Mindamp

The first chapter of what is for me a fundamental book that complements our learning here, and hints at how Social Media might contribute to creating a better World. The article elaborates on how new Social Theory brings new perspectives to finding and implementing solutions to the intractable problems of our time. These ideas originally developped by Mary Douglas, an antropologist, and have been further refined and developped into a fully integrated Social Theory, called Theory of Socio-Cultural Viability, anso sometimes called "Cultural Theory". The lead researcher in this field is Michael Thompson, co-author of this book and chapter. Here are some highlights I have jotted down: Why do well-intended attempts to alleviate pressing social ills too often derail? How can effective and efficient and broadly acceptable solutions to social problems be found? By making sure no voices are excluded. Contrary to the ideas on which current social thinking is based, new research has lead to new theory explaining social systems, showing how deliberative quality is key to sustainable policy-making and implementation. It shows that endlessly changing and complex social worlds consist of ceaseless interactions between four mutually opposed organizing, justifying and perceiving social relations. Each time one of these perspectives is excluded from collective decision-making, governance failure inevitably results. Successful solutions are therefore creative combinations of four opposing ways of organizing and thinking. They always seem clumsy compared to any of the 4 voices' elegant solutions. Yet being broadly acceptable to all they are sustainable and implementable A new way to look at pluralism in organizations, institutions, policy-making, democracy, technology, geo-politics and many other social fields is offered to us by multidisciplinary research and practice by leading political scientists, anthropologists, economists, lawyers, sociologists, geographers, engineer

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A fundamental article on how new social theory brings new perspectives on how to find and omplement solutions to the intractable problems of our time. These ideas originally developped by Maruy Dougleas, have been refined and developped into a full theory, called Theory of Socio-Cultural Viability, anso sometil$mes called "Cultural Theory". The lead researcher in this field is Michael Thompson, author of this Workshop Report

"THE SAGUARO SEMINAR: CIVIC ENGAGEMENT IN AMERICA is an initiative of Professor Robert D. Putnam at John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University focused on the study of "social capital" (the value of social networks) and community engagement. Our eponymous seminar from 1995-2000 involved 30 talented scholars and practitioners from across America (including then civil-rights-lawyer Barack Obama) in developing strategies for increasing American civic engagement and led to the bettertogether report. "Bettertogether" the final report of the Saguaro Seminar is now available at www.BetterTogether.org The Seminar participants were a diverse, exceptional group of 33 thinkers and doers, including articulate leaders from all parts of the country - from coast to coast, from small town and suburb to the inner city - and from all walks of life - from government officials to religious leaders, from labor union activists to high-tech and business executives, from elected officials to street workers. All participants demonstrate a deep commitment to improving the infrastructure of national civic life. These twenty-five practitioners and eight academic thinkers met for two-day sessions through late-1999 to develop a handful of practical strategies with national applicability for increasing Americans' connections with one another. "

"Ever since Darwin came up with the whole idea of evolution, there's been one dominant picture of the moment we truly became human. It's that cartoon sequence: You see a hairy ape man with a heavy brow hunched in profile. Then, bit by bit, his back uncurls and straightens until all of a sudden there is he, upright, truly a man. Recently I've been thinking about this image, because I've decided that we somehow ended up with the wrong one - that there's something much more fundamental to being human than our ability to stand upright."

"The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs, is a greatly influential book on the subject of urban planning in the 20th century. First published in 1961, the book is a critique of modernist planning policies claimed by Jacobs to be destroying many existing inner-city communities. Reserving her most vitriolic criticism for the "rationalist" planners (specifically Robert Moses) of the 1950s and 1960s, Jacobs argued that modernist urban planning rejects the city, because it rejects human beings living in a community characterized by layered complexity and seeming chaos. The modernist planners used deductive reasoning to find principles by which to plan cities. Among these policies the most violent was urban renewal; the most prevalent was and is the separation of uses (i.e. residential, industrial, commercial). These policies, she claimed, destroy communities and innovative economies by creating isolated, unnatural urban spaces. In their place Jacobs advocated for "four generators of diversity", writing on page 151, "The necessity for these four conditions is the most important point this book has to make. In combination, these conditions create effective economic pools of use." Mixed uses. Short blocks. Buildings of various ages & states of repair. Density. Her aesthetic can be considered opposite to that of the modernists, upholding redundancy and vibrancy, against order and efficiency. She frequently cites New York City's Greenwich Village as an example of a vibrant urban community. The Village, like many similar communities, may well have been preserved, at least in part, by her writing and activism. The book also played a major role in the urban development of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where Jacobs was involved in the campaign to stop the Spadina Expressway.[1] The book continues to be Jacobs' most influential, and is still widely read by both planning professionals and the general public. Urban theorist Lewis Mumford, while f

The first time ever I understood how to share a diigo bookmank to a Group Hi Ha!!!

