Avoiding the database project from hell

I'm facilitating a session at the 2011 Minnesota Nonprofit Technology and Communications Conference titled " Avoiding the database project from hell." Here is a link to my summary handout:

My comments to a Net Neutrality hearing for the FCC

Late last summer I presented testimony below at a meeting on the Future of the Internet. It is still relevant. The meeting included two FCC Commissioners, US Senator Al Franken and Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Richie and Free Press CEO Josh Silver. You can find details of the meeting, including video from The UpTake in the Twin Cities Daily Planet here. Another good article, "Communities of color may have most to lose if net neutrality goes" was also in the Daily Planet.

Testimony of Sheldon Mains, August 19, 2010, South High School, Minneapolis, MN:

Commissioners, welcome to Minneapolis. My name is Sheldon Mains. Although I am the president of my neighborhood association in Minneapolis and chair of the board of the Twin Cities Media Alliance. I am here representing myself. I live in the Seward Neighborhood of Minneapolis.

My work with the Internet started in 1992 when I started working to establish an Internet service to meet the needs of nonprofit organizations in Minnesota. That service started operations in 1994 and provided email, web, FTP and gopher services to nonprofits and provided classes to help nonprofits and artists learn to use the Internet. The service had to shut down a few years latter because of pressure from local cable TV provider.

I’d like to tell a short story:

In January 2009 my neighborhood was the site of a triple murder at a store owned by Somali immigrants.

The next morning the “neighborhood leaders” (including myself) met to decide on a response. We had no good ideas. Then someone sent an email to our neighborhood discussion forum suggesting that we hold a vigil that night. The leaders’ response was: “Wow, what a great idea.” We got the word out through email, local blogs, Facebook, Twitter, local websites and face-to-face organizing. We ended up with over 800 people outside in 20 degree below zero weather. That vigil was one reason that the Somali community cooperated with the police. With that cooperation this crime was solved in less than a week.

The vigil would not have happened with an open Internet.

• First, Our small community could not afford to pay for the “premium delivery service” some providers now want to charge.
• Second, without home access, that one great idea would not have reached the people who could make it happen.

This raises a number of important issues:

1. The FCC needs to reestablish its authority to regulate the corporations that sell Internet service at a healthy profit. Remember, the Internet was invented and developed using our tax dollars. The Internet is not the property of the large telecommunications firms; it is ours.
   
2. We need to insure real competition: Most residential consumers have at most two choices for Internet service. This is not real competition. Even three or four competitors is not real competition. In economics terms its an "oligopoly"—not really any more meaningful competition than a monopoly. This so-called competition will not solve any problems that could be caused by not having strong net neutrality regulation.
3. We need strong Net Neutrality regulations that apply to all of the Internet: Net Neutrality has to apply to the whole Internet, including networks that the industry may call by other names but serve the same function. Anything less than that will result in telecommunications companies under-investing in the Internet.

Finally, we do need to improve access. If more people had access in their homes—especially many of our immigrant neighbors who have to rely on a computer lab for access—that vigil would have been even more successful.

I urge the FCC to do its job—Protect the public interest.

Thank you

Twin Cities Media Alliance Fall Forum

Title: Networking And The New Media Landscape: Reporting News, Building Community, Making Money

Sponsor: Twin Cities Media Alliance/ Twin Cities Daily Planet

Location: Minneapolis Central Library

Attendance: about 85--from across the political/ideological landscape

Twitter tag: #TCMA09

Keynote: The Twin Cities Media Ecosystem by Matt Thompson of Knight Foundation:

Three stages of media in the Twin Cities:

• The Niche Media phase--lots of publications--from an early 20th century publication on grain milling that had correspondents in London and New York to a lot of papers written in the languages of the many new immigrants.
• The Mass Media--the multiple daily newspapers that were in the Twin Cities merge into just two--one on the East side (St. Paul) and one on the West side (Minneapolis). National news is concentrated in a few "voices" (e.g. Walter Cronkite)
• The Networked Media--Cross feeds--new curators--individuals select the sources we believe and share them, information is connected to other informations, sources connect to each other, news aggregation sites connect to each other, We have to talk about

Local media has to stop talking about the information we provide and start talking about the value we provide (this was really brought home to be during a site visit to TCMA by a local foundation last week).

First Panel (Reporting the News) Take Away:

Everyone is getting into news aggregation--from hyper local neighborhood sites to Minnesota Public Radio and WCCO TV (Local CBS). TC Daily Planet, while it was an early aggregator of community news (both ethnic and geographic communities), will be competing with more aggregators in the near future.

