The World Cyber Cafe - Recently Updated Pages

Research

jimmiller5420 — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 05:40:13 CDT

Return to South Benton County Community, Research and Report Wikiwebsite.

How should the World Cyber Cafe be used?

Nancy:

Great ideas, but would they work for a business which is facing bankruptcy because of high fuel costs (pick any airline or trucking company). Social networking is a big rage right now. It needs to translate into the business arena.

Personally, the aimless, boring, self-promotion and self-centeredness of social networks does not interest me. However, we can learn from these social network promotions and perhaps apply it to more meaningful objects.

My interest is how to form as many producer/worker cooperatives as possible so that this type of "Bottom-up capitalism" replaces the current "Top-down capitalism" which rules America and most countries. The latter system has really devestated our Earth and most of its inhabitants. It is time to change before it gets a whole lot worse.

2 How is the moderator picked?

3. What does the moderator do?

4. How do we handle spammers, unruly, and nasty folks?

5. How is the scrivener picked?

Jim says: Each session of the virtual cafe should have a different scrivener to spread the load on a rotating basis.

6. What does the scrivener do?

Jim says: The scrivener keeps notes in the chat box of the points made by each speaker (who is also ID'd in the note). The transcript of the session is then posted on the Wiki under that session's name on that session's separate page. This approach allows each speaker to edit the notes made by the scrivener, after the fact.

What software and gear is best suited to a no/low cost World Cyber Cafe? (short notes with URLs).

1. For a WikiWeb:

Jim says: Wetpaint: www.wetpaint.com

2. Text editor:

Jim says: Let's use Open Office Writer, part of the OO suite: www.openoffice.org More on Open Office

3. Chat rooms:

4. Audio/phone conferencing:

GOTOMEETING

Dear Jim,

Welcome to your GoToMeeting free trial.

It's easy to conduct online meetings with up to 15 attendees with GoToMeeting. Start an on-the-spot presentation with a sales prospect, perform a live demo or train colleagues. With GoToMeeting 4.0 you can start your meeting on a PC or a Mac®. You and your attendees can dial in to the phone conferen
ce or use integrated VoIP and you can easily record meetings for future use. Best of all, you'll be able to host unlimited online meetings for one flat rate.

Just trying to attend a meeting? You don't need to sign up for a GoToMeeting trial to attend a meeting. If you signed up by mistake, you may cancel by following the instructions below.

Important Account Information

Important: Log in and update your billing preferences to keep using GoToMeeting after your trial ends. Click "My Account" and "Billing Information," enter your credit card information and then select the automatic renewal Subscription Option to start your plan after your free trial period.

How to Use GoToMeeting

PC users: If you see the orange GoToMeeting icon in your system tray in the lower-right corner of your screen, then you're ready to start organizing meetings. If you do not see the icon, log in and select Download.

Mac users: Go to the GoToMeeting.com Web site, click Host a Meeting and log in. When you receive the "Application Installed" dialog, click OK and you're ready to start organizing meetings.

To start a meeting now:

Right-click the GoToMeeting system tray icon (Mac users: double-click the GoToMeeting icon on your desktop) and select Meet Now.
Log in if required.
Invite attendees and you're done!

Want to learn more? Sign up for GoToMeeting new user training.

What Can I Use GoToMeeting For?

	Sales Demonstrations: Increase sales by demonstrating product features to your customers remotely.

	Presentations: Reduce travel time and costs by giving your presentations through GoToMeeting. Quickly change presenters and view other attendee desktops. Share only the applications you want with the Specific Application Sharing feature.

	Collaboration: Boost productivity by collaborating with colleagues on spreadsheets, proposals, presentations – any document on any of your computers.

	Training: Save the hassle and expense of travel by conducting live training sessions with GoToMeeting.

How Do I Cancel?

You will never be charged during your free trial and your account will expire automatically if you do not choose to subscribe to GoToMeeting during your free trial period.

Once you have purchased, you will be able to easily cancel your plan online at any time or by contacting our Customer Care team at one of the numbers below.

How Do I Change My Plan or Update My Credit Card Info?


		Need to increase your reach? Switch to GoToWebinar and you will be able to schedule and conduct Webinars with up to 1,000 attendees. Plus GoToWebinar includes GoToMeeting.

		Log in and switch to a GoToWebinar plan today.

You can update your account information at any time. First, log in to your account at the GoToMeeting Web site. Once you have logged in, everything you need for managing your account including updating your credit card information and changing your email address can be found under My Account in the left menu.

Want to set up multiple GoToMeeting organizers in your company? Evaluate GoToMeeting Corporate. You’ll increase your GoToMeeting capacity to 25 attendees and get powerful organizer management and reporting tools, a dedicated account manager, centralized billing and the ability to launch one-click meetings from your company Web site.

How Do I Get Help?


	Attend GoToMeeting Training
Register Now

Our FAQs can provide quick answers to many of your questions. Please log in and click the support link to get answers to questions you may have.

If you need assistance please contact us at any of the numbers below.

GoToMeeting®
Online Meetings Made Easy™
https://www2.gotomeeting.com

gotomeetingcare@citrixonline.com
1-800-263-6317 (U.S. and Canada, toll-free)
+1-805-690-5753 (direct dial)

5. Video conferencing:

About iLinc

iLinc provides Web and audio conferencing solutions that are secure, reliable, and incredibly easy to use. Professionals across industries rely on iLinc for Web meetings, virtual classroom technology, webinars, remote technical support, and more. iLinc helps people collaborate online more effectively while avoiding the expense, environmental damage, and productivity losses associated with travel. See More on World Cyber Cafe, RESEARCH and EVALUATION MATRIX.

Finally, we have a winner!

Please, please check out iLink for Meeting. It may well just be what we have been looking for (or for you English majors = "that for which we have been looking." ) I'm working with Nathan Babb who is a sales rep for iLink who assures me that after we participate in one or more of the free sessions, we will probably want to subscribe to the iLink hosted service.

Here's the plan: Each of us who is interested in experimenting with all of the bells and whistles, login to one or more of the sessions given at 7:00 a.m 10 a.m.or 4:00 p.m. PDT, Monday through Friday and become a participant. Check out all of the features, make notes, write an evaluation and post it on World Cyber Cafe - EVALUATION MATRIX , then post a similalr note on TWC.

The Link to log in is: http://www.ilinc.com/dailydemo/daily

The contact information is:

Nathan Babb

Senior Account Executive

iLinc Communications

2999 N. 44th St. Suite 650 Phoenix , AZ 85018 P: 602.718.1548

F: 602.952.0544

nbabb@ilinc.com

----------------------
/
Here is the Features List for iLink for Meeting URL: http://us.mc625.mail.yahoo.com/mc/showMessage?fid=WORLD%2520CAFE&sort=
Please read it over. Please watch one of the demos at: http://www.ilinc.com/dailydemo/daily

The please record your evalluation in the EVALUATION MATRIX, then vote for or against iLink fsor Meeting. See VOTING.

/=============================\

GEAR FOR VIDEO CONFERENCING

See MS "Round Table" video camcorder in action: Microsoft Office RoundTable, a device scheduled to debut by mid-year 2007, combines the features of a speakerphone with those found in videoconferencing into a device that Microsoft expects will retail for less than US $3,000. http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2006/oct06/10-20officeroundtable.mspx For a DEMO using Round Table, see: http://office.microsoft.com/home/video.aspx?assetid=ES102403201033&width=884&height=540&startindex=0&CTT=11&Origin=HA102403231033 If $3000 is too rich for your pocket book, Try a Logitch Quick Cam with a wide angle lens: $32.99, plus 1.00 shipping.

Logitech QuickCam Webcam w/ Integrated Microphone

Catalog #: 10798583

Logitech QuickCam Webcam w/ Integrated Microphone

Logitech QuickCam Webcam helps you communicate with business partners or chat with friends and family
QuickCam Communicate Internet camera provides crisp, clear VGA video
Communicate webcam calls are always echo-free with the integrated microphone and RightSound technology
RightLight technology provides improved image clarity even in low light
Image sensor: CMOS
Number of image sensor pixels: 1300000
USB interface compatible
Digital video capture resolution: 640 x 480
Field of view: 42 degrees
Video capture format: AVI
Focus type: fixed
Frames per second: 30 frames/s (fps)
Image format: BMP, JPEG

32.99

Standard Shipping: $1.00$1.00

Total:

$33.99
/========================\

People who viewed
this also viewed:

Logitech Skype Compatible QuickCam Chat Webcam

Our Price: $24.99

Compare at: $45.99

Savings: 46% off

Product Summary:

Start communicating with friends and family in three easy steps.
Simply install the software, plug in the camera, and you're ready to enter the world of Internet communications! The QuickCam Chat features an attractive blue faceplate and a quality bundled headset.

Manufacturer: Logitech
Manufacturer Part Number: 961462-0403
Manufacturer Website Address: www.logitech.com
Product Name: QuickCam Chat Webcam
Product Type: Webcam
Interfaces/Ports: USB

Shipping: Leaves our warehouse in 1-3 business days.*

Warranty: 1 Year - Manufacturer
Materials: Electronics
Model No: logitech961462-0403
Dimensions: 5.70

Overstock.com
http://www.overstock.com/cart?addqty2584897=1&addid2584897=3066521&war2584897=1668932&BUY.x=100&BUY.y=31

/=============================\

Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000

Autofocus and Carl Zeiss optics make video stay razor sharp, even in close-ups.
High-Def 2.0MP Video and 8MP* photos mean images never looked more real.
RightLightTM 2 Technology corrects for poor lighting so you always look your best.

Regular Price: $99.99
Sale Price: $89.99 Qty

More infoTo enjoy the benefits of High Quality Video, you must have a Logitech webcam that supports High Quality video, along with the right QuickCam® software. You can download it from here

Features:

Built-in mic with noise suppression and echo reduction for crystal clear conversations.
Get animated with interactive Logitech® Video Effects™.

Requirements:

For Windows® XP: Pentium® P4 (or compatible) processor, 1.4 GHz (2.4 GHz recommended)
128MB RAM (256 MB recommended)
For Windows Vista™: Pentium® P4 (or compatible) processor, 2.4 GHz (2.8 GHz recommended)
512MB RAM (1GB recommended)
200 MB hard disk space
CD-ROM drive
16-bit color display adapter
OS Compatible Sound Card and Speakers
1.1 or 2.0 USB port
MAC compatible via UVC

Certification:

Carl Zeiss® lens
Autofocus system
Ultra-high resolution 2-megapixel sensor with RightLight™2 Technology
Color depth: 24-bit true color
Video capture: Up to 1600 x 1200 pixels (HD quality) (HD Video 960 x 720 pixels)
Frame rate: Up to 30 frames per second
Still image capture: 8 million pixels (with software enhancement)
Built-in microphone with RightSound™ Technology

What's in the box:

Carl Zeiss® lens
Autofocus system
Ultra-high resolution 2-megapixel sensor with RightLight™2 Technology
Color depth: 24-bit true color
Video capture: Up to 1600 x 1200 pixels (HD quality) (HD Video 960 x 720 pixels)
Frame rate: Up to 30 frames per second
Still image capture: 8 million pixels (with software enhancement)
Built-in microphone with RightSound™ Technology

http://accessories.skype.com/DRHM/servlet/ControllerServlet?Action=DisplayProductDetailsPage&SiteID=skype&Locale=en_US&Env=BASE&categoryName=Webcams&parentCategoryName=Webcams&productID=81939800

/===========================/

"The Pro 9000 offers easy plug-and-play operability on either a Windows PC or a Mac--just slide in the USB 2.0 plug, select the camera from your chosen video chatting program (it works seamlessly with Skype, Yahoo!, Windows Live, SightSpeed, and iChat), and you're good to go. While the Pro 9000 works brilliantly right out of the box, you'll only be able to take advantage of software add-ons such using the included QuickCam software (which is for Windows users only). "

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000RZQZM0/ref=s9subs_c2_at1-rfc_p?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1QH2ZN0GGMMSSPE3JDRP&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=278240301&pf_rd_i=507846

/=============================================\

OOVOO

Oovoo is free. Six people at once are on screen. See: http://www.oovoo.com/

/==============================\

CAUCUS

Causus states:

Not just for Education
Of course, Caucus can be used anywhere that people need to coordinate their conversations. It's especially powerful for distributed groups of people that need to share information, track the history of an issue, or reach consensus. (Ever try to have a conversation among 3 or more people via email? And then find something you said a month ago? Or bring another person up to speed, later? It can't be done.) http://www.caucuscare.com/inf_whatis.shtml

Cause has a Needs Assessement which tells us more about Caucus and how it can perform in relation to Virtual Cafes:

Make your own checklist
What do you need for your online classes? Try this experiment: print this page, and next to each checkbox, write 1, 2, or 3 for "don't need", "helpful", and "required". Circle the checked 3's, and highlight the unchecked 3's. What does this tell you? Is anything missing from this list? http://www.caucuscare.com/inf_needs.shtml#

While the software is open source and free, it would require hosting and support service: Caucus offers hosting service:
Monthly fees are based on the number of "seats" (individual users), as shown below. There is no set-up fee, but the minimum is the lower of 3 months or $500. You may purchase hosting services directly over the web.

