I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I wanted to live deep and suck all the marrow of life....
— Henry David Thoreau, author of Walden
Posted by JonKatz on Thursday December 21, @10:45AM
from the --dreaming-of-cyberville- dept.
Less than a decade ago, the Virtual Community was one of the most powerful ideas emanating from the Net, and BBS's and the nascent Internet were already providing glimpses of a better world to come. Proponents are a lot wiser -- and sadder -- now. Can the Virtual Community survive adolescent flamers and the dotcom era? Yes, but it will have to be dramatically reconceived. (First of a series).
Abstract
The conventions of drama present the planned as spontaneous, stimulating the imagination of greater interaction potential than there is. This paper argues for a distinction between design for demonstration and design for interaction. The distinction is needed on the Internet, which supports the greatest range of discourse -- spontaneous to planned -- and therefore wide scope for confusing dramatic presentation for effective interaction.
Keywords
Design, discourse, drama, human-computer interaction, hypertext, scenarios
Just as there is a process of Instructional Design for developing instructional experiences, we believe that there is a parallel process of Collaborative Design to create the best uses of digital collaboration technology. We need to learn how to assess the needs of the groups involved and select media that is appropriate to the outcome objectives. And, we envision the development of collaboration templates that will embody a design for ideal use of tools in a given situation (e.g. A template that walks the group through a highly interactive video conference for an employment interview, including application sharing of resume and job description documents.) Finally, there are new roles that we must invent and perfect to make Digital Collaboration really soar. Facilitators, community builders, virtual coaches and other roles will evolve that will make Digital Collaboration work effectively and naturally. This is a great time to start the experimentation process. We should find teams within our organizations to lead pilots for leveraging existing and new technologies for effective collaboration. It would be great if the "owners" of collaboration technology were not techies but rather process-oriented folks in the HR, Training or Business areas.
December 2000 Janet Abbate, Inventing the Internet. MIT Press, 1999. Reviewed by Linda Baughman. Peter Lunenfeld, Snap to Grid: A User's Guide to Digital Arts, Media, and Cultures. MIT Press, 2000. Reviewed by Bryan Alexander. Review Essay: Anthony Wilhelm, Democracy in a Digital Age: Challenges to Political Life in Cyberspace (Routledge, 2000); Elaine Kamarck and Joseph Nye, Democracy.com? Governance in a Networked World (Hollis Publishing, 1999); and Richard Davis, The Web of Politics: The Internet's Impact on the American Political System (Oxford University Press, 1999). Reviewed by Philip Howard.Three reviews, as regular as clockwork. Well maintained site. I get notified every time - see the spyonit link on the left.
HE SYNTHESIS DIALOGUES:
Part I OF 4: TOWARDS A NEW WORLD CULTURE with H.H. the Dalai Lama and others
In the fall of 1999, forty innovative thinkers from around the world gathered together with H.H. the Dalai Lama of Tibet at his home in Dharamsala, northern India, for a special dialogue about the future of humanity and the planet
Program 2837 Broadcast during the week of 11/20/2000 to 11/26/2000