Keynote 2: Bruce Schneier, "Blogging, New Media and the Generation Gap"

Five key works for new media

• Be Interesting--every page, every sentence, every article
• Be Entertaining--it is no accident that many young people get their news from John Stewart. Rush Limbaugh knows he is an entertaining.
• Be Engaging--(I would say "Be Community") people want to talk to each other. Communities can be geographical, topical. Community can be more important than news
• Be available--there has to be an easy way to get to older content.
• Be agile--you don't know what the new device or new platform will be tomorrow or next week. You don't know how new generations will use the Internet How the young will use the Internet will not just be different, it will be incomprehensible.

Bruce recommends checking out book "Free" by Kris (Sp???) Anderson (I wonder if I can literally check it out since this is happening in a library.)

In response to a question: "Net Neutrality can not fail. If it fails legally, there will be enough work arounds that it will eventually succeed. It is an important fight. It if fails, we will see a major set-back with a bunch of old media companies using the law to hand on to an old model. People fighting it will have a lot of technical tools--they just won't have the law on their side."

Second Panel (Building Community) Take Aways:

• Building community is a lot of work (hey, it was actually acknowledged!)
• While a couple years ago, no one site will be the "one site" for any specific community.

Third Panel (the hardest to get speakers to fill) "Making Money" Take Aways

• www.bringmethenews.com is a for profit news site. (at least they hope to be profitable). No banner ads--rely on sponsored content. My question--Isn't sponsored content just another way to say "long form ad"
• L3C funding model for funding=Low Profit Limited Liability Corporation. Primary aim is to further a social purpose. They are designed to attract capital to benefit the community. Good source for information--Americans for Community Development.
• From the Uptake: "If anyone tells you they have funding and business models for media figured out--don't believe them."

Why you should care about broadband and Net Neutrality

NTEN asked me to write an article on why nonprofit techies and leaders should be interested in the pending decisions and debates at the local, state and federal levels regarding Internet access. The thousand word article is on NTEN's blog. (Note, they came up with the title--"Save the Internet, Save the World."

Very different city website

The city of Westminster in the UK has unveiled a new website--"Google simple". Just a few tabs, a big search box, a mapping function, a calendar, and a short list of topics. Totally contrary to the Attention Deficit inducing website design that is now typical. Check it out at http://www.westminster.gov.uk/

10 Disruptive Technologies You Need to Think About

From Gartner via Holly Ross at NTEN "10 Disruptive Technologies You Need to Think About." No comment is necessary. It says it all.

Nonprofit Tech Conference Keynotes: Social Media, Failure and Intellectual Property

[This happened over a month ago but the videos were just put online]

The two keynotes at this year's Nonprofit Technology Conference in San Francisco were great but very different. They were total different styles and tackled totally different topics. (Judge for yourself, the videos are at www.nten.org ( hard to find--here is the direct link: http://nten.org/blog/2009/05/27/theyre-finally-here-video-09ntc-plenaries )

Clay Shirky, the author of Here Comes Everybody, was a typical keynote speaker--well known, the author of a new and popular book, and very energetic. He also was the kind of speaker that works great for an opening keynote--he established some broad themes for the conference.

• The first half of his presentation was all about social media. (It was vaguely familiar from various videos of Shirky on the Web.) The basic premise was (paraphrased) "the world of organizing without organizations" and "don't worry about loosing control of your brand--you've already lost control." This overall topic was well covered in the conference.
  
• The second half of his talk was on failing inteligently. This is one of my favorate topics--that you can learn alot from trying something and failing at it if you are honest about the analysis. This wasn't discussed much at the conference. That is a shame since many foundations (the funding source of a lot of nonprofits) don't want to hear about failures--they want the final reports to be glowing--they want to pretend everything that they fund is a success. Very few foundations like receiving final reports that say: "The project didn't work; this is why it didn't work; this is what we learned." (The McKnight Foundation here in Minneapolis is one of the few that are interested in this type of report from grantees).

The Tuesday Keynote was by Eben Moglen. He is a Professor of Law at Columbia Law School and the founding director of the Software Freedom Law Center. He hasn't written a new and popular book, he isn't well known (even in the nonprofit technology community) and his speaking style was what you'd expect from a boring law professor. But he ended up forcing everyone to ask themselves really hard questions.

