http://wrt-brooke.syr.edu/net/ 2005-04-29T10:05:06-05:00 http://wrt-brooke.syr.edu/net/archives/2005/04/something_exist.html This is one of those times in which I feel like I should be able to come up with some great analysis of the following cartoon that indicates all of the multi-layered jabs at culture. We have isolated ourselves so much through technology, given our mental faculties (particularly memory) over to technology, our experiences are so mediated that we must question the very nature of experience....But at the same time, we've never been closer/had more access to friends and social groups, we've never had so much knowledge so readily available, and we've never had such multi-layered experiences as we do now. Bob Gorrell Editorial Cartoon (if the link ceases to exist I may put the cartoon up just for the sake of it) (I've cross-posted this at kubernetes and will be updating it from there)... TR trobryan 2005-04-29T10:05:06-05:00 http://wrt-brooke.syr.edu/net/archives/2005/04/i_found_if_you.html I found if you search Google/Images with the term "social network," it turns up a little trove of network maps with the accompanying articles. Some are familiar figures from articles on our reading list.... hjjankie 2005-04-28T00:20:18-05:00 http://wrt-brooke.syr.edu/net/archives/2005/04/_remainders.html Just a quick reminder: This Thursday, we're meeting not at 2 but at 3, and downstairs. You'll do course evals, and then we'll pop up to the cluster where you can meet with me to chat about the progress you've made on your projects and/or to work on them.... Projects cgbrooke 2005-04-25T23:26:44-05:00 http://wrt-brooke.syr.edu/net/archives/2005/04/if_i_had_a_visu.html I'm trying to consider what my response would look like as a graph. What ideas would I chart? I've looked back at the margin notes, the things I highlighted, the way reading other's entries here have called to mind different segments, and I'm most intrigued by what I've left off. I'd be interested to see a graph of the things I left out because the ideas that I latched onto or gravitated toward are likely already known to me either as positions I assume or as positions I don't.... TR trobryan 2005-04-20T18:18:18-05:00 http://wrt-brooke.syr.edu/net/archives/2005/04/graphesis_as_ep.html I liked this article. Drucker is one smart lady. But I found myself wondering about just how epistemic graphesis is or can be. As described in the article, graphesis seems to be a method developed staunchly within this cultural and intellectual moment – a way of reclaiming form in a poststructuralist context. But I kept wanting more. I wanted to see this as a way to enable an epistemic shift, and I am not sure if that is what was intended, nor is desired from this method.... Jen jlwingar 2005-04-20T16:42:20-05:00 http://wrt-brooke.syr.edu/net/archives/2005/04/semotics_graphi.html I like the Drucker article. It may just be my reading, but he seems to invoke some strands of semiotics – particularly his treatment of graphesis as sort of abductive phenomenon (or is he making claims for induction, particularly in his commentary about Ed Tufte?).... discussion mfrascie 2005-04-20T14:20:06-05:00 http://wrt-brooke.syr.edu/net/archives/2005/04/graphesis_dna_c.html Reading Drucker, I feel compelled to mention two graphetic “incidents” in science. The first was the publication of the structure of DNA by Watson and Crick. At the time of their discovery, the candidate molecules for the genetic code had been narrowed down to some very interesting proteins and simple, boring DNA. Most of the scientific community supported the protein theory, since DNA seemed too simple to carry the genetic information needed for the code of all life. Watson and Crick essentially published an image (model) of the structure of DNA, which was a plausible fit with the existing data. It became clear from this configuration alone that DNA solved the... hjjankie 2005-04-20T03:10:07-05:00 http://wrt-brooke.syr.edu/net/archives/2005/04/new_books.html I came across these books when I was at the library yesterday. They are in our new books section and I thought they might be of interest. The first is Friendship and Educational Choice: Peer Influence and Planning for the Future by Rachel Brooks. The author investigates how friends influence each other when making education decisions. Just reading the front and back flaps of Brooks's text makes me wonder about peer pressure and whether it can be used as a force for good in a writing classroom. Are there such studies? The second book is Democratizing Innovation by Eric Von Hippel. I think this book will be of immediate interest to anyone studying