it all started with Web 2.0 and the new participatory technology and tools that it is not just about the technology and that we are moving to a "2.0 world" - a more participatory one.
I feel that far from devaluing the "2.0" concept - it expands it and makes it more powerful.
And of course I agree, 2.0 is not the answer to everything and brings as many new problems as it answers old ones. That's the nature of things!
I always love to learn new things and often its the little things that excite me the most. When I am in Thailand I love the way people greet you by placing their hands together and giving a little bow and I started doing it myself although I did not fully appreciate the meaning or the tradition.
And then recently some one signed off their e-mail with the greeting: "Namaste". I was intrigued and went straight to Wikipedia to discern its meaning and was delighted with my find. Take a look at the 7 global meanings. Which one works best for you? For me its :
"All that is best and highest in me greets/salutes all that is best and highest in you." or maybe "The Divinity within me perceives and adores the Divinity within you."
The precise meaning does not matter and I like it that the word can mean slightly different things to different people. Its the intent behind it that I so love.
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