Users		Cost/Month
50		$50
250		$125
500		$240
750		$340
1000		$400
>1000		(contact us)

http://www.caucuscare.com/sup_host.shtml Caucus also offers several different levels of support:

Item
Price Buy? Cost

Educational Support contract $400

Commercial Support contract $800

Backup Service (1-time setup) $150

Backup Service (6 months) $80

Hosting Service (see chart)

Consulting Services ($75/hr)

Total

/============================================/

WEB CROSSING

http://www.webcrossing.com/Home/webcrossing_neighbors.htm

Web crossing is a commercial service which hosts onlline communities and can also host a client's server. It offers these features:

Friends networking provides mutual links and easy-to-find new activity in friends' spaces.
Degrees of friendship support (friends of friends, third degree friends)
Custom profiles gather the information you want (required and optional) during signup and automatically propagates the content to user profiles, tag-based member searches and advanced members searches. Users decide which profile fields are visible to whom (friends, everybody or nobody).
Quick member browse with links to spaces, photo albums and friendship status
Groups (public, private, and hidden) with online discussion areas and email subscriptions
Projects (public, private, and hidden) are like Groups but are intended for teams working on specific tasks. In addition to groups features there are unlimited sub-folder hierarchies and special group features, including task managers, event calendars, Wiki Web, surveys and discussions.
Friend and group galleries (personal pictures and custom user-selectable avatars)
Hot news and announcements appear whenever members access their spaces, keeping them up to date
Friends and group activity shows up in a person's space, letting them know about new content in subscribed areas
Search spaces, members, and groups
Super Invite is a one-stop feature that makes it easy for members to invite people to join the site, become friends, and participate in groups
Sitewide communities such as Online Support, for system-related discussions
Instant Messaging and Chat with online presence detection and avatars
Personal Spaces with member-settable access permissions
Personal Files let members share data and files with friends, other site members, or store private data
Personal Journals (blogs)
Personal Photo Albums allow members to upload photos and optionally comment on each others' images
Personal Discussion Areas A member's own personal forum space!
WebMail and also full email (SMTP, POP3) services
Footprints (list of recent visitors) for Groups and Spaces
Testimonials from friends
Reviews publishing
Reports can be generated from site data to track growth

Web Crossing offers these services using these elements of its platform:

Discussion Areas offer forum space with full administrative control
WebMail and full email (SMTP, POP3) services are provided
Newsgroups provide full support for NNTP-based access
Mailing Lists permit administering a folder as a mailing list
Instant Messaging and Chat with online presence detection and avatars
Weblogs include teasers, spellcheck, photo blogging, drafts, and a unique timed-release feature
Wiki is a collaboratively-created web of interlinked pages with edit privileges for all participants
Polls offer sidebar or whole-page polls with graphic chart of results
Reports can be generated from site data to track growth

Fees are based on page views. At World Cafe level, the basic package is $65 per month. Here's their price schedule:

Three hosting packages are available, depending on the size of your site and the traffic it gets:

Get Onboard: for small and growing sites
$65 per month, including 30,000 pageview equivalents each month (details)
Professional: for medium-sized sites
$395 per month, including 300,000 pageview equivalents each month (details)
Enterprise: for large, mission-critical sites
$2495 per month, including 2.5 million pageview equivalents each month (details)

Discounts are available with 12-month prepayment
Includes automatic server upgrades and a software license
Pro and Enterprise packages include Priority Support
Licenses are also available

EVALUATION: See Jim's evaluation in the EVALUATION MATRIX.

Hello Jim,

Webcrossing is in the collaboration business with social networking and community building products, but we do not offer the capabilities you are looking to install. I use a product from iLinc which has those capabilities. www.ilinc.com

Regards,

Jim Bert
Vice President Business Development
925-283-8501

----- Original Message -----

From: Jim Miller To: sales@webcrossing.com Sent: Friday, July 18, 2008 5:54 AM Subject: Questions

Sales:

Does Web Crossing support live video conferencing? Does it support Skype phone conferencing iin conjunction with a browser based white board?
What does Web Crossing offer in terms of archiving an entire conference with a table of contents, indexed content, search engine and download of selected files?

Best regards,
Jim Miller

/=====================================\

Webconferences.com (posted on TWC).

Jim says: Webconferences.com is a commercial firm which apparently has the software sets needed for Virtual Cafes. Here's their pitch:
Webconferences.com provides live webcasts and related services and collaborative web-based learning environments. Our team knows how to create and deliver web-based programs. We have significant capability and experience in the social, organizational, technical and pedagogical aspects of a successful web-based program.
http://www.webconferences.com/

Does anyone know what Webconferences.com would charge to cobble together a Virtual Cafe?

Suppose this:

The event planners use an asynchronous solution while the Virtual Cafe (VC) is the in planning and early implementation stage. Then to conduct the event, use a synchronous solution. Then after the event, an asynchronous solution. The latter becomes an archive of that event. I'm especially interested in the latter aspect. We've all been to many conferences, listened, eat and greet, maybe taken notes, pick up some papers and maybe a CD. Those items get packed away or pitched. After a while, whatever "benefit" there was in the conference is lost as memory fades.

I've had the feeling, even when I've gone over my notes months later, of "what was that all about?" All I could recall were a few pinpoints of "light" and, in my case, those were mostly visual with little context. Now with an archived record, we could revisit the conference, replay any part of it which interested us and have our memory refreshd -- if not our enthusiasm.

Conclusion: There appears to be real value in keeping a digital record of the VC and having an embedded search engine to help us find a point of light.

Has anyone had any experience with Webconferencing.com?

Sample of video recording with speaker's running video inset into display or replay of recording of of Power Point Presentation.
http://www.webconferences.com/nihoba/14_dec_2005.html

6. Meeting wizards:

Meeting Wizard:

http://www.meetingwizard.com/mwiz/v/r.cfm?mtag=694083637&m=237885&g=2309323

Please post your extensive comments on Meeting Wizard on MEETING INVITATIONS.

VAWKER

Apparently Vawker, mentioned by Charles Savage, is Google Sites. I attempted to create a Google site and did so at: http://www.theworldcafe.com/. I played with it a while. It looks like a very simple Wiki. As a wiki, Wetpaint far outstrips Vawker. As a meeting manager, Meeting Wizard is much better.

Jim

7. On a country-wide scale, social networking has been taken up by commercial and NPO's as a main focus. The technology bases are the hand held devices, the operating systems, applications and a community-wide wirless broadband system. Here are some stakeholders:

Glide

About GlideKosova.org http://www.glideos.com/kosova/
The mission of GlideKosova.org is to empower Kosovans worldwide with their own online and mobile technology platform to promote social, education and business development and exchange. GlideKosova.org distributes powerful productivity, social and business networking and e-commerce technology to Kosovans to strengthen community bonds, advance classroom and distance learning and facilitate entrepreneurship and commerce across borders in the new mobile world economy. More from TMC.net: http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2008/07/10/3540761.htm
http://www.webconferences.com/nihoba/14_dec_2005.html

8. Mobile devices and OS and application software.

Mobile devices which can access broadband from a wired network, wireless network and radio network.
Nokia bought out its partners in Symbian and now offers a free operating system which runs on handhelds. Many high end handhelds have a webcorder which can operated as a real time video camcorder. This approach allows a person sitting at a physical table to also be part of the World Cyber Cafe part of the same session or allows a remote registrant to be anywhere a broadband connection can be obtained.

Resarch in Motion: Developers of Blackberry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_In_Motion

Palm products (smart phones): http://www.palm.com/us/products/

Windows Mobile: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Mobile
Windows Mobile is a compact operating system combined with a suite of basic applications for mobile devices based on the Microsoft Win32 API. Devices that run Windows Mobile include Pocket PCs, Smartphones, Portable Media Centers, and on-board computers for certain automobiles. It is designed to be somewhat similar to desktop versions of Windows, feature-wise and aesthetically. Additionally, third-party software development is available for Windows Mobile. Originally appearing as the Pocket PC 2000 operating system, Windows Mobile has been updated several times, with the current version being Windows Mobile 6.1, and a new release scheduled for 2010.[1] Microsoft projected in 2008 that shipments of devices with Windows Mobile will increase from 11 million to 20 million units. Microsoft licenses Windows Mobile to four out of the five world's largest mobile phone manufacturers, with Nokia being the other.[2]

NOKIA
http://www.nseries.com/products/n800/#l=products,n810_wme,demo

Nokia N810 Internet Tablet
Keyboard - Bluetooth, Wi-Fi

Chat, interact and experience true internet browsing with the N810 Internet Tablet from Nokia. Equipped with an impressive high-resolution widescreen display and a QWERTY keyboard this tablet lets you create, update, and explore on the move. Stay connected with instant messaging, email and more. Be at hand span from your friends and loved ones via Skype, Google Talk, or Gizmo, with integrated VGA web camera and Bluetooth headset support. Entertainment is always at hand thanks to the integrated m

Part #: 02703R1 / N810

Sellers Found: 8

Available Since: Nov 7, 2007

Lowest Price: $349.00

Average Rating:

(47 user ratings)

Source: http://www.nextag.com/nOKIA-N810/search-html
List of companies offering the N810 with webcam and slide-out keyboard: http://www.nextag.com/nOKIA-N810/search-html

List of companies offering Nokia 800: http://www.google.com/products/catalog?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4SUNA_enUS279US279&q=nokia+N800&um=1&cid=3395770308078996794&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&resnum=1&ct=result

Callwave:
Richard Roberts and Michael Buday are from Callwave, the company that makes a variety of UC (Unified Communications) solutions.

The company has a service called Fuze which is a browser-based UC platform with a nice-looking GUI. The solution has differentiated itself in a number of ways by ensuring their service works on a variety of devices. Just one of these is the Nokia N800 and N810 internet tablets.

The company has a service called Fuze which is a browser-based UC platform with a nice-looking GUI. The solution has differentiated itself in a number of ways by ensuring their service works on a variety of devices. Just one of these is the Nokia N800 and N810 internet tablets.

So what does the service do? Aside from the usual merging of e-mail, voicemail, etc… There is also high quality videoconferencing and Skype (News - Alert)-based conferencing allowing up to about 1,000 people to be on a call at the same time. Furthermore, there is Internet fax, media sharing, Outlook synchronization, voicemail transcription, support for Yahoo! and Google mail, find me/follow me functionality, and more.

More:
http://hdvoice.tmcnet.com/topics/unified-communications/articles/25452-callwave-fuze-unified-communications-plus.htm

9. Archival of prior Virtual Cafe events:

Here's an example of how NIH archives their video casts:

http://www.webconferences.com/nihroadmap/index.html

10. Unconventional Conventions:

Suppose that you find that there are many VC's which have nuggets of infomation and learning which you want to collect for your personal use and archival. Now you copy and paste into a folder such material. But suppose you were to have your own Cyberspace Wikiweb and use it as the platform for input, output and archival? Caucus seems to say it might be that platform:

To repeat, most of the time you'll just click on read all new. Caucus will automatically take you through the new items and responses. In each discussion, you can add your own response(s) with a WYSWYG editor. (You can also link to others' responses, store responses in your private notebook, attach files, link to your to-do list, and much more.) http://www.caucuscare.com/inf_whatis.shtml

Suppose also that you find nuggets on the web and in hard copy. You can scan the hardcopy and post it to your own website. Suppose you use a wikiweb and thereby can invite friends to visit and read your archives. Or,you can find what you saved easily and export it to a Blog or other recipient, all of which is browser accessable. You would have one or more web pages able to display and/or run text documents, video clips, whiteboards, graphics and start a webcast. Caucus says all of the above is possible.

Overview
Caucus is an 'application' that is installed on a Unix server or "host". This includes any flavor of Unix, including Linux, Solaris, MacOS X, BSD, HP-UX, and AIX. (It does not run on Windows servers -- but it doesn't care what kind of a computer or operating system the end users have.) People use Caucus through the web browser on their PC, connected over the Internet (or intranet) to the host. Caucus supports all modern browsers on all computers -- whether it's IE (Internet Explorer) 6 or 7, Firefox, Netscape, or Safari, on Windows, Macintosh, or Unix. When a person is using Caucus, their browser "talks to" software called the "web server" that is installed on the host. (Caucus works with most web servers, although Apache is the most common.) The web server in turn "talks" directly to the Caucus application, which actually generates the information that you see in your browser window. This architecture scales extremely well: for example, one university supports 10,000 total users (with a typical peak of 200 simultaneous users) on a desktop PC with 2GB of RAM, with no degradation of response time. The Caucus application may be installed multiple times on a single host, and each Caucus site is treated as a completely independent "virtual" host. http://www.caucuscare.com/inf_arch.shtml

KIVA
One of the most impressive documentaries I've seen in a long while is the KIVA video clip http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/uganda601/uganda-601.html?c=3qt Note that at about 80% of the way through, a KIVA representative takes a digital photo of a KIVA loan recipient in Uganda with what appears to be a Nokia cellphone, uploads it from the spot via satilitte, to the kiva Web server, which immediately broadcasts the photo and message to all of the KIVA subscribers. Now that is impressive.

In the VC context, each person at a physical table could use a Nokia N810 in lieu of a laptop, record h/h in real time, motion video, audio and text. (or so I suppose) of what is going on at the table and share that information with all remote participants.
/================================================================================/

Lengthy research notes and discussions should be posted on a separate page under the author's name or other key word, and that word or phrase highlighted by a hyperlink to the target page.

Please use Open Office Suite so we are all on the same format page.

See also: The Assignment | Brainstorming | Rough Draft | Tea

Brainstorming

jimmiller5420 — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 08:56:45 CDT

Our Wiki Whiteboard

This page is where we can collect ideas from everyone in the group. Please start your post by ID'ing yourself, e.g.: Jim says: .......... and pick your own color for yourt text from the EasyEdit Toolbar (it is the down arrow to the right of the "A") Also at the end of your text, type in the date. If you have a post more than a short paragraph, suggest you create a page, put your comments there, then hyperlink it to the short note on this page using the MORE>>> siymbol.

