Lately I’ve been finding it easier to engage with the material presented in this class, which seems odd since the longer the class goes on, there are seemingly more sites to check, windows to look through, messages to update and be updated on. The Leggett reading put this into perspective for me.

When we are only accountable, for example, for checking this single blog, we keep ourselves at a distance from the class consciousness. We can check it, see if there are any new posts, blog about something briefly, and then go on our merry way. Alternatively, when we participate with Twitter, connect it with our Facebook accounts, gain outside persepctive using seesmic, etc.., we link ourselves into the presence of the class. In one sense we are gaining first hand experience with the networking topics at hand, but at the same time, we have various angles and windows from which to view the class. One major benefit of the skype meetings was that it humanized the person you were meeting with. the same thing goes with Twitter. As we enhance our telepresence, we get a sense of each other not just as thinking machines or academics, but as real people.

At this point, the telepresence is reaching a palpable level for me. We interact on a more personal level and our posts reflect that comfort level. One might argue that this comfort with telepresence is an added benefit to online courses as opposed to something one might consider a setback.

I wonder if others are experiencing a growing sense of telepresence and how you are responding to it.

Billy and I met pretty spontaneously Wednesday of last week on Skype to get things moving. After breaking the ice (finding myself grateful I had such a charming, intelligent and friendly partner :)) and making sure all our tech stuff was in order, we scheduled our second meeting for Saturday the 3rd. We determined that we would discuss Hyperbodies, Jenkins (Convergence Culture) and Scholz’s The Participatory Challenge.

We met again on Saturday successfully and had a pretty organic discussion on some of the themes of these three writings. Of particular interest to us both were the driving factors behind this so-called “internet gift economy.” At the moment, the explanation for the motives or incentives behind this pervasive sharing seems to be that it is a form of “capitalist domination.” Scholz quotes Coyne, “If I can withstand all this giving, then I am indeed stronger than you.” There is the insinuation that all of this sharing, or “cybercommunism” as Richard Barbrook puts it, is in fact a flexing of muscle - generosity as status. MIT, for instance, “reinforces its leadership position and status based on its openness to publish all its syllabi online….MIT’s gift leads to a defeat for other educational communities that cannot reciprocate this generosity.”  Billy and I discussed this and seemed to agree that while this “sharing as strength” may be a motivating factor, it doesn’t fully explain this massive shift.

The first key difference that allows for such pervasive sharing seems to be that this kind of sharing doesn’t cause shortages - there is no “reduction of excess.” When we exchange data and information, we also retain it. Secondly, while MIT and other uber-sharers may have the temporary benefit of appearing to be strong, perhaps even dominant givers, they are over time giving up their status as gatekeepers, as elites, because the information they provide cannot remain linked to them permanently simply by virtue of its massive and rapid dissemination. They are exchanging elitism and status as keepers of rarified information, for reputation, name recognition, and reinforcement of their identity as up-and-comers. So it is not enough to insinuate that the motive for pervasive “gifting” online is exerting dominance. At the very least, these sharers are giving something up in exchange for strength in new areas. They are reorganizing and adapting in response to shifting priorities and values.

Billy and I agreed that a major shift in value is happening toward communication and away from information alone. In other words, the new elites in media and online will not be keepers of information, which increasingly belongs to everyone and no one, but those who communicate about all this vast and available information. We see this shift in the use of seesmic, twitter, and other micro, self-broadcast platforms. Status is found now where people communicate with ease online - those who have the luxury of analyzing, digesting, and conversing with others about the wealth of information we have available to us now.  We discussed how this relates to Walter Ong’s idea of secondary orality. Jenkins also notes that, “Because there is more information on any given topic than anyone can store in their head, there is an added incentive for us to talk among ourselves about the media we consume” (p. 4). Billy and I spoke at length about the ways that communication (and indeed, content) online is is beginning to resemble orality far more than textuality. So it follows that the most adept and sophisticated users, those who gain the most from this Read/Write Web, are those who communicate the best and most frequently online.

We also discussed Oosterhuis’ ideas about spontaneous action, the “hotline between intuition and logic,” Google and the internet as “exo-brain,” celebrity, influence and reputation, marketing and much, much more.  Overall, I found the Skype meeting initially squirm-inducing but quickly became more comfortable, thanks in part to a good partner. By the end of the meeting I had pretty much forgotten about the webcam and actually started to feel as if I was communicating face-to-face with Billy. I also found that the video actually helped keep the conversation fluid, resembling much more a face-to-face meeting than a phone call, as we could watch body language and respond silently in conversation with nonverbal cues, rather than stepping all over each other as we might on the telephone. An interesting development.

Billy and I did introductions via Skype Saturday night and then resumed the conversation Sunday morning. I concur that it was nice to have some human interaction around the themes of the class, instead of just bombarding my boyfriend with nuggets of information (I think he was happy to have a little relief from being my sounding board for this class.)

