This is me trying to figure out that tricky grad gown.

What I miss most from grad school is “free” access to the gym. And I don’t think it’s because now I’m unable to maintain my stunning physique.  I think it’s because of the time that daily break allowed me to step out of my life in almost every way and think about it–or not think about it, if that was the way my day was going.

It was less than an hour where I let go of everything weighing on me. The only thing I needed to accomplish was movement for 30-40 minutes. I didn’t even need to feel guilty about not staying longer because the campus had a 30-minute time limit per machine.

Gyms are nice for the anonymity allowed. There is no expectation to socialize with anyone. An unspoken agreement exists between members to let each other sweat in silence. So if I felt good one day, I’d silently compete with the skinny sorority girl perfectly made up, but sweating alcohol through her pores to my right. If I felt crappy the next day, I’d shut out the rest of the world, sit on the bike with the easiest settings, and read Entertainment Weekly with the Black Keys in my ears, drowning out whatever upbeat pop song the gym kids had playing.

Either way my brain had time to stop. I was being productive so I could shut down the to-do list constantly muttered in the back of my brain. (Actually it was probably more in the top of my brain, watching over every other thought, haunting myself if I got off track.) But for these minutes that list took a break. And other thoughts could have a go. They were mostly meaningless thoughts about who the Bachelor would pick or which color I would paint my toenails in May, once I was done with school and had spare time.

But sometimes profound thoughts would creep in out of nowhere, too. Like one time when I realized leaving the country during the summer would force me to take time to really see what life might offer me next, and I wouldn’t even have to be technically “moving back home” while I did that. (Not that I mind using my parents’ fully-equipped kitchen and fancy bathroom and paid-for cable channels. It’s more about the ideas I’m afraid it gives people about me.) Or the time I came up with adding raspberries and swapping the milk chocolate for dark in my favorite chocolate cake for added moisture and pretend health benefits.

I guess my point is, I didn’t realize how important that time was until I moved away and kept waking up disappointed I didn’t have a gym to go to.

And then I went to China! And saw my sister and her new perfect child who is the biggest celebrity on China’s version of Facebook from what I can tell. Based on how many cell phone photos were sneaked of her by passers-by.

I guess it’s about time for me to find a job. Until then, I have lots of material from China to share. Let’s start with food. What follows is a visual representation of the journey my palette took across the world and back. Generally, I love all food (-meat+seafood), and Chinese cuisine was no exception.

Homemade jiaozi.

Some of my fave dishes–homestyle tofu and green beans.

Hot pot on a hot day–not a recommended combo.

He says he always keeps a list of his Big Three projects that have the most desperate need of creativity. He keeps it posted in his office, but he also keeps it in the back of his mind at all times ready to be inspired. He keeps it in mind while he watches movies, reads books and meets new people.

I read an essay last year from one of those literature books meant for schools, but so much more interesting when you stumble upon them on your own. I found my way back to it today thanks to Google. It’s called, “The Eureka Phenomenon” by Isaac Asimov.  I guess his concept is fairly well-known, but waas new to me: that you often find solutions to problems weighing on you during a time when you’re not consciously trying to solve them.

It’s a phenomenon I think is interesting to consider in regard to Henry’s Big Three. Doesn’t it seem logical that it might work against the Eureka Phenomenon, forcing the dilemmas to the forefront of your brain so constantly that the effect never has a chance to take place?  Or do the two somehow work hand in hand, that to make it to the eureka moment, one must have consciously placed the problems in the brain?  I think that’s more likely the answer. Whatever the case, the Big Three technique makes a lot of sense to me.

Henry’s explanation of how the Big Three works centers mostly on the assist it gives your creative projects with focus. We are often nearly overwhelmed with the amount of things we could be working on (true story, iMedia). To give ourselves permission to limit that to the three most important helps us focus. Picking three, he says, also forces us to focus what it is that we’re trying to accomplish.

So naturally, I’m eager to put this into practice. I think as long as I don’t become obsessed with the three projects, I will avoid destroying potential for the Eureka Phenomenon.

I’ve made a list of all my possibilities and according to the qualifications narrowed them. Here are my Big Three:
1. Pushing the homepage of my capstone website to a new level
what can I do with the Events space?
what can I do with the Stories page?
2. Make a decision about where to live next…and pursue it.
3. Finding creative presentation for my Kony 2012 research

I’m not sure if that second one counts, but it’s something that I know I need to take action on and has been just hanging around anxiously on my to-do list.

I’m surprisingly anxious about this list because I know it’s not the three most important things I have to do. Because time is so limited in this program, I’m not sure I should be spending it on less important things. But if they are on my mind even while I talk with my friends on the phone, perhaps that will spark a new kind of creativity. And that is the point I think Henry is trying to make.

I hope the rest of the book also contains helpful suggestions. Until Part Two it was mostly just making me realize how many ways I’ve failed to be creative this year…Still, that information will undoubtedly prove useful in the future.