Jim's Response to Kenoli (in bold blue):

re ilinc

I wish these companies would just tell what these things do rather than offer a sales pitch that includes lots of buzzwords. They all do that; I can't stand it either. Even some of the “demos” are just hype. . Here is a testimonial:

“iLinc provides strong interaction and presentation
features...The product’s strengths include many
UI customization options, the ability to import all
content types natively that run on Windows, and a
flat license model that offers pricing simplicity for
enterprise Web conferencing.”

that makes me nervous. What does UI mean Not sure, “universal interface”? and when I hear it is compatible with everything that runs on Windows red flags go up because of Microsoft's ubiquitous commitment to refuse to comply with web standards. MS always tries to drive the “standard” their way. However, I read articles which tells me they are opening up some. The litigation in EU has helped on that score. Aside from that, all the features it touts are pretty much in conflict about what WC is all about, namely describing one to many meetings with mechanical feedback and polling. I disagree with your characterization. The “features” are ours for using or not and someday we might want them. I see no conflict at this point. There is a lot of stuff about uploading various kinds of media which aren't of much use to us. That's your opinion, not mine. I've tried to upload PowerPoints to Google Documents with no success. Email rejects large PP files. The hope is that the the Virtual Cafe software will allow for uploading of PP presentations. I really need that service to do my presentations. I don't want the software shaping what we do. I want us to shape what we do. The point of our design team is to find the best fit, not the perfect fit. At this point Live Meeting, iLink for Meeting and possible Oovoo, might be good fits. We will not really know until we use each of them a few times. It's too early to badger the software.

I'll see if I can find time to log in during one of their demos, though I wish they would just provide a list of what it does. Me too. Good hunting.

re MS Live Meeting

So, I'm a bit confused by the description at the link you sent. It doesn't get far enough into the details to know exactly what is possible. It's pretty much a sales pitch like the ilinc pitch. True, yet it's better than nothing. We need to get to use some trial software, not demo software. The demos all explain how to do this on Windows and discuss a live meeting client the only description of which they give is about how to install it on Windows. It also talks a lot about integrating it with Outlook Express, which for me doesn't' help much since Outlook doesn't run on Mac or Unix. True. I would really like to have all software open sourced. Alas, we are not there yet, but we can continue looking afresh as the open source software gets better.

Is this a service, as most Microsoft products are, that make it difficult to use if you are not on a windows platform and using Windows software? Does it work with Mac and Unix/Linux based systems? Good question; don't know for sure. My bet is that if it works on IE and Firefox, it will work on any MAC browser.

I generally try avoid Microsoft products as they seem to create more problems than they solve, but I can't tell from the demos exactly how this works. Yes, visiblity is not clear.

I'm still not sure what we are shooting for here. Amy's list and my responses are very specific. Thus far, we have had no negative feedback, so I assume all is OK with Amy's and my workproduct. See: Topic #2 at: http://worldcybercafe.wetpaint.com/page/Brainstorming

If we had a target in terms of format, we could even think about how we could put various pieces together. If we were trying to reproduce the format we use in face-to-face WC, we could create a simple program (or person) that scrambls emails and sends everyone 4 emails. Each group of four could then exchange emails to each other until the program scrambled the emails into new sets of 4 and then exchange emails with that group. As compared to the conferencing capability I've seen with even the simplest systems, email is dead except for an inviting folks to the meeting (e.g. Meeting Wizard). After a few "table" rotations, the program could send out a master email that sent emails to everyone at all tables and we could have a large group discussion. If we wanted to use graphic facilitation, a few people could be siting in front of a graphics program, or even a sheet of paper they later photograph and send people and recording what comes through on the emails. They wouldn't even need to do this in real time. The real point of having a Virtual Cafe which is synchronous, is that every thing is done in real time or, if a large file, such as a video clip, is loaded on the host server ahead of time for instant reply. Emails are way too slow, cumbersome, and fail on the graphics side.

I realize that there are problems with this, like concurrently sent messages, but I think this could be worked out (I don't think it would be a problem with the groups of four - they could even use an agreed on rotation - but it could get sticky in the large group discussion). If we had a F2F cafe augmented with Virtual Cafe of, say 100 folks, the email system would really bog us down. Take a look at how Bioneers can have the main session in one location and many satellite locations involving thousands of viewers. I'm just thinking about how much time gets taken up trying to makes something someone else invented for another purpose work for us. We are not talking about a custom fit. The software is already there, up and running. Maybe we could just do something ourselves. Not practical when some of the really good programs are free or affordable, like iLink for Meetings and Oovoo. I don't think it would even take too much scripting to write something ourselves in, say php/mysql. It wouldn't require a huge amount of programming as it would be pretty much a single purpose script. Have at it if you have the time and talent.

I haven't looked into Google (and other places like Yahoo) as much as I should, but there are a lot of web services that provide interfaces so users can customize the front end using SOAP or other web service technologies. True, there are many video conferencing services which I have googled. They are all looking for large corporate customers as to whom they can charge about one-half of the otherwise travel costs. That's not our interest and their services are pricey.

That said, if we want to go with something out of the box, maybe we should just be arbitrary and see if it works. That is kind of my recommendation. We need to get two, maybe three finalists, then spend a month or two trying them out, making notes and exchanging ideas and comments. Then we could try something else. Eventually, we would learn something from our conversations and from our attempts to use the technology. My preference is to run up the learning curve by digging into the guts of each program, down almost to the level of code, then try to bollox-up the system, just to see how it reacts – the boot camp approach.

I don't think it is going to be easy to make a judgment up front. Agreed.

My one criteria is that it not be something that is dependent on Windows or any other Microsoft technology. Everything about Microsoft is locking people more and more into their hegemonic empire.

Has anyone looked around in the open source arena? How about these community interfaces like Drupal? Yes, I take the weekly newsletter and use that system administered by a techie. No one I know can handle the technical side of Drupal unless they are already supported by paying clients on that software platform. I like your idea of getting into open source. First, we need to get the show on the road with “close enough” software, then see how we can migrate to open source. Thanks for your comments.
Jim

--Kenoli

On Jul 18, 2008, at 11:56 AM, jimmiller5417 wrote:

Email jimmiller5417 about this message directly.

View DEMO of Live Meeting

It is good to have some basis of comparison when voting on a subject, such as whether to choose iLink for Meetings. The next best conferencing system I've found so far is MS Live Meeting. Please take a look at the series of Demos beginning at: http://office.microsoft.com/home/video.aspx?assetid=ES102403191033&width=884&height=540&startindex=0&CTT=11&Origin=HA102403231033.

The series of DEMOS are listed at: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/livemeeting/HA102403231033.aspx?pid=CL100608181033

Jim

TOPIC: HORIZONTAL EDUCATION

jimmiller5417 - 1 min ago - Jul 15, 2008 7:38 pm (#108 Total: 108)

Community collaboration is an interesting topic which deserves discussion.

Replying to: Charles Savage (Jul 8, 2008 10:45 am)

Virtual Cafes?: Amy, Jim, Tracy and the others who may be interested, Let’s find a date in August that works...

Content for the August Virtual Cafe

We need some content for the Virtual Cafe meeting in August. We are all capable of talking about the technology and what works and how, and that ought to be part of our discussions.

However, the real value of a Virtual Cafe is taking a subject (perhaps one new to us) and exploring it in some depth just to see if we can do such exploration and accomplish some result.

I propose the subject of our first meeting be: HORIZONTAL EDUCATION. Charles, take no offense, but the typical vertical education we have all had (talking head, read the text, memorize, spit it back on the test), leaves me with a headache.

There is another way, horizontal education, that is one group of folks teaching a different group of folks. The best example I've seen of this force in action is Campesino a Campesino: Voices from Latin America's Farmer to Farmer Movement for Sustainable Agriculture at: http://www.foodfirst.org/store/book/Campesino_a_Campesino.

Please read the article and be prepared to discuss it. One point is to come up with some good applications of horizontal education which can be applied in the Cafe setting (virtual or F2F). Whatdahyathink?

Jim

/===================================/

Brainstorming Topic #1: Which objectives are there for the World Cyber Cafe which are reasonably obtainable in the short term?

Jim's added comments to a thread at TWC, where Amy is the Administrator:

To: Amy Lenzo:

Amy's text is in black. Jim's comments are in blue. Please feel free to edit. Credits go to Amy for drilling down further into the fundamentals of a cafe setting and operation. See Amy's website: http://www.beautydialogues.com

"What are the meaningful results we are looking for?"

1) Each participant feeling personally heard and part of something important.

a) At the first opportunity, we send out a personal invitation to each person who has indicated an interest in attending a World Cyber Cafe event. We need to mention that their interest or point of view is need for the event and would be welcomed.

b) Before the event, the presenters post their notes or text of talk with citations where appropriate. As these are posted, an RRS feed notifies all who have registered for the event and suggests they forward our message to five friends who might be interested and sending a CC to the facilitator/moderator of the event (or to the WCC admin.)

2) An opening in participants' ability to really listen to others. We might introduce the idea of a talking stick. A Chat room takes care of talking over. In a conference call, normal pauses and a dropped voice usually signals that the speaker has relinquished the “floor”. Or we could devise a verbal signal, “over” as in the HAM radio days.

4) Collective/shared awareness arising from the whole group interaction. In a conference call, we could start out with a song such as a Mitch Miller sing-a-long “duck” song. Or we could have performers sing the melody and the rest of use supply the Doo Wop. Rhythmic clapping? Singing in the Rain? Over the Rainbow? Oklahoma?

"What are the group dynamics behind World Cafe that gets the results we value?"

1) unusual, beautiful, welcoming/inviting environment. Sayings from Starhawk or others might be a good intro. New age visuals or some powerful Mexican murals might appeal to the crowd.

2) personal welcome. Yes! The Moderator should have a “Welcome” package which each participant gets downloaded when they actually sign in to the live conference. How about a door prize? Contests? Free software?

3) shared introduction encompassing the whole room. Before the meeting, each registrant for the meeting has the opportunity to add a profile to the Membership page. The Greeting should mention this fact so that any member can review the attendees' profiles a few days in advance.

4) visual graphics for welcome, guidelines, and the question/s (as they evolve) for reference throughout. Visuals are best uploaded to a server ahead of time, and then added to the Event's WikiWebsite for all to see. These can be combined into a Power Point show with or without text and with or without sound.

5) being in small groups of no more than 4-5 Depending the total number attending, the smallest “table” or “room” should be five and the largest eight.

6) participating in a collaborative, collective visual "doodle" while speaking. Probably a white board: one for the entire event and one for each table. Hopefully this allows for concurrent users – not sure of this.

7) hearing "the buzz" and snatches of conversation around us as we speak and listen in our small group. Each participate will have the ability to shift from one “page”, “table” or “room” at will. It would be too difficult and confusing to have background noise or “buzz”.

8) rotating the small groups for at least 2 rounds of conversation. Good. The scrivener should stay at h/h first assigned table, take notes and summarize the prior discussion/votes to the new attendees.

9) the chance to harvest what we've heard in our conversations and listen to others' perceptions . Yes, the scrivener does this or we can use the transcript from the Chat Room for exact replication of the text'd discussions.

10) The ability for everyone to see our shared thinking represented visually at the same time. As to the entire event, probably we need a talking head to summarize each table's discussions or we could put the camcorder on each scrivener to summarize h/h table's conclusions.

"How might we implement these dynamics online?"

In relation to
#1: personal invitations, clear directions, welcoming visual design, easy to use interface, friendly tech support, freely offered and available throughout. Excellent. Not sure how we are going to staff the tech support. I'll do my part but we will need 10% of the number of participants doing tech support before the meeting and two people during the meeting.

#2: visual video access to all the people in the room, special care taken among the hosting team to be thoughtful and personable in compensation for the emotional "gap" caused by the relative lack of expressiveness in the online environment. At the table level, each participant has a webcam clipped to the h/h monitor, aimed at the participant. If we have a combination of physical tables in a physical cafe with Cyber participants online, then MS has a solution for the table: MS LiveMeeting has a 360 degree camcorder which sits in the middle of the table and records motion video and audio. The drawback is that this device costs $3,000. See this in one of the demos listed on the EVALUATION MATRIX of WCC. This digital data stream can be recording.

#3: a way for the whole group to be in one place, and hear a shared presentation, a host that's comfortable in the online medium and familiar with the technology being used. While we need a talking head to start the event, we should quickly break into sessions for a hour or two, then come back to the talking head.

#4: participant & hosts having access to a shared visual screen that can change throughout the café process. We can put small thumbnail squares on the display screen, with each square displaying each of several tables, which are clickable. I'm not techie enough to know how to do it, but I've seen it done.

#5: a way for the group to divide into small, contained groups of 4-5 that they can have private conversation within, and yet retain visual and auditory connection with the whole group. GoToMeeting, iLink for meeting does this as does MS LiveMeeting.

#6: shared equal-access whiteboard for each small group. Good idea. I'm not, at this point, techie enough to know how to do this, but I'll looking into it.

#7: Feedback. We should have a survey questionnaire up and running during the event so that as it progresses, each registrant can “fill in the blanks” or check off or add an essay. At the end of the Event, these are uploaded via the Admin to the WCC website.

#8 a way for new small groups to be easily formed Self-chosen by Topic on a first-come, first-serve basis.

#9: the same as #3

#10: same as #4, with a real-time component and the addition of a graphic recorder who is comfortable in the online medium, and skilled in using the technology of online real-time graphics capture. Since WCC is totally digital, no problem in creating galleries of pictures and playlists of video and audio. If we have a combo physical cafe and a virtual cafe, then there will need to have a computer and a scanner at a back-room physical table for non-digitized visuals, or we could use a ditigal camera, take a picture of the analogue visual and upload the digital image.

#11. Gear. To promote the WCC in live video/audio, each registrant will have to invest in some software, a set of head phones with a mic and a Web cam. Theses are cheap enough so that the cost should not be a barrier. (A whole lot cheaper than driving to a physical event). Visuals are important so we need to encourage each registrant to get a scanner and some scanning software so they can hand draw a visual or use a non-digitized photo and still have the ability to upload.