Invaluable list of new media open access academic journals compiled by Media Malmo University.

"The YouTube RSS Generator This will generate a RSS feed of Youtube videos based on Tag, Category, or your personal Youtube playlist."

If Rheingold U, my current experiment in cultivating wholly online, multimedia, unaccredited, for-not-much-pay learning communities, originally germinated out of fun and impulse, the next stage was more scary-serious. As soon as I took people's money and started telling the world about my intentions, I was obligated as well as motivated to make it work - not just to deliver a rich set of learning materials, but to conjure actual social learning magic

Social network for teachers. Social network for those interested in Web 2.0 and collaborative technologies in education. We encourage you to sign up to participate in the great discussions here, to receive event notifications, and to find and connect with colleagues.

"unConferencing - how to prepare to attend an unconference Filed under: Uncategorized PDF version by Kaliya Hamlin from Unconference.net The unconference* format creates space for peer-to-peer learning, collaboration and creativity. At the start, the whole group will gather together and be guided through creating an agenda using open space technology. The exact process is not important to understand in advance - the process will become clear as it happens. The important part is that all those gathered will have the opportunity to put conference sessions on the agenda. No session will be voted off or 'won't happen' for some other reason. All sessions are welcome."

"An easy way to find out when everyone is free for your next meeting or event. Click the grid for all the times that are good for you - you get a link to email to your invitees. They see your proposed times and click on when they are free. You visit your results page and see when everyone can do."

"Social software brings groups together to discover and create value. The problem is, users only have so much time for social software. The vast majority of users with not have a high level of engagement with a given group, and most tend to be free riders upon community value. But patterns have emerged where low threshold participation amounts to collective intelligence and high engagement provides a different form of collaborative intelligence. To illustrate this, lets explore the Power Law of Participation:"

"What is Cooperative Learning? Cooperative Learning is a relationship in a group of students that requires positive interdependence (a sense of sink or swim together), individual accountability (each of us has to contribute and learn), interpersonal skills (communication, trust, leadership, decision making, and conflict resolution), face-to-face promotive interaction, and processing (reflecting on how well the team is functioning and how to function even better)."

There is more information available in the world than any one person could hope to consume (hundreds of exabytes of data), but most of that information is uninteresting, out of date, inaccurate, or not relevant for you. The key to reducing information overload is to more efficiently find the data you want among the information that you don't care about.

In a hard-knuckled, free-market economy built on competition, the most successful Internet companies put a high stake in another value: cooperation.

"Council of Advisors Play is a newly expanding knowledge domain and the National Institute for Play sees itself as a student in this emerging field. We are maximizing our opportunities to learn - and to spread what we learn - by networking with a extensive and growing cadre of scientific experts and professional practitioners of Play. Together, they constitute the NIFP Council of Advisors, chaired by Stanford Professor and neuroscientist, Dr. Stuart Thompson."

we were interested in the potential of networks-to create stronger bonds or to split us apart. This essay highlights groups that are creatively connecting citizens who are making a difference today, and explores how technology might impact public participation and leadership in the future. The pages are rich with useful examples and lessons about how networks are unlocking assets in communities to support open government, care for the elderly, help disaster victims and advance women's rights. Throughout, the report considers the role philanthropy can play in harnessing the best network-centric practices, the ones that might unleash individual interactivity to achieve social impact at a scale and speed never before possible.

I have already introduced Cultural Theory in the SMC MindAmp. I called it Theory of Sodcio-Culural Viability. Here's an indication of its reach: Why do well-intended attempts to alleviate pressing social ills too often derail? How can effective and efficient and broadly acceptable solutions to social problems be found? By making sure no voices are excluded. Contrary to the ideas on which current social thinking is based, new research has lead to new theory explaining social systems, showing how deliberative quality is key to sustainable policy-making and implementation. It shows that endlessly changing and complex social worlds consist of ceaseless interactions between four mutually opposed organizing, justifying and perceiving social relations. Each time one of these perspectives is excluded from collective decision-making, governance failure inevitably results. Successful solutions are therefore creative combinations of four opposing ways of organizing and thinking. They always seem clumsy compared to any of the 4 voices' elegant solutions. Yet being broadly acceptable to all they are sustainable and implementable A new way to look at pluralism in organizations, institutions, policy-making, democracy, technology, geo-politics and many other social fields is offered to us by multidisciplinary research and practice by leading political scientists, anthropologists, economists, lawyers, sociologists, geographers, engineers, policy-makers, and other leaders in society. Trust and Social capital are key ingredients for learning and for social media to strive. Here's what the author says: In this article, I trace the contributions that the cultural theory developed by Mary Douglas, Michael Thompson, Aaron Wildavsky and others can make to the debate on social capital. First, I sketch the various revisions of Putnam's social capital-thesis that have been proposed since the publication of Making Democracy Work. I note that these revisions are illuminating in and of th