When he started talking i felt a general sigh in the room that seemed to say "this is going to put me to sleep." People kept talking, people were checking their email on their laptops, people were thumbing through the conference programs trying to figure out what breakout session to go to. As Moglen droned on, people started picking up on what he was saying:

• Proprietary software stifles innovation and the economy,
• The whole concept of "intellectual property rights" is wrong,
• We need new systems to compensate creativity.

About half way through his talk, the room was silent--everyone was paying attention. He attacked some sacred cows. He came into a conference that was sponsored primarily by large software companies and challenged their right to existence. The response to his ideas was mixed--some conference attendees loved them, some hated them--but everyone seemed to agree that he was forcing people to think about really hard questions.

The Stimulus Package, Nonprofits and Broadband

The live blog by Jana Byington-Smith from the session I moderated at the Nonprofit Technology Conference on:

"The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (The Obama Stimulus Package) and Nonprofits" (Mainly about broadband) [Yes I know it is a ridiculously long title]

is here

More Broadband Stimulus Info

This is about a month old but still looks useful. Stimulus money for broadband development. From Internetnews.com:

How to Get Broadband Stimulus Cash
The government is handing out billions of dollars, but obtaining a piece of it won't be easy.

Local Twitter Day May 1

A friend of mine (Steve Clift) is promoting an interesting project: Local Day. The basic idea is to use your postal code as a hash tag (e.g. #55406) and find other twiterers near you. More details at http://e-democracy.org/tweetlocal

From E-Democracy:

Take the #LocalDay Pledge Now to Spread the Word, by tweeting:

• On May 1 join me on #LocalDay and find your neighbors using your Postal/Zip Codel

Stimulus Package, Broadband and Nonprofits. Some Resources

Tomorrow morning I'm hosting a session at the Nonprofit Technology Conference on the Stimulus Package, broadband and nonprofits. It is going to be a group sourcing session--I don't know much about it. No one seems to have all the answers--but if we share our knowledge, we may be able to figure it out.

So here are some resources:

American Library Association
Top ten things you can do now…To get broadband stimulus funding for your libray
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/wo/woissues/washfunding/fedfund/Broadband%20Top%20Ten.pdf

7.2 Billion for Broadband
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/wo/woissues/washfunding/fedfund/arra101pgs/broadband.cfm

Baller Herbst Law Group
Basic links
http://baller.com/economic_stimulus.html

Opportunities for Federal Grants, Loans and Other Support for Broadband
http://baller.com/pdfs/Baller_Herbst_Stimulus_2-19-09.pdf

Additional Broadband Funding Opportunities
http://baller.com/pdfs/BHLG_More_ARRA_03-30-09.pdf

Knight Center of Digital Excellence
Center of Digital Excellence Stimulus Center
http://www.knightcenter.org/stimuluscenter.html

US Government Recovery Act Sites (added 4/28 -- suggested at NTC)
Central Recovery.gov site
http://www.recovery.gov/

Agency Recovery Act Sites
http://www.recovery.gov/?q=content/agencies

NTIA (National Telecommunications and Informatino Administration--Department of Commerce)
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/recovery/index.html

Department of Agriculture (RUS-Rural Utilities Service)
http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?navid=ARRA_PLANS&parentnav=USDA_ARRA&navtype=RT

National Public Lightpath
News on Broadband Stimulus (see right side bar)
http://www.publiclightpath.org/

Minnesota Broadband Coalition
http://www.mnbroadbandcoalition.com

Internet for Everyone
http://www.internetforeveryone.org/

Fieldstone Alliance (General—non broadband—stimulus information)
Want Stimulus Money? Act Fast!
http://www.fieldstonealliance.org/client/tools_you_can_use/04-08-09_access_stimulus_money.cfm?disccode=TOOL040809&repvendid=335

Blandin Foundation, Minnesota
Live at the speed of light: a broadband vision for Minnesota
http://broadband.blandinfoundation.org/_uls/resources/Vision_Statement_FINAL_0228.pdf

Broadband Initiative
http://broadband.blandinfoundation.org/

Blandin on Broadband Blog
http://blandinonbroadband.org/

Blandin calls for stimulus funding partners
http://blandinonbroadband.org/2009/04/22/blandin-calls-for-stimulus-funding-partners/

Minneapolis Wi-Fi Community Benefits Agreement--Quick Summary

While traditionally Community Benefits Agreements have been used for real estate developments where developers have promised specific benefits to a community in exchange for support of specific zoning changes, Minneapolis used a CBA to specify the specific community benefits a private contractor would provide in exchange for a contract that made the City of Minneapolis the anchor tenant for a privately build, owned and maintained city-wide wi-fi system.