Billy and I focused on this week’s reading “Adaptive Software Development: A Collaborative Approach to Managing Complex Systems.” As we are both in our final semester, we decided we might as well bring everything into perspective and draw upon other readings from Media Studies courses. We both agreed that this course is really helpful in breaking down theories discussed over the past few years and analyzing how new networked technologies are refocusing these theories.

We both noticed that many of the “co-operative” strategies discussed in the reading focused on creating the most efficient means of interacting. I discussed that, while this makes sense, it is clearly emulating business models of success. While efficiency on its face is a positive, I drew attention to Adorno and Horkheimer’s concern with “rationality” and its emphasis on “efficient calculations” in the work the “Dialectic of the Enlightenment.” While certianly their work can be picked apart on a number of fronts, I think it is fair to question whether new social forms run the risk of becoming hyper-efficient, i.e. ignoring or overlooking what is in the best interest of people for the sake of greater efficiency?

We also discussed “power shifts.” This spurred a conversation about this week’s New York Magazine article about Gloria Steinem and Joshua Meyrowitz. I said that Meyrowitz makes a compelling argument about the role television played in decompartmentalizing society and dissolving former hierarchies, all of which Meyrowitz claims led to the revolutions of the 1960s (I always found this argument a little deductive and technologically deterministic, as certainly there are other factors that led to the 60s revolution, that said, I still think Meyrowitz is compelling). I was both interested in how the internet does dissolve hierarchies, but also how it is actually compartmentalizing society at a greater rate (people can now filter their content and receive only the type of information they want, without ever having to view dissenting perspectives — basically immersing themselves in an echo chamber.) I added that all of the works we have read on the subject of networked communication would benefit from analysis  of the potential for “revolutionary” shifts in group identity, socialization and hierarchy.

Billy discussed how the reading really highlights the blurred boundaries between sender and receiver — producer and receiver. Networked collaboration now offers a more reciprocal approach, where audiences are more active and the flow of information is not simply dictated by traditional media forms. Instead, now everybody is empowered to serve as “opinion leaders.” We can be both senders and receivers of information simultaneously.

We also discussed the emergence of radio as an example of the gains in new technologies, and the propensity of technology to force most people into the role of followers. Early in the 20th century, the radio was simply a hobby with little mainstream appeal. But, as it became streamlined and the technology adapted through the tinkerings of the early pioneers of the radio, it went mainstream. This is certainly what is still taking place in networked collaboration. A few pioneers are dictating the direction of these technologies and most of us (at least more casual users like Billy and I) move.

Thomas Pridgen may be the most impressive drummer I know of, but that doesn’t make me an expert on his life. So, this week when we were supposed to further update our wiki of choice, I wasn’t really sure what to do. Just before posting this, I checked the page again to see if I could think of anything (I also went to a Mars Volta show last night, so I thought perhaps I would be inspired. I was, but it didn’t help with the wiki). Luckily for me, somebody else had tried updating the page with the following sentence:

“He is also a reknowned speed freak.”

I hope this isn’t true, but even if it is, it was not sourced. So guess what? It was my turn to be the deletionist! And that’s really a major part of wikipedia. The articles are forever changing, fixing themselves, getting new problems, fixing those, and growing. If somebody puts false, erroneous, or unsubstatiated information on the wiki passing it off as facts, somebody who cares will fix it. Obviously it’s not a perfect system, but it’s impressive with what efficiency it moves forward.

Frank and I had a rough start to our Skype endeavor. With some connection problems which slowed and stalled our audio and video the first time around, it was difficult to effectively communicate, let alone make clear our thoughts on complicated readings. We utilized the Skype text tool in order to reschedule our talk. Unfortunately, we were a little bit worse off the second time around. Frank had trouble getting any image from his camera and the audio was still an issue as well, but we soldiered on.

Skype screenshot

Frank discussed “Technologies of Cooperation” and the swarm concept of “self-organizing mesh networks” with relation to the fine art world.  After learning that he’s a photographer, I passed on some info regarding an upcoming Photo viewing at the auction house where I work. I talked about the relationship between competition and collaboration, as discussed in Chapter 5 of Highsmith and Dragoon’s “A Travel Guide to Collaboration.” I looked into P&G’s history of internal and external collaboration and found some interesting articles. I posted my notes and links to these articles on a new page in our class Wiki, linked from our names in the Partners section (http://networkedcollab.org/index.php?title=Maria_and_Frank). Creating this page and the links is the most of done so far in a wiki environment, so that itself was a learning process.

Frank and I concluded our conversation by discussing how to approach new/social media from an academic perspective, since it seems like by the time academic literature provides research and studies about these technologies, they have already been in use for some time. So it’s definitely an interesting topic to study.  We hope to revisit it with a more successful connection again next week.

