Archive - 2010
June 18th
Jarjura Offers to Hire Perez
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 06/18/2010 - 12:21In an effort to boost his sagging race for Comptroller, Waterbury Mayor Mike Jarjura announced today that he will offer a position to Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez. Perez was convicted today on charges of bribery and extortion. Jarjura said that he believed Perez’ experience matched the experience of other people he has recently hired, such as former Governor John Rowland. “These are people who know how to get deals done,” Jarjura said.
Jarjura is no stranger to deal making. It was a backroom deal with the New Haven Democrats that managed to get him on the ballot. Similar backroom deals with the Perez administration may enable him to carry the city of Hartford in the primary.
Healthcare advocate Kevin Lembo, who is the Democratic Nominee for Comptroller refused to get in the mud to wrestle with Jarjura, Perez, Rowland or Garcia, even if it was a political event sponsored by WWE.
Blogger Aldon Hynes, who wrote this acknowledged that he has no real information about any sort of deal between Jarjura, Perez or others, but that it seemed like too good a satirical piece to pass up.
(Cross posted at MyLeftNutmeg.)
Woodbridge Students Discuss National Educational Reform
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 06/18/2010 - 10:44What started off as the End of the Year Celebration for the Multi Age Group Program at Beecher Road School in Woodbridge, CT ended up becoming a forum on national educational reform.
The Multi Age Group, or M.A.G. program at Beecher Road School is a special educational opportunity where students in grades one through four participate in learning events together. While the name focuses on the age grouping, there is much more to the program. Key highlights include an integrated curriculum where a topic is explored throughout the year in all disciplines. For example, this year, the students focused on bluebirds and invasive species. Last year, the focus was on water. The integrated curriculum also provides many opportunities for hands on learning.
Other aspects include a strong focus on respecting all people. Instead of the dichotomy between teachers and students, education is focused on learners helping other learners, whether they be adult learners, fourth year learners or first year learners. To facilitate this, there is a strong effort to make the learning environment as democratic as possible. Students hold meetings to discuss important issues that they face.
The End of Year Celebration started off like so many other end of year ceremonies. The students filed in as friends and family sat in the auditorium. They sang a few song; songs that the students chose. This was followed by individual performances. In introducing the first performance, Elizabeth said that she learned how to express herself in MAG. She then did an interpretive dance to the music of Alice and Wonderland. She received a hug from a classmate after her performance. The opening comment, the dance and the hug provide a good insight into the MAG program.
Abby recited a poem by Shel Silverstein which brought forth another aspect of MAG:
No teacher, preacher, parent, friend
Or wise man can decide
What's right for you--just listen to
The voice that speaks inside.
Other students expressed sadness about leaving MAG. Yet the penultimate individual performance tied it altogether into the discussion of national educational reform. Daniela read a piece about MAG, Twenty Years Later. The twentieth reunion takes place as a pot luck dinner in the Beecher Road Cafeteria. It reflected a sense of sharing that both pot luck dinners and MAG exemplify.
The MAG program has grown in such popularity that they have their own building. The students have gone on to great things as ball players, dancers, veterinarians, artists, and teachers. The underlying theme is that all of them are using their skills to make the world a better place. They have worked hard to help children with a Children’s Imagination Center. They have seen great success in addressing environmental issues. One of the students has gone on to become the first woman president of the United States. In that role she has worked to make sure that programs like MAG are available to students in every school in the nation.
The students in MAG have been brought up in a trying time. They were born under the shadow of 9/11. Their country has been involved in wars during their whole life. There has been a crippling recession and an ecological disaster. Yet through all of it, Daniela’s words reflect a common belief of many MAG students summarized in a quote on the back of the program. “It will be what we make it.”
The MAG program is a phenomenal success. It has helped students learn to express themselves, to dream, to work towards fulfilling their dreams, to help things become what they can be, if they make it. Will the dream of national educational reform based on ideas from MAG become a reality? If these students are any indication and hold fast to their dreams, it will.
(Cross posted at the WOodbridge Citizen.)
