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Friday, July 06, 2012
Network Beavers
Thursday, July 05, 2012
Peer Support for Network Weaving
Friday, June 01, 2012
Why Happiness Matters in Networks
Networks of people are all around us. They are the most ubiquitous dimensions of communities and organizations, economies and affiliations.
Networks are boundaryless patterns of connections between and among people. They cross geographical, digital, demographic, ideological, economic, social, and ideological boundaries. Networks intersect and overlap. Everyone on the planet is a member of at least one network and all networks are ultimately connected.
Everyone in a network has three circles of connections. In their first circle are people we are closest to. Second circle people are people we know more casually. Third circle people are people we don't even know exist, but are two steps from us through our first and second circle people.
We can measure growth in networks in several important ways.
The pivotal indicator is the scope of network weaver engagement in networks. The other four indicators are accelerated by the work of network weavers who instigate, facilitate, and enrich connections in networks.
As these indicators increase, the quality and impact of the network grows in ways that benefit the individual members of the network and the network as a dynamic whole.
The evidence indicates that people have measurably better health, work, well-being, optimism, and engagement in their life when they are connected to happier networks.
We can build on these indicators by adding happiness indicators to the mix. We start with the five prime happiness practices that become principles for the articulation of network growth indicators: appreciation, generosity, interest, lightness, and easy.
Here are just a few of many possible measurable happiness indicators in networks.
When we consider the connection rather than the individual as the fundamental unit of networks, we can begin to talk about creating happier connections where these indicators are evident in intention and expression throughout networks. They become principles shaping the critical contributions of network weavers.
As we now know from the research, when connections are happier, people in these connections are more naturally productive, generous, creative, courageous, realistic, passionate, resilient, and healthier. As it turns out, these are also the qualities of strong and growing networks.
The whole thrivancy of networks grows when more people become connected to already happier connections and bring more happiness to the connections they have. This is how happiness scales organically through networks. This is how we move from thinking about growth just in quantities, densities, and reaches of connections to the vibrant and contagious quality of connections that add to the measurable well-being of the network....
For more on Jack's work and writing on happiness, visit HappinessChoice.com
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Building the Business Case for Influence Networks
Influence networks were the incubators of Civil Rights, the Berlin Wall, Ireland, South Africa, and Egypt. Each is a story of small scale core groups of connected people with a compelling message and indefatigable passion grew influence in networks that transformed the landscape of power and possibility.
When we build and connect influence networks, people become more aligned and less easily weakened by division. The impossible becomes possible when people are connected in their dreams and gifts, connections and actions.
The social network sciences have become a rich and amazing source of data based validation and hope for social networks. We can intentionally and strategically grow them. And to the degree that we don't have formal power and cannot buy relationships to formal power, we grow our influence at the rate we grow our networks. In the new world of networks, influence can be grown more sustainably than it can be purchased.
The business case for growing influence networks using the principles of the social network sciences is clear and compelling. The principles work whether we are striving to influence choices, habits, votes, opinions, proposals, or adapting to change.
Start with the fact that people are influenced by people with whom they have resonance and trust. Resonance is feeling like we have something in common. Resonance builds through the sharing of stories that connect us. Trust is having a relationship of reciprocity with someone.
Contrary to media and marketing deceptions, people aren't influenced by spam media, the seduction of ads, hype, charts and spreadsheets, or the allure of popular opinion. They "catch" the perspectives of people like them and people they like. They're influenced through their connections. People buy and believe what their resonant and trust significant others buy and believe. It's been this way for a very long time and the legacy of this dynamic appears to have a bright future.
In every network, everyone has some quality of influence on other people. Influence potential is a function of three variables: visibility, credibility, and currencies.
Visibility is how many other influencers someone knows and how many know them. Credibility is how well someone is known for being resonant and trustworthy in what they say and do. Currencies are the kinds of value someone has to offer others in the network. Value includes tangibles and intangibles like data, knowledge, expertise, questions, talents, access to resources, positional power, followers, allies, and incentives.
Some people only have influence with their small circle of people. Some people have wider influence across different parts of the network. Some people have influence that spans across multiple networks.
There are several basic ways we can build and grow influence networks. It starts with being clear on what we want people to know, feel, and do as the result of our influence. It's identifying who in the network has strong influence through visibility, credibility, and currencies. Then it's identifying which of these people have the highest receptivity.
