JoelFoner.com

Does “Instant Access to Everything” Cause Polarization of Opinions?

Please join our global discussion group
every Tuesday at 12pm noon U.S. Pacific / 3pm Eastern time

This Tuesday, July 27th at the Epoch Institute in Second Life™

Click here to teleport to the Epoch Institute in Second Life™
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Wells/97/56/27

This Week’s Topic

Does “Instant Access to Everything” Cause Polarization of Opinions?

I’ve often heard the comment that the Internet exposes people of all types to more diverse opinions, with more facts and background, than ever before, that this is inherently good for discourse, and good for the generation of better ultimate decisions – whether in terms of political process or other decisions. Phrase in another way, this is “wisdom of the crowds” at global scale. On a gut level, this makes sense. More people and opinions ought to create a more balanced view, and although there will be some with extreme opinions, it is generally thought that the wisdom of the crowd will corrall them in workable fashion.

The Boston Globe ran an article this week titled “How Facts Backfire” (listed in the reading links below as well) that really got me thinking. The article pointed to work done at the University of Michigan (the published paper is also linked below for reference) that indicated a tendency for people to take more extreme positions in the face of corrective facts. This seems to fly in the face of the basis of an informed electorate providing the best case for a reasoned choice, and seems to call in to question the idea of wisdom of the crowds.

From a different perspective, the explosion of people posting raw information, sometimes carefully edited or not fact-checked, on blogs, Twitter, Facebook and many other social media systems, has created the appearance of a deluge of (maybe) factual information that is so vast we have no hope of ever understanding it all. The politicized, highly public debate about Shirley Shirrod’s at-first edited words, and then the publication of the full video, provide one view in to how our society handles the new hyper-speed, influence-driven environment in which we now find ourselves living. I’ve included a link to one blog post about this incident, in particular because it has both versions of the now-infamous speech on one page. You can find plenty more with a few clicks if you’d like!

The indexing of the web has generated an apparent global fact overload, available in seconds from a simple search engine query. Does this fact overload trigger the polarization reflex revealed int he University of Michigan study? Does it lead to moderation? How can our propensity for instant gratification, and lessened chance of correcting factual mistakes, lead us to the land of better, more informed discourse, given both what we have seen to date and this new research?

Join us Tuesday at 12PM noon U.S. Pacific / 3pm U.S. Eastern time for an interactive discussion, and thanks for being part of “We Are The Network”!

If you do not have a Second Life account and would like a quick start to attend the session, please contact me for more information.

Best regards,

Joel

Reading links below – have fun and see you soon! Read more…

July 6, 2010 1:54pm Added “The Neurotic Organization: Diagnosing and Changing Counterproductive Styles of Management” to the reference links section. Thanks to John Jainschigg for pointing out this title.

Can an Organization have a Personality Disorder?

Please join our global discussion group
every Tuesday at 12pm noon U.S. Pacific / 3pm Eastern time

This Tuesday, July 6 at the Epoch Institute in Second Life™

Click here to teleport to the Epoch Institute in Second Life™
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Wells/97/56/27

This Week’s Topic

Can an Organization have a Personality Disorder?

Organizations talk about internal culture and market it as a selling point, both to customers and to potential staff. organizational culture reflects a concept of shared personality, often described in flashy, positive terms.

If organizations have an organization-level personality, can organizations (collection of many people) have collective personality disorders? Do organizational personality disorders map directly to individual personality disorders defined by mental health professionals?

How can organizational personality disorders be resolved? Are such resolutions possible?

Join us Tuesday at 12PM noon U.S. Pacific / 3pm U.S. Eastern time for an interactive discussion, and thanks for being part of “We Are The Network”!

If you do not have a Second Life account and would like a quick start to attend the session, please contact me for more information.

Best regards,

Joel

Reading links below – have fun and see you soon! Read more…

Personal Stress Management in a Chaotic World

Please join our global discussion group every Tuesday at 12pm U.S. Pacific / 3pm Eastern time

This Week’s Topic

Personal Stress Management in a Chaotic World

It goes without saying that today’s world events, financial and work situation, and lifestyle can create substantial stress. There are plenty of “you should just tell yourself to feel better” web sites and books, but this sort of advice is often of limited value in the real world. What stress sources are significant to you, and what are effective ways to deal with them? Are there techniques for creating positive results from stress?

What are your best practices for recognizing and handling stressful situations, relationships and events?

Join us Tuesday at 12PM noon U.S. Pacific / 3pm U.S. Eastern time for an interactive discussion, and thanks for being part of “We Are The Network”!

Best regards,

Joel

Reading links below – have fun and see you soon! Read more…

How to Tell a Powerful Story in Text Chat

Please join our global discussion group
every Tuesday at 12pm noon U.S. Pacific / 3pm Eastern time

This Tuesday, June 1 at the Epoch Institute in Second Life™

Click here to teleport to the Epoch Institute in Second Life™
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Wells/97/56/27

This Week’s Topic

How to Tell a Powerful Story in Text Chat

Some discussion topics flow easily. A “hot issue” appears in the news. An offhand mention of a thought-provoking idea.