#12 Freedom of choice. I have been to conferences, only to find out that they are not what I expected – vague words, no action plan, a re-hash, stream of phrases, a marketing pitch. The value of WCC is that the registrant can simply drop the connection and go about h/h business instantly.

Regards,

Jim Miller

See also: Project Schedule | Rough Draft | Research | Team Members

DISCUSSION FORUM

jimmiller5420 — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 22:07:04 CDT

SUMMARY OF THREADS

UNIVERSAL DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS

What UC is

"IDC defines unified communications as a software infrastructure platform that consolidates directory, routing and management of communications across a growing set of applications. These applications can include advanced IP telephony calling and management; Web, audio and videoconferencing; instant messaging; and pervasive presence management and awareness. All applications are accessible through any device and as functions available to business applications developers. "

Read the entire article: http://www.business.att.com/enterprise/customer_magazine/slotnum=5&/?ecampaign=nx_200808_activate&profile=103046776&_CEP=campaignId%3Dprc228013%26domain%3Dyahoo.com%26stageId%3Dccs980013%26actionId%3Dcca1000013%26id%3Dlp5004%26profileId%3D103046776%3AzfUo%2FVrrx7DXhnwfORfTfA%3D%3D

Source: AT&T eNewsletter or blog: http://us.mc625.mail.yahoo.com/mc/showMessage?fid=Inbox&sort=date&order=down&startMid=0&.rand=800644600&da=0&midIndex=0&mid=1_263156_AF9Lk0UAATeSSKtoDwylSCx0uJ8&f=1&nextMid=1_255680_AGJLk0UAAUThSKr4RwWWWB6OnYQ&m=1_263156_AF9Lk0UAATeSSKtoDwylSCx0uJ8,1_255680_AGJLk0UAAUThSKr4RwWWWB6OnYQ,1_252470_AGBLk0UAAO6GSKratAOYQkJfuBY,1_253885_AF9Lk0UAAXlmSKrsuwlREmmFdkw,1_252018_AGNLk0UAAJN4SKrP0QihrUfjoms,1_251432_AGNLk0UAAI%2B0SKrO2AhySFC7zfY,

IDC is a research firm which studies and reports on the industry of Unified Communications: North America (Corporate Headquarters) and Latin America
idc_support@idc.com; http://www.idc.com/home.jhtml

Wikiweb as a G2G, acting as an enhancement to 2F2 cafe.

COMMENTS ON USE OF VIDEO CONFERENCING FOR A VIRTUAL CAFE:

We seem to have jumped to the assumption that live video is somehow needed for a virtual Cafe. I think we need to back pedal and surface assumptions about the nature of Cafe culture and interactions to establish what technologies would be options for various activities. Loretta.donovan@gmail.com

Relationship
Technology erodes relationships.
Relationships function best when there is clear, open communications – person to person. Technology staff work in a unique environment that, in most organizations, transcends barriers and bureaucratic layers to give direct access to staff.
Technology staff should constantly think “partnership” and ask, “How can I work with my team to ensure technology supports the vision?” It’s the synergy of people and technology that creates solutions. Seek out partnerships with staff; get to know their frustrations, needs & challenges. Listen first, then work together towards solutions and improved business processes.
IT staff should constantly reinforce the “work smarter, not harder” concept. Put down the cell phone, don’t send another email, and take the time to talk, in person, to your colleagues and coworkers. Yes, it takes more time to “get with the people” but the chances of building a better, lasting relationship are greatly increased.
The relationship is everything
http://nten.org/blog/2008/08/20/the-art-of-technology

World Cyber Cafe Virtual Cafe Project

jimmiller5420 — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 15:17:58 CDT

Our Collaboration Wiki

We've got a project to finish, and this site is a central point to keep track of our goals, the project schedule, and our work in progress. Add pages as necessary, brainstorm on the wiki "whiteboard" page, and use the person-to-person messaging feature to keep in touch with team members. Please use the Research page to record all of your observations on the software and gear candidates for our Virtual Cafe.

The Assignment	Project Schedule	Brainstorming
Drafts	Research	Team Members
DISCUSSION FORUM (Don't use the one on the navigation bar)	EVALUATION MATRIX	OPINIONS
DRAFT PROPOSALS	VOTING	ADOPTED
	THE CLUETRAIN MANIFESTO	STORIES
Peak Oil Crisis	Manifesto for a New Economy	Looting of the USA

Please use Open Office Suite so we are all on the same format page.

Tips for Building Your Wiki:

Rename your home page to describe your project, then lock your home page
Encourage contribution: Write a "task list" for new pages.
Invite all group members to help out! (Click on "Invite others" in the Page Toolbox)
Use person-to-person messages to stay connected and to send updates, reminders, etc.

Need more? Add graphics and flourishes that match your wiki design (they're free from Paint Splatters)

OPINIONS

jimmiller5420 — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 10:26:12 CDT

Click here to return to South Benton County & WikiWeb. http://sbccwikiweb.wetpaint.com/page/OPINIONS

STRONG, MOTIVATED, COMPETENT, ETHICAL LEADER?
---We never had one. Need a "BETTER DEAL".

Submitted by jimmiller5417 on July 16, 2008 - 6:1

.

Re: Jim's reply to Tom Kehner's statement, at: http://www.theworldcafecommunity.net/webx?14@@.1adee709

"Further, it stands to reason that there comes a point when no technique (whether it be a gimmick or a sincere attempt to instill sustained discipline) will work if the desire to sustain value simply is not present. However, it is clear to us that in the instances where we have a strong, well-respected, motivated LEADER, the opportunity to sustain value from an event dramatically increases. To me, that factoid speaks to involving a person with those experiential and character traits upfront in the design of any F2F or virtual event. "

Jim says: Strong, motivated Leader?

Tom, I don't think USA has had a strong, motivated, competent, ethical leader, ever. We've had strong personalities, like, oh, Jackson who was an expert Indian Killer. More recently we had the good 'ol boy Lyndon who really showed the Viets how "tough" we were. His "leadership" cost us only 55,000 American lives (there goes our gene pool down the drain). Let's not forget our two timer President Nixon, with four fingers in the air -- rather than a one finger salute. Now we have George, the Younger, son of George, the Elder. Yup, George II is really showing 'ol Dad how to handle the Iraqian terrorists.

The solutions, if there are any solutions, are:

First, to grow algea for food (Spirulina) and for biodiesel fuel (Chlorella).

Secondly, we need to transition the top-down capitalism to a bottom-up one by creating worker cooperatives which will out-compete the "winner take all" approach to business. Heh, heh, even the CEOs whose companies have losses, get pay raises while the losers are the employees who are shed.

Third, We need to change the zoning and land use regulations to encourage, and not thwart, the creation and operation of ecovillages using permaculture techniques to grow our own food and fuel LOCALLY!.

Fourth, we need to by-pass the global and mega corporations. Stop buying from them and pinch-off their cash flow.
Fifth, we need to concentrate the "power of the people" by social, economic, and political networking. The Virtual Cafe is a great way to network in a meaningful, somewhat organized manner.

It's time to use the Cafe and other resources to create a new type of competitive capitalism by proving that the power of collborative snyergism within a worker cooperative will eventually either convert top-down companies into worker cooperatives or will drive them out of business. The economic hurricane is gathering more strength and it is headed our way: Peak Oil, Food, Water, Soil, Security ..... and we cannot get out of its path. Batten down the hatches, Tom, and prepare to survive the 100 year storm.

jimmiller5417@yahoo.com

Charles says: Jim You are right, we are at a tipping point, a hell-of-a-big tipping point. Devaluing and Distrust are built into the very fabric of our Industrial Model, back to Adam Smith’s Pin-Making Factor (as the leading metaphor). [I was amazed to discover on page 483 of his Wealth of Nations that he thought his own model stupid – an amazing passage and better than the Human Resource Movement’s critique of the 1930s and 1940s.] If TWC might be an aid in restructuring things, might we add a phrase to the end of the key phrase: “Discussing Questions that Matter, with People who Matter even More!” The power of the TWC (or Dynamic Teaming as I first called it in 1990) is to value the other through deep hearing.

Charles http://www.theworldcafecommunity.net/webx/?50@1004.37esae26czg@.1adf0e11!login=true

jimmiller5417's blog
Login or register to post comments

=====================================/

jimmiller5417 - just now - Jul 16, 2008 7:01 pm (#112 Total: 112)

Community collaboration is an interesting topic which deserves discussion.

Re: Virtual Cafes using wiki's

Schools are finding real value for their students when they use wikiwebs as a sort of educational "open source"

"A colleague at her school, an English teacher, had gone even further in using open content, she said, by incorporating short videos on punctuation into a class-created wiki, a Web site that allows users to add, remove, and sometimes edit the content, for student content and peer grading."

For the full story, go to: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/07/16/43opencontent_ep.h27.html?tmp=866482510

Jim

\===========================/

From: jimmiller5417 [mailto:Talk_About_the_World_Cafe@theworldcafecommunity.net]
Sent: Friday, July 11, 2008 9:07 AM
To: TalkTWC2@theworldcafecommunity.net
Subject: [World Cafe] Re: Virtual Cafes?

Email jimmiller5417 about this message directly.

Re: Jim's reply to Tom Kehner's statement, at: http://www.theworldcafecommunity.net/webx?14@@.1adee709

"Further, it stands to reason that there comes a point when no technique (whether it be a gimmick or a sincere attempt to instill sustained discipline) will work if the desire to sustain value simply is not present. However, it is clear to us that in the instances where we have a strong, well-respected, motivated LEADER, the opportunity to sustain value from an event dramatically increases. To me, that factoid speaks to involving a person with those experiential and character traits upfront in the design of any F2F or virtual event. "

Jim says: Strong, motivated Leader?

Tom, I don't think USA has had a strong, motivated, competent, ethical leader, ever. We've had strong personalities, like, oh, Jackson who was an expert Indian Killer. More recently we had the good 'ol boy Lyndon who really showed the Viets how "tough" we were. His "leadership" cost us only 55,000 American lives (there goes our gene pool down the drain). Let's not forget our two timer President Nixon, with four fingers in the air -- rather than a one finger salute. Now we have George, the Younger, son of George, the Elder. Yup, George II is really showing 'ol Dad how to handle the Iraqian terrorists.

The solutions, if there are any solutions, are:

First, to grow algea for food (Spirulina) and for biodiesel fuel (Chlorella).

Secondly, we need to transition the top-down capitalism to a bottom-up one by creating worker cooperatives which will out-compete the "winner take all" approach to business. Heh, heh, even the CEOs whose companies have losses, get pay raises while the losers are the employees who are shed.

Third, We need to change the zoning and land use regulations to encourage, and not thwart, the creation and operation of ecovillages using permaculture techniques to grow our own food and fuel LOCALLY!.

Fourth, we need to by-pass the global and mega corporations. Stop buying from them and pinch-off their cash flow.

Fifth, we need to concentrate the "power of the people" by social, economic, and political networking. The Virtual Cafe is a great way to network in a meaningful, somewhat organized manner.

It's time to use the Cafe and other resources to create a new type of competitive capitalism by proving that the power of collborative snyergism within a worker cooperative will eventually either convert top-down companies into worker cooperatives or will drive them out of business. The economic hurricane is gathering more strength and it is headed our way: Peak Oil, Food, Water, Soil, Security ..... and we cannot get out of its path. Batten down the hatches, Tom, and prepare to survive the 100 year storm.

jimmiller5417@yahoo.com Charles says: Jim You are right, we are at a tipping point, a hell-of-a-big tipping point. Devaluing and Distrust are built into the very fabric of our Industrial Model, back to Adam Smith’s Pin-Making Factor (as the leading metaphor). [I was amazed to discover on page 483 of his Wealth of Nations that he thought his own model stupid – an amazing passage and better than the Human Resource Movement’s critique of the 1930s and 1940s.] If TWC might be an aid in restructuring things, might we add a phrase to the end of the key phrase: “Discussing Questions that Matter, with People who Matter even More!” The power of the TWC (or Dynamic Teaming as I first called it in 1990) is to value the other through deep hearing. Charles http://www.theworldcafecommunity.net/webx/?50@1004.37esae26czg@.1adf0e11!login=true

DRAFT PROPOSALS

jimmiller5420 — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 14:38:16 CDT

Every member of the World Cyber Cafe Design Team is encouraged to formulate specific recommendations to be adopted. Keep each proposal short and to the point and if you need more space, hypelink to a separate page. Members are free to edit and comment on any proposal and to propose modifications and amendments. The proposer should keep backup copies as the text grows. After 30 days or so, the proposer can call for a vote. Each member can vote or not and give explainations for such vote. Amendments should be listed on the DRAFT PROPOSAL page and voted upon at the same time as the major proposition is voted upon. Majority rule is 51% of the active members (posts at least once a month). Are these rules OK? Chime in.

DRAFT NO. 1. Jim says: Move we accept Meeting Wizard as the platform for maintaining names and email addresses, scheduling events and as the main email client for group level emails.
Comments: It's free, simple, easy to use, reliable and servers the need for an address list. The ability to import addresses from a wide range of different formats is impressive. I'm voting Yes. See VOTING.

DRAFT 2. Jim says: Move we adopt Caucus as the main software conferencing platform for Virtual Cafes with the Whiteboard add-on, that we recommend to The World Cafe that it fund the "Basic" host fee of $200 for 50 seats and $400 for Basic support service.
Jim removed this proposal on 8/1/08 in favor of the proposition in Draft 3 which is a motion to adopt iLink for Meeting as our main software platform.

DRAFT 3. Jim says: Move we adopt iLink for Meetings, with one nominally "Named User" as named administrator for $129/month on a 12 month cotract (disounted from $199/mo). See notes in RESEARCH and in EVALUATION MATRIX. VOTING ends on August 19, 2008.