Influence receptivity is relative openness to learning or considering more than what one already has concluded. Someone is receptive when their mind isn't yet fully made up. The scope of our influence in a network is equal to the scope of people who haven't made up their minds relative to what we want to influence.
Assessing receptivity can happen indirectly through talking to others who know the thinking of those we want to influence. It can also happen directly by asking those we want go influence whether they are still considering things in any way. If they still have unanswered questions, optimism for further options, or doubts about current dominant opinions, they are receptive to influence.
We can help lower visibility people with good credibility and currencies become more visible. We can introduce them to more people, help them expand their virtual presence, get them more engaged in the network's collaborations.
We can connect people with higher influence potential with other people with higher influence potential. We can do this through quality introductions and collaborations.
We can help people become more engaged as connectors, connecting people of higher influence potentials. This means helping them learn how to notice opportunities, make quality introductions, and help people identify collaboration possibilities.
Helping people increase their visibility, connectivity, and engagement is usually easier than help them increase the personal givens of credibility and currencies.
When we help people become more visible, connected, and connectors, influence networks grow. No amount of threats or infusions of resources in networks can ever substitute for these strategies. No amount of top-down power brokering or power wielding can substitute for these strategies.
When we use the principles of the social network sciences, we build influence in networks, we can scale and accelerate our learning and the possibilities of alignment.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Navigating Influence Networks
The two key players in any scope of influence are the deciders and the influencers. Deciders are people who have the final vote or say over ultimate actions. Their power can be assumed, assigned, appointed, or appropriated in elections. In the case of civic elections, everyone with a vote and voice can be both a decider and influencer.
Influencers are those who deciders listen to by choice or obligation. Influencers have the power to shape and challenge what deciders know, feel, and do. In influence networks, influencers also influence other actual and potential influencers. We can think of any decision as emerging from influence networks.
Every decision has its own influence network. Some people are participants in multiple and ongoing influence networks as a function of their interests, passions, and formal and informal positions within networks. Their voice dampens, challenges, strengthens, and amplifies other voices in the network.
There are always people in influence networks who may talk or write a lot but have little actual influence within the network. Their lack of influence is a function of their having inadequate visibility, credibility, network awareness or currencies of influence.
The currencies of influence that give influencers their power include data, expertise, questions, resources, positional power, influential followers and allies, brand influence, bribes and threats.
These currencies only have power to the degree that an influencer has sufficient visibility and credibility. The more visibility and credibility influencers have, the more power they have to shape what deciders know, feel, and do.
The actual power that influencers have over deciders and other influencers in any context depends on several principles.
* Not all influence currencies have equal weight with each different decider
* Influencers only have power with deciders while they are in the process of forming their conclusions for decisions
* Influencers have a different scope of power depending on each influence context
* Not all deciders are influencers
* Strong bonds can both isolate and accelerate the scope and speed of influence in networks
* The potential to grow one's scope of influence is equal to the scope of undecided and receptive members in the networks one has visibility and credibility
* The more collaborative and connected within and across networks influencers are, the more collective power they have
* If we know who a decider's direct and indirect influencers are, we can have some insight into what they might know, feel and do
* If a decider's most direct influencers are still in the process of forming their conclusions in a decision process, the decider's indirect influencers can have more power over the decider's opinions than their direct influencers will
There many actionable implications to these principles.
If you want to have more influence with any deciders, find out which are still forming their conclusions and interact with them and those who directly and indirectly influence them.
If you want to increase the potential power of your influence, so whatever you can to increase your influence network visibility, credibility, network awareness and influence currencies.
Find out which exact currencies have the most power with deciders and influencers given the contexts of specific decisions and networks you're navigating. Don't assume the same currencies work across different contexts.
If you want to support those who share your perspectives or positions, collaborate with them to create more shared and scaled visibility, credibility, network awareness and influence currencies.
Spend more time amplifying your messages and contributions than trying to dampen those you oppose or question.
The better you know your influence networks, the more easily you will effectively add influence that realizes your passions and engages your strengths.
Seek to identify and influence receptive macro-influencers, people who have greater than average influence across key sectors of networks.
Create more connectors in networks who can connect receptive potential influencers with strong visibility, strong credibility, strong currencies influencers.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Smart Crowds in the Networked Commons
Whether a network is stronger or weaker has significant implications for the nature and place of crowd sourced engagement in governance.