Brief History
The community benefits agreement was first proposed by Minneapolis Digital Inclusion Coalition--a loose group formed by the Alliance for Metropolitan Stability (using funding from the Minneapolis Foundation. In response to this group, the City of Minneapolis formed a Digital Inclusion Task Force that recommended specific items for the Community Benefits Agreements. To many people's surprise, the Mayor and City Council agreed to a Community Beneifts Agreement and made it a part of the contract.

Major Provisions
From the City of Minneapolis website, the major provision of the CBA are:

• USI Wireless will provide $500,000 to create a “digital inclusion fund” that will be used to promote affordable Internet access, low-cost hardware, local content and training. In addition, US Internet will direct a minimum of five percent of the network’s net profits to a digital inclusion fund for ongoing digital inclusion efforts. In total, it is expected that about $11 million will go into the digital inclusion fund over the 10-year term of the contract.
• Free limited-time service will be available in some public locations, such as parks and plazas in Minneapolis.
• A free “walled garden” level of wireless service – Minneapolis Civic Garden – is now available to people throughout the city for important neighborhood, government, and community services information.
• Designated community technology centers will receive free wireless access.

By far the most important benefit is the provisoin of five precent of the network's net profits to a digital inclusion fund. That fund is aministered by the Minneapolis Foundation (an independent community foundation) with the help of a Digitial Inclusion Advisor Board. That board is primarily citizens from the community (one member is a City Council member and one member is a representative of the system owner). This money goes directly from the contractor/owner to the Minneapolis Foundation. It does not go through the city or city council. The almost $400,000 in grants the fund has made are listed here.

The Obama Stimulus Package, Broadband, Minnesota and Leadership

The Blandin Foundation just hosted a gathering of people interested in making sure Minnesota gets it share of the Obama Stimulus Package money devoted to getting people broadband Internet service.(More detail on the broadband portion of the package here)

Six major take-aways from the meeting:

1. No one knows the exact process the federal governement will use to distribute the money but much of it (around $4 billion to $5 billion) will be by competitive grants.
2. These grant applications will be complex and will likely reward collaborations and partnerships.
3. To write an effective applications, organizations need to get started now--especially get started forming the colaborations and partnerships
4. Collaborations and partnerships take up-front resources. Because of the economy and state of Minnesota cuts in funding to cities, schools and health care, no one has the up-front money to devote to creating the partnerships.
5. Ideally, Minnesota state government should step up and be a leader in creating the partnerships.
6. With the current Minnesota Governor, don't expect any leadership. Minnesota's current governor really believes government can not do anything well and should do nothing. He has been actively making this true for the last six years.

More detail about the meeting on Blandin's Blandin on Broadband blog.

Random stuff: Nonprofit database projects

Unless you're contemplating a database project--or are in the middle of one, this post is going to be kind of boring or esoteric. But I've seen way too many failed nonprofit database project to ignore. Below is my abbreviated step-by step guide for nonprofit database project. (At the bottom of this post is a link to a longer version.) This post is aimed at nonprofit organizations but probably also applies to for-profit and government organizations.

While you really need to do EVERYTHING right to have a successful database implementation, here are the basics.

Picking a database:

• If at all possible, DO NOT decide on a totally custom database. DO NOT start from scratch. Use an existing product that is somewhat customizable. Don't hire a firm or and individual to create one from scratch. If you decide on a custom database, you will pay. You will pay in time, money, success and usability.
• Pick a database that meets your organization's needs. Look at a number of options. Do not just pick one because it is low cost or because your executive director knows someone or because someone else uses it. This means starting by determining your needs and your wants. (Don't forget to specify reporting needs.
  
• Get a demonstration with some of the potential day to day users in the room.
• Don't pick a database because it "looks nice."
• Don't pick a database because "everyone else uses it." (But do consider the benefits of having other users to call for help/suggestion/moral support.
• Check vendor references. Check vendor references. Check vendor references.

Implementation

• The contract needs to include deliverable, the payments need to be tied to deliverable, and the needs to be a time-line.
• Assign an internal project manager and give them enough time to manage the project.
• Document all meetings and phone calls with the vendor. Share this with the vendor.
  
• Your overall budget needs to include:
• • Cost of the vendor contract--set up and annual fees
  • Your costs of data conversion
  • An internal project manager (maybe part time, maybe full time
  • Cost of training your staff (both the cost of the training and to cost of their time
  • Cost of time your staff takes to get proficient with the database.