VOTING

jimmiller5420 — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 14:14:15 CDT

Members of the World Cyber Cafe Design Team are inited to vote on proposals which have been in the DRAFT forum for 30 days or more and for which a vote is called by the proposer. We can always modify any proposition which is passed by 51% of the active members of the team ("active" defined as having posted at least once in the 30 days prior to the vote). The Proposer needs to send out a meeting notice via our email client to all of the members of the design team, which includes the last day to vote and the text of the proposition. Don't forget to add the URL to the DRAFT page and any other relevant URLs. Are these rules OK? Chime in. On the day after the vote deadline the proposer records the passage or defeat of the prooposition and number of votes (for, against, abstain, not voting), along with the text of the proposition on ADOOPTED.

Each voter should indicate h/h user name opposite the vote as per the example below.

DRAFT NO. 1. Jim says: Move we accept Meeting Wizard as the platform for maintaining names and email addresses, scheduling events and as the main email client for group level emails. Voting deadline: August 12, 2008, midnight.

VOTE:
jimmiller5417: Yes

/===================/

DRAFT 2. Jim says: Move we adopt Caucus as the main software conferencing platform for Virtual Cafes with the Whiteboard add-on, that we recommend to The World Cafe that it fund the "Basic" host fee of $200 for 50 seats and $400 for Basic support service.

Jim removed this proposal on 8/1/08 in favor of the proposition in Draft 3 below.

/=======================/
DRAFT 3. Jim says: Move we adopt iLink for Meetings, with one nominally "Named User" as named administrator for $129/month on a 12 month cotract (discounted from $199/mo). See notes in RESEARCH and in EVALUATION MATRIX. VOTING ends on August 19, 2008.

jimmiller5417 votes Yes!

EVALUATION MATRIX

jimmiller5420 — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 11:58:05 CDT

Please use this evaluation matrix for software and gear in support of the mission of World Cyber Cafe as an adjuct to The World Cafe(http://www.theworldcafecommunity.net/webx?14@@.1adee709/73). This is the technical layer upon which the social/community interaction layer rides - so let's find an effective, easy to learn and use, reliable, and cheap platform(s).

COMPANY	PROGRAM	EASE OF USE	COST	COMMENT
		(1-hard to 5-easy)
WIKIWEBS
Wetpaint; http://www.wetpaint.com/ Posted by Jim Miller	Wikiwebsite	4. Easy to setup; use templates, easy to add pages, no HTML. Good nav bars	Free with ads. Pay to remove ads	Jim says: One of he best Wiki's for free. The WP Discussion Forum does not allow edits of replies, so we created our own Discussion Forum (listed on the Home Page).



CONFERENCING
COLAYER http://about.colayer. com/PAGE_context Posted by Jim Miller	Multi-point chat room with sub-rooms.		Free.	Anon. says: Written communication becomes more important in future through the trends of: Globalization The knowledge Ecomnomy This will lead to the following advantages: Contextualization – No No Spam – From Push only to push to places, pull from places Full Consistency All information is stored once – No copies
iLINK FOR MEETING				Jim says: Excellent program; has everything we need and is affordable.







MICROSOFT LIVE MEETING http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/ livemeeting/default.aspx?ofcresset=1 Posted by Jim Miller	See DEMOS below			Jim says: Evaluation: MS Live Meeting seems to have all of the features we would need for a Virtual Cafe among a large number of participants. We could start out retail at $15 each and then when the lust for multi-party, multi-point communication grows, THC could establish a separate membership level which allows the Virtual Meeting Members to meet anytime they want with unlimited number of participants. The economics would have to be resolved ahead of time: I would favor a small flat, annual fee, such as $25.00 just to join and learn about the conference software (trial, demo) and then pay a per person per meeting fee, such as two to ten dollars an hour, depending on the kind of services being offered. These fees would be paid in advance via debit card, before the meeting starts. This way TWC would cover expenses and earn some net profit for its organizational needs.
GOTOMEETING See: https://www2. gotomeeting.com/ default/help/g2w/pdf /GoToWebinar_User_ Guide.pdf?Portal=www2. gotowebinar.comP Posted by Jim Miller			Free	Jim Says: I tried to view the demo. They insisted on getting my credit card information just to view of demo. Further, the written explanations were confusing and written by a left-brain dominant author for whom pictures were irrelevant. There is no price listing on the website that I could find. I would not recommend GoToMeeting.
WEB CROSSING	Multi-point, browser based	Has a Wiki	fROM $65/\mo	Does not support live video conference. Nothing said about archiving.

MS LIVE MEETING DEMOS:
Demo: Part 1: http://office.microsoft.com/home/video.aspx?assetid=ES102403191033&width=884&height=540&startindex=0&CTT=11&Origin=HA102403231033

Part 2: http://office.microsoft.com/home/video.aspx?assetid=ES102403201033&width=884&height=540&startindex=0&CTT=11&Origin=HA102403231033

Part 3: http://office.microsoft.com/home/video.aspx?assetid=ES102403211033&width=884&height=540&startindex=0&CTT=11&Origin=HA102403231033

Additional demos: http://www.microsoft.com/uc/products/livehosted.mspx

CONVERSATION BETWEEN JIM MILLER AND STUART KUNKLE

jimmiller5420 — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 06:40:38 CDT

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

PEAK OIL CRISIS

jimmiller5420 — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 06:40:16 CDT

CONVERSATION BETWEEN JIM MILLER AND STUART KUNKLE

[THE] LONG EMERGENCY
What's going to happen as we start running out of cheap gas to guzzle?
JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER

SHORTAGE AND LONGAGE
There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation.
There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize.
There is a failure here that topples all our success. – John Steinbeck

THE LONG EMERGENCY

jimmiller5420 — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 06:32:17 CDT

What's going to happen as we start running out of cheap gas to guzzle?

JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER

Posted Mar 24, 2005 12:00 AM

Rolling_stone126: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/7203633/the_long_emergency

A few weeks ago, the price of oil ratcheted above fifty-five dollars a barrel, which is about twenty dollars a barrel more than a year ago. The next day, the oil story was buried on page six of the New York Times business section. Apparently, the price of oil is not considered significant news, even when it goes up five bucks a barrel in the span of ten days. That same day, the stock market shot up more than a hundred points because, CNN said, government data showed no signs of inflation. Note to clueless nation: Call planet Earth. Carl Jung, one of the fathers of psychology, famously remarked that "people cannot stand too much reality." What you're about to read may challenge your assumptions about the kind of world we live in, and especially the kind of world into which events are propelling us. We are in for a rough ride through uncharted territory.

It has been very hard for Americans -- lost in dark raptures of nonstop infotainment, recreational shopping and compulsive motoring -- to make sense of the gathering forces that will fundamentally alter the terms of everyday life in our technological society. Even after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, America is still sleepwalking into the future. I call this coming time the Long Emergency.

Most immediately we face the end of the cheap-fossil-fuel era. It is no exaggeration to state that reliable supplies of cheap oil and natural gas underlie everything we identify as the necessities of modern life -- not to mention all of its comforts and luxuries: central heating, air conditioning, cars, airplanes, electric lights, inexpensive clothing, recorded music, movies, hip-replacement surgery, national defense -- you name it.

The few Americans who are even aware that there is a gathering global-energy predicament usually misunderstand the core of the argument. That argument states that we don't have to run out of oil to start having severe problems with industrial civilization and its dependent systems. We only have to slip over the all-time production peak and begin a slide down the arc of steady depletion.

The term "global oil-production peak" means that a turning point will come when the world produces the most oil it will ever produce in a given year and, after that, yearly production will inexorably decline. It is usually represented graphically in a bell curve. The peak is the top of the curve, the halfway point of the world's all-time total endowment, meaning half the world's oil will be left. That seems like a lot of oil, and it is, but there's a big catch: It's the half that is much more difficult to extract, far more costly to get, of much poorer quality and located mostly in places where the people hate us. A substantial amount of it will never be extracted.

The United States passed its own oil peak -- about 11 million barrels a day -- in 1970, and since then production has dropped steadily. In 2004 it ran just above 5 million barrels a day (we get a tad more from natural-gas condensates). Yet we consume roughly 20 million barrels a day now. That means we have to import about two-thirds of our oil, and the ratio will continue to worsen.
The U.S. peak in 1970 brought on a portentous change in geoeconomic power. Within a few years, foreign producers, chiefly OPEC, were setting the price of oil, and this in turn led to the oil crises of the 1970s. In response, frantic development of non-OPEC oil, especially the North Sea fields of England and Norway, essentially saved the West's ass for about two decades. Since 1999, these fields have entered depletion. Meanwhile, worldwide discovery of new oil has steadily declined to insignificant levels in 2003 and 2004.
Some "cornucopians" claim that the Earth has something like a creamy nougat center of "abiotic" oil that will naturally replenish the great oil fields of the world. The facts speak differently. There has been no replacement whatsoever of oil already extracted from the fields of America or any other place.
Now we are faced with the global oil-production peak. The best estimates of when this will actually happen have been somewhere between now and 2010. In 2004, however, after demand from burgeoning China and India shot up, and revelations that Shell Oil wildly misstated its reserves, and Saudi Arabia proved incapable of goosing up its production despite promises to do so, the most knowledgeable experts revised their predictions and now concur that 2005 is apt to be the year of all-time global peak production.

It will change everything about how we live.

To aggravate matters, American natural-gas production is also declining, at five percent a year, despite frenetic new drilling, and with the potential of much steeper declines ahead. Because of the oil crises of the 1970s, the nuclear-plant disasters at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl and the acid-rain problem, the U.S. chose to make gas its first choice for electric-power generation. The result was that just about every power plant built after 1980 has to run on gas. Half the homes in America are heated with gas. To further complicate matters, gas isn't easy to import. Here in North America, it is distributed through a vast pipeline network. Gas imported from overseas would have to be compressed at minus-260 degrees Fahrenheit in pressurized tanker ships and unloaded (re-gasified) at special terminals, of which few exist in America. Moreover, the first attempts to site new terminals have met furious opposition because they are such ripe targets for terrorism.
Some other things about the global energy predicament are poorly understood by the public and even our leaders. This is going to be a permanent energy crisis, and these energy problems will synergize with the disruptions of climate change, epidemic disease and population overshoot to produce higher orders of trouble.

We will have to accommodate ourselves to fundamentally changed conditions.

No combination of alternative fuels will allow us to run American life the way we have been used to running it, or even a substantial fraction of it. The wonders of steady technological progress achieved through the reign of cheap oil have lulled us into a kind of Jiminy Cricket syndrome, leading many Americans to believe that anything we wish for hard enough will come true. These days, even people who ought to know better are wishing ardently for a seamless transition from fossil fuels to their putative replacements.

The widely touted "hydrogen economy" is a particularly cruel hoax. We are not going to replace the U.S. automobile and truck fleet with vehicles run on fuel cells. For one thing, the current generation of fuel cells is largely designed to run on hydrogen obtained from natural gas. The other way to get hydrogen in the quantities wished for would be electrolysis of water using power from hundreds of nuclear plants. Apart from the dim prospect of our building that many nuclear plants soon enough, there are also numerous severe problems with hydrogen's nature as an element that present forbidding obstacles to its use as a replacement for oil and gas, especially in storage and transport.

Wishful notions about rescuing our way of life with "renewables" are also unrealistic. Solar-electric systems and wind turbines face not only the enormous problem of scale but the fact that the components require substantial amounts of energy to manufacture and the probability that they can't be manufactured at all without the underlying support platform of a fossil-fuel economy. We will surely use solar and wind technology to generate some electricity for a period ahead but probably at a very local and small scale.

Virtually all "biomass" schemes for using plants to create liquid fuels cannot be scaled up to even a fraction of the level at which things are currently run. What's more, these schemes are predicated on using oil and gas "inputs" (fertilizers, weed-killers) to grow the biomass crops that would be converted into ethanol or bio-diesel fuels. This is a net energy loser -- you might as well just burn the inputs and not bother with the biomass products. Proposals to distill trash and waste into oil by means of thermal depolymerization depend on the huge waste stream produced by a cheap oil and gas economy in the first place.

Coal is far less versatile than oil and gas, extant in less abundant supplies than many people assume and fraught with huge ecological drawbacks -- as a contributor to greenhouse "global warming" gases and many health and toxicity issues ranging from widespread mercury poisoning to acid rain. You can make synthetic oil from coal, but the only time this was tried on a large scale was by the Nazis under wartime conditions, using impressive amounts of slave labor.

If we wish to keep the lights on in America after 2020, we may indeed have to resort to nuclear power, with all its practical problems and eco-conundrums. Under optimal conditions, it could take ten years to get a new generation of nuclear power plants into operation, and the price may be beyond our means. Uranium is also a resource in finite supply. We are no closer to the more difficult project of atomic fusion, by the way, than we were in the 1970s.

The upshot of all this is that we are entering a historical period of potentially great instability, turbulence and hardship. Obviously, geopolitical maneuvering around the world's richest energy regions has already led to war and promises more international military conflict. Since the Middle East contains two-thirds of the world's remaining oil supplies, the U.S. has attempted desperately to stabilize the region by, in effect, opening a big police station in Iraq. The intent was not just to secure Iraq's oil but to modify and influence the behavior of neighboring states around the Persian Gulf, especially Iran and Saudi Arabia. The results have been far from entirely positive, and our future prospects in that part of the world are not something we can feel altogether confident about.