Even today with technologies that could support otherwise, democracies still practice representational governance. People indirectly influence policy makers through informal communications and demonstrations and formal hearings and voting.
In any vote on any issue, there are four kinds of engagement in networks. There are the expert informed, the informed enough, the not informed enough, and the inaccurately informed.
In network structure and culture, the not informed enough and inaccurately informed are the result of three factors: weak redundancies, small reach, and low resonance.
Weak redundancies are when someone has only one or a few paths to accurate and complete information about the issue at hand. The more path redundancies created by more connections to information, the more accurately and completely informed someone is.
Small reach is the dynamic of having a small scope of connections that do not make larger network awareness accessible. People in cliques do not know what people outside their cliques know because their scope of connections represents a tight circle. People with small network reach are most vulnerable to being not informed enough or inaccurately informed.
Low resonance is low social credibility. Resonance is the ability to feel what someone else feels. It can take the form of identification, empathy, and compassion. Uninformed and inaccurately informed people may have connections to more informed others, but when they not resonate with them, they are not influenced by their information. Weak links in networks are links of weak influence.
Creating the most informed people possible when an issue is on the civic table then means three strategies of building redundancies, reach, and resonance.
We can identify those in the network with the stronger network awareness, credibility, and capacity for connecting people. We can make sure they are many and strongly informed. We can facilitate more introductions within and across networks in formal and informal ways. And we can make sure these introductions are personal and build resonance through personal story sharing, which is the most significant factor in resonance.
These strategies give people more access to complete and accurate information. They facilitate the emergence and attention to questions people have that enrich the conversation and shared learning, which is more important as issues become more wicked and complex.
When networks become stronger, networks can even become capable of the kinds of conversations that make the divisive nature of voting less necessary.
What if we invented an approach to democracy where voting was not a design element in the model? Voting continues to be the root cause of unchallenged excesses, bad decision making, unethical special interests, and leadership incompetence.
In most cases, voting is an excuse to avoid conversations that are information-based, inclusive, and innovative.
There is no wisdom in crowds of weak networks, only strong ones. Managing assets in the commons can happen in strong networks of people as long as the commons are at the scale of networks where the degrees of connection are relatively close. In these networks, people come together to create commons they manage through conversations that matter. A very different world indeed.
One model of transition can be where people in regions vote on key principles that then shape local civic actions that emerge from richer networked dialogue. Civic leaders in this model who enact policy decisions become conveners, facilitators, and trustworthy interpreters of civic conversations. Everyone directly participates and contributes through formal, informal, and technology media.
This results in crowd sourced alignments that are more wise, inclusive, and resilient. With stronger networks, we become smarter and better together.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
The 5 Kinds of Communities
We live in communities of place, past, purpose, perspective, and practice.
Neighborhoods, villages, and regions are communities of place. We share common geographies, resources, issues, and possibilities.
Families and ethnicities are communities of past. We share common heritages, languages, cultures, ancestors, and roots.
Companies, organizations, and institutions are communities of purpose. We share common mission, vision, goals, commitments, and interests.
Religious and spiritual traditions, political ideologies and worldviews are communities of perspective. We share common beliefs, stories, and values.
Professional disciplines, crafts, and careers are communities of practice. We share common types of work, knowledge, and learning.
Some of these communities overlap, some intersect, and some are separate and don't connect. We are naturally close to people who belong to the same multiple communities with us. We seek communities where we feel a tangible and visible sense of belonging, engagement, and possibilities for a meaningful life.
The quantity, quality, and reach of our connections in any of these communities depends on how connected people are in each community and how much connecting we do with people in each community.
Our life gets richer when we connect people across our communities. This starts with looking for where connections already exist and then being a bridge between people and groups within the communities in which we belong.
Life is sometimes a journey of discovering and joining new communities. We move, change jobs or careers, change religious or political affiliations, shift in how we look at the world. Technology and the globalization of markets make us more mobile, agile, and curious.
Building community can mean building one of these, multiples of these, and connections between them.
In every case, we are inviting people into the conversations that optimize the possibilities of belonging, engagement, and making a difference. These are the dream conversations, the small acts and gifts conversations, and the invitation conversations.
As communities grow, people are better able to know each other, look out for each other, share with each other, learn from each other, and engage each other in doing what they cannot do alone, apart, or in opposition. Our personal well-being is always related to how we together care for the well-being of the whole.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Movements, Coalitions, and System Development Networks
The term movement has been used for more than a century to describe the dynamic process by which broad moral issues bubble up and – when successful – change the way people think and act. The right of women to vote generated a powerful movement that not only led to the 20th Amendment but also succeeded in convincing virtually everyone that women were as capable as men of participating in the election process.