More Resources:

MS Word document: Nonprofit Project Management

Techsoup database articles:

The Minnesota Chapter of the Project Management Institute (Project Management Coaching)

Basecamp (team project management tool)

The "Give Us Your Membership List" business plan

Is it my imagination or are there a lot more companies that are offering "shop for charity" programs? These programs typically ask a nonprofit to link to an online shopping site and promote the shopping site to their members. In return, the nonprofit will get a small percentage of each sale.

There are a few questions any nonprofit should ask before agreeing to participate in this type of promotion.

The basic questions include:

• Is the website you are linking to offering fair prices and providing quality service.
• Is the website free of viruses?
• Are transactions secure?

Probably more important:

• Does sending people to this website fit your mission. For example, if you are a neighborhood group trying to build a viable community, does it make sense for you to send customers to an online store for things they could buy in your neighborhood?
  
• What happens if your constituents or members have a bad experience on the site? What happens if you got the wrong answers to the first three questions?
• Does the income you receive justify distracting your website visitors with this link? Could this promotion reduce the number of people who click on your "donate now" button?

And, since I'm not a lawyer, I haven't even asked any of the legal questions. Just make sure you consult a good nonprofit lawyer who knows 501.c.3 tax law before you agree.

Slightly related to this is a column in this month's Fast Company: Do Something: Jurassic Park Syndrome by Nancy Lublin (I really look forward to her columns). She talks about some trends ins cause marketing.

Note: I owe the term "Give Us Your Membership List" business plan to Tim Mills Groninger. He coined it a few years ago during a National Nonprofit Technology Conference (link to this years NTC) .

Rural Broadband Hearing

On December 29, 2008, US Senator for Minnesota Amy Klobuchar held a hearing on the need for better better rural access to broadband. This blog entry is going to be my (somewhat random) thoughts that were sparked by the hearing. If you want details about the hearing itself, go to the great summary by Ann Treacy on the Blandin on Broadband blog.

The audience was a round up of all the usual suspects:

• Telcom industry lobbyists, consultants and association folks;
• People working for Blandin Foundation's broadband project;
• Members of the MN Ultra High-Speed Broadband Taskforce;
• Reporters;
• An employee of the FCC who happened to be in town on vacation (but she usually works on Digitial TV issues);
• At least one librarian.
  

There were a few members of the public in attendance.

Senator Klobuchar's opening comments included her desire that the Obama economic stimulous package include incentives/funding for expanding rural broadband. She noted how the US had dropped behind other developed counties in broadband access and that Minnesota had dropped to 44th out of the 50 states in Internet access speed. She compared the need for funding to the Rural Electrification Administration in the depression of the 1930s.

The panel presenting testimony (organized by Klobuchar staff) had the type of people you'd expect considering the goal of pointing out the need for rural access to broadband:

• A rural state senator;
• A school technology director (for a largely rural district);
• a manager of a rural telephone cooperative;
• A manager for a (primarily rural) health provider;
• A small town/rural economic development director;
• A person who works with Blandin Foundation.

The one surprise was the president of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) (the union that mainly respresents Qwest workers).

All the rural panelsits talked about the need for broadband access. They had the typical examples and the typical horror stories. It seemed like everyone thought just getting access to broadband would solve the problem. There was little or no discussion about the need for access to hardware and software for the low income residents. There was no talk about the need to help people learn that there are reasons they want to be on broadband. There was no talk about the need to have content that was meaningful for all their residents (most seemed to be only considering the middle class in their analaysis).

The presentation by the rural telephone coop manager (West Central Telephone) was interesting. He talked about providing fiber to the home in his rural area--that they were able to do it because:

• Federal loans for rural telecomunications provided relatively low cost finance;
  
• They were a monopoly--that no one else wants to serve the low density area they serve;
• They are owned by their clients;
• Because they only grow if the economy of their service area grows.

They are using units that combine small solar and wind generation equipment to power the electronics needed to run a fiber system across such a large area.

The president of the CWA seemed to mainly parrot the basic line of Qwest: That competion in telecommunications is bad. He was even going back to ancient (in telecom terms) history of the 1954 decision by the FCC that ATT could not provide cable service. I wasn't surprised this, to me, CWA has always seemed to be a captive of the telephone companies (ATT, Northwestern Bell, US West, and Qwest in our area).