With Good Comes Bad: When the wheel was invented, insects experienced a new way to be crushed.

Both schools of the overarching thoughts about Internet activism have valid arguments. On one hand, we’ve never been able to organize so quickly across a geographic location. On the other hand, that just means a different combination of people are gathering—it doesn’t always mean a better combination. For every argument there is a responding one. Once again I turn back to Hegel and his theory about opposing truths. And then to Neil Postman and his views that technology changes us. I can add to those the ideas Nicholas Carr presented about tools being nothing without humans behind them. Which he himself pointed out the reactive argument for: Even though the tool is useless without us, from the moment the tool is created, we are shaped by it too.

This is all to say that these observations come together to demonstrate cycles of being concerned about and excited by communication possibilities.

With activism, we want to be excited, like Evgeny Morozov pointed out in “Facebook and Twitter are just the places revolutionaries go.” We want to know that something we spend so much time doing can be a tool for good, for change, for DEMOCRACY and freedom, etc.  The opinions of those who disagree are not what we want. But they ring true with Postman and Carr. Morozov writes that we just need to look to history to see that people worry about communication in political movements for only a brief time before moving on. You know what, he says it better than I do:

Today, the role of the telegraph in the 1917 Bolshevik revolution – just like the role of the tape-recorder in the 1979 Iranian revolution and of the fax machine in the 1989 revolutions – is of interest to a handful of academics and virtually no one else. The fetishism of technology is at its strongest immediately after a revolution but tends to subside shortly afterward.

But what Morozov and Malcolm Gladwell (who he references) do over and over is point out the problems with digital communication. With the problems come the benefits, yes, but we must not ignore the problems.  Once again we’ve learned that different is different. So I guess my question becomes, what is different in this case and how can we capitalize on it to promote the most amount of positive change?

I think part of it is maintaining a positive attitude. It’s very hard to work toward something when you’re being told that the action could have harmful consequences. A common argument in the vernacular of activism is that it’s better to do nothing than to do something wrong, so we should do nothing.

To me, that’s like saying, we’d be better off if, after inventing the wheel, or fire or whatever, we had called it a day and never touched it again. Does anyone prefer that we rewind that far? I doubt many would, anyhow, and I think that’s worth considering. If we look broadly over time, changes in mass communication stand for progress and progress stands for the possibility for things to get better. Because over all, haven’t things gotten better?

And my suspicion is there are many things about the video that are contributing to its attention-grabbing success.

The nearly overnight sensation of the Kony 2012 movement led by nonprofit organization, Invisible Children (working since 2004 to help end the violence in Uganda, especially in regard to child soldiers and slaves), surely makes it the newest wide-scale social media movement since the Komen/Planned Parenthood debacle. And as such, I’m eager to add it to my pool of research and watch it as it unfolds, dissecting the elements that contribute to its collaborative success.

A few things make it unique and add interest to me:

1. It’s already being met with controversy. The Washington Post published a photo and interview meant to cast suspicion on the motives of the founders of Invisible Children.

Not only that, but IC has responded swiftly, doing its best to clarify the points of controversy.

2. The campaign is like nothing I have ever seen before. It is uniquely internet- and social media-based, but with the ultimate intent of getting people out into the real/physical world. It includes calls to action, physical goods, direct asks, celebrities, politicians, a cohesive look graphically, some sort of mapping technology, etc. etc. Invisible Children has pulled out all the stops. What is it about these or certain combinations of these that make the campaign work?

3. It’s 30 minutes long! So much can go wrong in a video to lose your attention on the web in 30 minutes. But millions, MILLIONS of people are watching this. I wasn’t sure such a phenomenon was even still possible.

4. The campaign may be met with resistance, but to me is already a huge success simply because it’s bold enough to force people to pay attention. To the point where, even if Invisible Children has it all wrong and has entirely evil motives, they have forced the traditional media to dig up the real story.

And that is perhaps the most moving part of the campaign.

I cannot wait to watch this unfold. My idealistic hope is that it teaches us all about how to use social media and new technologies to create change in the best ways possible. And that we will continue to be critical each time a new movement begins. We are not being brainwashed by this video, we are holding the makers accountable to give us the clearest possible truth—and that is a beautiful thing for a democratic nation.

IC's response to accusations that most donations were used to pay salaries.

Articles referenced:

http://wtop.com/?nid=209&sid=2777058

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-03-08/invisible-children-kony-2012/53422862/1

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/dad-son-talk-celebrity-tweets-teens-key-to-viral-video-denouncing-africa-atrocities/2012/03/08/gIQAFry2zR_story.html

http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Activists-launch-viral-video-on-Africa-atrocities-3390245.php

http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/-/688334/1362338/-/axe1fdz/-/

http://kony2012.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/

http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/03/08/440851/defense-kony-invisible-children/?mobile=nc

Do I sound like I’m losing hope? Maybe I am. But it helped that he ended the book with some ideas and suggestions for changes. He also pointed out that one of the great things about the web is that it’s a plastic place. Much more able to change formats and content (in other words, code) than the mediums before it.

