Among many other people, this teacher was fired from her position at DeVry "University" in Colorado, apparently for something she had put on her blog. I say apparently, because the DeVry administration chose not to tell her specifically what they found so offensive. Nor did they give her any warning, a chance to say goodbye to colleagues and students, nor an opportunity to defend herself. Apparently, there are no laws against wrongful dismissal in Colorado.
On the other end of the spectrum, we find this bozo, an executive of the Ontario wing of the federal Liberal Party, resigning over blatantly offensive postings on his blog about NDP Leader Jack Layton, his wife and NDP candidate Olivia Chow, and Conservative Leader Stephen Harper. Mike Klander's offensive blog is now offline - a case of not only the horse having bolted, but the barn having been burned to the ground. Good thing the story broke on Boxing Day when no one was paying attention.
What do these stories have in common? They both are indicative of the monumental cluelessness of the Corporate Mindset (note the capitals) relative to the effect of blogs specifically, and the effects of a UCaPP* world in general. In a nutshell, blogs amplify voice, and provide a human face - and more often a composite of many human faces - to a soulless corporation. There are two complementary effects of these actions. First, a blog can speak directly to the corporation's constituency - what are conventionally called "stakeholders" but include others in the corporation's total environment. This direct voice helps to provide the type of transparency that is increasingly becoming an important attribute of organizations that people trust, with trust becoming an important factor in choice decisions. Second - and here's the reversal - employee's blogs can reveal the "black heart" of an organization, particularly if the organization chooses to respond in an aggressive fashion. Essentially, because of the phenomenon of emergent transparency, organizations will find it exceedingly difficult to hide behind obscurity and obfuscation - spin, appeals to "confidentiality," and stonewalling.
In the case of DeVry, potential teaching staff may think twice about contracting their services. Students may reconsider education decisions based on ethical reputation. In the case of the Liberal Party of Canada, voters may consider Klander's very unfortunate blog posts as indicative of the Liberal heart. The answer to both cases is NOT to control blogging, but rather to open it up. Allow your people to reveal who and what you really are - and if who and what you really are is embarrassing, perhaps you should reconsider your actions and activities.
*UCaPP = Ubiquitously Connected and Pervasively Proximate
[Technorati tags: liberal | devry | blogging | fired | emergent transparency | ucapp]
27 December 2005
24 December 2005
What a Strange Year
What a strange year it has been. If you believe in God – as in a God who sends messages, signs and harbingers in phenomena of nature – it would seem as if He is none too pleased with the goings on here in this corner of the universe. Beginning the year with tsunami floods, reprising those with hurricane floods, disastrous earthquakes that devastated some of the most poverty-stricken people on the planet, plagues of diseases that increasingly defy treatment, miscellaneous pestilence, famine, fiery heat in the summer... As I said, He is none too pleased.
If you do not believe in God, or if you believe in a God who adopts a more “hands-off” management policy (as it were) yet nonetheless allows humankind to make its own mistakes if we collectively choose to do so, all of the above must still give one pause. In the free will department, despite the fact that the total number of armed conflicts, as well as the total number of people who die at the hands of their fellow wo/man, have both declined, the most powerful nation on earth continues to behave like a good, old fashioned oligarchical, totalitarian state of the 20th century, both within its borders and around the world. As some commentators have noted, first went international treaties, then the Geneva Convention, and now the constitution. Imagine – a country at war with an elusive enemy, until the leader of that country says otherwise, with said leader effectively having almost total power. And only 21 years late.
Yet, I am an optimist. My optimism stems from a standpoint that some may describe as technological determinism, yet those who would do so do not understand the subtleties of Marshall McLuhan’s work, nor my own application of his insights. The electric age of the last century, whose pinnacle was exemplified by the dominance of the television screen, was not the completion of McLuhan’s vision that he shared in his work Understanding Media. McLuhan was not thinking of the television we know when he described his “tele-vision” (get it?). Our television enables a mind-numbing, intensely focused vision of the world that, in turn, creates an environment of which I lament. It is an environment in which the cult of celebrity permeates not only pop culture, but business, politics and policy. It is an environment in which an “I’m Okay Jack, and to Hell With You” attitude becomes a credo. It is a psycho-social environment that exists in almost perfect conflict with the biological environment that gives it life. Unlike Neil Postman, I do not believe we are “amusing ourselves to death.” Rather, it seems to me that many people’s awareness and ability to relate to one another in a way other than that modelled by television content is actively under attack, and in some has been completely destroyed.
My optimism originates in the environmental effects created by today’s dominant technologies of instantaneous, multi-way communication – the UCaPP (ubiquitously connected and pervasively proximate) effects of which I often speak and write. A UCaPP environment affect not only those who are wired or “wirelessed,” but also those who are indirectly connected at a secondary or tertiary or even quaternary level. The technologically-enabled network of connections, interpersonal dynamics and relationships creates an active awareness of the total environmental effects in each of us, so long as we each are willing to become aware. The effects of this evolving and emergent awareness is already being felt in cultural aspects of many societies, observable through the resistant ripple effects occurring in the reflexive, characteristically 20th century reactions of corporate leaders and politicians. Over time, such awareness will begin to change the other structural foundations of our society: politics, business, education. But it will take time and yet several generations of people who have been socialized and acculturated into this new environment to overcome a century of old practices with new technology. I consider myself fortunate indeed to be alive at a time in which both old and new generations coexist, and I can observe the transition. Such is a rare occurrence in the course of human history. With awareness and conscious effort, the transition will occur in a way that we can collectively manage with deliberation and resolve. That, I think, should define our resolution for the coming year: To work together to create a world in which we will all want to live.
To all my readers, friends and those who will become readers and friends in the future, I wish a happy and joyous holiday season, and a healthy, prosperous new year. And to us all, I wish satisfaction, fulfilment, and most of all, peace.
[Technorati tags: holiday greetings | ucapp | ubiquitously connected | pervasively proximate]
If you do not believe in God, or if you believe in a God who adopts a more “hands-off” management policy (as it were) yet nonetheless allows humankind to make its own mistakes if we collectively choose to do so, all of the above must still give one pause. In the free will department, despite the fact that the total number of armed conflicts, as well as the total number of people who die at the hands of their fellow wo/man, have both declined, the most powerful nation on earth continues to behave like a good, old fashioned oligarchical, totalitarian state of the 20th century, both within its borders and around the world. As some commentators have noted, first went international treaties, then the Geneva Convention, and now the constitution. Imagine – a country at war with an elusive enemy, until the leader of that country says otherwise, with said leader effectively having almost total power. And only 21 years late.
Yet, I am an optimist. My optimism stems from a standpoint that some may describe as technological determinism, yet those who would do so do not understand the subtleties of Marshall McLuhan’s work, nor my own application of his insights. The electric age of the last century, whose pinnacle was exemplified by the dominance of the television screen, was not the completion of McLuhan’s vision that he shared in his work Understanding Media. McLuhan was not thinking of the television we know when he described his “tele-vision” (get it?). Our television enables a mind-numbing, intensely focused vision of the world that, in turn, creates an environment of which I lament. It is an environment in which the cult of celebrity permeates not only pop culture, but business, politics and policy. It is an environment in which an “I’m Okay Jack, and to Hell With You” attitude becomes a credo. It is a psycho-social environment that exists in almost perfect conflict with the biological environment that gives it life. Unlike Neil Postman, I do not believe we are “amusing ourselves to death.” Rather, it seems to me that many people’s awareness and ability to relate to one another in a way other than that modelled by television content is actively under attack, and in some has been completely destroyed.
My optimism originates in the environmental effects created by today’s dominant technologies of instantaneous, multi-way communication – the UCaPP (ubiquitously connected and pervasively proximate) effects of which I often speak and write. A UCaPP environment affect not only those who are wired or “wirelessed,” but also those who are indirectly connected at a secondary or tertiary or even quaternary level. The technologically-enabled network of connections, interpersonal dynamics and relationships creates an active awareness of the total environmental effects in each of us, so long as we each are willing to become aware. The effects of this evolving and emergent awareness is already being felt in cultural aspects of many societies, observable through the resistant ripple effects occurring in the reflexive, characteristically 20th century reactions of corporate leaders and politicians. Over time, such awareness will begin to change the other structural foundations of our society: politics, business, education. But it will take time and yet several generations of people who have been socialized and acculturated into this new environment to overcome a century of old practices with new technology. I consider myself fortunate indeed to be alive at a time in which both old and new generations coexist, and I can observe the transition. Such is a rare occurrence in the course of human history. With awareness and conscious effort, the transition will occur in a way that we can collectively manage with deliberation and resolve. That, I think, should define our resolution for the coming year: To work together to create a world in which we will all want to live.
