Octavianworld

Carmun.com Re-Launches

via Lori Cohen, this news of the re-launch of Carmun.com, an education-focused "social search" service which I wrote about a while back:

Congratulations Lori and Jonathan!

Bionic Leadership at Harvard's Kennedy School

This morning I was a guest lecturer in Jerry Mechling's class at Harvard's Kennedy School, "Leadership in a Networked World:  The Challenge of IT-Enabled Change".  Jerry had asked me to speak about "personal information management".   In a moment of weakness I suggested we call the session "Bionic Leadership", since I had planned to talk about how new tools can help people running organizations "sense, synthesize, and socialize" more effectively.

Bill Ives joined me, and together with the class we discussed not only tools themselves, like Google Reader,  Marketspace's "tribal bookmarking" version of Del.icio.us, and Twitter, but also more exotic combination possibilities with real-world applications to the kinds of problems K-School students might care about.

It's always interesting to survey groups like this on adoption of technologies.  This group of ~40-50 was pretty diverse:  estimated age range 25-55, from all over the world, from a number of different sectors (business, government, non-profit, military, etc.).

• Roughly 40% are on Facebook, with a handful on other social networks
• Maybe 10-15% use feed readers (skewing younger, at a glance)
• 10-15% read blogs regularly (evenly distributed)
• one class member publishes a blog

These numbers track with my experience recently in other settings.  Facebook is becoming a de facto "bridge into the future" for many people, making a Facebook app an essential part of any new web venture's promotion strategy.   

Think Viral, Act Tribal, Part II: What, Why, and How Memes Propagate

A while back I wrote down some ideas about viral marketing prompted by a meeting with an entrepreneur who was having some trouble executing a campaign.  Today, I came across a really interesting research paper, "Memes and affinities:  cultural replication and literacy education", by Michele Knobel and Colin Lankshear, presented in November 2005 at the National Reading Conference annual meeting.  The paper is here: http://www.geocities.com/c.lankshear/memes2.pdf.

The "Edutainment" Future Is Now

With the help of several friends, I've written a wiki page on OpenACS.org that explains the "what" and the "why" surrounding the recent announcement that OpenACS/.LRN is the first to support the IMS LD specification for designing open-ended, collaborative learning experiences online.  It may seem arcane, and the examples may not be much to look at today, but this is a very big deal if you think that online games, communities, and learning have any synergistic future at all.

Yet another reminder (among others) about why I continue to believe in this project and the community that contributes to it.

June 20: Harvard KSG 3E Panel on Current Practices In Public Sector IT Program Management

On Monday, June 20, I'm moderating a panel at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.  The panel, entitled "Current Practices In Public Sector IT Program Management", is part of a three-day workshop run by Professor Jerry Mechling, who directs the E-Government Executive Education Project (3E) at the Kennedy School. 

Panelists include

• Phil Bertolini, CIO,Oakland County, Michigan
• Scott Campbell, Chief eHealth Strategist, Government of Ontario
  
• Gopal Kapur, President, Center for Project Management
• Marty Wagner, Associate Administrator for Government-wide Policy, US General Services Administration
  

(Jerry recently won a Lifetime Achievement award from the National Association of State CIO's, and recently conducted an extended interview with Bill Gates you might find interesting.  Further, with IBM's support Jerry has been pioneering new e-learning techniques in the 3E Project's programs, using .LRN as his platform.)