In the old days…

It’s amazing how limiting my own mind was when it was first learning about platforms like Facebook and Google. It seemed so clear to me that this was the generation where social good drove business. Where the little guys who weren’t out to make money were the ones building successful companies. I believed the people would support them financially without there being a need for consumption-driven corporate sponsorship. But alas, the people did not shell out their money to the two guys building super code for wonderfully clean and simple e-mail and friending systems.

And as Pariser pointed out, Google is a company. And at this point, even if they wanted to throw it all away and start fresh and take risks, they no longer are answering for just their own livelihoods. They have a responsibility to their staff and its families. Plus they have the users of their products.

A blessing in disguise?

Mark Zuckerburg basically said to lack transparency is to lack integrity. Well, more accurately he said having two identities lacks integrity. But you can see where the connection is. And Facebook, in my humble opinion, is the least transparent major social media platform available. As Pariser put it,

There’s more than a little irony in the fact that companies whose public ideologies revolve around openness and transparency are so opaque themselves.

That disconnection is a point I think most people could be upset by. Taking points or anecdotes like that and spreading them across social media (actually much like Pariser has done through MoveOn.org) I think is a great way to catch the attention of a large number of people. And if enough people are educated about these issues, presumably they will take issue with the status of their personal information and how it is being used.

How many people wouldn’t be bothered to hear that they might be turned down for a job because of a status update they posted on Facebook or sites they searched for on Google, but that they have no legal rights to request the same information for their own personal records? Or that they weren’t even told about certain opportunities because a filter bubble kept it from their search results?

These are simple things, but because they are indicative or representative of the larger issues, they are the important things. If they make people pay attention, then they are essential to education. If Mark Zuckerburg and his PR problems are what makes the difference in people taking note, then let’s catch hold of that.

In other words, if enough people are upset with Mark Zuckerburg, perhaps simply because he lacks the charisma of Google, then maybe people will start paying attention. And when we all pay attention, we can help reshape the Internet and code into a more good-centered and less neutral (or worse) place.

So thanks, Mark, for being your awkward self.

First, you can’t talk about internet collaboration without understanding and theorizing about the success of wikis. This scholarly article looks at just that: “Wiki: A technology for conversational knowledge management and group collaboration”

And in light of today’s announcement about Putin’s supposed win in Russia, this article from The Cutting Edge News, “Tech boost arms citizens to monitor votes” seems especially appropriate. It is about how technology has contributed to an at times forced or unwanted transparency to the elections in Russia. But has given citizens a greater voice than in previous elections. It perhaps falls more into the current examples realm of my research, but has a lot of in-depth discussion in it, too…

Trendspotting

Gizmodo

Berkman Center for Internet & Society

SEOmoz Blog

It describes some ways communities are vastly different from those that existed in the pre-internet era when many well-established nonprofits were solidifying their management techniques. There were quite a few points I found valuable:

• The writer, digital strategist Eric Pratum, says:
  

  In Shel Israel’s 2009 book Twitterville, he argues that communities and causes now form around issues of the day and not organizations.

• Pratum states that networks take months or more to form, so it helps to make effective use of already-established ones, of which today there are no shortage. As he puts it, it helps to be “going where the people are rather than trying to build a more attractive community and then fill it with people.”
• I would summarize a few of his other points about what works by connecting to the second “wing” of the Dragonfly Effect model of engagement, Grab Attention. All emphasize effectively motivating through emotion, basically.
• Pratum’s summary of Komen’s actions is:
  

  In this move and decision, Susan G Komen caved to pressure, did not fully explain itself to the people most concerned, and never bothered to reach out to a community to engage with or support it.

• Finally, he says this:
  

  Copying success often does not lead to success. Instead, plugging into ready and waiting communities and providing something they desperately need and care about does.

This is connecting a bit to my research on how nonprofits can raise funds online. Let’s hope the overlap helps me synthesize data better for deeper cognition (thanks, Nicholas Carr). Online communities may be a new theme I’ll have to add to my research trifecta eventually…

1. Case Study: Susan G. Komen’s Planned Parenthood funding decision reversal

I will follow the story as it continues to unfold as well as dig up the records of the decision for as far back as I can find them. Additionally, I will try to find what others are speculating about what affected the situation.

2. Developing a theory of online collaboration

I’d like this to be made up of scholarly articles and sources that discuss what makes for successful collaboration and how that’s been changed/shaped by the internet and the technologies that have developed from it.

3. Current Examples

What’s happening today that demonstrates the power and limits of collaboration online?

Feel free to share any links you find that you think fit into the scope of my research…