Once in a while an topic appears that seems important, but is “off the radar” for most of us. Sometimes it’s so much a part of our daily routine that it seems commonplace, yet has the nugget of an interesting area to explore. How to Tell a Powerful Story in Text Chat is one of these topics.

We have become accustomed to communicating in text chat. This new medium is commonplace and seems familiar, yet in some ways is “all new”. Some people have figured out how to be storytellers, people who can engage our imaginations and keep us “hooked” to read as they type, not looking away or multitasking off to the next shiny, interesting browser window.

There is something subtly, yet importantly different about text chat compared to other electronic text forms, such as email, blogs and web pages. Text chat is interactive in a different, faster, and more spontaneous way. People see thoughts appear as they form. The bits of concepts show up as they are typed, rather than after careful editing of some longer form piece. At the same time, text chat feels like the longer form, traditional writing forms.

This week we’ll explore strategies for telling powerful stories in text chat, discuss how stories get rearranged and restructured to be effective in text chat form, and practice techniques for text chat storytelling.

Join us Tuesday at 12PM noon U.S. Pacific / 3pm U.S. Eastern time for an interactive discussion, and thanks for being part of “We Are The Network”!

If you do not have a Second Life account and would like a quick start to attend the session, please contact me for more information.

Best regards,

Joel

Reading links below – have fun and see you soon!

Read more…

Does Global Social Communication Cause Bad Behavior or Reveal It?

Please join our global discussion group
every Tuesday at 12PM noon U.S. Pacific / SL time

This Tuesday, Mar 30, at the Epoch Institute in Second Life™

Click here to teleport to the Epoch Institute in Second Life™
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Wells/97/56/27

This Week’s Topic

Does Global Social Communication Cause Bad Behavior or Reveal It?

This week’s news of serious threats against politicians, after passage of the U.S. health care bill, got me wondering “Are the Internet, the media and video games the causes of increased bad behavior, has bad behavior actually increased, or has global instant communication revealed the reality of the human condition more clearly, in a way we were not expecting?”

Many articles (and people) proclaim that the Internet, the media and video games are the primary causes of increased bad behavior. It is easy to rationalize increased bad behavior based on exposure to the environmental messages from the Internet, media and games, however might not be the case. However, it wouldn’t be the first time that a seemingly obvious conclusion does not explain the nature of human behavior.

What is bad behavior, in the context of global social communication? Is it taught and learned? Is it different, and if so, how is it different than bad behavior in face to face and non-online settings? Do parts of our social belief systems encourage or support the on-going existence of bad behavior “by design”? Is it important to us for bad behavior to be present (just throwing out a random hypothesis here…)? Is there value in bad behavior, or can we extract value from it? Has bad behavior increased, or are we just now able to see the scope of it more clearly? What are the causes, can we determine them, and what, if anything can be done about it?

This week we’ll discuss the nature of “bad behavior” in this context, both to better understand what it is, explore the causes, and see what may lie ahead of us as global social communication continues to develop.

Join us Tuesday at 12PM noon SL for an interactive discussion, and thanks for being part of “We Are The Network”!

Best regards,

Joel

Reading links below – have fun and Read more…

How has our Networked Society Changed Personal and Business Relationships?

Please join our global discussion group
every Tuesday at 12PM noon U.S. Pacific / SL time

This Tuesday, Mar 23, at the Epoch Institute in Second Life™

Click here to teleport to the Epoch Institute in Second Life™
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Wells/97/56/27

This Week’s Topic

How has our Networked Society Changed Personal and Business Relationships?

Today’s society has changed, and been changed by, the emergence of systems and tools that have provided a near real-time communications fabric that connects us individually and collectively in new ways. They expose our social graphs, encourage us to explore each others’ social graphs, enable us to meet new people and re-connect with people we’d lost track of, all with speed and a level of ease and fluidity that was unheard of a few years ago.

It is easy to find commentary denouncing these systems as the emergent cause of the downfall of individual relationships and society in general. Is it really all one-sided? Are there advantages and positive changes brought on by our new socially hyper-networked world, as well as some risks and negative implications? We are in the midst of an evolution that is only enabled by technology, but is far more about us and how we relate than the technologies themselves. A while back I wrote a post The Networked Audience is Here. Now. Are You Ready? That post focused on professional presenters, but the true impact has much wider reach. This week we’ll explore the effects of these changes on our relationships in general.

How has the emergence of our networked society changed the way we relate to each other, the way we communicate, the way we create and maintain relationships? Have we started to change the nature of human relationships—what it means to be social, what it means to be part of a society, or what culture itself means?

Much of the literature on the web about the impact of networked society on relationships focuses on personal and intimate relationships, and this bias is reflected in the reading links below. That being said, the same issues apply to many types of relationships, including family, purely social and business relationships, so please read them in that light, as we’ll be discussing this larger view of the topic.

