Digital Dialogues

BlogTalk 2008 Announced

The 5th international BlogTalk conference on social software has been announced!
BlogTalk 2008
Where: Cork, Ireland
When: 3 - 4 March, 2008

   

"The conference is designed to maintain a sustainable dialog between developers, innovative academics and scholars who study social software, practitioners and administrators in corporate and educational settings, and other general members of the social software community.

We invite you to submit a proposal for presentation at the BlogTalk 2008 conference. Possible areas include, but are not limited to:

* Forms and consequences of emerging social software practices
* Social software in enterprise and educational environments
* The political impact of social software
* Applications, prototypes, concepts and standards

Participants and proposal categories:

Due to the interdisciplinary nature of the conference, audiences will come from different fields of practice and will have different professional backgrounds. We strongly encourage proposals to bridge these cultural differences and to be understandable for all groups alike. Along those lines, we will offer three different submission categories:

* Academic
* Developer
* Practitioner

For academics, BlogTalk is an ideal conference for presenting and exchanging research work from current and future social software projects at an international level. For developers, the conference is a great opportunity to fly ideas, visions and prototypes in front of a distinguished audience of peers, to discuss, to link-up and to learn (developers may choose to give a practical demonstration rather than a formal presentation if they so wish). For practitioners, this is a venue to discuss use cases for social software and to report on any results you may have with like-minded individuals."

Proposal submission deadline: November 16th, 2007
(and it's peer-reviewed - just in case you need the "brownie" points)!

It will coincide with start of the academic year and start of semester, but I'm sure the students won't mind a week of self-directed activities!!! ;-)
See you there!

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10 Ways to a Killer Blog

I was cruising around SlideShare today - just looking for some engaging resources - and I came across this contribution from Robert and Maryam Scoble !
OK - so it's not brand new (10 months old) but it makes some good points and with a couple of hundred students all starting up their edublogs, I think this slide show can add another voice to the "Why?" & "How?" & "What for's?"!

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Edublogs 2.0 + 200

Happy birthday to edublogs - turning 2 years old and to the new, superdooper upgraded version 2.0 (I guess everybody has to be 2.0 these days, right?).

Keeping in synch with all the 2s, it's timely that the 2nd semester of University started this week and another 200+ students will be starting their edublogs in the 2nd week of semester (next week!).

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Vodcasts in YouTube

So the jtelag has kicked in and it's midnight in London - I'm wide awake... I thought I might as well catch-up on a couple of posts that I had wanted to do before I left Sydney!

Here's 2 short videos - or vodcasts - 9minutes each - from Alex Halavais on blogging in education. Not only is the content engaging but they also demonstrate how you can use  a site like YouTube and a short message to enrich the learning experience!

Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LA-OzkEKe4

Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41l9D0i9ZVo

Enjoy!

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Keeping online employees in-line!

According to the press release (11 July2006) on the American Management Association  site:

"...employers are fighting back by firing workers who violate computer privileges. Fully 26% of employers have terminated employees for e-mail misuse. Another 2% have dismissed workers for inappropriate instant messenger (IM) chat. And nearly 2% have fired workers for offensive blog content—including posts on employees’ personal home-based blogs."

"Employee bloggers mistakenly believe the First Amendment gives them the right to say whatever they want on their personal blogs. Wrong! The First Amendment only restricts government control of speech; it does not protect jobs. Bloggers who work for private employers in employment-at-will states can be fired for just about any reason—including blogging at home on their own time or at the office during work hours,” said Nancy Flynn, author of the newly released book Blog Rules (AMACOM, July 2006) and executive director of The ePolicy Institute.  In spite of the confusion, fewer than 2% of organizations have educated employee bloggers about the First Amendment and privacy rights."