To all my readers, friends and those who will become readers and friends in the future, I wish a happy and joyous holiday season, and a healthy, prosperous new year. And to us all, I wish satisfaction, fulfilment, and most of all, peace.
[Technorati tags: holiday greetings | ucapp | ubiquitously connected | pervasively proximate]
18 December 2005
Doonesbury on Evolution and Creationism
This one from Doonesbury had me chortling into my cornflakes!
This Doonesbury comic is a great example of what is called Menippean satire. For those who like a dose of academics with their humour, here's an excerpt from my essay, "The Fifth Law of Media" that explains such comic shenanigans in a larger context:
Today, comedian Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart demonstrates both the form and intent of Menippean satire. All of these writers share a common purpose. “Menippean satire mirrors a world that is in ceaseless motion and where nothing is certain… [I]ts authors’ intentions seem, in nearly every case, to demonstrate the disabling and limiting conditions under which the human intellect operates” (Blanchard, 1995, p. 11). Eric McLuhan is more specific about the role Menippean satire plays in creating awareness among an otherwise oblivious public.
As an active form, a Menippean satire goes to any extreme necessary in order to frustrate objectivity or detachment on the part of the reader. … Cynics, and Diogenes in particular … were often referred to as ‘laughing philosophers,’ for they refused to take seriously any political, private, social, intellectual, or other kind of pretentiousness” (McLuhan, 1997, p. 5).
Instead they create what Eric McLuhan calls the “cynic effect” – a satirical response that creates new awareness by awakening the dulled perception of the reader. Thus, Menippean satire is not merely humour or irony, but humour or irony with a specific intentionality.
It is, according to Northrop Frye, the intentionality that distinguishes satire from mere irony, that is a component of many humorous – and even tragic – forms. “Two things, then, are essential to satire; one is wit or humor founded on fantasy or a sense of the grotesque or absurd, the other is an object of attack” (Frye, 1957, p. 224). Irony itself is the “humor founded on … a sense of the grotesque or absurd,” as Frye describes. Irony is the delivery vehicle; it is the attack that transforms irony into satire. As Frye observes, “The chief distinction between irony and satire is that satire is militant irony” (p. 223).
Eric McLuhan points out that in each age of an advance in technology, the Menippeans are there to reveal “the readers’ ignorance of and assumptions about that culture, and on the technology of language as an up-to-date storehouse of the culture’s experience and perception” (McLuhan, 1997, p. 12). For example, he associates Rabelais with the printing press and Flaubert with the newspaper. Sterne’s Tristam Shandy and Swift’s Tale of a Tub satirize the five divisions of classical rhetoric as an attack on “the prevailing abuses of religion and of learning” (ibid.). He concludes that today,
[Technorati tags: doonesbury | creationism | intelligent design | evolution | menippean satire]
This Doonesbury comic is a great example of what is called Menippean satire. For those who like a dose of academics with their humour, here's an excerpt from my essay, "The Fifth Law of Media" that explains such comic shenanigans in a larger context:
Today, comedian Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart demonstrates both the form and intent of Menippean satire. All of these writers share a common purpose. “Menippean satire mirrors a world that is in ceaseless motion and where nothing is certain… [I]ts authors’ intentions seem, in nearly every case, to demonstrate the disabling and limiting conditions under which the human intellect operates” (Blanchard, 1995, p. 11). Eric McLuhan is more specific about the role Menippean satire plays in creating awareness among an otherwise oblivious public.
As an active form, a Menippean satire goes to any extreme necessary in order to frustrate objectivity or detachment on the part of the reader. … Cynics, and Diogenes in particular … were often referred to as ‘laughing philosophers,’ for they refused to take seriously any political, private, social, intellectual, or other kind of pretentiousness” (McLuhan, 1997, p. 5).
Instead they create what Eric McLuhan calls the “cynic effect” – a satirical response that creates new awareness by awakening the dulled perception of the reader. Thus, Menippean satire is not merely humour or irony, but humour or irony with a specific intentionality.
It is, according to Northrop Frye, the intentionality that distinguishes satire from mere irony, that is a component of many humorous – and even tragic – forms. “Two things, then, are essential to satire; one is wit or humor founded on fantasy or a sense of the grotesque or absurd, the other is an object of attack” (Frye, 1957, p. 224). Irony itself is the “humor founded on … a sense of the grotesque or absurd,” as Frye describes. Irony is the delivery vehicle; it is the attack that transforms irony into satire. As Frye observes, “The chief distinction between irony and satire is that satire is militant irony” (p. 223).
Eric McLuhan points out that in each age of an advance in technology, the Menippeans are there to reveal “the readers’ ignorance of and assumptions about that culture, and on the technology of language as an up-to-date storehouse of the culture’s experience and perception” (McLuhan, 1997, p. 12). For example, he associates Rabelais with the printing press and Flaubert with the newspaper. Sterne’s Tristam Shandy and Swift’s Tale of a Tub satirize the five divisions of classical rhetoric as an attack on “the prevailing abuses of religion and of learning” (ibid.). He concludes that today,
a Cynic would promptly stand you on your head and force you to see your world aright; your ground, anew, and long enough for the fresh awareness to settle into habit. In so doing, the Cynic writers simply bring up-to-date centuries- or millennia-old techniques for reading the Book of the World (McLuhan, 1997, p. 13).The specifically Menippean forms of satire are not merely reactions to the absurdity of the modern condition, but rather create the consciousness of that absurdity. It is the consciousness and intentionality that gives these forms of satire their force and effect to heighten awareness, particularly of the underlying context, or ground, of the situation.
[Technorati tags: doonesbury | creationism | intelligent design | evolution | menippean satire]
17 December 2005
The Latest from JibJab - Bush 2-0-5
16 December 2005
Survivor Vancouver: a.k.a The Leaders' Debate
Here's the thing about so-called Reality TV: it's unscripted in the sense that writers don't provide the actual lines to the participants, but the characters all play to form, and the lines are all cliché. And that about sums up the first English-language leader's debate of the 2006 Canadian election.
Martin and Layton put on their best passion play, wearing their country on their respective sleeves. Martin's constant refrain was "the country is great, look at all we've done," while Layton responded with "the country is becoming great because of all we've done, send more NDPers to Ottawa." I guess he missed his wife over the last eighteen months. Duceppe, who was first to say that once something is decided by a free vote that should be the end of it (as in same-sex marriage), and the last to say that Québec should keep having referenda until the answer comes out "right." And Harper? He looked like someone slipped him a Valium before the debate, wearing a smug smile and telling Canadians to make a change, without asking too many questions about precisely what the changes Harper has in mind might really do to the country.
Although I very much liked the format - the stereotypical ordinary Canadians asking the tough questions with moderator Trina McQueen doing the follow-ups - any attempt at one leader attempting to hold another's feet to the fire was easily sloughed off, with very few exceptions. So it wasn't really a debate; more like "which policy line do I read in response to this question?"
I know someone will ask whether it was hot or cool (hot being higher definition, little participation, inducing a trance-like state; cool being less information, a greater need to fill-in-the-blanks, awakening awareness). Almost by definition, such an exercise as a leaders' debate cannot be a cool event, as the cool politician would almost invariably be accused of evading the issues. While the videotaped questions might appear to make it a cooler event, the reality of the matter is that the questions asked were selected from among 10,000 submitted; no surprises, nothing unexpected, no chance to be cool. And I guess that goes double for Harper. (Mock turtle-neck sweaters don't make you cool, Stephen.)
On a related matter, why was Giles Duceppe in the English-language debate, anyway? He has nothing useful to say to English-Canadian voters. (Don't get me wrong: the cultural concerns and equity concerns of Québec are legitimate and important components of the national discourse, but I, and most Canadians have no way to respond to Duceppe during an election.) Duceppe has no candidates running outside of Québec. His podium should better be relinquished to the Green Party, who DO have something potentially different to say to English Canada (as well as to Canada Français). And hearing something different might even be a welcome change.
