Felicia M. Sullivan, Ph.D.

Infothought: New Gatekeepers Are Still GATEKEEPERS: ” A soft answer turneth away wrath. — Proverbs

Doc Searls, one of the nicest A-listers, writes a reply to one of my comments, in part:

… it pains me to think I’m being cruel without knowing it to a blogger who’s trying just as hard as I am – or maybe harder – to make sense of things. So, if that’s what I did with that post, my apologies to Tristan, Scott, Seth and anybody else who took offense.

Thank you. That’s very generous.

Here’s the problem:

I have this idea that the blogosphere is the one place in the world – or perhaps an entirely new world, or a part of a new world, created on the Net – where there is no need for class, for caste, for gates or keepers of anything.

Regrets. It’s not. Let’s stop right there. This is an idea that goes way back in a certain type of mythologizing – whether it’s called the Classless Society, The New Socialist Man, The Wild West, The Wide-Open Frontier, etc. – of a New Era where rank and privilege have been abolished, and all is based on individual merit. I wish it were true too. But sadly, wishing won’t make it so (and mistakenly believing it can get people deeply hurt in various ways).”

Infothought: FON-ey business, or The A-list profit algorithm?: “Wall Street Journal: Blog Buzz on High-Tech Start-Ups Causes Some Static (via Infectious Greed):

But the tiny company [FON] also got publicity from another source: influential commentators on the Internet who write blogs — including some who may be compensated in the future for advising FON about its business.

…

The avalanche of blogging about FON, much of it from people now tied to the four-month-old company, highlights the rising influence of blogs in shaping opinions about tech start-ups, particularly in Silicon Valley. It also reveals the possible conflicts of interest such complicated relationships can dredge up.

Earlier, I had posted a comment about this on one A-lister’s blog (slightly expanded):

Regarding: ‘I joined the advisory board without asking whether there would be any financial reward. (The answer, it later turned out, was that there might be, depending on how the company did in the marketplace.)'”

Infothought: More stats-blogging and proof of gatekeeping: “hate to bore away what few readers I have, but, sadly, mathematics keeps showing I’m not going to ever get that many in the first place (which again, is the major discouragement to me from launching into a lot of unpaid Google research). Let’s do the numbers …

There was an amusing reference to me in a comment at The Blogging of the President:

Stirling, you are beginning to sound like Seth Finkelstein, also smart and usually ignored.

I like that. So true :-(. Anyway, it was worth 15 referers for readers.”

Smart Mobs: Daily Show video on social networking

Community Blogs and Power Research: An Interview with Lisa Williams | NetSquared: “Lisa Williams is a prolific multi-media content creator, a key player in the emerging OPML community and the founder of H2otown, a thriving community blog covering news and events in Watertown, Massachusetts.

In the following interview Lisa and I talked about how she set up a successful community blog, her cutting edge research methods and her hope to make the H2otown site even more inclusive of area residents.

I interviewed Lisa by Instant Messenger, and have kept the interview in that basic format. You can skip to any of the particular sections of the interview by clicking the links in the Table of Contents below. Your browser’s back arrow will return you to the beginning of the interview.”

Neighborhood Story Project: “The Neighborhood Story Project works with high school students and their families to write about their lives and neighborhoods. Students learn to write creative non-fiction and vignettes, conduct in-depth interviews of family members and neighbors, and take photographs. Community writing projects allow us to be the authors of our own stories, and infuse our community with real and important literature.

The Neighborhood Story Project is a collaborative partnership between John McDonogh Senior High, the Literacy Alliance of Greater New Orleans, and the University of New Orleans. New Orleans Saints’ player Steve Gleason’s One Sweet World Foundation has also been a big part of making this project possible.”

Philip Slater: Author and Playwright: “Political analysts have been impressed lately by the polarization of the American public between ‘reds’ and ‘blues’. Eighty percent of our population has declared itself impervious to persuasion. Why has this happened? Why have political positions hardened while the pragmatic center has shrunk?

While the media speak of the new importance of ‘moral values’, as if this were some recent fashion trend that had just burst upon the scene, this ‘red/blue’ division is rooted in major historical changes–changes that are welcomed by half of our nation, appalling to the other half. Furthermore, this division is not simply an American phenomenon, but a global one, rooted in the most revolutionary cultural shift in the history of our species.”

MediaShift . Reading List | PBS: “Want to learn more? This list of books, blogs, and websites will enlighten you, and give you even more insight into the digital media revolution. We will update it regularly. Use our Feedback page to send in suggestions.”

list =>

An Adoption Strategy for Social Software in the Enterprise. Many-to-Many:: “erhaps the greatest competency Socialtext has gained over the past three years is fostering adoption of social software. Adoption matters most for IT to have value. It should be obvious that if only a third of a company uses a portal, then the value proposition of that portal is two thirds less than it’s potential. But for social software, value is almost wholy generated by the contributions of the group and imposed adoption is marked for failure. Suw Charman has been working with Socialtext on site at Dresdner Klienwort Wasserstein and has spearheaded the creation of the following practice documentation. I believe this will be a critical contribution for enterprise practices, so do read on…

An Adoption Strategy for Social Software in the Enterprise

Experience has shown that simply installing a wiki or blog (referred to collectively as ‘social software’) and making it available to users is not enough to encourage widespread adoption. Instead, active steps need to be taken to both foster use amongst key members of the community and to provide easily accessible support.

There are two ways to go about encouraging adoption of social software: fostering grassroots behaviours which develop organically from the bottom-up; or via top-down instruction. In general, the former is more desirable, as it will become self-sustaining over time – people become convinced of the tools’ usefulness, demonstrate that to colleagues, and help develop usage in an ad hoc, social way in line with their actual needs.” more =>

the significance of MySpace. Many-to-Many:: “While MySpace has skyrocketed to success beyond any of the other social technologies on the web, too few folks in the industry talk about it, participate in it or otherwise pay attention to it…. mostly because it’s particularly populated by teens, musicians and other folks who are nowhere near connected to the tech industry. Much of what’s discussed is the culture of fear put forward by the mass media. This is quite unfortunate because there’s a lot of interesting stuff going on there.

At AAAS this week, i had the opportunity to present the first phase of my findings in a talk called Identity Production in a Networked Culture. If you want insight into what teens are doing on MySpace and why, check it out.”