Day: February 23, 2008

Attending the session Don’t call it a Blog, Call it an Educational Publishing Platform by D’Arcy Norman and Jim Groom. So much information here with such humor, all in the joy of open source education content and assistance to edubloggers. They had so many links they showed, I hope they publish them on the wiki.

Increasing Internet connectivity issues here. Seems people who are live streaming the sessions are filling the network bandwidth.

There is so much information here, I wish this session were in the morning. Perhaps they will provide the links they showed on the wiki or their blogs?

Technorati Tags: nv08,northernvoice

Why Facebook 101? That is the question that Phillip Jeffrey started his session with. He said he spoke about Facebook last year at Moosecamp, though I somehow missed that. Interestingly, this is one of the first times I have heard people here at Northern Voice speak about Facebook.

I just don’t seem to “get” Facebook. I understand the concept, of course, but being somewhat shy I find it a strange concept to go look for people I don’t know and add these people as “friends.” How can I have friends I don’t know (whether F2F or electronically)? Another thing I really do not “get” about Facebook is that there are not RSS feeds. Why should I have to log on to Facebook to see if there is a new discussion in one of the groups of which I am a member?

Phillip is now showing his Facebook profile. Completely overwhelming how long the main page is and how many links and groups and favorites. I can’t imagine how many hours he must have spent setting that up in that way. 

He showed how there are lots of privacy settings, to be able to differentiate between fiends, acquaintances, and others. This almost seems to be the main point of this session — what do the different privacy settings mean.

I was hoping there would be more of the reasons to use Facebook that would convince me to use it. Perhaps this is something I need to accept will not work for me, and that Facebook is just an application I do not like? I certainly spend enough energy trying to “get” Facebook and trying to figure out why people spend hours there “friending” others, as if there is a popularity contest in having the most number of people who we do not know.

Perhaps one of the things about Facebook I do not like is that I do not own the items that are uploaded there. There is not a way to be able to export or output information out of Facebook. Once it is there, there is not a way to be able to get it.

I wonder if my feelings about Facebook are related to my interest in post-modernism? Perhaps I do not like the idea of a place where everybody else seems to go and follow almost without a reason that makes sense to me. Do I really have the interest and time to sit at Facebook and see who is going to what group and saying whatever? I already do this via Twitter. Perhaps that is enough.

Ultimately, Facebook is not worth the energy I spend trying to figure it out. I hardly use it anyway, so should probably remove the components from it I do not value. Perhaps I should think about Facebook as a value proposition–what value, if any, have I ever received from it? With all the applications and personalities out there, should I have to use anything I really do not want to?

The Northern Voice wrap-up session is now occurring. Great that they are having this today, especially after some feedback (from me and perhaps others) that last year things just ended without any closure. Hurray, I won a bag for having come here from the furthest away – New York.

Cool bag I won with the Flock logo on it. Will take a photo of it and up on Flickr it will go!

Nice brief session — to the point, with some conference-goer recognition, debrief, and next-steps. Who could ask for anything more? Well, for those of us who can, there is a #nv08 wiki page for feedback!

Technorati Tags: nv08,northernvoice,flock,feedback

My friend Arjun is speaking at Northern Voice right now. What a booming voice and feeling of authenticity within government. Arjun is on the City Council of Kamloops, and it is inspiring that he blogs publicly and uses it as a forum to communicate with his constituents.

Somebody in the audience just mentioned that this is a powerful idea for a politician to publicly speak about issues. I wonder if anybody in the US does this?

As a politician, he has an ego, but this is still a challenge.

When Arjun started his blog, he had to write a disclaimer about why he was going to blog about it. It also made people nervous, especially since he is on the inside. “I almost have to be an ambassador for transparency.” Wow, great quote.

Somebody just shared that the mayor of Dawson City is also a blogger.

Arjun is discussing some really interesting items about how he interacts with his neighbors and colleagues in his town. It must be a challenge for him to hear criticism of his voting and his work from the population. I have never seen such clear interaction between a politician and the ordinary folk. I can’t imagine American politicians (nobody national, and not even local in Manhattan) having something like this without being so nervous about social media.

I wonder if my politicians have ever considered this? I should look into this. Thank you for beginning this conversation for and with us, Arjun!