Apology: As pointed out by one of the commenters, I completely forgot about the approximately 10% of Québecers for whom English is their first language, and who deserve to hear Duceppe in his second language.
[Technorati tags: election | debate | martin | harper | layton | duceppe]
Martin and Layton put on their best passion play, wearing their country on their respective sleeves. Martin's constant refrain was "the country is great, look at all we've done," while Layton responded with "the country is becoming great because of all we've done, send more NDPers to Ottawa." I guess he missed his wife over the last eighteen months. Duceppe, who was first to say that once something is decided by a free vote that should be the end of it (as in same-sex marriage), and the last to say that Québec should keep having referenda until the answer comes out "right." And Harper? He looked like someone slipped him a Valium before the debate, wearing a smug smile and telling Canadians to make a change, without asking too many questions about precisely what the changes Harper has in mind might really do to the country.
Although I very much liked the format - the stereotypical ordinary Canadians asking the tough questions with moderator Trina McQueen doing the follow-ups - any attempt at one leader attempting to hold another's feet to the fire was easily sloughed off, with very few exceptions. So it wasn't really a debate; more like "which policy line do I read in response to this question?"
I know someone will ask whether it was hot or cool (hot being higher definition, little participation, inducing a trance-like state; cool being less information, a greater need to fill-in-the-blanks, awakening awareness). Almost by definition, such an exercise as a leaders' debate cannot be a cool event, as the cool politician would almost invariably be accused of evading the issues. While the videotaped questions might appear to make it a cooler event, the reality of the matter is that the questions asked were selected from among 10,000 submitted; no surprises, nothing unexpected, no chance to be cool. And I guess that goes double for Harper. (Mock turtle-neck sweaters don't make you cool, Stephen.)
On a related matter, why was Giles Duceppe in the English-language debate, anyway? He has nothing useful to say to English-Canadian voters. (Don't get me wrong: the cultural concerns and equity concerns of Québec are legitimate and important components of the national discourse, but I, and most Canadians have no way to respond to Duceppe during an election.) Duceppe has no candidates running outside of Québec. His podium should better be relinquished to the Green Party, who DO have something potentially different to say to English Canada (as well as to Canada Français). And hearing something different might even be a welcome change.
Apology: As pointed out by one of the commenters, I completely forgot about the approximately 10% of Québecers for whom English is their first language, and who deserve to hear Duceppe in his second language.
[Technorati tags: election | debate | martin | harper | layton | duceppe]
15 December 2005
Three Blind Mice...
...see how they run. I'm talking about Martin, Harper and Layton, of course. The blindness to which I refer is their collective ignoring of a large, nominally disaffected constituency who are relatively removed from the broadcast media (i.e., few-to-many media, including television and the press) in which the current election campaign is primarily being run. Among a very large demographic of people who don't watch television and don't read the mainstream press, relatively little of the major parties' respective political "messages" are getting through. And, for these people - largely voters up to the age of approximately 30, but definitely those between 18 and 25 - their lack of attendance on voting day is not so much a result of being apathetic, so much as a lack of connection with the process.
As an aside, I would say that a lack of connection with the process is a malady that affects many Canadians, irrespective of age. One major intended effect of broadcast politics as it is currently waged is precisely that: to disconnect people from active engagement with the demoncratic process, and instead, hypnotize them with slogans, quick fixes that are "good politics but bad policy" (a phrase that I've heard repeated after the daily partisan policy announcement), and attention focused on irrelevant "issues" rather than on thoughtful deliberation. (An example of this is the emphasis on change for the sake of change, with little thought given to the nature of the change, the effects of the change alternatives, and so forth.)
But all of that is not really the point of this post. None of the English Canada campaigns have an online presence with which people can truly engage. (The Bloc Québecois, to their credit for cluefulness, have a blog on which people can leave comments, including those that express dissenting views. Vive le Québec discours libre!) Those that have blogs use them as either comic relief, or as merely another broadcast medium. The lessons of the "Howard Dean Experience" concerning engagement are two-fold: First, by allowing comments, you encourage people to become engaged in conversations with the campaign, and coversations are the beginning of involvement and commitment. Second, by actively encouraging supporters to set up blogs (that is, by creating blogrolls on the campaign blog, by linking to entries in supporters' blogs - you know, all the regular bloggy stuff) you encourage those who have reach into communities that the main campaign cannot reach to "get out the vote" among those who wouldn't otherwise vote. That's why was saw the likes of "Punkers for Dean," "Bikers for Dean," "Grannies for Dean," and even "Born Again Christians for Dean."
Last night, I heard a piece on CBC Radio One's The World at Six in which a person, presumably in her twenties was interviewed at her business. She said that she doesn't watch TV, and were it not for "Moe," would not be interested in the election and would likely not vote. The reason: the mainstream parties are completely ignoring her. Moe, on the other hand, is representative of an incredibly influential political power. He has an email mailing list 5,000 strong, and he's not afraid to use it to influence otherwise unreached and unreachable potential voters. Most "Moes" around the country have blogs, connections, networks and, most important of all, credibility. While they cannot be co-opted by the major parties, they can become connected. All it takes is the major parties to realize that the Internet is not a broadcast medium, but a medium of connections, relationships, conversations and engagement. Sounds a whole lot like democratic processes to me.
If you find the insights of this post interesting, why don't you stop by the main blog page for more?
[Technorati tags: election | democracy | martin | harper | layton]
As an aside, I would say that a lack of connection with the process is a malady that affects many Canadians, irrespective of age. One major intended effect of broadcast politics as it is currently waged is precisely that: to disconnect people from active engagement with the demoncratic process, and instead, hypnotize them with slogans, quick fixes that are "good politics but bad policy" (a phrase that I've heard repeated after the daily partisan policy announcement), and attention focused on irrelevant "issues" rather than on thoughtful deliberation. (An example of this is the emphasis on change for the sake of change, with little thought given to the nature of the change, the effects of the change alternatives, and so forth.)
But all of that is not really the point of this post. None of the English Canada campaigns have an online presence with which people can truly engage. (The Bloc Québecois, to their credit for cluefulness, have a blog on which people can leave comments, including those that express dissenting views. Vive le Québec discours libre!) Those that have blogs use them as either comic relief, or as merely another broadcast medium. The lessons of the "Howard Dean Experience" concerning engagement are two-fold: First, by allowing comments, you encourage people to become engaged in conversations with the campaign, and coversations are the beginning of involvement and commitment. Second, by actively encouraging supporters to set up blogs (that is, by creating blogrolls on the campaign blog, by linking to entries in supporters' blogs - you know, all the regular bloggy stuff) you encourage those who have reach into communities that the main campaign cannot reach to "get out the vote" among those who wouldn't otherwise vote. That's why was saw the likes of "Punkers for Dean," "Bikers for Dean," "Grannies for Dean," and even "Born Again Christians for Dean."
Last night, I heard a piece on CBC Radio One's The World at Six in which a person, presumably in her twenties was interviewed at her business. She said that she doesn't watch TV, and were it not for "Moe," would not be interested in the election and would likely not vote. The reason: the mainstream parties are completely ignoring her. Moe, on the other hand, is representative of an incredibly influential political power. He has an email mailing list 5,000 strong, and he's not afraid to use it to influence otherwise unreached and unreachable potential voters. Most "Moes" around the country have blogs, connections, networks and, most important of all, credibility. While they cannot be co-opted by the major parties, they can become connected. All it takes is the major parties to realize that the Internet is not a broadcast medium, but a medium of connections, relationships, conversations and engagement. Sounds a whole lot like democratic processes to me.
If you find the insights of this post interesting, why don't you stop by the main blog page for more?
[Technorati tags: election | democracy | martin | harper | layton]
13 December 2005
They'll Do It Every Time!
I remember this famous comic strip - They'll Do It Every Time - from when I was a kid. "They'll Do It Every Time, is a humorous look at human hypocrisy, inconsistencies or one of the quirky twists of fate that beleaguer us all. Originated in 1929 by Jimmy Hatlo, a sports cartoonist for The Call-Bulletin in San Francisco, the feature was created on the spur of the moment when a syndicated cartoon was lost in the mail. The cartoon soon attracted the attention of readers, who submitted their own examples of human foibles."