Movements are about raising issues – bringing issues that have been hidden or underplayed into the public spotlight so that people not only become aware of the issue, but are moved to do something about it. Movements thus become a magnet for energy, and if they are effective, they create a sense of mass and pressure that influences policy and leads to transformation in beliefs and behaviors.
Movements often operate very informally connected primarily through relationship networks: individuals or small groups of women throughout the United States organized marches and hunger strikes, wrote editorials and gave speeches, all to raise awareness of the issue. Although organizations were formed to work on the issue, the movement was much broader than the membership of those organizations, engaging women from all walks of life.
Movements, however, tend to have strong viewpoints about what is right. They raise moral flags. This is useful for exerting pressure but long-term success of a movement depends on the ability of the movement to persuade people to a particular viewpoint and the openness of people to be persuaded.
In the last few decades movements have become increasingly limited in their capacity to spread throughout society by the highly polarized political scene in the United States: few movements have been able to escape the label of either belonging to the left or the right. So rather than changing the discussion or bringing up a new discussion, movements have been increasingly forced into current discussions of left and right. Few on the left would take seriously any movement labeled as conservative, while those on the right would dismiss any movement emanating from the left. Some questions this raises are: can movements escape the narrowness of right and left? Can we frame issues differently so that they are more likely to become universal?
Advocacy Networks
Advocacy networks or movement networks are the operational part of movements. They consist of the relationships among individuals and organizations that are making the movement happen.
What is interesting is that until recently, most advocacy networks were not formally organized. In fact, this was a strength in campaigns such as the one supporting women's right to vote, where different types of organizations had quite different approaches to the issue and played different roles: the Suffragettes were radicals pushing the front edge of the movement with hunger strikes and even violence while the Women's Christian Temperance Union appealed to a more moderate audience. The organizations were linked through key bridging individuals, such as members of the International Council of Women who promoted communication among efforts in different countries through speaking tours. As a result, individuals in the movement influenced and supported each other, even though their beliefs and approaches differed.
The later part of the 20th century was characterized by many transnational advocacy networks – most informally organized – which held funder-sponsored convenings (such as those on ending violence against women) where priorities and strategies were developed. Sets of organizations (often from one country or region) then determined which specific actions were most appropriate for their locale and implemented those.
…networks that emphasize structure are less effective than those that adeptly learn and change. Robin Katcher, Unstill Waters
It's only in the last decade or two that advocacy networks such as those involved in healthcare reform have begun to organize more formally. The formation of coalitions and alliances are examples of this type of more formal intentional network.
Coalitions and Alliances
Coalitions are generally tightly defined advocacy networks with explicit membership that form around a specific policy initiative. Because everyone in a coalition needs to agree on a clearly defined set of objectives and because of the specificity of the objectives, coalitions tend to be short-term.
One example of a long-term coalition is the Massachusetts Smart Growth Coalition. One reason it is able to continue as a long-term network is that the coalition has only 7 members, and key players from these organizations have known each other for many years. In addition, this group has the resources to spend a lot of time developing its action plan together and has access to the services of a full-time coordinator.
A more typical coalition is Healthcare for America Now (HCAN) Health Care for America Now (HCAN) is a national grassroots campaign of more than 1,000 organizations in 46 states representing 30 million people dedicated to winning quality, affordable health care. In 2008, a core group of national organizations developed a set of principles to guide the formation of the coalition. Partners were actively involved in developing (and adapting) strategic plans and worked together to implement these plans. They had a strong engagement and communication system, especially on the national level.
HCAN built strong state networks in many states, and these partner organizations were able to mobilize their memberships to scale the campaign very rapidly and increase influence on congressional districts. Local stories and feedback from specific efforts also improved the national campaign.
The network structure underlying HCAN enabled it to adapt quickly to changing circumstances.
(For more on characteristics of effective coalitions see the excellent Power in Coalition by Amanda Tattersall.)
Manuel Pastor et al, in Connecting at the Crossroads , defines alliances as long- term networks of grassroots groups to build power to bring about change. An example is Partnership for Working Families, an alliance of 12 local organizations and the California Alliance, a set of organizations reforming the tax system. These networks bring people together for strategic dialogs, relationship building, and joint action and campaigns.
