Week Four of 23 Things

RSS FEEDS - making your life simpler...

Well, yes and no. My experience with this via the 23 things instruction and activity tells me that RSS is a great tool for the disciplined, organized and efficient internet lover who knows what he or she wants. With this tool, those who know the frequent uses they wish to make of their web wanderings will have their tasks boxed and filed and at the ready on command. And if all those web-wanderings are job sanctioned necessary trips, more power to the RSS user!

For some of the others of us, however, here are an extra few steps to complicate an already busy and overwhelmed tangling of internet v. real life struggles that play out every day.

• Which sites are worthy to be added?
• How deep is my commitment to this one? If I put it on RSS, will I feel guilty if I ignore it?
• Wait a minute, who's in charge here -- me or the internet? me or my addiction to web wandering?
• How many RSS feeds is too many? Whoa, if I have that many RSS feeds, I need to face how much time I'm really spending on the internet! I thought I just popped into a few spots now and then. I thought I was really working most of the time, not goofing off.

An athlete -- no matter what the sport, no matter what muscles are most in play in the execution of his or her athletic endeavor -- an athlete must have a strong core. That is foundational.

We would do well to have a strong foundation in the ways we choose to order and spend our time, but how many of us do? It is hard to remember that the technology is supposed to serve us, and that we are not supposed to become ensnared by the technology and distracted from our original mission.

Week Three of 23 Things

Exploring Flickr is the task stretching my mind this week. I am left with many impressions --

1. so many people are willing to share their talent freely and generously, whether their photos, their software development, their creative ideas for photo use -- what an excellent community of technological scholarship!

2. the evolution of photo preservation and sharing has come a long way from the boxed stack of photos or slides in grandma's attic -- what does that mean for photo taking now? more, more, more photos that are more, more, more available

3. privacy? fame? invisibility? security?-- the tension grows increasingly taut

• a man once called himself a name, lived on his land, knew a few people and died -- he had privacy, whether he wanted it or not
• increasing numbers of people called themselves the names they were given, lived on less land, depended on more people, wrestled with choices, and they died too -- they valued privacy, if they thought about it -- why?
• populations exploded with people who have been numbered as well as named, who are intricately entwined in the fabric of a complex and extremely interdependent society, who are constantly defining the boundaries of their lives through personal social choices and technologically determined choices, and they will die too -- do they want privacy anymore, immersed in a bigger and bigger world? or does privacy make them feel invisible? does publicity make them feel validated? and have we developed a whole new dynamic with our options for public anonymity??

4. finally, there are only so many hours in a day -- that hasn't changed

• hobbies: quilting, baking, golf, gaming, watching television, photography, surfing the net -- everyone chooses, and most never consider what they haven't chosen
• we do what we enjoy, what passes our time the best way for us, whether that's writing software to share photos; recording lives with a camera and preserving our visual record; observing others' lives through online viewing options, reading books or magazines, or maybe watching movies or tv dramas -- some of us enjoy reflection ;)
• who has time to explore it all, master it all, keep up with it all? no one -- and that's totally okay, too, isn't it?

Week Two of 23 Things

Reflections on the lifelong learner's 7.5 habits...



#4 Have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner.



Where does confidence come from? It comes from success. It comes from achievement. It doesn't come out of smoke and mirrors or kind white lies. If you want to have confidence, go out and do something well. Then do something else well. Tally up what you've done well and figure out why you've done it well -- what were the steps for your success. Then have confidence in your process, in your strategy, in your plan.



#6 Use technology to your advantage.



Technology is to serve humanity. Not to replace it. Not to devalue it. Not to separate us from one another or to excuse us from becoming fully human. It is a tool that can be used for achieving goals that have existed long before itself and goals that will remain in the face of every technological failure possible. Know your goals, know what is advantageous to you. And then you can have fun with technology.

Week One of 23 Things

Exploring technological horizons that take me out of my comfort zone, my real questions are



will i find out what is appealing to those who become addicted?

will i resist the temptation to be converted?

how much more will i learn about this paradox?
...some of us find companionship and validation in the virtual reality of cyberspace only by withdrawing from human contact...