"...When it comes to potential risks, unmanaged blogging dwarfs e-mail and IM.  Among the blog risks detailed in Flynn’s new book Blog Rules are copyright infringement, invasion of privacy, defamation, sexual harassment and other legal claims; trade secret theft, financial disclosures, and other security breaches; blog mob attacks and other PR nightmares; productivity drains; and mismanagement of electronic business records. "

OK - so - this captured my interest....what exactly are the Blog Rules and when do they apply??
From the link to the book on the AMA site you can access the "36 Ruless to Keep You in Business - and Out of Court - and Your Corporate Reputation Intact". Now - I've selected some favourites and applied the ABB hierarchy to them (Flynn's rule numbers are shown 2nd):

ABB Rule #1 [Blog Rule #21]: Blogging culture demands absolute honesty.
ABB Rule #2 [Blog Rule #15]: Employee training is key to complaince with blog content, usage and retention policy.
ABB Rule #3 [Blog Rule #28]: Blogging can get you fired!
ABB Rule #4 [BlogRule #29]: Blogging can get you sued!
ABB Rule #5 [Blog Rule #31]: Blog posts never die - they remain archived and accessible forever.
ABB Rule #6 [Blog Rule #7]: A business blog opens the organisation up to potential disasters.
ABB Rule #7 [Blog Rule #6]: The strategic management of blogs or any other electronic business communications tool begins with the establishment of written rules and policies governing usage and content.
ABB Rule # 8 [Blog Rule #13]: Treat blog posts and comments as business records.
ABB Rule #9 [Blog Rule #11]: Require employees to sign a confidentiality agreement to protect trade secrets and confidential data belonging to the organisations, employees, customer, business partners, and other third parties.
ABB Rule #10 - Repeat Blog Rule # 15 - Employee training
ABB Rule #11 [Blog Rule #12]: Use discipline to maximise employee compliance with blog rules, policies, and procedures.
ABB Rule #12 [Blog Rule #19]: Consider imposing a strict anti-blog policy
ABB Rule #13 [Blog Rule #25]: Incorporate the rules of blog etiquette into the organisation's blog policy.
ABB Rule #14 [Blog Rule #22]: Assign a lawyer or other responsible party to review, edit, and - as necessary - delete readers' comments pre-post.
ABB Rule #15 [Blog Rule #4]: It's the casual, conversational, anything-goes nature of the blog that makes it both so appealing to blog writers and readers.
ABB Rule # 16 [no Blog Rule equivalent]: Start recruitment process to fill gaps created by above (and not mentioned) blog rules.

Now - that gives my weekend blogging and writing something to consider.... ;-)

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Social Software being adopted by the Australian Government

Today's Australian IT covered this story on the adoption of social software technologies into the public services:

"THE federal government may tap the vast pool of social resources behind blogs and websites such as Flickr and Wikipedia to boost its online information services.
The Department of Finance's lead information technology body, AGIMO, has begun experimenting with wikis and blogs with a view to expanding their use throughout commonwealth departments and agencies...

The trial was part of a strategy to use online services to improve engagement between the community and government by 2010, the spokesman said.
"The government is developing services aligned with Web 2.0 with its implementation of the 2006 e-government strategy,"

And that's NOT mentioning the potential for learning...!!!
So - if you're an educator in the public sector, and you haven't explored these technologies yet...there's still time to become savvy by 2010 - but wouldn't it be great if the L & D practitioners were the ones leading by example and showing the departments how effectively these technologies can be integrated into everyday learning in the workplace.

Plogs - from Amazon

I've just logged on to Amazon and was told I now had a Plog!
What's a Plog????
Well, having just read an article in the UK Times about Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom's blog (he's based in North Wales), I thought it might be something to do with police-blogging! (He is considering podcasts - which have been coined as "Plodcasts" !)
But no!!!
It's nothing that straightforward.....

"Your Amazon.com Plog is a personalized web log that appears on your customer home page. Every person's Plog is different ... and just like a blog, your Plog is sorted in reverse chronological order. Each post also gives you the opportunity to provide feedback to the sender as to whether you liked the post or not. This feedback loop means your Plog becomes even more relevant and interesting over time. Your Plog will appear if you are logged into our web site and is visible only to you."

OK - got that? hmmm - so who is the "sender"? And if it's just like a weblog, then why isn't the sender me?
Why can only I see it? What's the value of that?
Guess I'll have to play around with it a bit more and see what happens - but right now, I just don't get it!

