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SLCC recently put out their Community Standards. It is a real honest attempt to insure the best possible experience for the presenters, attendees, and the board. It was not easy to come by and there were numerous considerations including Union rules. media broadcasting agreements, and holding everyone to a minimum standard of behavior conducive to community building. I'm proud of the baseline we have and have seen good feedback so far.
While away on vacation I missed a great article in Technology Review called Mapping the Internet. The research shows that routing internet traffic through peer-to-peer networks helps to improve traffic flow as well as strengthen the network in the cases of a large scale network outage. Similar to findings by Rob Cross and other network researchers, with each additional communication path redundancy a network becomes better protected against structural holes disrupting information flow. Part of the research on the internet project also looked at where the nodes and traffic lead to as an indicator of importance in the network, something we clearly pay attention to in the human network analysis.
I'm on vacation in Puerto Rico, and hoping to run into some of the folks from ICANN, before their meeting starts.
The New York Times so kindly quoted me in today's article Foundation With Real Money Venture Into Virtual Worlds. It discusses the upcoming interview with Philip Rosedale and the head of the MacArthur Foundation. I am very excited to see what they have in store. I know that we are all collaborating on a special project with Global Kids that is yet to be released or named. I really am looking forward to seeing how things develop in the community as more foundations introduce funding for special interest projects that are community focused and not industry focused.
I just got my monthly update from some of my favorite innovation consultants Futurethink. They made a really cool video about their last Futurethink Field Trip. A brief description of the purpose of the Field Trip is below. They look like so much fun!
MyFoodPhone is like having a nutritionist on call. Send in photos and camera photos of your meals and get help ascertaining the nutritional content of what you put into your body. There is a community build around this site as well for weight loss support as well as sharing of recipe and cooking information. I like the approach of connecting nutritionists with those eating the food via internet as a way to make the service more accessible. What would be most interesting if people were able to gain knowledge to help them fight Diabetes, or certain other nutritional ailments through the site. Moreover as we find that certain compounds are effective in fighting cancers dietitians and nutritionists can recommend health choices the help prevent certain ailments.
Scott Allen, author of The Virtual Handshake, did a recent text interview on Ask Liz Ryan and it really gave me some perspective on why I find some business network systems so bothersome. He sums it up by saying in cases where people are looking to make connections, they are using these social software systems and in doing so shift the burden of research from the requester to the requested. Each time I get a generic invitation to link, or join a network from someone I do not already know I have the burden of evaluating either what the person wants from me or who they are. I pasted the interview below. Great read!
There is a great blog post here on a group of guys who are botstrapping their own not for profit group. The web has unbelievable productivity tools that are free or nearly free and exceptional for setting up small groups like this. As someone who is in the middle of setting up a not for profit myself I can say that the most aggravating part of the process is dealing with the Federal IRS, for our 501.C.3 status.
Changemakers.net is a fantastic resource for online programs seeking solutions to large scale world problems. Recently Changemakers listed a $5 Million dollar grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. They list grant challenges as well as competitions for ideas and implementation strategies. I really like the diverse nature of the site as well as the various funding opportunities within.
Here is a great article in Government Health IT that profiles the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's activities in Second Life. I can not laud my friend John Aderton enough for being a pioneer in one of the biggest government agencies.