And then there is the issue of China, which, in 2004, became the world's second-greatest consumer of oil, surpassing Japan. China's surging industrial growth has made it increasingly dependent on the imports we are counting on. If China wanted to, it could easily walk into some of these places -- the Middle East, former Soviet republics in central Asia -- and extend its hegemony by force. Is America prepared to contest for this oil in an Asian land war with the Chinese army? I doubt it. Nor can the U.S. military occupy regions of the Eastern Hemisphere indefinitely, or hope to secure either the terrain or the oil infrastructure of one distant, unfriendly country after another. A likely scenario is that the U.S. could exhaust and bankrupt itself trying to do this, and be forced to withdraw back into our own hemisphere, having lost access to most of the world's remaining oil in the process.

We know that our national leaders are hardly uninformed about this predicament. President George W. Bush has been briefed on the dangers of the oil-peak situation as long ago as before the 2000 election and repeatedly since then. In March, the Department of Energy released a report that officially acknowledges for the first time that peak oil is for real and states plainly that "the world has never faced a problem like this. Without massive mitigation more than a decade before the fact, the problem will be pervasive and will not be temporary."

Most of all, the Long Emergency will require us to make other arrangements for the way we live in the United States. America is in a special predicament due to a set of unfortunate choices we made as a society in the twentieth century. Perhaps the worst was to let our towns and cities rot away and to replace them with suburbia, which had the additional side effect of trashing a lot of the best farmland in America. Suburbia will come to be regarded as the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world. It has a tragic destiny. The psychology of previous investment suggests that we will defend our drive-in utopia long after it has become a terrible liability.

Before long, the suburbs will fail us in practical terms. We made the ongoing development of housing subdivisions, highway strips, fried-food shacks and shopping malls the basis of our economy, and when we have to stop making more of those things, the bottom will fall out.
The circumstances of the Long Emergency will require us to downscale and re-scale virtually everything we do and how we do it, from the kind of communities we physically inhabit to the way we grow our food to the way we work and trade the products of our work. Our lives will become profoundly and intensely local. Daily life will be far less about mobility and much more about staying where you are. Anything organized on the large scale, whether it is government or a corporate business enterprise such as Wal-Mart, will wither as the cheap energy props that support bigness fall away. The turbulence of the Long Emergency will produce a lot of economic losers, and many of these will be members of an angry and aggrieved former middle class.

Food production is going to be an enormous problem in the Long Emergency. As industrial agriculture fails due to a scarcity of oil- and gas-based inputs, we will certainly have to grow more of our food closer to where we live, and do it on a smaller scale. The American economy of the mid-twenty-first century may actually center on agriculture, not information, not high tech, not "services" like real estate sales or hawking cheeseburgers to tourists. Farming. This is no doubt a startling, radical idea, and it raises extremely difficult questions about the reallocation of land and the nature of work. The relentless subdividing of land in the late twentieth century has destroyed the contiguity and integrity of the rural landscape in most places. The process of readjustment is apt to be disorderly and improvisational. Food production will necessarily be much more labor-intensive than it has been for decades. We can anticipate the re-formation of a native-born American farm-laboring class. It will be composed largely of the aforementioned economic losers who had to relinquish their grip on the American dream. These masses of disentitled people may enter into quasi-feudal social relations with those who own land in exchange for food and physical security. But their sense of grievance will remain fresh, and if mistreated they may simply seize that land.

The way that commerce is currently organized in America will not survive far into the Long Emergency. Wal-Mart's "warehouse on wheels" won't be such a bargain in a non-cheap-oil economy. The national chain stores' 12,000-mile manufacturing supply lines could easily be interrupted by military contests over oil and by internal conflict in the nations that have been supplying us with ultra-cheap manufactured goods, because they, too, will be struggling with similar issues of energy famine and all the disorders that go with it.

As these things occur, America will have to make other arrangements for the manufacture, distribution and sale of ordinary goods. They will probably be made on a "cottage industry" basis rather than the factory system we once had, since the scale of available energy will be much lower -- and we are not going to replay the twentieth century. Tens of thousands of the common products we enjoy today, from paints to pharmaceuticals, are made out of oil. They will become increasingly scarce or unavailable. The selling of things will have to be reorganized at the local scale. It will have to be based on moving merchandise shorter distances. It is almost certain to result in higher costs for the things we buy and far fewer choices.
The automobile will be a diminished presence in our lives, to say the least. With gasoline in short supply, not to mention tax revenue, our roads will surely suffer. The interstate highway system is more delicate than the public realizes. If the "level of service" (as traffic engineers call it) is not maintained to the highest degree, problems multiply and escalate quickly. The system does not tolerate partial failure. The interstates are either in excellent condition, or they quickly fall apart.

America today has a railroad system that the Bulgarians would be ashamed of. Neither of the two major presidential candidates in 2004 mentioned railroads, but if we don't refurbish our rail system, then there may be no long-range travel or transport of goods at all a few decades from now. The commercial aviation industry, already on its knees financially, is likely to vanish. The sheer cost of maintaining gigantic airports may not justify the operation of a much-reduced air-travel fleet. Railroads are far more energy efficient than cars, trucks or airplanes, and they can be run on anything from wood to electricity. The rail-bed infrastructure is also far more economical to maintain than our highway network.

The successful regions in the twenty-first century will be the ones surrounded by viable farming hinterlands that can reconstitute locally sustainable economies on an armature of civic cohesion. Small towns and smaller cities have better prospects than the big cities, which will probably have to contract substantially. The process will be painful and tumultuous. In many American cities, such as Cleveland, Detroit and St. Louis, that process is already well advanced. Others have further to fall. New York and Chicago face extraordinary difficulties, being oversupplied with gigantic buildings out of scale with the reality of declining energy supplies. Their former agricultural hinterlands have long been paved over. They will be encysted in a surrounding fabric of necrotic suburbia that will only amplify and reinforce the cities' problems. Still, our cities occupy important sites. Some kind of urban entities will exist where they are in the future, but probably not the colossi of twentieth-century industrialism.

Some regions of the country will do better than others in the Long Emergency. The Southwest will suffer in proportion to the degree that it prospered during the cheap-oil blowout of the late twentieth century. I predict that Sunbelt states like Arizona and Nevada will become significantly depopulated, since the region will be short of water as well as gasoline and natural gas. Imagine Phoenix without cheap air conditioning.

I'm not optimistic about the Southeast, either, for different reasons. I think it will be subject to substantial levels of violence as the grievances of the formerly middle class boil over and collide with the delusions of Pentecostal Christian extremism. The latent encoded behavior of Southern culture includes an outsized notion of individualism and the belief that firearms ought to be used in the defense of it. This is a poor recipe for civic cohesion.
The Mountain States and Great Plains will face an array of problems, from poor farming potential to water shortages to population loss. The Pacific Northwest, New England and the Upper Midwest have somewhat better prospects. I regard them as less likely to fall into lawlessness, anarchy or despotism and more likely to salvage the bits and pieces of our best social traditions and keep them in operation at some level.

These are daunting and even dreadful prospects. The Long Emergency is going to be a tremendous trauma for the human race. We will not believe that this is happening to us, that 200 years of modernity can be brought to its knees by a world-wide power shortage. The survivors will have to cultivate a religion of hope -- that is, a deep and comprehensive belief that humanity is worth carrying on. If there is any positive side to stark changes coming our way, it may be in the benefits of close communal relations, of having to really work intimately (and physically) with our neighbors, to be part of an enterprise that really matters and to be fully engaged in meaningful social enactments instead of being merely entertained to avoid boredom. Years from now, when we hear singing at all, we will hear ourselves, and we will sing with our whole hearts.

Adapted from The Long Emergency, 2005, by James Howard Kunstler, and reprinted with permission of the publisher, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

SHORTAGE AND LONGAGE

jimmiller5420 — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 06:22:05 CDT

“SHORTAGE OF ENERGY” or “LONGAGE OF PEOPLE”?

By Jay Hanson, August 21, 2007
Click here to discuss the issues raised in this paper

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/the_dieoff_QA

Contact Jay Hanson

Longage is always soluble; a shortage may not be. – Garrett Hardin

There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation.
There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize.
There is a failure here that topples all our success. – John Steinbeck

A specter is haunting developed countries, the specter of “peak oil.” If you were born after 1960, you will probably die of violence, starvation or contagious disease. This is because our genetic demand for more-and-more resources, within a physical environment of less-and-less “net energy”[1] available for those resources, will inevitably lead to widespread violence and global nuclear war.

Geologists have calculated that global oil production [2] and North American natural gas production [3] are peaking about now. American coal is expected to peak about 2035.[4] No alternative – even nuclear [5] – has the potential to replace more than a tiny fraction of the power presently generated by fossil fuels.

America was specifically designed by special interests (e.g., General Motors, Firestone and Standard Oil) to require fossil fuel and automobiles [6] to be viable. The exhaustion of fossil fuel will leave many millions of Americans with no access to food or water and facing certain death. For example, ten or more millions of people in Southern California alone will die within a couple of days after drinking their toilet tanks and swimming pools dry.

Since it’s literally impossible to increase global net energy production, the only approaches which can mitigate this problem are national – to either increase national net energy, or reduce national energy demand, or both. The primary goal of American public policy should be to minimize the suffering [7] of as many American citizens as possible by delivering basic “needs”[8] gratis. Unfortunately, our democratic [9] form of government can not direct us to any specific goal because it is “process politics” instead of “systems politics”:

“As the name implies, process politics emphasizes the adequacy and fairness of the rules governing the process of politics. If the process is fair, then, as in a trial conducted according to due process, the outcome is assumed to be just – or at least the best the system can achieve. By contrast, systems politics is concerned primarily with desired outcomes; means are subordinated to predetermined ends.”[10]

Indeed, all measures that our present government takes to mitigate our problems will make them even worse! [11] Since our present government can not direct us to any specific goal, the first step in mitigation must be to invent a new systems politics. In other words, dump our present “special interest” government in favor of a new “common interest” government based on a new set of values:

“In brief, liberal democracy as we know it – that is, our theory or ‘paradigm’ of politics – is doomed by ecological scarcity; we need a completely new political philosophy and set of political institutions. Moreover, it appears that the basic principles of modern industrial civilization are also incompatible with ecological scarcity and that the whole ideology of modernity growing out of the Enlightenment, especially such central tenets as individualism, may no longer be viable.”[12]
The closest example in our experience was the country on a war footing during World War Two when our economy was directed towards the specific goal of winning the war. Moreover, even if the entire economy were directed towards developing renewable energy supplies, it would be a significant challenge to avoid anarchy because energy available for consumer goods could fall to about 30% of demand:

SHORT-TERM NATIONAL STRATEGIES

“What becomes of the surplus of human life? It is either, 1st. destroyed by infanticide, as among the Chinese and Lacedemonians; or 2ond it is stifled or starved, as among other nations whose population is commensurate to its food; or 3rd it is consumed by wars and endemic diseases; or
4th it overflows, by emigration, to places where a surplus of food is attainable”. – James Madison, 1791.
Once a new form of government is in place, the following nine strategies would provide a start towards mitigating the net energy shortfall:

1) Increase our fraction of global net energy (divert energy from competitors) directly by military action.
2) Increase our fraction of global net energy economically by increasing asset values (e.g., pumping-up the stock market and real estate prices).
3) Reduce energy demand by eliminating unnecessary [13] economic activity.
4) Reduce energy demand by reducing human population levels (e.g., closing our borders, deporting as many as possible and discouraging births).
5) Plant “Victory Gardens” throughout the country.
6) Heavy funding for basic energy research.
7) Pollution control rollback, streamline permitting (no EIS, etc.) for alternate energy. No more permits for fossil fuel power plants. No more funding for roads. No more building permits except in special cases.
8) Full-on conservation, local energy production to minimize grid vulnerabilities, and a crash alternate energy production program. (Conservation will help under a government that limits economic activity).
9) Free mass transit.

ASSUMPTIONS

REALPOLITIC: Practical Politics

In liberal democracies, students are taught “political ideology” not “realpolitik”. So unless one actually experiences it, one has no idea how our so-called “democracy” actually works. I have experienced, observed, and studied politics for fifteen years and have distilled its main systemic features into a few short pieces. If you want to know how I reached my conclusions, study the following papers which explain most of my assumptions:

THE FOUNDING OF AMERICA: A Government By, For, and Of Special Interests - http://www.warsocialism.com/founded.htm

A BASIC IDEA OF HOW OUR GOVERNMENT WORKS - http://www.warsocialism.com/democratic.htm

UNIVERSITY-TRAINED LIARS - http://www.warsocialism.com/economic.htm

SOCIETY OF SLOTH: A Thought Experiment - http://www.warsocialism.com/unnecessary.htm

THERMO/GENE COLLISION: On Human Nature, Energy, and Collapse - http://www.warsocialism.com/thermogenecollision.pdf

CENTRAL BANKERS CAN NOT PRINT ENERGY!

Sixty percent of oil and gas financial executives believe that global oil reserves have already “peaked”.[14] If that is so, it is now impossible for central bankers to increase global economic growth (as measured by physical activity – not GDP) because global net energy will fall for many decades into the future!

Imagine having a motor scooter with a five-gallon tank, but the nearest gas station is six gallons away. You can not fill your tank with trips to the gas station because you burn more than you can bring back – it’s impossible for you to cover your overhead (the size of your bankroll and the price of the gas are irrelevant). You might as well put your scooter up on blocks because you are “out of gas” – forever.