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Tangled words blamed on blogging!! -

A recent article (2May 2006) in the SMH (replicated from the Guardian) opens the article with this claim:

"If you believe the internet is the fount of all wisdom, giving free rein to bloggers to exercise their vocal cords, think again. Ancient English cliches and expressions are being mangled by the culture of cut and paste and the spread of unchecked writing on the internet."

"Mangled by the culture of cut and paste ....unchecked writing on the internet".....oh please....is the internet and blogging solely responsible for this.... If someone is cutting and pasting, then doesn't that infer the original document/writing is also incorrect....that is before we even consider the nature or purpose of the writing being referred to!

There's no mention of sms language and what this is doing to written language....have you ever tried to read a 1,000 word essay written in sms?? I have - and it was a very frightening experience (knowing I couldn't read it - mainly!). But - isn't the beauty of English about the constant changing nature of the language? It's already a mish-mash of other languages, with words adopted/borrowed or stolen from so many others??

It's about the context of the language. Isn't it about communication with the intended reader? OK -so there's spell check - all those little red squiggly lines in Word documents and most weblog editors now include this function - but the problem is more complex according to the article. Here's some examples:

"Straight-laced" is used 66 per cent of the time even though it should be written "strait-laced"

"Just desserts" is used 58 per cent of the time instead of the correct spelling "just deserts" (desert is a variation of deserve), while 59 per cent of all written examples say a "font of knowledge or wisdom" when it should be "fount".

"butt naked" instead of the correct "buck naked" (perhaps they actually intended to use butt!)

"...another linguistic trend is the American habit of turning two words into one, such as someday, anymore and underway. "

That's before we start on the mixed metaphors....!!!

So - reviewing these examples - can we blame this on cut & paste and internet writing....I think not....perhaps we return to the teaching of the language... The number of my University students who don't know the difference between "their" and "they're" and then there's the apostrophe issue...punctuation and use of paragraphs isn't far behind and then...welll, I might stop here...before I get too carried away!

It's not about freedom of speech....

I picked this article up from the SMH today "Chinese professor sues blog host" - it reports on a Chinese professor who was not amused when he read some comments from one of his students.

"So when the operators of the hosting website refused to remove the offending language, he decided to sue them for harm to his reputation, in what Chinese media yesterday called the first such case to come before the country's courts."

Initially my reaction was about internet censorhsip issues (perhaps that's the angle the article wanted us to go with...) - and then I re-read it - it talks about " offensive remarks" and I started to wonder if realistically, it's a case of defamation!! Now defamation, slander or similar laws apply to publicly published works - and a weblog is publicly published - so - it's defamation!
Now I don't think our laws would hold up suing the weblog host company (but I guess they have more money?), they would be going for the individual - however, that's not really my point!

The article is a timely reminder, as I prepare for my classess and the start of a new semester - and another 70 or so new webloggers - that it is part of MY responsiblity to ensure they fully understand the implications (and potential consequences) of publicly publishing their work / comments / opinions etc on their weblogs!

Pigeon bloggers.....

No - it's not a joke! I came across this article in the SMH (2Feb06) - the original article is in the current edition of New Scientist (but you have to subscribe to read the full text).

So - they've enlisted some pigeons, fitted them with GPS receivers, air pollution sensors, and a mobile phone (hope it's a light weight one!) that send back sms messages to a smog blog!!! How cool is that - pigeons that can sms and blog....(I wonder if it's in pigeon english?)

"The pigeon bloggers are due to be released at the Inter-Society for Electronic Arts' annual symposium in San Jose on 5 August. The data they send back will be displayed on the blog in the form of an interactive map. As well as providing local residents with real-time data on air quality, da Costa hopes the pigeon blog will inspire people to come up with new ways to monitor the environment. The pigeons will also carry cameras around their necks and post aerial photos to the blog."

I wonder if a pigeon blog will soon be abbreviated to a "plog"??

Hope these guys are really STRONG pigeons - it appears to be quite a load!