so i’m listening to this panel of corporate old-schoolers basically talking about how web 2.0 doesn’t have a place in the large business environment. what makes me so mad is that they think about this concept as just facebook and myspace. they all talk about how things need to be closed and shouldn’t be shared and how hierarchy is needed.

they miss the whole point about collaboration, sharing, and making things transparent. they have yet to embrace the reality that there could be a different business culture that is not about power and hierarchy, but about a shared vision and purpose.

not to be an age-ist because i know a lot of really innovative and seriously cool older people, but is it surprising that they’re all old? no. is it surprising that all the old people in the audience are nodding their heads in agreement with them? no. is it surprising that the young people are standing up to question the lack of thinking outside the corporate box? no.

lave and wenger’s idea of displacement -continuity contradiction is so coming into play here. these old-timers are feeling threatened by the newcomers who come in and want to bring about change. however it is only through change that the practice or the company will be able to stay relevant and in existance.

so far, beside the keynote speaker, i have been pretty unimpressed with this conference thus far. hopefully it will get better in the next two days.

photo by: flickr/bartheq

i’m here in san diego attending the CSCW (computer-supported collaborative workspace) conference and listening to the keynote speaker cory ondrejka, the cofounder of second life. second life is the crazy online alternative reality.

so cory just shared a story about craig, the founder of craigslist. he showed a picture of craig standing next to this really high uppity guy from the ny times with like a bajillion pulitzer prizes. to the ny times guy, craig was like a baby seal… totally harmless, soft, cute and fluffy. however, in just a short time, ny times classifieds lost a huge, huge sum of money while craig’s list grew to be the largest classified ad medium in the world.

craiglists’ ceo told wall street people that craigslist has “little interest in maximizing profit, instead preferring to help users find cars, apartments, jobs, and dates.” wow what a concept. just helping people for the sake of helping people, not to make money. just sharing for the sake of sharing, not to make money. it really is a paradigm shift in this day and age i think.

so what do we learn from craigslist? as cory put it, ny times… “don’t f*** with baby seals.” love that.

terri, dan, & sunnie @ the educause showroom

just got back from orlando today after giving a seminar at educause 2008. i co-presented with terri bays (executive director of the OCW consortium) and dan carchidi (publication director of MIT OCW). it was an awesome experience getting to know these folks who are doing so much for the OCW movement. i had a chance to interview both terri and dan and will be posting it in the coming days.

our seminar was 3 hours long and in a nutshell, we talked about how ocw can help universities not just help other people, but also help themselves: open sharing, local payoff. we talked about how OCW can help fulfill a university’s mission as well as its explicit and implicit goals.

this was my first time at educause and i was blown away by its huge scale. all the big names in IT were there trying to sell their goods to the higher ed public. the best part was walking around all the booths and getting free stuff and free food. overall, i had a wonderful time and learned a lot!

welcome to OER360! with this first post, i am beginning the journey of exploring the breadth and depth of open educational resources and i hope you’ll join me. this project is part of an assignment for my human computer interaction class at pepperdine university in which i become an expert in an area of choice. OER360 will be the platform for documenting and presenting the things i learn about OERs during my journey towards expertise.

some things i have in the works are:

• inverviews with key players in the movement
• a look at the various repositories and sources of OERs
• surveys to determine the awareness and impact of OERs
• review of existing literature on OERs

i’m excited to start this knowledge path because i believe in the movement’s values of openness, sharing, and collaboration, and because i believe that open educational resources will be catalytic in the quest for equal access to quality education in the states and around the world. so let’s begin.