No one brought up the issue that the economic self interest of telecommunicaitons companies depends on their size and total service areas.

• West Central Telephone for example is willing to invest in their area because they will only grow if the economy of their service area grows.
  
• A municipal owned telecom provider (privately or cooperatively owned) will similarly invest in providing broadband service to their community because that is the only way they will grow.
  
• Qwest will not invest in broadband in rural areas or small towns because they view their growth comming from the metropolitan areas they serve (and even in those areas, they seem more interested in milking the investments made 30 to 50 years ago than in making new investments.

The one interesting idea that was presented (besides the rural telephone cooperative example) was the idea of one highspeed broadband connection to the home, regulated as a common carrier with different companies providing different (and competing) applications over the same wire.

At the beginning of the public comment period, Rick King, the chair of the MN Ultra High-Speed Broadband Taskforce made some good but generic comments about the need for broadband service across the state. He mentioned that the final report of the taskforce will be available in the fall of 2009.

Why is it taking the taskforce until fall 2009 to come out with their recommendations. They started meeting on August 15, 2008. Even for a government task force, that seems to be like a long time! Especially considering that it would be great to have a report for this legislative session and for the new Obama administration. MN state government--always a step behind.

I didn't stay for the rest of the public comment period (my parking meter was expiring) but based on Ann's blog post, nothing exciting happened.

Blue Sceen of Death in the Gulf of Panama

Wrote Friday, 12/5
No more blog updates will be uploaded until we get home--have about five done but when I fired up my laptop, I got the blue screen of death. Next attempt got stalled on the initial start-up window. So, we'll see if it is just the humidity (I'll wait until I'm in nice DRY Minnesota to try booting again). That may be a problem, people have been having trouble with digital cameras and cell phones with all the humidity.

Update: Laptop has worked fine since we got home to DRY Minnesota.

Minneapolis to New Orleans Road Trip (via the Mississippi)

I'm almost ready to start this road trip. Just a few more things on my to-do list that need to be done.

After going through some guide books and listing everything I want to do along The River, I have one problem:

• Too much to do in too little time.
  

I have to be in New Orleans for the Nonprofit Technology Conferenc next Wednesday. Leaving tomorrow morning gives me seven days to drive the about 1500 miles. That may sound like a lot of time but there is a lot to see along the way and this is definately not be a freeway trip--a lot of slow, winding roads.

One way I'm dealing with my time limitation is to cut off the two ends of the river:

• I'll be starting in Minneapolis (my home) and not from Lake Itasca (the source of the Mississippi). This will save the 200 miles from Minneapolis to Itasca (by a direct route) and 430 miles back along the (still frozen) Mississippi.
• I'm actually be skipping all of the St. Paul part of the river and start the real trip in Red Wing MN (far SE corner of the Twin Cities metro area). I figure I can drive the river road here any time.
  
• I'll be ending in New Orleans, not at Venice, LA--the town at the end of the road near the actual mouth of the Mississippi.

The plan is to get to the Quad Cites in Iowa/Illinois by tomorrow night.

I will also be twittering along the way at http://www.twitter.com//sheldonM

Should Computers Forget

There was a very interesting issue on Future Tense on public radio a few months ago (just catching up with listening to my pod-casts). Should computers learn how to forget? (The May 8th entry of Future Tense at http://www.publicradio.org/columns/futuretense/2007/05/index.shtml)

To quote from Future Tense:

Harvard public policy professor Viktor Mayer-Shoenberger believes our digitally-fueled culture remembers too much for too long. He's suggesting that we learn how to forget again."

Schonberger has just published a paper called "Useful Void: The Art of Forgetting in the Age of Ubiquitous Computing."

Some very interesting issues to think about.

Gaming for workplace skills

This post doesn't have a lot of information--just about something really cool I just saw:

Just came from a presentation on a project using a game design package to help teens develop job skills. (A joint project of Science Museum of Minnesota, Hennepin County Library and Minneapolis Public Library--funded by Best Buy Children's Foundation.)

Scratch is a game design system that uses the Logo operating system. Developed and supported by MIT Media Lab, it has a Windows and Mac version, will have a Linux version and will be on the One Laptop Per Child project laptops.

Scratch lets kids use programing to" create stories, games and animations." It has a sharing website that uses the creative commons license. The discussion by kids on ownership and building on other's programs has revolved around giving credit where credit is due and attribution.

It may surprise some but seeing a room full of librarians really excited about game design software wasn't at all surprising to me.