If a country must spend more-than-one unit of energy to produce enough goods and services to buy one unit of energy, it will be impossible to cover the overhead (e.g., Zimbabwe). At that point, every country’s economic machine is “out of gas.” Money and common stocks become worthless – forever.
Desperate political leaders will do what they always have done – what they evolved to do – fight to the death over the remaining energy resources:

“Do you believe,” said Martin, “that hawks have always eaten pigeons when they have found them?” “Without doubt,” said Candide. “Well then,” said Martin, “if hawks have always had the same character, why should you imagine that men have changed theirs?” “Oh!” Said Candide, “there is a vast deal of difference, for free will…”

[1] Energy “resources” must produce more energy than they consume, otherwise they are called “sinks” (this is known as the “net energy” principle). In other words, if it costs more-than-one-barrel-of-oil to “produce” one barrel of oil, then that barrel will never be produced –the money price is irrelevant! The net energy principle places strict “limits to growth” (in the physical sense – not GDP) on global Capitalism because central bankers can not print energy! http://www.dieoff.com/page175.htm

[2] http://www.peakoil.net/

[3] “We’re going to have the biggest decline in western Canadian production in the history of the industry,” Linder said. “There’s going to be 400 to 600 million cubic feet a day less production from western Canada in 2007 versus 2006.” http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=aKfnFfrQZo8M&refer=energy and http://www.warsocialism.com/bakhtiari.htm

[4] http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/052504_coal_peak.html and “Global coal production to peak around 2025 at 30 percent above present production in the best case.” http://www.energywatchgroup.org/files/Coalreport.pdf

[5] The following study finds that if one includes reactor dismantling costs, and all the world’s uranium reserves were used to provide the world’s present electrical needs of 55 EJ/yr, then these reserves would deliver net energy for only 4.3 years! See table # 10 in http://www.warsocialism.com/Chap_2_Energy_Production_and_Fuel_costs_rev6.pdf or http://tinyurl.com/2jmmg7
Here is an interesting glimpse at the potential of wind power http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/winds/global_winds.html . However this study is too superficial to be of much value. Dozens of important issues NOT covered in this study such as storage, accessibility, voltage drop, and the probably-insurmountable problems of wind generation at sea. Each potential site would have to be evaluated independently from a net-energy perspective.

[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy

[7] Violence can be minimized by promoting cooperation over competition and by reducing population at a rate equal to or greater than the fall of per capita natural resource availability.

[8] Human “needs” are different than “wants”. Needs have a scientific basis and is defined by human biology. 35,000 years ago, three million hunter-gatherers “needed” community, shelter, health care, clean water, clean air, and about 3,000 calories a day of nutritious food. Today, people still “need” the same things that hunter-gatherers “needed”.

[9] http://www.warsocialism.com/democratic.htm

[10] p. 242, ECOLOGY AND THE POLITICS OF SCARCITY REVISITED; Ophuls & Boyan, 1992. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0716723131 William Ophuls is a former United States Foreign Service Officer. First published in 1977, this volume received widespread critical and popular acclaim, winning the Gladys M. Kammerer Award as the year’s best book on public policy, and a similar prize from the International Studies Association.

[11] http://www.warsocialism.com/positivefeedbacks.htm

[12] p. 2, Ophuls

[13] http://www.warsocialism.com/unnecessary.htm

[14] http://www.warsocialism.com/sixtyPercent.htm

LOOTING OF THE USA

jimmiller5420 — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 01:37:15 CDT

http://www.lootingtheusa.com/?page_id=2

Lootingtheusa.com is a site devoted to outing those individuals, organizations or companies who take more than their fair share from society. It will attack looters who target investors, consumers, employees, taxpayers, the court system, health care or even sports and religious groups.
I’m an American who now lives in New York City after spending many years in Canada. As a business and political writer, I am shocked at the unimpeded looting of the ownership class in America by the managerial class through excessive compensation. This phenomena is uniquely American and has set a corruptive tone throughout society.

Salaries handed out to the top five executives in all the publicly-listed corporations in the United States are equivalent to 7.5% of the net profits of all the companies combined, according to a 2004 study by Harvard Law Professor Lucian Bebchuk. The top five pay between 1993 and 2002 was $250 billion or 7.5% of aggregate corporate earnings. The pay levels of this group between 1998 and 2002 was equivalent to 10% of aggregate earnings. This does not happen elsewhere and is unprecedented.

For instance, Jeroen van der Veer who runs Royal Dutch Shell PLC made 2.6 million Euros (roughly $3.4 million) last year compared with $25.8 million made by ExxonMobil’s Lee Raymond. Mr. Raymond also received the world’s most obscene retirement package of $400 million.
A 2005 study by Wharton asked 22,074 directors working at 3,114 companies about their business or social associations. Where associated, executives reaped an average of US$450,000 more per year from their boards. “Directors who serve on multiple boards may look like outsiders, but they are not really outsiders and may indulge in mutual back scratching,” said Scott Richardson, Wharton Accounting professor in a newspaper interview.

American capitalism is also bedeviled by lawyers who exploit the country’s capricious legal system by suing corporations when stocks fall in price. Such suits, waged in backward legal jurisdictions with unsophisticated jurors, often result in lucrative settlements for these corporate ambulance chasers and their clients.

How can such unjustifiable looting be allowed by shareholders or lawmakers?

The problem is shareholder democracy is an oxymoron. Corporate bylaws are rigged against shareholders. Small investors have no voice and no wallet large enough to take these issues to a court of law or proxy battle.

All-too-often big shareholders with muscle, such as mutual or pension funds, are co-opted because they earn fees from these corporations to manage money or 401Ks.

Wall Street has no soul and merely facilitates whatever CEOs wish by building in stock options for them in order to win underwritings involving sums that would transform an African economy.

Breathtaking greed has also corrupted politicians who suck in gigantic contributions from this powerful constituency who want to perpetuate and enhance this injustice through inaction or tax cuts.

The media is often co-opted as well. Pursuing a story of corporate malfeasance involving friends, relatives or associates of a newspaper or broadcast proprietor, for instance, is a career-limiting move. Same applies to covering politicians and their corporate liaisons. On top of such conflicts, the mainstream media’s business model is imploding, with the rise of the Internet, and budgets for investigative pieces into corporate misbehavior is shrinking daily. So are the news “holes” devoted to business matters.

Fortunately, information is often available from a variety of sources. These range from media outlets to the blogosphere, data bases, government sources, academia and websites to information held by employees, investors, watchdogs, activists, competitors, whistleblowers and just plain cranks.

Lootingtheusa.com will survey the sources and invite individuals to post or disclose information in the interests of saving free enterprise and the political process from deterioration into a plutocracy that only looks like a democracy.

Rules:

Any emails or correspondence sent to me can be used on this site or in my newspaper columns. I will also censor any unfounded allegations, threats, bad language, racist comments or remarks containing inaccuracies or unverifiable statements.

I also reserve the right to publish partial comments or censor some altogether if they contain obscenities, unfounded allegations, personal attacks, threats or litigious remarks.

Posted in Uncategorized |

Manifesto for a New Economy

jimmiller5420 — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 01:29:11 CDT

— Value Chains for the Rest of Us

An open source co-op to connect you directly with the best experts available.

http://www.xpertweb.com/xwmanifesto.html

Joy's Law: The best expert for your most important project doesn't work in your company. - Bill Joy, Co-Founder, Sun MicroSystems

In the debate about the Digital Divide and inequitable rewards from the New Economy, few have discussed the possibility of a sweeping, technology-driven change in how people work and are rewarded. The assumption is that we are stuck with historic social constraints and economic inequities, even though the record of technical progress is that new communication tools unleash sudden large changes rather than incremental ones. Such a change may be imminent. Value Chains are the means by which originators get rich in a market economy—they are combinations of producers, distributors, middlepeople and retailers. Value Chains have always been hard to forge, defend, manage and collect from, which is why they're so profitable. The Internet is poised to combine productive individuals into value chains which reward their participants as richly as traditional value chains do their originators and manipulators.

We have observed that:

The economy we are used to is simply an Operating System with protocols for collecting money and describing obligations. Every feature and requirement has been invented one rule at a time over the last 5,000 years.

This old economy is a hacked-together collection of poorly written, mostly proprietary legacy code. Every routine in the economy has been written by a seller, with rare instances of consumer-oriented code imposed by competition or the courts but always implemented by sellers.

The seller-managed economic code base is overdue for a drastic revision or outright replacement by an Open Source successor.

The big payoffs in the old economy are to those who create flourishing "value chains."

Whether comprising one or many companies, the winning value chains add people and productivity rapidly.

The originators of successful value chains are rewarded disproportionately to their actual contribution. This inconsistency is worshipped by capitalists and resented by the individual producers of value.

Even big projects at the largest companies are usually produced by small teams of individuals.

The managers of value chains ensure that their individual production teams are hidden behind a communications firewall so an illusion of anonymous organizational productivity is kept alive. Think of them as "Hidden Value" chains.

Internet protocols are intrinsically disruptive to conventional "hidden value" chains:

The Internet is built to 'route around' inefficiencies, using redundant data and multiple routes to provide the effect of a direct, permanent connection between nodes.

The Internet community 'routes around' litigation and intellectual property claims which slow down the Internet's application to the community's requirements.

The Internet responds to any request equally; no request gets preferential treatment.

The Internet has no time for punishment. It simply reports the offender's actions.

Therefore we believe that:

The Internet is a conversation.

And that Markets are conversations, as described by the folks at ClueTrain.

Work and its Reward is primarily a conversation about quality: money is just the punch line.

The quality of the work-reward conversation, not money, is the best benchmark for a 'New' Economy.

Internet protocols are the best model for a quality-based, more even-handed Economic Operating System.

Establishing a quality-based Economic OS requires no new laws, technical standards or protocols, so it needs nobody's permission.

A quality-based Economic OS is technically trivial to implement.

Any group may establish any set of economic rules to use among themselves.

If new rules become broadly adopted by like-minded users, new economic protocols can evolve into a viable option for those who feel limited by the old one.

New economic rules can be as even-handed as the Internet, if they are uniformly applied. "Symmetry" is another description of uniform.

Symmetry requires a single class of participant.

Symmetry requires decentralized record-keeping.

Decentralized record-keeping requires open, redundant, distributed datasets.

Every productive node in a new Economic OS (whether an individual or company) must have resources and processes MORE powerful than most nodes in the Old Economy:

Easier access to new markets
Better global visibility based on the current quality of output rather than a domain name or brand based on old news or recent hype.
Better ability to increase output quickly without sacrificing quality.
Faster compensation for high-quality output.
More detailed visibility into every transaction.
Greater monetary rewards to those who increase the availability of quality work
(corporate-level value chain rewards that may be huge by individual standards)

We propose that:

Transactions must be graded and commented on by the buyer and the producer.

Transactions that receive poor grades are discounted.

Payment is immediate and final.

The records of all producers and buyers are universally available, allowing everyone to seek out high quality producers and buyers and shun low quality participants.

Records are published in the open on each participant's web space, not behind the scenes on a data server.

Mentors are universally available to teach new users how to:

get and give good grades and publish their complete record
earn significant income
support the distributed data model
mentor other new users in these techniques

...and to maintain and co-publish (mirror) a copy of their new users' records

Effective mentors should be rewarded disproportionately for value chains they inspire, especially during the early adopter phase.

Mentors who train effective customers are as valuable as mentors who train effective producers.

Mentors may use freeware forms to publish their new users' records and products instantly on the web, indexed so that an excellent record at an obscure domain will outshine a merely good record at the biggest domain.

There is no basis for time-wasting regulations or litigation when:

each transaction is visible
the reward for the transaction varies with its quality

settlement is immediate and final.

Quality is simply the comparison of a promise to an outcome.

The web-based forms to record and publish users' records are open and freely available.

Developers are encouraged to create improved versions with enhanced usefulness.

The Xpertweb Co-op is our technical means to realize these goals

STORIES

jimmiller5420 — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 23:35:21 CDT

"(...) We live in stories. We breathe stories. Most of our best conversations are about stories. Stories are a big step sidewise and up from information:

Unlike information, they have a start and a finish. The order counts a lot.
They talk about events, not conditions.
They imply a deep relationship among the events, a relationship characterized overall as "unfolding" as if the end were present in the beginning - as of course it almost always is (as was foretold, in a fractally recursive sense, by Aristotle at our culture's beginning).
Stories are about particular humans; no substitutions allowed.
Unlike a set of economic forecasts or trends analysis, they do not pretend to offer the certainty that life will continue to work this way. (On the other hand, the story is more likely to be correct than the forecast because it takes all of our current understanding of the world to accept a story.)
Stories are told in a human voice. It matters who's telling it.

So, stories are not a lot like information. But they are the way we understand. (...) Stories are how we make sense of things. (...)"
http://www.josschuurmans.com/2007/07/the-cluetrain-m.html

Jim says: PLEASE, if you have a good story, please add a page and then put a title here so that we can all navigate to your story and enjoy it. Good stroies make for good conversations and good friends.

The Cluetrain Manifesto on the rebirth of conversations

jimmiller5420 — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 23:33:09 CDT

http://www.josschuurmans.com/2007/07/the-cluetrain-m.html

IMHO, the Cluetrain Manifesto is still the most visionary book, indeed a feast of recognition, of how the Internet is accelerating the shift from broadcast to search, from push to pull, from controlled messaging to open conversation.
From where I stand, the three most relevant themes in the Cluetrain are:

The significance of conversations, and how the Internet is bringing them back.
Why and how businesses need to change as a result.
The power of storytelling.

Below is my collection of references from the book, with an emphasis on the first theme, the rebirth of conversations.
[UPDATE, July 29, 2007: Doc Searls refers to my excerpts from the cluetrain on The Doc Searls Weblog: Saturday, July 28, 2007. In response, I submit that we should combine the teachings of the Cluetrain and the Long Tail theory to be able to engage in the conversations that matter most to us.]

Jim says: The exceprts from the Cluetrain Manifesto are key to understanding the power of Virtual Cafe approach to conversation. One of the key plays in this field is Doc Searls, a legendary thinker and doer. See: www.doc.searls.com

I paraphrase one of Doc Searl's gems: "There was the high level executive in a major corporation. The Cluetrain stopped at his door four times a day, but he never got onboard."