I was reminded of the strip today, when I read this piece about how
The traditional view is that a successful industry is built on the basis of investment, risk-taking, expertise and hard work. What has not been acknowledged until recently - and only in the context of FLOSS - is that successful industries are also a result of market participation among consumer-producers (by which I mean consumers who also produce the market itself; ideas, suggestions and techniques that are incorporated into offerings; actual content that enables the offering; social dynamics that create a desire/need and hence fuel the market's growth; among many other aspects). In fact, under UCaPP* conditions, traditional consumers reverse to producers, without whom there would have been no Google, no Yahoo, no browsers, no streaming video, no nothing that would have generated the type of demand that allows these telcos to make the types of profitable investments upon which they are now capitalizing. For them to turn around and effectively say, "let's eliminate the conditions that made us successful so that no one else can be" is the type of hypocrisy that makes me say...
They'll do it every time! (But only if we allow them to.)
*UCaPP = ubiquitously connected and pervasively proximate
Update: BusinessWeek reports on this issue, and identify what's At Stake: The Net as We Know It:
[Technorati tags: telco | at&t | bellsouth | they'll do it every time | monopolist | two-tiered internet]
I was reminded of the strip today, when I read this piece about how
AT&T Inc. and BellSouth Corp. are lobbying Capitol Hill for the right to create a two-tiered Internet, where the telecom carriers' own Internet services would be transmitted faster and more efficiently than those of their competitors. The proposal is certain to provoke a major fight with Google Inc., Yahoo Inc., Time Warner Inc., and Microsoft Corp., the powerful owners of popular Internet sites. The companies fear such a move would give telecommunications companies too much control over a fast-growing part of the Internet.While I don't blame these latter-day carpetbaggers for wanting to milk as much money from the Internet as possible - after all, once a monopolist always a monopolist. I do marvel, however, at the shortsightedness of greedy industry executives, be they from the telcos, the recording industry, software industry... you name it!
The traditional view is that a successful industry is built on the basis of investment, risk-taking, expertise and hard work. What has not been acknowledged until recently - and only in the context of FLOSS - is that successful industries are also a result of market participation among consumer-producers (by which I mean consumers who also produce the market itself; ideas, suggestions and techniques that are incorporated into offerings; actual content that enables the offering; social dynamics that create a desire/need and hence fuel the market's growth; among many other aspects). In fact, under UCaPP* conditions, traditional consumers reverse to producers, without whom there would have been no Google, no Yahoo, no browsers, no streaming video, no nothing that would have generated the type of demand that allows these telcos to make the types of profitable investments upon which they are now capitalizing. For them to turn around and effectively say, "let's eliminate the conditions that made us successful so that no one else can be" is the type of hypocrisy that makes me say...
They'll do it every time! (But only if we allow them to.)
*UCaPP = ubiquitously connected and pervasively proximate
Update: BusinessWeek reports on this issue, and identify what's At Stake: The Net as We Know It:
But express lanes for certain bits could give network providers a chance to shunt other services into the slow lane, unless they pay up. A phone company could tell Google or another independent Web service that it must pay extra to ensure speedy, reliable service.
That could result in an Internet of haves, who can afford to pay the network operators more to ensure smooth service, and have-nots. Trouble is, those have-nots may include the Next Big Thing -- whether it be mom-and-pop podcasting or video blogging. The fewer innovative services on the Net, the less reason Web users have to want broadband. Both the network operators and the Internet could lose out in the end.
[Technorati tags: telco | at&t | bellsouth | they'll do it every time | monopolist | two-tiered internet]
12 December 2005
English Exams, the Medium, and the Message
It is end of term in high schools, and my daughter is once again preparing for that unique Foucauldian form of discipline known as exam time. As it turns out, the English exam will prove to be particularly problematic for her for a reason that is decidedly, if not ironically, McLuhanesque.
Unlike me, who graduated both high school and (undergrad) university before the advent of word processing, my daughter learned to compose text directly onto a computer. More than spell check, she has full access to a thesaurus - which she learned to use in the third grade - countless editing and revision opportunities, and a particular tactile relationship with the written word that is percussive in typing keyboarding, as opposed to legato in cursive script.
Unfortunately, the English exam is a hand-written essay. In her last test (that consisted of an essay question), she found herself unable to shepherd her thoughts to the paper, because of what she reported as a type of disconnection between her mind and the pen. Further, she spent too much time sans thesaurus trying to think of just the right word to express the nuance she wanted, and too much time revising the opening paragraph to get it just so. She ran out of time.
There is clearly a cognitive effect of composing on a computer keyboard that is different than composing with pen and paper. They are two different media, and we should expect there to be two different effects - two different messages. I notice this myself, using pen and paper for more "artistic" or "creative" aspects of my writing - outlining, constructing an argument - and keyboard for the actual production. Because I am aware of ground effects, I experience two different aspects of cognition when I use the two different media, and I use which ever medium is most appropriate for the specific cognitive effect I want to create in myself.
Now consider the exam. In addition to the student's command of the content to be tested as figure, the exam is also testing the student's facility with the (hidden) ground of the writing medium. Ironically, the student who has trained herself to do the things good writers do - select the right words to convey the right effects, revise and edit - is at a decided disadvantage in the exam. Teachers must become aware of all that is being tested, and decide if the exam as it is administered is truly an appropriate test.
[Technorati tags: exams | english | medium | message]
Unlike me, who graduated both high school and (undergrad) university before the advent of word processing, my daughter learned to compose text directly onto a computer. More than spell check, she has full access to a thesaurus - which she learned to use in the third grade - countless editing and revision opportunities, and a particular tactile relationship with the written word that is percussive in typing keyboarding, as opposed to legato in cursive script.
Unfortunately, the English exam is a hand-written essay. In her last test (that consisted of an essay question), she found herself unable to shepherd her thoughts to the paper, because of what she reported as a type of disconnection between her mind and the pen. Further, she spent too much time sans thesaurus trying to think of just the right word to express the nuance she wanted, and too much time revising the opening paragraph to get it just so. She ran out of time.
There is clearly a cognitive effect of composing on a computer keyboard that is different than composing with pen and paper. They are two different media, and we should expect there to be two different effects - two different messages. I notice this myself, using pen and paper for more "artistic" or "creative" aspects of my writing - outlining, constructing an argument - and keyboard for the actual production. Because I am aware of ground effects, I experience two different aspects of cognition when I use the two different media, and I use which ever medium is most appropriate for the specific cognitive effect I want to create in myself.
Now consider the exam. In addition to the student's command of the content to be tested as figure, the exam is also testing the student's facility with the (hidden) ground of the writing medium. Ironically, the student who has trained herself to do the things good writers do - select the right words to convey the right effects, revise and edit - is at a decided disadvantage in the exam. Teachers must become aware of all that is being tested, and decide if the exam as it is administered is truly an appropriate test.
[Technorati tags: exams | english | medium | message]
06 December 2005
Remembering Fourteen Young Women
Today, December 6, is the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women, commemorating the sixteenth anniversary of the massacre of fourteen young women at l'École Polytechnique de Montréal. They were slaughtered only because of their gender, and the blind hate that possessed of one vicious man.
If violence against women was limited to one man, there would be no need for a national day of remembrance and action. But, tragically, throughout our world, and indeed throughout our nation, our province and our city, there remain thousands of women who survive in a daily existence shrouded by fear, and physical and psychological abuse. They are persecuted and punished for no other reason than who and what they are, and the deranged psychology that possesses their abusers. Sometimes, abusers hide behind the apparent legitimacy offered to their unacceptable behaviours by long standing traditions of non-Western cultures. In other cases, it is the result of an individual's own feelings of powerlessness or low self-esteem that causes him to lash out at a person perceived as weaker. Regardless of the reason or supposed justification, the tragic deaths of fourteen must serve as both a stunning reminder of, and a clarion call to action against, all forms of violence, dehumanizing behaviours, and unthinking degradation of women.
