Tracy Chapman Live somewhere at some other time – 1988? Sorry for the imprecise citation, not enough meta data available to discern more.
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Jon Gatrell
So thought I would do a summary based on my topic ideas, good news and bad. The good news I had a great guest post from Kris and one on the way from Kim Howard over at Alz You Need to Know. While we did get two guest post, one done and one on the way no one actually posted on any of the other ideas yet, so is life. Having more than 10 regulars helps is my guess on that one…..
The other interesting thing is there will be a new writer here soon, more of a “sometimes blogger”, Sheryl Altschuler. Sheryl and I have been working on a project for a while which should come out soon and this project has encouraged her to step over the line from traditional marketing to being a social media convert, which I’m leveraging into one of those walk the walk concepts. This clearly wasn’t easy let me tell you, so WELCOME Sheryl and where is that about page you owe me? 🙂
Thanks for Kris and Kim for their efforts and Sheryl’s continued willingness to put up with my theoretical concepts.
Cheers!
~jon
Well, I spent the better part of the week just submerged in work, but Aaron Strout and Chris Saad are already syncing up on data portability, Mark Resch over at Cerado is hooking me up with some creative commons folks and the 4 Missions and 4 projects are clearly underway, not just in writing, but in action as well.
So since others are working, I figure I have to continue some momentum on stuff I’ve been hoping to work. I’ve done a fair amount of outreach with limited input, but the input/questions I’ve had were mainly general questions on what some of the standards are, so I thought I would let you know a little more about them, where I actually know something or at least understand via their website.
What is Creative Commons? Well, in their own words:
Creative Commons defines the spectrum of possibilities between full copyright — all rights reserved — and the public domain — no rights reserved. Our licenses help you keep your copyright while inviting certain uses of your work — a “some rights reserved” copyright.
In my words, it’s a way to share content and provide the RIGHT sourcing to provide the credit where credit is due. Social media has made access to content easier and represents an opportunity for chaos and CC looks to balance access and creative rights.
What is the Data Portability Project?
The DataPortability Project is a group created to promote the idea that individuals have control over their data by determining how they can use it and who can use it. This includes access to data that is under the control of another entity. Get a creative commons widget
What the heck are microformats?
Designed for humans first and machines second, microformats are a set of simple, open data formats built upon existing and widely adopted standards. Instead of throwing away what works today, microformats intend to solve simpler problems first by adapting to current behaviors and usage patterns (e.g. XHTML, blogging).
I suspect that explaination doesn’t really do it does it, now does it? (edit/update: that’s an awful lot of does its – clearly directionally correct, but needs a little work) I’m still not sure what microformats mean for the average person, but I know it’s important or it wouldn’t be on the list darn it. My sheer lack of understanding has made this the lowest priority. Trust me, I’ve tried to figure this out and even after going to the wiki I’m still stumped on the value prop. Since I would like to learn before I engage I’ve sent Ben Ward an email – will let you know, but basically microformats describe stuff, for humans first and machines second. I may have also found my way in another way… we’ll see.
One ID/Username might be cool – OpenID please.
OpenID eliminates the need for multiple usernames across different websites, simplifying your online experience.
You get to choose the OpenID Provider that best meets your needs and most importantly that you trust. At the same time, your OpenID can stay with you, no matter which Provider you move to.
Well, this is a new one which Chris added to the list, but definitely an important one, not sure how it has been overlooked until now, but better late than never. Even tho their mission seems a little lofty, looks like good stuff. Since it is new to the list and seems like an interesting agenda, the outreach is underway. Here is the basic high level overview:
The Open Web Foundation is an attempt to create a home for community-driven specifications. Following the open source model similar to the Apache Software Foundation, the foundation is aimed at building a lightweight framework to help communities deal with the legal requirements necessary to create successful and widely adopted specification.
Since there are definitely no shortage of opportunities to work on standards in the space, any other ideas let me know and I can bring it back to the group, or you could leave comments over at Social Media Club.
One of the other 4 projects is to expand media literacy and part of that comes through membership I would think. So looking to roll out an event in September 4 for Atlanta to start up again. We are finalizing the location, but tentatively it is at Tony’s on Holcomb Bridge in Roswell, other ideas are welcome as Sherry and I look to re-ignite the group with just a little help from others in Atlanta. Should have it solidified in the next week or so…
This is a guest-post from Kris Rowlands who blogs at Fresh Focus who was thought she might just write a guest post on one of the questions I asked to get feedback from folks. Kris’ tackled one of the questions I proposed in crazy real-time. This would certainly makes sense she blogs on productivity. I struggled a little bit with the title, I didn’t know what Kris wanted, but I definately wanted to get it online, in the same rapid fashion in which it was created so I made one up. It is a blend of a quote which Kris’ had on Fresh Focus and the question I asked.
“Be on the alert to recognize your prime at whatever time of your life it may occur.” – Muriel Spark
Thanks much to Kris for the guest post below:
This was one of the questions that Jon posed to his readers. He was looking for someone to do a guest post, and I decided to be a victim!
So, building on the sentence above has proven to be a challenge to me. Picking one single experience would be hard. But, I’ve found a way to wriggle outta that box and put my own spin on it. – hang on for the ride!
The single experience is called LIFE. Obviously, living our LIFE allows us the grand opportunity to learn each and every day…..I hear grumblings in the audience……”GRAND OPPORTUNITY”??? Yep – you bet.
LIFE is a grand opportunity for many, many things. Meeting people, traveling, having a career……….but none of that is more important than the lessons that you learn along the way. Once a lesson is learned, and really learned, your rid of it forever. But if you hem and haw, don’t learn the lesson and repeat the pattern, they you aren’t learning a darn thing! In my opinion, our purpose, while on this Earth, is to learn and teach. You may not thing of yourself as teacher, but you truly are. The people that are involved with you learn from your experiences, trials and tribulations. They also learn from your joy, exuberance and successes. Everything that you do touches all the people that surround your life. The LIFE that they see you live is impressed indelibly upon them. Hopefully, they will learn from your mistakes, as you have……….and if they don’t, and follow in your footsteps, then you have the skills and ammunition needed to help them learn the lesson this time around.
My LIFE has been a university with a mixture of hard knocks, Masters’ Degrees and kindergarden. There have been easy, hard, and lengthy lessons to live……but I, as well as all of those around me, have learned from all of them. It seems, to me, that once I learn a LIFE lesson that someone will present themselves that is going through that same lesson so that I can teach them what I have learned – they say the best way to learn something is teaching another! And I have, many times.
Live your LIFE and learn from all the experiences that come into it. Don’t dread the leaps and hurdles that you will have – learn and grow! But most of all, try and retain all that knowledge that you learn – you’ll never know who needs it next!