Disinterest in Academic Discourse

From time to time, I participate in conference calls and online discussions that are focused on subjects that I should care about: knowledge management, communities of practice, online learning, etc.

More often than not I find that these discussion become academic discourse and generally make me feel the same.

I honestly respect academic discussion and I believe academia lays the foundation for what we know and understand. But man, that kind of discussion is just not for me- and perhaps I'm revealing my ignorance here.

The theoretical, the ongoing discussion about the published papers of respected academics, the arguments about pros and cons of each theory and their applications in endless situations -- it all just drones on for me.

Social Origins of Good Ideas

The idea from this paper by Ronald Burt is that people who participate in a number of groups or networks are exposed to a wide variety of perspectives and ways of thinking.

By virtue of this exposure, these same people are able see holes across groups and find new ways (new ideas) to bridge the holes. This often results in innovation.

I've only read about 1/2 the 58 page .pdf, but I highly recommend it.

Clay at Many-to-Many has a little more on it:Many-to-Many: Social Origin of Good Ideas

Paper on Reputation Systems

Manifesto for the Reputation Society
Abstract:

Information overload, challenges of evaluating quality, and the opportunity to benefit from experiences of others have spurred the development of reputation systems. Most Internet sites which mediate between large numbers of people use some form of reputation mechanism: Slashdot, eBay, ePinions, Amazon, and Google all make use of collaborative filtering, recommender systems, or shared judgements of quality.

 

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Harvard: Can Absence Make a Team Grow Stronger?

Harvard Business Online: Can Absence Make a Team Grow Stronger?

I'm going to have to buy this report. This is what I've been working on the "Workspace" of this site- virtual workspaces for teams. If you want to check it out, let me know.

Article Description:

Blog Survey from MIT's Sociable Media Lab

Go take it now

Via RSS feed: Joi

Interview About Innovation with Andrew Hargadon

ACM: Ubiquity - A Conversation with Andrew Hargadon

I really enjoyed this interview. Andrew is an associate professor at UC Davis Grad School of Management. In this interview he debunks many of the widely-held ideals about innovation. I like the way he thinks.

On the difference between innovation and invention:

Clay Shirky: A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy

Clay Shirky: A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy

I'm a big fan of Clay's and he always enlightens me with each writing. This one is a transcript of a keynote he did on April 24th at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology conference.

It's long, but it provides some juicy insights into the behaviour of groups who gather online. Like me, he believes that a revolution is underway in the use of the Internet as a social tool.