Today, Canada's flags fly at half-staff in honour of the fourteen. May the memory of these young women act as a beacon, guiding our society, and all societies, towards a more enlightened and just world in which all may be safe. May their memory be for a blessing:
Geneviève Bergeron
Hélène Colgan
Nathalie Croteau
Barbara Daigneault
Anne-Marie Edward
Maud Haviernick
Barbara Klucznik Widajewicz
Maryse Laganière
Maryse Leclair
Anne-Marie Lemay
Sonia Pelletier
Michèle Richard
Annie St-Arneault
Annie Turcotte
[Technorati tags: violence against women | massacre | l'école polytechnique | remembrance]
If violence against women was limited to one man, there would be no need for a national day of remembrance and action. But, tragically, throughout our world, and indeed throughout our nation, our province and our city, there remain thousands of women who survive in a daily existence shrouded by fear, and physical and psychological abuse. They are persecuted and punished for no other reason than who and what they are, and the deranged psychology that possesses their abusers. Sometimes, abusers hide behind the apparent legitimacy offered to their unacceptable behaviours by long standing traditions of non-Western cultures. In other cases, it is the result of an individual's own feelings of powerlessness or low self-esteem that causes him to lash out at a person perceived as weaker. Regardless of the reason or supposed justification, the tragic deaths of fourteen must serve as both a stunning reminder of, and a clarion call to action against, all forms of violence, dehumanizing behaviours, and unthinking degradation of women.
Today, Canada's flags fly at half-staff in honour of the fourteen. May the memory of these young women act as a beacon, guiding our society, and all societies, towards a more enlightened and just world in which all may be safe. May their memory be for a blessing:
Geneviève Bergeron
Hélène Colgan
Nathalie Croteau
Barbara Daigneault
Anne-Marie Edward
Maud Haviernick
Barbara Klucznik Widajewicz
Maryse Laganière
Maryse Leclair
Anne-Marie Lemay
Sonia Pelletier
Michèle Richard
Annie St-Arneault
Annie Turcotte
[Technorati tags: violence against women | massacre | l'école polytechnique | remembrance]
05 December 2005
How Police States Begin
Given the tenor of our time, and the slow but steady encroachments on constitutional rights made in the name of security, this is disturbing news indeed. CBC reports (and where is the rest of the mainstream media on this one?) that
Because of the implicit threat (not to mention the de facto intimidation of two large and armed policemen showing up unexpectedly at one's door), it can be argued that the so-called consent to enter is not given freely. I would guess that a good defense lawyer would be able to successfully argue that any fruits of such a search would be inadmissible as evidence, since consent was arguably not freely given (i.e. without coercion, and full understanding of consequences). Beside this, such actions promulgate the police state mentality of "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear."
Among the principles of a democratic society is the rule of law, that is, no one is above the laws of the land. That especially includes those among the population who are given special permission to be armed in public, to effect arrests, and to inflict the weight of the judiciary on any individual. Bypassing due process of law in the name of expediency is the beginning of a long decline in the direction of fascism. Or, to paraphrase the cliché, if you have nothing to hide, you have EVERYTHING to fear if authorities nonetheless decide that you are hiding something. Just ask these people.
Update: The Toronto Star covers the story here.
[Technorati tags: police search | police state | parkdale | rights | due process | wrongfully convicted | fascism]
Police are conducting searches of houses and apartments in Parkdale as they try to identify a woman whose dismembered remains were found last month. ... Officers are going door to door in Parkdale, asking residents if they can look through their homes — and in some cases, their freezers — as they search for clues. Police point out that it's the same strategy that helped them identify the man now charged in the abduction and murder of nine-year-old Holly Jones in 2003. In that case, the man who was eventually charged with Holly's murder was one of just a few local residents who refused to let police search his home in a similar sweep.Essentially what is happening is this: Police knock on your door and ask for your consent to search your premises without a warrant. If you refuse, that is if you exercise your constitutional rights, you will be considered a suspect, and clearly subject to more rigorous, onerous, and disruptive processes of investigation. Effectively, there is tacit coercion to abdicate your rights in the face of an implied threat of considerable future harassment. People "volunteer" because of the tacit, but clear consequences of not "volunteering."
Because of the implicit threat (not to mention the de facto intimidation of two large and armed policemen showing up unexpectedly at one's door), it can be argued that the so-called consent to enter is not given freely. I would guess that a good defense lawyer would be able to successfully argue that any fruits of such a search would be inadmissible as evidence, since consent was arguably not freely given (i.e. without coercion, and full understanding of consequences). Beside this, such actions promulgate the police state mentality of "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear."
Among the principles of a democratic society is the rule of law, that is, no one is above the laws of the land. That especially includes those among the population who are given special permission to be armed in public, to effect arrests, and to inflict the weight of the judiciary on any individual. Bypassing due process of law in the name of expediency is the beginning of a long decline in the direction of fascism. Or, to paraphrase the cliché, if you have nothing to hide, you have EVERYTHING to fear if authorities nonetheless decide that you are hiding something. Just ask these people.
Update: The Toronto Star covers the story here.
"This type of investigation is problematic. We feel this is a significant intrusion," said Alexi Wood of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. "Armed police officers are asking to be let into homes. We've had at least one call from a member very upset, feeling the police are being very intimidating with this type of activity."
Wood, of the civil liberties group, said she sees no problem with officers knocking on doors and talking to people about what happened to gather more information, but asking to look inside the home crosses the line. "Some people think if they don't let the police in, there could be consequences," Wood said. People can choose to exercise their right to refuse an officer entry, she said.
[Technorati tags: police search | police state | parkdale | rights | due process | wrongfully convicted | fascism]
02 December 2005
Role* Research - The Serious Stuff
Several people have recently asked me about the more, shall we say, theoretical work that underlies Role*. They are referring to my recently completed thesis. I have prepared a thesis synopsis [pdf] that summarizes in five pages what I took nearly 170 pages to derive. It includes the key elements from the literature, my derivation and situation of the particular aspects of the method, a description of the empirical research methodology, and a summary of the findings.
If, after reading the synopsis, you have a serious interest in the full work, please write to me describing your interest, and we'll see how I can help.
[Technorati tags: rolestar | thesis]
If, after reading the synopsis, you have a serious interest in the full work, please write to me describing your interest, and we'll see how I can help.
[Technorati tags: rolestar | thesis]
30 November 2005
"I Only Paint Fakes," and Offended People
Like many of you, I've ended up on a few listservs that are not so troublesome or voluminous that it merits the effort to unsubscribe, but they are only of peripheral interest. Mostly, it happens when I attend a meeting or seminar during which they pass a sign-up sheet for announcements of future events. Mostly, as it turns out, future events do not seem as interesting as the one that got me to loan out my name.
And so the emails roll in to the inbox, and out to the deleted mail file.
Today, a notice came on one particular list that is run by a professor at my institution about two former(?) students who were recently written up in minor news outlets. One of them, Diane Zorn, is engaged in a particularly interesting line of research concerning academics who suffer from what she calls, "The Imposter Phenomenon." As she describes it, the Imposter Phenomenon is
As interesting as is Zorn's work (not to mention the cool connection I can make with my own stuff), that's not the point of this post. The notice of Zorn's article came on the listserv, as I mentioned. One of the people on the list responded by saying, "academics and scholars feel like frauds because THEY ARE. I know it keeps me grounded knowing this simple truth." And then he referred to himself as "the fraud."
I read this statement in two ways. First, I saw it as a satirical commentary on the nature of the roles we all don in the course of our individual professions. Second, I read it as a reminder that we should not take ourselves seriously. Our work, our students, our commitments to each other - those aspects we should absolutely take seriously. Ourselves, never, as that leads to arrogance and the sort of haughty, ivory-towerish detachment of which many academics are accused. Truly great people realize this. Picasso was once apparently asked how many paintings he had created. He responded that the number was around 2000. When told that there were at least 5000 of his paintings for sale in the U.S. alone, he shrugged and said, "I only paint fakes."
The moderator of the list was not so sanguine at the attempted satirical commentary that reveals an important truth. She labelled the comment as "abusive" and said that she would "not tolerate it." The person who posted the comment was not only removed from the list, but a special email was sent to the rest of the list notifying all of the banishment that would undoubtedly prove to have a chilling effect on future commentary. It is within the prerogative of a list moderator to include and exclude whatever s/he would like. However, in this case the moderator is an avowed feminist (and thus nominally interested in promoting non-dominant discourse), and a professor in an institution renowned for encouraging dissenting voices and social justice.
Unfortunately, a sense of humour and an appreciation of the importance of satire to "speak truth to power" doesn't seem to be a prerequisite for her department.
Update: The person was reinstated, as he objected to a "one-strike-you're-out" rule as being unfair. The moderator, however, still deemed the comment objectionable, as she read it as disrespectful to the "vulnerability of intellectual exploration and expression." Given the tremendous privilege that academics enjoy, my reaction to this comment was certainly a raised eyebrow.