#ff #swct #getitdone in a #doacracy
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 06/18/2010 - 07:22#pcct #cttu #googlehaven
Typically on Follow Fridays (#FF) I list people that I’ve been following. I try to tie them together into a theme; people I’ve met at some conference, people I know from some online group, and so on. This week, I’m doing things a little bit differently. I am focusing on hashtags.
For those who don’t know what hashtags are, they are tags frequently used in Twitter that begin with the hash mark to get them to standout. #ff, #swct, #getitdone, #doacracy, #pcct, #cttu, and #googlehaven are all examples of hashtags. The theme is focused on Social Web Week Connectict, #swct.
#swct is an event bigger than any of us, so my perspective on how it got started will be different from other people’s perspectives. It is also hard to say exactly when and where it really started. In my mind, it probably started at the New Haven Social Media Club in May. As we talked, I asked about how Social Media Club’s activities related to other social media activities in the state. I talked about the Tweet Crawls (#cttu) and the Podcamp (#pcct) plans.
When it was decided to have the ShareAThon in July, we talked about trying to have a Tweet Crawl in July in New Haven as well. It turns out that Suzi Craig was already in talks with Bun at Miya’s Sushi about having a Tweet Crawl in New Haven in July and I wrote:
Sounds like New Haven Social Media Week 2010 is starting to take shape. Will GoogleHaven, Ripple100, or other groups arrange events? I'll see if there is the possibility of a Drupal Meetup sometime that week in New Haven
A few days later there was ‘Twushi’, a gathering of Twitter aficionado’s at Miya’s Sushi. A few of us talked more about the idea of a Social Media week in New Haven. A few weeks later, the idea was discussed at a meeting of people in the Left to Right movement, #l2r, Andre Yap sent out an email inviting people to the swct Google Group, I set up a draft website, and things were well on their way.
Here is where the genealogist in me takes over as I look at some of the ancestors of this. Social Media Club started in 2006 in San Francisco and has grown to chapters around the world. At one point, I received an email about a Social Media Club meeting in New Haven. I sent out a message that I would be attending, and about half a dozen of us gathered at a New Haven Restaurant. It turns out that the person who had initially set it up had a conflict and couldn’t attend. She had sent out a message saying the meeting was cancelled, but several of us didn’t get the message and we had a good meeting nonetheless. It was there that I met Amy Desmarais, who at the time still had a day job, but was working to help get Ripple100 launched.
Another important ancestor of #swct is #googlehaven. Like #swct, #googlehaven has its own history, and my views will probably miss important aspects. I first heard about #googlehaven, the idea of bringing Google Fiber to New Haven from Jack Nork. I’m not sure how Jack and I originally connected. I believe it was via Twitter and we ended up deciding to meet in the Woodbridge Starbucks to talk about Twitter and other social media.
Google is looking for a testbed to launch their fiber network, and municipalities around the country have put together proposals. Jack, together with Andre Yap of Ripple100 and others have done a great job in promoting #googlehaven. #googlehaven developed a life of its own. At one of the #googlehaven meetings I noted that there were many municipalities trying to get Google to chose them and I wanted to know what would happen to all the great #googlehaven energy after the application was completed and after the decision was made. This idea resonated and has fed into the #swct effort providing great energy.
There is also the Tweet Crawls. I mentioned how Jack and I had met via Twitter and our talk at the Woodbridge Starbucks was, in many ways, a very small Tweetup. I’ve been to many Tweetups over the past years. Joe Cascio has done some great work in pulling Twitter Aficionados together. Later, Suzi Craig took this to a whole new level with monthly Tweet Crawls at different locations around Connecticut.
Some of the people involved in Tweet Crawls also attended Podcamp Western Mass 2. At discussions at the end of that Podcamp and at subsequent Tweet Crawls, the idea of having a Podcamp in Connecticut was discussed and slowly emerged into a core group of people trying to organize PodcampCT. The first PodcampCT is now scheduled to take place in New Haven in October. The Podcamp planning, which overlaps nicely with the TweetCrawlers has been brought in as part of Social Web Week.
