« 7 conversation starters | Main | A Pedagogy of Abundance take 2 »

06/11/2009

Comments

twitter.com/cdmilligan

Spot on Martin, and delivered engagingly as ever. To me: point three could also be thought of as building 'trust' with the other members of your network - strengthening weak ties for the future. This got me thinking about the transience /or otherwise of connecting (which I think is also related to the serendipity point): that the relationships one develops with other individuals with in their network can be easily activated when the need arises (to collaborate) and then can fall dormant again once the motivation to connect has passed.

mweller

Hi Colin - I think that's a good point about peaks in activity with people, and what's more you don't mind. With connections previously you might have felt a bit miffed 'I haven't spoken to you in years and suddenly you ring me'. But because the connections are light it doesn't have this same sense online.

twitter.com/cogdog

Oh I love your video style- cant wait to steal that video method (good music too- Shazam nails it as "Dis-Moi" by BB Brunes and I am off to buy it; take that record companies who want to protect everything).

I'm glad you mentioned serendipty- it is the magic glue of all of this for me (http://cogdogblog.com/tag/web-serendipity/). Sure its great when someone in your network points you to something interesting-- but when you stumble on it, when you blindly explore a link that barely hints at the gem behind it... well that gets me going more than caffeine.

I dont know how you "teach" to use serendipity; I can barely explain it. I find these things often when I am on a link someone sent me, and I poke around a web site if I had not seen it before just to see what they have. I find a lot of these on sidebars, especially blog sites- people put key sites there.

Another fun activity I do is looking at the links people put in their email footer. Sure its usually their employer, or their blog/twitter/facebook etc, but on a handful of occasions, I have found fascinating web sites that have come from email footers-- I would guess for someone to put a link there, it is often something very very special they are passionate about.

Embrace serendipity... if you can stumble across it.

mweller

@Alan - thanks. Agree about the joy of serendipity. There's something about the robustness of serendipity as an approach now. Just by hanging around online you will come across good and relevant stuff. I guess the key is to be in the right communities, that's what we should be 'teaching'.

Jim

Sorry I said you were from England not Wales, stupid American :)

mweller

I _am_ from England, I 'just' live in Wales. It's the missus that's the full Welsh

The comments to this entry are closed.

Flickr

  • www.flickr.com
    This is a Flickr badge showing public photos and videos from edtechie99. Make your own badge here.

Twitter Updates

    follow me on Twitter