[Technorati tags: diane zorn | imposter phenomenon | rolestar | exo-self | satire | chill]
And so the emails roll in to the inbox, and out to the deleted mail file.
Today, a notice came on one particular list that is run by a professor at my institution about two former(?) students who were recently written up in minor news outlets. One of them, Diane Zorn, is engaged in a particularly interesting line of research concerning academics who suffer from what she calls, "The Imposter Phenomenon." As she describes it, the Imposter Phenomenon is
"an internal experience of intellectual phoniness common among high-achieving people". She has found that IP can affect anyone from PhD candidates preparing for their comprehensives to established and tenured professors. "At one workshop a professor who was two years away from retirement told me that he still lived in fear of being revealed as a fraud," said Zorn.I can relate to this phenomenon, but from a different ground. In my research on Role*, I describe the experience of what I call the "exo-self":
Exo-self is a shorthand for the apparent receptacle of extrinsic motivation. Through my years in corporate life, the social norms of my milieu necessitated external trappings, including demonstrations of affluence, hierarchical status, credentials and accreditations, as sources of personal value and validation. All of these are proxies for the ways in which others might regard me in the social contexts of work/life. That regard became so important to my sense of self that the proxy replaced any internal sense of worth, value or validation. I mistook these proxies as my self; the agglomeration of the proxies thus comprised my exo-self.I would thus identify Zorn's Imposter Phenomenon with the tensions that exist within an individual among the oppression of assuming her/his exo-self, their unique role* motivating aspects, and the specific roles in which they feel they must perform.
...My value instead was reflected in the trappings that adorn the exo-self; the trappings themselves awarded or acquired as a direct result of the external evaluations – sales wins, for example – over which I had relatively little direct influence (despite the prevailing fiction that underlies the salesman’s job), and even less control.
In general, the exo-self reflects not the capabilities or intrinsic worth of the individuals in question, but rather the dominant socio-cultural assessment of how well the individual plays her/his assigned and expected role in society at large, and the particular subculture within that society with which the individual chooses to associate.
As interesting as is Zorn's work (not to mention the cool connection I can make with my own stuff), that's not the point of this post. The notice of Zorn's article came on the listserv, as I mentioned. One of the people on the list responded by saying, "academics and scholars feel like frauds because THEY ARE. I know it keeps me grounded knowing this simple truth." And then he referred to himself as "the fraud."
I read this statement in two ways. First, I saw it as a satirical commentary on the nature of the roles we all don in the course of our individual professions. Second, I read it as a reminder that we should not take ourselves seriously. Our work, our students, our commitments to each other - those aspects we should absolutely take seriously. Ourselves, never, as that leads to arrogance and the sort of haughty, ivory-towerish detachment of which many academics are accused. Truly great people realize this. Picasso was once apparently asked how many paintings he had created. He responded that the number was around 2000. When told that there were at least 5000 of his paintings for sale in the U.S. alone, he shrugged and said, "I only paint fakes."
The moderator of the list was not so sanguine at the attempted satirical commentary that reveals an important truth. She labelled the comment as "abusive" and said that she would "not tolerate it." The person who posted the comment was not only removed from the list, but a special email was sent to the rest of the list notifying all of the banishment that would undoubtedly prove to have a chilling effect on future commentary. It is within the prerogative of a list moderator to include and exclude whatever s/he would like. However, in this case the moderator is an avowed feminist (and thus nominally interested in promoting non-dominant discourse), and a professor in an institution renowned for encouraging dissenting voices and social justice.
Unfortunately, a sense of humour and an appreciation of the importance of satire to "speak truth to power" doesn't seem to be a prerequisite for her department.
Update: The person was reinstated, as he objected to a "one-strike-you're-out" rule as being unfair. The moderator, however, still deemed the comment objectionable, as she read it as disrespectful to the "vulnerability of intellectual exploration and expression." Given the tremendous privilege that academics enjoy, my reaction to this comment was certainly a raised eyebrow.
[Technorati tags: diane zorn | imposter phenomenon | rolestar | exo-self | satire | chill]
28 November 2005
Juxtaposition of the Incongruent
Two juxtaposed posts on boingboing today that are striking in their demonstration of the fundamental tension of the Internet today. One aspect of that tension are those who are vested in an Industrial Age model of business and enterprise, while the other represents "network thinking," characteristic of a UCaPP - ubiquitously connected and pervasively proximate - world.
In the first corner are the telcos who consider the Internet as nothing more than a transport mechanism (that they own) for content (of which they want a part for the privilege of transporting). These are folks who consider the Internet as nothing more than a broadcast medium, as was radio, television, and heck - even telegraph. Doc Searls has a thought-provoking (if a tad long) essay that discusses Saving the Net: How to Keep the Carriers from Flushing the Net Down the Tubes. Consider what is on the telco's agenda. Here's Edward Whiteacre, CEO of SBC, the "baby bell" that just swallowed AT&T, one of the world's premier, tier 1 ISPs, as quoted in BusinessWeek: "The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment and for a Google or Yahoo! or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!" Why has the Internet become so important to the world of both commerce and culture? Simply because the Internet grew before short-sighted, greedy people - behaviours exemplified by Whiteacre - could stick their hooks in it. Searls observes,
In the other corner is someone who is not afraid of the changes, and in fact, has thrived because the changes have freed her from the indentured servitude that the old business models represent. Jane Siberry, a marvellous musicians whose music I have loved for years, has created a truly UCaPP business for promoting and selling her music. As the EFF's Fred von Lohmann describes it,
[Technorati tags: doc searls | jane siberry | carriers | sbc | business models]
In the first corner are the telcos who consider the Internet as nothing more than a transport mechanism (that they own) for content (of which they want a part for the privilege of transporting). These are folks who consider the Internet as nothing more than a broadcast medium, as was radio, television, and heck - even telegraph. Doc Searls has a thought-provoking (if a tad long) essay that discusses Saving the Net: How to Keep the Carriers from Flushing the Net Down the Tubes. Consider what is on the telco's agenda. Here's Edward Whiteacre, CEO of SBC, the "baby bell" that just swallowed AT&T, one of the world's premier, tier 1 ISPs, as quoted in BusinessWeek: "The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment and for a Google or Yahoo! or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!" Why has the Internet become so important to the world of both commerce and culture? Simply because the Internet grew before short-sighted, greedy people - behaviours exemplified by Whiteacre - could stick their hooks in it. Searls observes,
As a place, the Net has always been independent of the carriage on which it relies, which is one reason it also encourages and rewards independence. The independence of the Net and its inhabitants is precisely what accounts for countless new businesses and improved old ones...
Advocating and saving the Net is not a partisan issue. Lawmakers and regulators aren't screwing up the Net because they're "Friends of Bush" or "Friends of Hollywood" or liberals or conservatives. They're doing it because one way of framing the Net - as a transport system for content - is winning over another way of framing the Net - as a place where markets and business and culture and governance can all thrive. Otherwise helpful documents, including Ernest Partridge's "After the Internet" fail because they blame "Bush-friendly conservative corporations" and appeal only to one political constituency, in this case, progressives. Freedom, independence, the sovereignty of the individual, private rights and open frontiers are a few among many values shared by progressives and conservatives. All are better supported, in obvious ways, by the Net as a place rather than as a transport system.
In the other corner is someone who is not afraid of the changes, and in fact, has thrived because the changes have freed her from the indentured servitude that the old business models represent. Jane Siberry, a marvellous musicians whose music I have loved for years, has created a truly UCaPP business for promoting and selling her music. As the EFF's Fred von Lohmann describes it,
Her new download store, recently unveiled at her site, is a model of what the music downloading world could be. All of her songs are available as plain MP3s, which means they will play on your iPod and are not loaded with DRM restrictions (much less evil rootkits).Go check out her site, and her music. You won't be disappointed by either the quality of her singing, or the quality of her business acumen.
And you pay whatever you like for them. Yes, you set whatever price you like. Options include:
* free ("gift from Jane");
* a standard price (CAN$0.99);
* self-determined price - pay now; or
* self-determined price - pay later (to facilitate try-before-you-buy).
When you purchase the song, moreover, you can select up to 5 people to whom you can email a link to the song... She summed it up this way: "I want to treat people the way I'd like to be treated. I don't like being treated like a child, so I won't be doing that to other people."