At this point, I would like to dig back to the very early roots of Podcamp. Podcamp is a derivation of Barcamp, which was a response to Foocamp, and all of them are based on Open Space meetings dating back to Organizational Transformation meetings in the 1980s, about the same time that I first got on the Internet. As far as I know, the early OT meetings did not use the Internet, but Internet tools are very well suited to Open Space meetings.
In this aspect, there are key ideas about barcamps, podcamps and related camps. Everyone is a rockstar. Whoever shows up are the right people to show up. Whatever are gets discussed are the right topics to be discussed. This fits nicely with Social Web Week. Somewhere along the way, a fleeting idea of New Haven Social Media Week has evolved. I don’t know the details of the evolution and it probably doesn’t matter. What does matter is that a great group of people have come together. They are people that #getitdone. They are connectors. They are people focused on a #doacracy approach to things. Organizational structure, meeting agendas and such only matter in so much as they help get things done, and if they get in the way of getting things done, they get passed over.
What will Social Web Week CT turn out to be like? It is hard to tell. It has evolved a lot since the discussions over sushi and it still has several weeks to continue to evolve. Whatever it finally ends up looking like, #swct, and related efforts like #cttu, #pcct, #googlehaven, and related efforts are well worth following this Friday and throughout the coming days.
June 17th
Writing for An Audience
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 06/17/2010 - 12:26When you write a blog post or an article for some online site, how aware are you of your intended audience? It seems to be the sort of question that would lead to a great discussion on the weekly #blogchats on Twitter, the sort of question that various readers of this blog who are struggling with their own blogs grapple with, and was recently explored a little bit in Are Page Views Meaningless? and Journalists Won’t Report on News Unless it Drives Pageviews.
Many people have many different reasons to write. There is the profit factor and the desire to be heard. The audiences vary considerably as well, depending on whether you are writing for friends and family, for a business, or as part of a news organization. Beneath all of this are the questions of how many readers do you have and how engaged are they.
For individuals writing for family and friends this becomes a fairly simple issue. Do your friends know about your blog? Do they find it interesting and come back? For political bloggers, there is a different question. Are you preaching to the choir? Most political blogs I read end up writing in such a way that people who already agree will read and agree and people who don’t agree will simply skip over it. This may be useful in strengthening the bonds amongst people of similar political viewpoints, which may result in additional action by these people, but does little to expand the dialog and find new friends, ideas, or coalitions.
Yet the biggest issue is for those who are seeking to monetize their writing, either through their blogs or by getting their articles read more frequently on the news sites they write for. The article about journalists being driven by page views quotes Sam Whitmore saying
if you want to write a story on an interesting but obscure topic, you had better feed the beast by writing a second story about the iPad or Facebook or something else that delivers page views and good SEO.
The article about page views questions whether writing for page views really makes sense. The author focuses on the effect tabbed browsing has on people’s reading habits. With billions of advertise impressions sold each month, more impressions coming, and more impressions selling at remnant prices or not being sold at all, trying to get a few more impressions may just be a losing strategy.
As advertisers become more savvy in targeting advertising, it is important to attract demographics that will be interested in your content and to get people to link to your content. Ads targeting attractive demographics sell for much higher prices than remnant ad prices. The best way to do this is not to simply write about whatever the hot topic du jour is. In doing so, you are following the pack, and you are more likely to get lost in the pack. Instead, write about your interests, your passions. Step out where there isn’t a pack. If you write something good and compelling, you’ll get followers and lead a new pack. This will make your ads much more valuable than ads of random people in the large packs.
Whether you are writing for profit or to be heard, you are more likely to be successful writing something special, something unique that will capture people’s interest than writing with the pack.
Pack journalism is nothing new. It was around before the Internet, and will probably be here for years to come. I do not believe that the Internet will result in journalism becoming more pack following. Yes, some people may follow Sam Whitmore’s advice, and managed to continue scraping by as journalists. Others will follow their dreams and passions and write interesting copy that improve their lives and the lives of others. Every writer needs to choose how they approach their intended audience.
June 16th
