^∞Fouroboros

Just reread Steve Krause’s When Blogging Goes Bad: A Cautionary Tale About Blogs, Emailing Lists, Discussion, and Interaction and two things sprung to mind.

Firstly this is absolutely critical reading for anyone considering blogging in teaching and learning, it’s a really good examination of blogs not working and that, in my book, is as valuable as 10 papers on why blogging is great. I’d put this on any reading list.

Secondly, Steven’s conclusion that essentially email listservs are a far more effective place for discussion is pretty accurate but what he doesn’t seem to go into is exactly why this is. I’d argue that this is basically down to the fact that email comes simply and ubiquitously to each person whereas the blogs in Steven’s case were very much places that people had to visit, multiple places at that which makes them even less conducive to discussion than typical discussion boards.

A "non-dynamic" failure

I thought this blog assignment failed most interestingly in its inability to generate a dynamic discussion, particularly in comparison to an emailing list. This is the first class I have taught in a long time in which there was quite a bit of reading and there wasn't some sort of required discussion taking place on an electronic mailing list. In my other advanced writing classes, the mailing list is the place where students talk about the reading before the class, giving the group a starting point for discussion and giving me an idea about where students are "coming from" on the readings. But that wasn't the use of the mailing list for this seminar. In fact, before the events surrounding the Herring essay, there were fewer than two dozen messages sent to the list in three months worth of class.

Link

It is always interesting, often revealing and occasionally enlightening to muse about the everyday cultural traits and habits each nation and community evolves, for in the little things our Big ideas About Life find direct and personal expression. Take, for instance, the different ways that American and Japanese tool-makers approach the same task. A saw for cutting lumber, if designed in the U.S., is made in such a way that the carpenter's stroke away from his body does the cutting. But in Japan saws are engineered so that cutting takes place as the carpenter draws the saw toward himself. A small detail, but it yields a big difference.

The American saw can, if leaned into, generate more power, while the Japanese saw provides more control and refinement in the cut, requiring surprisingly less effort. Each has its place in the global toolbox. each speaks -- like the handshake and namaste greetings -- of an underlying perception of man's relationship with things.

In the West we are outgoing, forceful, externalized. We are told by Ma bell to "reach out and touch somebody." We are unabashedly acquisitive, defining our progress in life by how much we have -- how much wealth, influence, stored up knowledge, status or whatever. Every culture exhibits these traits to some extent, but in the east Mother is there to remind us, "Reach in and touch the Self." Here we are taught to be more introspective, more concerned with the quality of things than their quantity, more attuned with the interior dimension of life.

So, there you have it, the whole of Eastern and Western culture summed up in the handshake which reaches out horizontally to greet another, and Namaste which reaches in vertically to acknowledge that, in truth, that there is no other.

FDNY Battalion Chief promised to keep the memory of John Bellew alive for his children with stories and pictures. Monsignor Jack O'Keefe whose father was a firefighter killed in the line of duty gave the eulogy. He said he was raised by the NYC Fire Department and firefighters would give him stories about dad for decades. Clearly, he expected the firefighters to do no less for the Bellew children.

Vogue, 1939:

"Man of the next century will revolt against shaving and wear a beautiful beard ... his hat will be an antenna ... his socks, disposable. His suit minus tie, collar, buttons. His vest is Rohm-Haas Plexiglas."

In this respect, online collaborations can be supremely efficient. The qualities I identified in my co-author, Peter S Fosl, which made him a good collaborator, were all manifest in our email communications and in his work. He was knowledgeable, clear, flexible, enthusiastic about communicating ideas and responsive to suggestions and advice. What more did I need to know? Whether he liked his lattes skinny?

...This kind of online collaboration has the potential to become a more common and effective way of working. It is not just that it allows individuals to interact only on the basis of the qualities that matter for the job, it is also that the job itself can be focused on more precisely than face-to-face working sometimes allows.

For example, whenever I get together with my co-editor we always end up discussing rambling digressions and getting off the point. When we're co-operating online, however, the task in hand stays in focus.

That was one reason why writing The Philosophers' Toolkit was so straightforward. We both knew our roles and we executed them without distraction...

There was genuine interaction and collaboration. In a paradoxical-sounding way, the limitations of internet communication actually liberated us to work more efficiently together.