[Technorati tags: doc searls | jane siberry | carriers | sbc | business models]
Why Johnny and Janey Can't Read
What with being ill and then trying to catch up late in the semester, I've been away from blogging for a while. Today, however, I had the opportunity to give a lecture to the University of Toronto Senior Alumni Association, a group that believes that one's brain is like a muscle - it needs to be continually exercised to stay in shape.
I shared with them my thoughts on "Why Johnny and Janey Can't Read, and Why Mr. and Ms. Smith Can't Teach: The challenge of multiple media literacies in tumultuous times." The talk traced the thinking of the Toronto School of Communication. In doing so, I
As with almost all my stuff, it's available for download [pdf] and reuse under a Creative Commons license.
[Technorati tags: orality | literacy | ucapp | ubiquitous connectivity | pervasive proximity]
I shared with them my thoughts on "Why Johnny and Janey Can't Read, and Why Mr. and Ms. Smith Can't Teach: The challenge of multiple media literacies in tumultuous times." The talk traced the thinking of the Toronto School of Communication. In doing so, I
introduce the notion that our beloved literacy is now nothing but a quaint notion, an aesthetic form that is as irrelevant to the real questions and issues of pedagogy today as is recited poetry – clearly not devoid of value, but equally no longer the structuring force of society. I will ask you to consider that our society’s obsessive focus on literacy would doom future generations to oblivion and ignorance, if only they cared a whit about what, and how, we think. Further, I am going to challenge the assumptive ground upon which our institutions of education – primary, secondary and tertiary – are built, and raise the real question of our time – and of any time – namely, what is valued as knowledge, who decides, and who is valued as authority.The folks who attended were an attentive and engaged audience, asking many thought-provoking questions after the lecture, and raising many important issues for our time. I had a thoroughly enjoyable time, as I hope they did too.
As with almost all my stuff, it's available for download [pdf] and reuse under a Creative Commons license.
[Technorati tags: orality | literacy | ucapp | ubiquitous connectivity | pervasive proximity]
09 November 2005
Rehabilitation or Change? Remaking the Corporation
Note to readers: It never rains, but it pours, as the cliché goes. So many bloggable items have hit me today, after a while of focusing on other matters. And then there are the items for which there is just too little time... On with the post!
What to do about corporations? There are few among the population who believe that our current corporate form is the best we can do, and many who believe that some of our modern corporations are evil incarnate. The question is, what should be done.
Over the next few years, I am embarking on a serious (as in PhD-serious) study of the emergence of a new corporate form that is consistent with the 21st century, as opposed to being grounded in the 19th century and the Industrial Age. More about that over the coming months. However, an article came to my attention this morning that raises the question of apparent corporate rehabilitation vs. real corporate change in the context of the Washington, D.C.-based Business for Social Responsibility group.
The group was originally founded in the late 1990s by Laury Hammel who
However, the group has been recently taken over by large business interests. The new board has shut down local chapters, and forced out those who are interested in grassroots influence in the process of change for social responsiblity. In particular, any discussion of government regulation, national health care, war and peace, cracking down on criminal activities by corporate executives was to be stricken from the BSR agenda. The reason?
The nominal theme of BSR's new corporate image is "change from within." The actual effect is nominal rehabilitation in order to become more acceptable to a population who tune into the buzzwords of social responsibility, but are generally unable to dig beneath the surface. Here's the real bottom line: Change isn't coming from within, it is coming from without - people without jobs, people without health care, people without a living wage, people without justice and equity, people without privilege, people without local investment, people without blinkers and blinders who can see what is actually being done to both the social environment and the bio-environment, are the ones who will begin to effect the environmental changes that are now possible under UCaPP conditions.
And that certainly is a change.
[Technorati tags: bsr | business for social responsibility]
What to do about corporations? There are few among the population who believe that our current corporate form is the best we can do, and many who believe that some of our modern corporations are evil incarnate. The question is, what should be done.
Over the next few years, I am embarking on a serious (as in PhD-serious) study of the emergence of a new corporate form that is consistent with the 21st century, as opposed to being grounded in the 19th century and the Industrial Age. More about that over the coming months. However, an article came to my attention this morning that raises the question of apparent corporate rehabilitation vs. real corporate change in the context of the Washington, D.C.-based Business for Social Responsibility group.
The group was originally founded in the late 1990s by Laury Hammel who
owns a string of health clubs in Boston. Hammel wanted BSR to help business become more socially responsible, but also to engage in the public policy debate. "We were sick and tired of having the Chamber of Commerce being the voice for business," Hammel said. So, he started the group, and brought in such luminaries as Arnold Hiatt, former CEO of Stride Rite.The idea was to create a body through which the voices of small and medium-sized independent businesses could be heard, and potentially have an influence on policy.
However, the group has been recently taken over by large business interests. The new board has shut down local chapters, and forced out those who are interested in grassroots influence in the process of change for social responsiblity. In particular, any discussion of government regulation, national health care, war and peace, cracking down on criminal activities by corporate executives was to be stricken from the BSR agenda. The reason?
"[Former Levi Strauss vice-president, and now BSR President, Robert] Dunn didn't want anything to do with influencing government policy," Hammel said. "Dunn believed that we would never change the world if we didn't get big corporations behind us. And we would never get them on board if we kept our foot in the public policy arena."So now, BSR has become yet another lobby group for large business under the imprimateur of social responsiblity. The list of corporate sponsors of BSR's recent conference can be read right from the Fortune 25 list of corporate giants: ExxonMobil, Chevron, AstraZeneca, Walt Disney, Pfizer, General Electric, Altria/Philip Morris, McDonald's, Edison International, Starbucks, Ford Motor Company, Coca-Cola, Abbott Labs, Microsoft, Monsanto, KPMG, Chiquita.
The nominal theme of BSR's new corporate image is "change from within." The actual effect is nominal rehabilitation in order to become more acceptable to a population who tune into the buzzwords of social responsibility, but are generally unable to dig beneath the surface. Here's the real bottom line: Change isn't coming from within, it is coming from without - people without jobs, people without health care, people without a living wage, people without justice and equity, people without privilege, people without local investment, people without blinkers and blinders who can see what is actually being done to both the social environment and the bio-environment, are the ones who will begin to effect the environmental changes that are now possible under UCaPP conditions.
And that certainly is a change.
[Technorati tags: bsr | business for social responsibility]
Fallujah - The Hidden Massacre
What really happened at Fallujah in 2004? A new documentary, produced by the Italian TV network, RAI, reveals that Weapons of Mass Destruction - and in particular chemical weapons - were used in Iraq by the U.S. military against civilians.
The weapon in question, apparently called MK77, is the replacement for napalm that caused so much horrific death and destruction in Vietnam, and was subsequently banned by the United Nations. However, a weapon with precisely the same grotesque and deadly effects, under a different name, is being used by the very country that is loudly decrying WMDs.
MK77 apparently contains "whiskey pete," the military slang for white phosphorus. According to two soldiers who participated in these missions, and now (after being discharged) have supplied information to the RAI producers, white phosphorus incendiary bombs explode on impact and spread a gaseous cloud for 150 metres in all directions. Wherever the gas touches skin, the skin burns immediately. White phosphorus gas actually burns the skin to the bone beneath clothing, leaving grotesque corpses with apparently undamaged clothing. Gas masks are of no use, since the gas melts the rubber, and the skin underneath. If you inhale the gas, "it will blister your throat and lungs, and you will suffocate, and then burn from the inside out."
This nearly 30-minute documentary (in English), Fallujah - The Hidden Massacre, (asf version here)contains very graphic and very disturbing footage of the results of what cannot be described in any other terms than American war crimes. View with caution.
Talk about retrieving the Vietnam era...
(Thanks, I think, Gianluca.)
[Technorati tags: iraq | fallujah | wmd | chemical weapons | rai | war crimes]
The weapon in question, apparently called MK77, is the replacement for napalm that caused so much horrific death and destruction in Vietnam, and was subsequently banned by the United Nations. However, a weapon with precisely the same grotesque and deadly effects, under a different name, is being used by the very country that is loudly decrying WMDs.