Please read some of the excepts; you will be impressed: http://www.josschuurmans.com/2007/07/the-cluetrain-m.html

MONDRAGON CONFLIT

jimmiller5420 — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 15:09:53 CDT

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

HORIZONTAL EDUCATION

jimmiller5420 — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 23:20:56 CDT

Campesino a Campesino: Voices from Latin America's Farmer to Farmer Movement for Sustainable Agriculture Posted January 17th, 2008 by admin; http://www.foodfirst.org/store/book/Campesino_a_Campesino

$19.95

Campesino a Campesino tells the inspiring story of a true grassroots movement: poor peasant farmers teaching one another how to protect their environment while still earning a living. The first book in English about the farmer-led sustainable agriculture movement in Latin America, Campesino a Campesino includes lots of first-person stories and commentary from the farmer-teachers, mixing personal accounts with detailed analysis of the political, socioeconomic, and ecological factors that galvanized the movement.

Many years ago, author Eric Holt-Gimenez was a volunteer trying to teach sustainable agriculture techniques in the dusty highlands of central Mexico, with little success. Near the end of his tenure, he invited a group of visiting Guatemalan farmers to teach a course in his village. What he saw was like nothing he had known. The Guatemalans used parables, stories, and humor to present agricultural improvement to their Mexican compadres as a logical outcome of clear thinking and compassion; love of farming, of family, of nature, and of community. Rather than try to convince the Mexicans of their innovations, they insisted they experiment new things on a small scale first to see how well they worked. And they saw themselves as students, respecting the Mexicans’ deep, lifelong knowledge of their own particular land and climate. All they asked in return was that the Mexicans turn around and share their new knowledge with others—which they did.

This exchange was typical of a grassroots movement called Campesino a Campesino, or Farmer to Farmer, which has grown up in southern Mexico and war-torn Central America over the last three decades. In the book Campesino a Campesino, Holt-Gimenez writes the first history of the movement, describing the social, political, economic, and environmental circumstances that shape it. The voices and stories of dozens of farmers in the movement are captured, bringing to vivid life this hopeful story of peasant farmers helping one another to farm sustainably, protecting their land, their environment, and their families’ future.

Order your copy today!

Visit the Campesino a Campesino Photo Gallery

Available for download:

Preface Introduction Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Emergence: Mayan Roots, Mexican Branches, Nicaraguan Fruit (first section)

About the Author: Eric Holt-Gimenez, Ph.D., spent over 25 years in Mexico and Central America as a community organizer and agricultural outreach worker. He is executive director of Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy. What people are saying about Campesino a Campesino: Eric's book is a model for how to build farmer capacity for using agroecology for solving problems and building alternatives in their farming systems. This book will prove to be a benchmark for farmer-based partnerships in sustainable development. It is a reflection of Eric's commitment to making a real difference for rural communities in Latin America. Eric's goal has always been to empower farmers to build local capacity, autonomy, and self-sufficiency. He shows us how the best agroecologists are often the farmers themselves. We have much to learn from them. Campesino a Campsino will stand for a long time as the example of how to de meaningful participatory action research.

-Stephen R. Gliessman, Alfred Heller Chair in Agroecology, Program in Community and Agroecology, Department of Environmental Studies University of California - Santa Cruz

Engagingly written, this book tells the story of a powerful social movement that originated in Guatemala and spread through Mexico, Nicaragua and Cuba. Holt-Gimenez’s highly knowledgeable account of the Campesino a Campesino movement offers us an alternative vision of sustainable development, one that is truly bottom-up rather than top-down. This book promises to be an excellent teaching tool for undergraduate and graduate students alike.

-Rachel Schurman, Associate Professor Sociology and Global Studies University of Minnesota

Campesino a Campesino is perhaps the world's foremost sustainable agriculture movement, and everyone concerned about the future of farming should study it. This book is the essential guide to the history and lessons of this crucial movement.

-Peter Rosset, Land Research Action Network

This innovative and engaging book is of immense significance for understanding development and environmental sustainability, both in Latin America and beyond. Drawing on extensive, long-term involvement in the Campesino a Campesino Movement, Holt-Giménez describes how Mayan campesinos in Guatemala pioneered methods of soil and water conservation and farmer-to-farmer pedagogy that they first shared with each other and then with small agriculturalists in Mexico, producing effective practices of agroecosystem management, nonhierarchical communication and local social change that peasants themselves eventually spread throughout Central America and the Caribbean. This book tackles some of today’s most complicated political, ecological and economic conundrums and, in the campesinos’ compelling stories, we come to understand that viable alternatives exist in even the most impoverished zones of rural Latin America.

-Marc Edelman, Professor of Anthropology, Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York, author of Peasants Against Globalization

Grassroots development at its best! While many cross-border networks get called transnational social movements, this one's the real thing. Holt-Gimenez creatively chronicles the history and impact of twenty-five years of campesino innovation in sustainable agriculture in Mesoamerica.

- Jonathan A. Fox, Professor, Latin American and Latino Studies Department, University of California, Santa Cruz

Price: $19.95

CAMISINO CH

jimmiller5420 — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 22:07:38 CDT

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

FUNDRAISING

jimmiller5420 — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 12:04:14 CDT

THE CASE FOUNDATION -- EDUCATIONAL OUTCOMES
http://miyo.casefoundation.org/

Build Parent Involvement

I alumni and over 20 community partners began the work this year.
http://miyo.casefoundation.org/build-parent-involvement
By Eva Weller , Stamford, CT

Our Goal:

Our goal is to engage parents, citizens, leaders and partner organizations to build a community network, reflecting Stamford's diversity, to improve educational outcomes for all Stamford children. Project summary PLTI Alumni and over 20 partners will build on our "community conversations" to engage parents as true partners with the schools. We will expand our network, creating opportunities to share resources and reach out across the community to develop better educational outcomes for all children.

What 'it' is: Stamford Parent Leadership Training Institute (PLTI)

A few Stamford Parent Leadership Training Institute (PLTI) alumni met to talk about what we could do to get parents from different neighborhoods participating in our schools. We were concerned that the same, small group was always involved, but others, whose children could benefit most, did not participate. I wanted to get parents from our many, diverse ethnic communities directly involved in education issues. Another alumna and I took the lead to start the process to bring together a representative group reflecting our city. In June 2006, the diverse Alumni Assn. and more than 20 community groups met to start building community involvement for better educational outcomes.

The partners formed a planning committee and through consensus selected the topic of Parental Involvement in Education. Partners invited their constituencies to attend through personal and multi-lingual invitations, so those whose voices had not been heard would attend. The initial conversation held in October 2006 gathered 87 participants from many ethnic communities. Translators were available. Discussion groups led by moderators were randomly placed to openly explore issues and concerns about how best to involve parents. One group was held in Spanish. Based on data, discussion and consensus at a public meeting, four committees - Communication, Language Barriers, Achievement Gap and Special Needs were formed to explore how parents could become more involved and play a greater and direct role.

Describe your community 2)

Our community is Stamford, CT., a multi-cultural and ethnic city of 127,000. We plan to build on the strong partnerships we established this year. Our online email network works well and we share information about education programs or events and work together to get parents to attend. Community partners are a resource for each other and support each other by attending study groups, forums, and programs. Key partners include the Board of Education and its public schools, organizations representing African--American, Hispanic, Indian, Polish and Haitian and other ethnic groups, numerous community centers, neighborhood associations, and service organizations. We plan to reach out to additional groups to include more local city officials, seniors, clergy, and businesses. Partner meetings will be held to discuss ways to work together.

As a start, informal neighborhood chats were arranged this past year by the Communication Committee with school staff. Held in people's homes in an informal setting in various locations throughout the city, parents could meet and speak informally with the Superintendent of Schools and key administrators. The Language Barriers Committee through a grassroots effort petitioned (with 400 signatures) and reached agreement from the public schools to install a dedicated foreign language telephone information line. Communication is a key area to explore since many parents are still not "in the loop" and would need to be reached in creative ways.

What's your plan?
Moving forward,

I want to expand the partnership network, especially to the business community, youth and seniors. To sustain the project, we need wide visibility and media exposure across the community, building on the successes we have achieved to date. Partners have told me their desire to network and be a real resource for each other and will work to avoid duplication of efforts. This requires constant and thorough communication. Beyond our initial steps, we will expand opportunities and venues for exchanging ideas and direct involvement of parents. This will mean building connections among various constituents.

For our first conversation, we asked parents what their concerns were and formed committees to pursue issues and solutions with good follow-up success. Now we would like to try a new model that fosters discussion and an exchange of ideas between parents, caregivers and interested citizens and school administrators, staff, and others they might not ordinarily be able to access. The Superintendent and school staff support the idea and as a partner will be involved in the planning process. Parents will sit across the table in a comfortable "cafe" setting. Each table would reflect Stamford's diverse population and participants will rotate to other tables. Recorders at each table will capture issues and needs for subsequent follow-up. Parents have the opportunity to ask questions and be heard by those who make decisions that affect their children's lives.

Me and My Team

I came to the United States in 1951 as a refugee. My family spoke little English during our first years here. I was the only immigrant in my classes throughout school in New Jersey. We became proud citizens together. My father worked two jobs to buy a home and save for his five children's college. All are college graduates. A good education was the way for immigrants to succeed, but children from all backgrounds should have this opportunity. Through my jobs in federal, state or local governments, I worked with people from all backgrounds. I also contributed hundreds of community service hours each year. Recently, I established a scholarship at UCONN for a Stamford student and established an initiative, "Dare to Dream" for the Parent Teacher Organization at my children's high school where I served on the board. I was named volunteer of the year by the Stamford Museum and recognized by the Volunteer Center. I developed educational programs for schools and served as director for a non-profit organization that promotes understanding about cultural diversity and contributions of America's ethnic minorities. I now serve as the Stamford coordinator of PLTI, a civic initiative of CT Commission on Children. As a volunteer for 28 years in Stamford schools and ethnically diverse community groups, I have good relationships with many who support this effort to engage new parents and create a resource network. PLT I alumni and over 20 community partners began the work this year.

Item	Price	Buy?	Cost
Educational Support contract	$400
Commercial Support contract	$800

Backup Service (1-time setup)	$150
Backup Service (6 months)	$80

Hosting Service (see chart)
Consulting Services ($75/hr)
Total

The World Cyber Cafe - Recently Updated Pages

Research

How should the World Cyber Cafe be used?

2 How is the moderator picked?

3. What does the moderator do?

4. How do we handle spammers, unruly, and nasty folks?

5. How is the scrivener picked?

6. What does the scrivener do?

What software and gear is best suited to a no/low cost World Cyber Cafe? (short notes with URLs).

1. For a WikiWeb:

2. Text editor:

3. Chat rooms:

4. Audio/phone conferencing:

GOTOMEETING

5. Video conferencing:

About iLinc

GEAR FOR VIDEO CONFERENCING

Logitech QuickCam Webcam w/ Integrated Microphone

Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000

OOVOO

CAUCUS

Causus states:

WEB CROSSING

Web crossing is a commercial service which hosts onlline communities and can also host a client's server. It offers these features:

Web Crossing offers these services using these elements of its platform:

Fees are based on page views. At World Cafe level, the basic package is $65 per month. Here's their price schedule:

EVALUATION: See Jim's evaluation in the EVALUATION MATRIX.

/=====================================\

Webconferences.com (posted on TWC).

Does anyone know what Webconferences.com would charge to cobble together a Virtual Cafe?

Suppose this:

Has anyone had any experience with Webconferencing.com?

Sample of video recording with speaker's running video inset into display or replay of recording of of Power Point Presentation.http://www.webconferences.com/nihoba/14_dec_2005.html

6. Meeting wizards:

Meeting Wizard:

Please post your extensive comments on Meeting Wizard on MEETING INVITATIONS.

7. On a country-wide scale, social networking has been taken up by commercial and NPO's as a main focus. The technology bases are the hand held devices, the operating systems, applications and a community-wide wirless broadband system. Here are some stakeholders:

Glide

Resarch in Motion: Developers of Blackberry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_In_Motion

Palm products (smart phones): http://www.palm.com/us/products/

Windows Mobile: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Mobile

Callwave:

9. Archival of prior Virtual Cafe events:

10. Unconventional Conventions:

KIVA

/================================================================================/

Lengthy research notes and discussions should be posted on a separate page under the author's name or other key word, and that word or phrase highlighted by a hyperlink to the target page.

Please use Open Office Suite so we are all on the same format page.

Brainstorming

Our Wiki Whiteboard

TOPIC: HORIZONTAL EDUCATION

Brainstorming Topic #1: Which objectives are there for the World Cyber Cafe which are reasonably obtainable in the short term?

DISCUSSION FORUM

SUMMARY OF THREADS

What UC is

Wikiweb as a G2G, acting as an enhancement to 2F2 cafe.

World Cyber Cafe Virtual Cafe Project

Our Collaboration Wiki

Please use Open Office Suite so we are all on the same format page.

OPINIONS

DRAFT PROPOSALS

VOTING

EVALUATION MATRIX

COMPANY

PROGRAM

EASE OF USE

COST

COMMENT

WIKIWEBS

CONFERENCING

CONVERSATION BETWEEN JIM MILLER AND STUART KUNKLE

PEAK OIL CRISIS

THE LONG EMERGENCY

What's going to happen as we start running out of cheap gas to guzzle?

SHORTAGE AND LONGAGE

SHORT-TERM NATIONAL STRATEGIES

REALPOLITIC: Practical Politics

CENTRAL BANKERS CAN NOT PRINT ENERGY!

LOOTING OF THE USA

Manifesto for a New Economy

Sample of video recording with speaker's running video inset into display or replay of recording of of Power Point Presentation.
http://www.webconferences.com/nihoba/14_dec_2005.html

What's your plan?
Moving forward,