the open source movement and innovation management. Von Hippel seeks to "explain how innovation by users provides a very necessary complement to and feedstock for manufacturer innovation" (2). If Von Hippel's predictions are accurate, I wonder if... mmh mhansen 2005-04-18T14:32:36-05:00 http://wrt-brooke.syr.edu/net/archives/2005/04/ethnography_as.html It strikes me that upper managment would be very interested in SNA, for it formalizes the often hard to get at inter-personal dynamics that impact relationships in workplaces. It would give them data they can use to justify taking particular actions and as Cross, et.al. point out, "Being peripheral because one is inaccessible is a different coaching process than if one is not considered safe" (119). Absolutely. I'd like to connect up with something Jen said in Chris's post, "I guess the question(s) becomes (at least for me) how can we begin to make the shift from knowledge as commodity to knowledge as communal through SNA or the web or our classrooms?"... discussion mhansen 2005-04-18T14:02:40-05:00 http://wrt-brooke.syr.edu/net/archives/2005/04/call_for_papers.html Eileen Schell forwarded this today, and I thought I should absolutely add it to our blog posts, even though I'm sure you all got it from Eileen, too. It gave me a tremendous amount of satisfaction to have read some of the folks being cited and understand the conversation. In the process of making the CFP more "linked," I discovered David P. Reed's website, specifically his Reed's Locus page, with a link to an entire page devoted to Group Forming Networks resources.... Writing and theorizing dwinslow 2005-04-18T13:29:55-05:00 http://wrt-brooke.syr.edu/net/archives/2005/04/graphical_struc.html Derek dmueller 2005-04-17T21:24:58-05:00 http://wrt-brooke.syr.edu/net/archives/2005/04/problemsolution.html You all will no doubt appreciate this, even if you've already seen it. Apparently, technology will make scholarship obsolete. Scientific Conference Falls for Gibberish Prank. At one point in my small-time career as a writer for a start-up software company, I authored a frustrated e-mal based on notes I had taken at a meeting of the minds. The e-mail largely consisted of strings of buzz words and catch phrases (very similar to those Collin parodied so nicely for us in class). I got called before the CEO (who was also President and Chairman of the Board) to explain, not because he was offended, but because he wanted to know what I meant. I told him I had no idea, but that this was the way we were talking to one another.... TR trobryan 2005-04-15T23:35:08-05:00 http://wrt-brooke.syr.edu/net/archives/2005/04/the_fallacy_is.html Interesting post from Anne Galloway about our constructions of social network concepts. She considers Jyri Engeström’s assertion that A profound confusion about the nature of sociality, which was partly brought about by recent use of the term ‘social network’ by Albert Laszlo-Barabasi and Mark Buchanan in the popular science world, and Clay Shirky and others in the social software world. These authors build on the definition of the social network as ‘a map of the relationships between individuals” ... The fallacy is to think that social networks are just made up of people. They’re not; social networks consist of people who are connected by a shared object.... Krista kkennedy 2005-04-14T15:17:07-05:00 http://wrt-brooke.syr.edu/net/archives/2005/04/threshold_rules.html To further what Mike has said: Through our reading, I find I’m fixated at a discussion back in Watts (224) where he explains “threshold rules.” These are rules of individual decision-making, concerned with the threshold at which a person (node) in the network responds. The actual position of an individual’s threshold depends on precisely to what extent that individual cares about future payoffs versus short-term gain from acting selfishly, and also how much influence he or she perceives themselves as having. It’s possible for individuals to have such a high threshold that they never contribute, no matter what other people do, or such a low threshold that they always contribute. (225) Not only that, but the input that can go into a choice to... hjjankie 2005-04-13T22:41:25-05:00 http://wrt-brooke.syr.edu/net/archives/2005/04/the_people_aret.html In reading entries about this week's readings, I recognized that his concerns were not concerning me. This was surprising because I always want to find the human agency in any systemic analysis. (Or at least I think that I do). So although I understood where he was coming from, I had a completely different take on these readings.... Jen jlwingar 2005-04-13T22:16:52-05:00