MK77 apparently contains "whiskey pete," the military slang for white phosphorus. According to two soldiers who participated in these missions, and now (after being discharged) have supplied information to the RAI producers, white phosphorus incendiary bombs explode on impact and spread a gaseous cloud for 150 metres in all directions. Wherever the gas touches skin, the skin burns immediately. White phosphorus gas actually burns the skin to the bone beneath clothing, leaving grotesque corpses with apparently undamaged clothing. Gas masks are of no use, since the gas melts the rubber, and the skin underneath. If you inhale the gas, "it will blister your throat and lungs, and you will suffocate, and then burn from the inside out."
This nearly 30-minute documentary (in English), Fallujah - The Hidden Massacre, (asf version here)contains very graphic and very disturbing footage of the results of what cannot be described in any other terms than American war crimes. View with caution.
Talk about retrieving the Vietnam era...
(Thanks, I think, Gianluca.)
[Technorati tags: iraq | fallujah | wmd | chemical weapons | rai | war crimes]
RoleStar at CSTD
Yesterday, I had been invited to do a poster session at the annual conference of CSTD, a professional association for workplace learning and performance practitioners. For those of you not in the academic world, think back to the sixth or seventh grade, when you had to submit your school project on a sheet of bristol board, stand up in front of the class and present it. Afterwards, it was pinned up on the wall - if you were good enough, you got a gold star.
Academic poster sessions are the same thing - without the gold star. In this case, we were asked to prepare a 99-second pitch about our research. Here's how I condensed my 161-page thesis into about 90 seconds:
I prepared a 10-page handout that includes a one-page overview of RoleStar and the Discovery Conversation, the fairy tale that describes the theory in a way that even a child can understand, a synopsis of the thesis in a more academic tone, and an invitation letter that asks,
Thanks to those who stopped by to chat, and especially to one of my regular readers.
[Technorati tags: rolestar | cstd | motivation | life coaching | career counselling]
Academic poster sessions are the same thing - without the gold star. In this case, we were asked to prepare a 99-second pitch about our research. Here's how I condensed my 161-page thesis into about 90 seconds:
What motivates you? What really engages you in whatever it is that you do? Oh, I’m not talking about money, or power, or responsibility, or being involved in decision making – these are all external, environmental factors that, while important, don’t get to the heart of your intrinsic motivation. My research shows that what you do is not as important to your sense of engagement with your work as how you go about doing it, in terms of the interpersonal dynamics and interactions that you create in your immediate environment. By employing a composite qualitative methodology that incorporates heuristic inquiry, grounded theory and a feminist approach to interviewing, I have developed the theory, and practice, of enabling most people to discover their unique motivating, and demotivating, aspects. In doing so, I reverse the conventional notion of role, from being a mere enactment of behaviours, to becoming an empowering resource. My name is Mark Federman, and my project is called, “Rolestar – Discovering the passion in your work and your life.”Not bad, if I do say so myself.
I prepared a 10-page handout that includes a one-page overview of RoleStar and the Discovery Conversation, the fairy tale that describes the theory in a way that even a child can understand, a synopsis of the thesis in a more academic tone, and an invitation letter that asks,
Is a role* discovery conversation for you? Are you facing an important career decision, or concerned about your career progress to date? Are you considering a new career at mid-life? Or, are you seeking a deeper understanding of what motivates and demotivates you, to figure out why you are sometimes totally engaged and passionate about what you do, and at other times, completely turned off and apathetic?You can download the brochure for yourself right here [pdf].
If you are seeking a brand new approach to career and life coaching, please contact me – perhaps I can help. You can reach me by email.
Thanks to those who stopped by to chat, and especially to one of my regular readers.
[Technorati tags: rolestar | cstd | motivation | life coaching | career counselling]
And How is One Certified as Sane?
Although this story is a year old, one of our students brought it to my attention last evening. According to the British Medical Journal (and numerous other sources), Bush plans to screen whole US population for mental illness
There is much discussion in response to the article on the BMJ site.
(Thanks Paula!)
[Technorati tags: bmj | new freedom initiative | mental illness] | psychiatric screening]
A sweeping mental health initiative will be unveiled by President George W Bush in July. The plan promises to integrate mentally ill patients fully into the community by providing "services in the community, rather than institutions...In other words, everyone gets screened, and issued the right drug to treat what ails 'em. One of the respondents to the article reports,
According to the commission, "Each year, young children are expelled from preschools and childcare facilities for severely disruptive behaviours and emotional disorders." Schools, wrote the commission, are in a "key position" to screen the 52 million students and 6 million adults who work at the schools.
The commission also recommended "Linkage [of screening] with treatment and supports" including "state-of-the-art treatments" using "specific medications for specific conditions." The commission commended the Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP) as a "model" medication treatment plan that "illustrates an evidence-based practice that results in better consumer outcomes."
The Bush screening program asks a variety of questions about mental well-being. Examples include: "In the last year, has there been a time when nothing was fun for you and you just weren't interested in anything?" and "Has there been a time when you couldn't think as clearly or as fast as usual?"Imagine a society in which people who believe the government is acting against their interests, and that members of the government may be conspiring to commit nefarious acts, (like... I don't know... how about thrusting the country into a costly war under false pretenses that will benefit certain business interests while costing tens of thousands of lives, two thousand of which - and counting - are American lives), are mandatorily screened, diagnosed as being delusional with paranoid tendencies, and medicated to shut them up. This strategy is far more effective (in theory, at least) than directly suppressing their speech, or making them disappear, as often occurs in other, less sophisticated, fascist regimes. I'm just saying...
Is this for real? Taken in account the abovementioned questions, every US citizen will be a candidate to be labelled mentally ill... So, according to this plan, which seems to be going ahead, EVERY man, woman and child in the United States is to be screened, analyzed and monitored by the US government and legal enforceable personalized "care" regimes applied to those exhibiting signs of "mental illness"
There is much discussion in response to the article on the BMJ site.
(Thanks Paula!)
[Technorati tags: bmj | new freedom initiative | mental illness] | psychiatric screening]
03 November 2005
EPIC 2015 - The Sequel to the Future
I wrote about EPIC 2014 shortly after it came out a year ago. As you may recall, it told the story of the future of mass-news-media, in which all was swallowed up by "Googlezon." Well, a year has passed, and accordingly, Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson have again cast their vision forward with an update. EPIC 2015 isn't as dark as 2014, but it still asks some provocative questions in the context of telling future history.
In a world (today, that is) in which the news-media create, rather than merely report on, the news, what happens when the current reversal from consumers to producers runs its course? In 2015, according to Sloan and Thompson, news ranges from the profound to the trivial - much like today's news and commentary, come to think of it. McLuhan always said "never predict anything that hasn't already happened," and I have to agree with both McLuhan, and Sloan and Thompson: Under UCaPP (ubiquitously connected and pervasively proximate) conditions, the effects of EPIC are already here.
[Technorati tags: epic 2015 | robin sloan | matt thompson | ucapp | googlezon | mass media | news media]
In a world (today, that is) in which the news-media create, rather than merely report on, the news, what happens when the current reversal from consumers to producers runs its course? In 2015, according to Sloan and Thompson, news ranges from the profound to the trivial - much like today's news and commentary, come to think of it. McLuhan always said "never predict anything that hasn't already happened," and I have to agree with both McLuhan, and Sloan and Thompson: Under UCaPP (ubiquitously connected and pervasively proximate) conditions, the effects of EPIC are already here.
[Technorati tags: epic 2015 | robin sloan | matt thompson | ucapp | googlezon | mass media | news media]
01 November 2005
Gender Divide?
I don't usually take transit, preferring to walk the hour to and from the campus. This morning, with an early medical appointment downtown, I found myself on the subway about 8:30 a.m. Looking around the jam-packed subway car, I noticed that women outnumbered men by a factor of 2 to 1. (I actually counted among the people I could see.) Glancing at subway platforms, especially at the more crowded stations, I noticed the same gender disparity.
Is this difference merely a random occurence?
Do men travel earlier to work?
Does public transit attract more women than men?
If there is an explanation that accounts for this difference, it would undoubtedly reveal some interesting insights into the nature and dynamics of either the gendered workplace, or the gendered (perhaps classed?) nature of urban transportation, or both.
[Technorati tags: gender | public transit | ttc | subway]
Is this difference merely a random occurence?
Do men travel earlier to work?
Does public transit attract more women than men?
If there is an explanation that accounts for this difference, it would undoubtedly reveal some interesting insights into the nature and dynamics of either the gendered workplace, or the gendered (perhaps classed?) nature of urban transportation, or both.
[Technorati tags: gender | public transit | ttc | subway]
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