Join us Tuesday at 12PM noon SL for an interactive discussion, and thanks for being part of “We Are The Network”!

Best regards,

Joel

Reading links below – have fun and Read more…

How do Social Media and Virtual Worlds Affect Cultural Translation?

Please join us for a discussion every Tuesday at 12PM noon SL (US Pacific Time)

This Tuesday, Jan 19th, we will be at the Epoch Institute in Second Life™

Click here to teleport to the Epoch Institute in Second Life™

This Week’s Topic

How do Social Media and Virtual Worlds Affect Cultural Translation?

Cultural translation happens whenever we try to communicate across cultural differences. These differences might be triggered by language, ethnicity, geography, time or other conceptual variations that create communication hurdles. This week we’ll explore how social media and virtual worlds affect cultural translation, in both positive and negative ways.

What are the possible triggers for cultural translation hurdles? Where do they originate? Have new hurdles appeared with the rise of the always on, globally networked society, or are they just exposed in new ways? Do social media and virtual worlds assist in reducing or removing these differences, or do they exacerbate the problems?

Join us Tuesday at 12PM noon SL, and thanks for being part of “We Are The Network”!

Best regards,

Joel

Reading links below – have fun and see you soon! Read more…

We thought we knew the world of public presentations. We developed material, practiced the craft and delivered an experience to our audiences. Our craft was to entertain, to inform, to provide an experience. The audience’s role was to sit, absorb the experience, be quiet, and wait until some lucky few have had their chance to stand and ask a question or make a comment.

Then things started to change rapidly. Technology-enabled societal shifts started moving the ground under our feet.

The Rise of the Networked Audience

Through global communication technologies, people of all types now have access to each other and access to information at any point in time or space. They’ve gotten used to the idea that they can and should be able to discuss, rate, rank, prioritize, link and create conversations in text with anyone, at any time. They comment on and rate everything—movies, web sites, blog posts, music, videos, books, vendors, manufacturers… and you… and me. Social media everywhere has made this hyper-connectedness a part of everyday life.

They expect to do these things with the premise that everybody gains. That it’s their right. That sharing information and opinions is a duty, a core ethos of society. It gives us all the ability to help mold the world by collectively indicating what we think is good, and what isn’t so good. It’s a way to help other people make choices. It’s a new way of looking at the world. It is a new sort of collaboration.

This kind of communication can be terrifying because everybody in the room and around the globe can now Read more…

“I don’t want to hear about your stupid breakfast!” is loudly proclaimed as a-priori proof that status updates, using Twitter, and in some cases blogging in general are a waste of time. Could it be that this apparent nonsense, including Tweets that explain why you woke up late, status updates that shout that a movie is stupid, and comments that some person is a dork, are actually a sign of something good?

Much of the content on the web is far from trivial. It is published in blog, status update and long form, and continues to grow in depth and breadth. I believe these apparently trivial and self-focused uses of social media are side effect of the fast and constant influx of new users of these technologies, and not a sign of a problem of any sort. Large numbers of new people continue to start along a developmental path that leads from triviality to personal learning, synthesis, creativity and personal development.

Lots of people publish status updates and blog posts to share personal “what’s happening to me this minute” thoughts. Over time, people start publishing different kinds of material, and end up in a very different place than the one in which they started.

Based on study of the public output of others, many discussions and personal experience, I believe that there are consistent phases of personal development that mark growth through levels of personal publishing facility, capability and goals. It would be interesting to see statistically significant study results in this area – but lacking that, here’s my shot in the dark. What do you think? Does this match your experience? Does it match what you see in the experience of other people?

The 7 Developmental Phases Of Personal Publishing (continued below the fold…) Read more…

Tonight I glanced at my Twitter feed and saw a comment about TweetChat, talking about its virtues in hashtagged discussions. In the stream was a pointer to a lively discussion underway, and thought “Why not? Let’s see what this toy does.” Before I say anything else I should add that I have no financial or business relationship with the TweetChat developers, and in fact had no idea it existed before tonight.

TweetChat aims to make participation in topical hashtagged discussions on Twitter easier. It has a straightforward, single pane web interface with a clean, simple design. After a first long session with a large group, I’d say it accomplishes this goal well.

You can set refreshes to be as fast as every 5 seconds or as slow as 60 seconds, and if the conversation is going much too quickly, there is even a pause. For many uses, the default of 10 seconds would be fine. You can set the font size to larger or smaller to your taste. It automatically adds the main discussion hashtag to any updates you post, and has single click funtions for reply, retweet, user feature/block and favorite.

Everything lives on one page, so you can participate, read the discussion stream and adjust things without jumping away from the discussion. The refresh is fast enough so that even in a busy discussion there is little waiting time, enabling a smooth discussion flow.

Nicely done. I think I’ll be using TweetChat again. My only nagging concern is that participating in these higher volume chat-styled conversations on Twitter may annoy regular followers, who did not necessarily opt in for a high volume of updates. Do you think that Tweets have a short enough lifespan that people won’t notice an occasional stream of discussion?