Hey guys, just came across this event in NY … thought it might be interesting for the class, since we are all now contributing to wiki. Have a nice weekend. Anja

Wikis Take Manhattan

Wikis Take Manhattan is a photo scavenger hunt that will send participants throughout the five boroughs (Manhattan is just for the Muppets) in search of photos to illustrate Wikipedia and StreetsWiki articles on NYC sites and street features. All photos will be released under Creative Commons’ Attribution-ShareAlike license to allow for easy remixing and reuse in any future projects.

The grand prize for the team with the most photos is a dinner with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales at the fantastic Pure Food and Wine restaurant in downtown Manhattan. Other prizes include gift certificates to Bicycle Habitat and LimeWire Store.

Start at the Columbia University sundial on college walk or Open Planning Project’s West Village office
349 West 12th Street, No. 3, between Greenwich and Washington streets, Manhattan
1p; $free
wikis-take.org

Shirley and I emailed each other to find the perfect date and time for our meeting and I added the meeting to my Google Calendar for a reminder. Shirley and I discussed how we were going to conduct the video conference when we found out her Dell didn’t have a microphone or video camera. Shirley had to go out and buy a webcam but that did not change our meeting date. Shirley did a Skype test the day before our scheduled meeting to make sure everything worked and it did! We talked on our cellphones while we connected with Skype to make sure the video and audio streams worked. This was the first Skype conference call for both of us and we connected on the first shot. It was great to have a real person on the other side to discuss and walk through the process of connecting and to talk about the various buttons on the menu bar, etc. Shirley and I searched on how to record our video on Skype with no luck so Shirley took a snapshot of the screen she will post later. I also looked on other applications like seesmic and flickr to see if we could add video there but no luck (if anyone knows I would love to try it). We discussed how the readings this week were in-line with the video conferencing our jobs are requiring to save costs on travel budgets and to still have an interactive discussion. Since 911 the major publishing houses in NYC went from having 2 Sales Conferences away and 1 in NYC to having 1 Sales Conference away and 2 in NYC using video conferencing for sales people outside of the NY metro area (about 30 people throughout the US and Canada). The video conference allows the powerpoint presentation on the screen and the video of the room where the presenter and in-house people simultaneously. On the menu bar it shows the people dialed in on the call for the audio portion on a specific phone # and allows them to interact with the administrator by raising their virtual hand to ask a question or place a coffee cup icon when they are away. This allows people to interact in real time with what is going on in the actual conference room but I find that the people on the phone are less likely to ask a question then the actual people in the room. Instead they would still like that personal connection by emailing or calling the person directly instead of having everyone listen to their virtual thoughts. Usually the conference room has 30 people in the room making it difficult for the people on the phone to interact with everyone in the room except for one at a time. In some meetings the publisher might post photos of book covers or artwork to flickr to share with the group while we are on the phone so another visual application is used and we become a virtual team. We also have digital video streams from major movie houses highlighting clips of their next big movie that we add to the site so everyone can view it on their computer screens. The administrator allows for the “push and pull” transfer of information between the groups. This scenario also identifies with the idea of cooperative technologies changing the structure, rules, resources, thresholds, feedback, memory and identity.

Hello - I noticed that the syllabus has changed a bit since we started class and was wondering if you could post the changes to the Network Blog or Google Groups for the week when things are changing or alert us to check the syllabus again and highlight the changes in RED. After chatting today with my Skype partner we both felt it would make it easier so we knew if things changed at that moment it would help for planning purposes rather than feeling like we missed something in error from the original syllabus at the beginning of class. Thanks!

I think that the process of collaboration is definitely different in a virtual environment.  The reading “A Travel Guide to Collaboration” points out that communication alone does not constitute collaboration, this is a good point.  I think when we are in a virtual environment we sometimes tend to post messages as a form of communication, but we sometimes dont go back and forth as a way of collaborating, we simply state our opinion or ideas and unless someone else is responding to that particular post or message, the “conversation” ends there, creating a system of communication and not collaboration.  Another example that comes to mind again, is texting.  When we speak on a cell phone there is an immediate back and forth collaborative effort, at times the person on the other end may choose not to respond, but even by not responding at that exact moment, the silence tells us something.  When we text someone and they don’t respond, it could mean they don’t like what they just read, or they never received the text, or they are very slow at texting!  I think the actual message also is a little different when we are in a virtual environment because we may be more aware of ourselves in this process.  Many people tend to text things (myself included) that they may not be able to “say” speaking on the phone.  There was an interesting article yesterday in the New York Times about cell phones and texting.  It states that in the fourth quarter of 2007, American cellphone subscribers for the first time sent text messages more than they phoned, and that the volume of text messages has gone up by 64% while the average number of calls has dropped slightly.  I think this is very interesting and I don’t find it surprising at all.