The fundamental task of an alliance is to connect groups that have stood apart.
Manuel Paster et al, Connecting at the Crossroads
To be most effective, networks need to include base-building networks that engage grassroots and neighborhood constituents; organizational alliances among organizations that usually don't interact; and networks with funders, policy, media and leadership development organizations to enable efforts to expand and scale.
System Development Networks
Advocacy and alliance networks tend to focus on raising issues and changing policy. Other networks focus much more on developing a new system. For example, the many local food system networks support local farmers growing food for local markets and have created farmers markets and community support agriculture (CSAs) to provide new local marketing channels. Local food activists have set up kitchen incubators – local processing facilities where entrepreneurs can make processed products and community gardens. Local tourism bureaus have created efforts such as the 30-mile meal (see http://30milemeal.wordpress.com ) so that consumers change their behavior and begin purchasing more local foods and restaurants highlight local foods. Of course, most local food efforts include policy efforts – many communities now have local food policy councils. And, most local food networks are linked with other local networks around the country through organizations such as BALLE and Slow Food.
Other examples of system development networks are those involved in:
- alternative energy and climate change;
- regional flavor network
- social innovation networks
- regional innovation networks
- Transition Town Networks
- wellness and healthy eating networks
- health access networks
- civic engagement networks
In system development networks, subsets of the network create new system elements such as bike-sharing programs and solar retrofit projects in climate change networks or blood pressure clinics and mobile health units in health networks. Such networks are most successful when regional or local networks encourage small self-organizing groups to implement opportunity-driven project,s which are linked together through a strong relationship network. When regional projects are linked nationally through learning networks and connections with other innovators, their impact is often accelerated.
An example of a system development network is the Regional Flavor Strategies Network. Regional Flavor Strategies was a national learning network of 6 regional networks implementing a strategy to encourage local businesses to work with tourism, arts organizations, universities and other partners to develop the unique qualities (regional flavor) of their area. The strategy was to create a healthy regional economy by organizing many new services, activities, and institutions. For example, the grape growing region along Lake Erie was facing hard times as the large multi-national that purchased area grapes was now sourcing in lower cost regions of the world. In just 2 years, subgroups within the regional network (which crossed state lines) created a new brand, helped local businesses produce new grape products, organized several new festivals, and artists trails, got local businesses to use grape products on their menus, and raised money for a Grape Discovery Center.
The national Regional Flavor Strategies Network shared their successes and failures. For example, the Grape Network was able to implement their regional brand very quickly after learning from two of the other groups in the learning network. The other groups toured the grape region and were able to give very useful feedback on local projects.
Of course, some networks include advocacy and system development, but I think that all networks would benefit by including both.
Do these distinctions work? How would you modify them? Have any great examples?
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Seriously Rethinking Leadership in a Networked World
I continue to see established and emerging leaders who are passionate about learning to be better leaders and entrenched leaders who view learning as a threat to their power.
In these interesting times, we are witnessing an abundance of leaders who are devastating the integrity of markets and the faith of their constituents. Many countries have what Will Rogers referred to as "the best government money can buy." It is easy to find leaders who define leadership as the exercise of control over money and people.
At the same time, the planet is abundant with leaders who are helping to make their communities stronger and more resilient. They have intelligence, wisdom, and transparency. They see themselves more as stewards of resources rather than controllers of money and people. They think that leadership is more about helping people find their power than having power over people.
But are these the qualities of good leaders? Perhaps the only thing we can accurately say about leadership is that every assessment is based on personal bias.
For some people, good leaders serve their interests at the cost of serving competing interests. They like weak leaders they can control with money, votes or threats to their power and influence. Others like strong leaders who exercise control over others. They like leaders whose rule guarantees certainty in their favor.
Whether we want leaders who are children capable of being controlled or parents capable of protecting us, what both perspectives have in common is that they are essentially self-serving. They position leaders as tools to our agendas.
And because we are still transitioning through a predominantly adolescent consciousness on this planet, there are almost always competing agendas. In this ethos, we impose on leaders the unfulfillable expectations to guarantee the dominance of our agendas over opposing and hopefully loser agendas.
The opposite of viewing leaders as tools to use is viewing them as assets to engage in our networks. The two most valuable assets in networks are knowledge and skills.
In this worldview, leaders have unique value to the extent that they have unique knowledge and skills in their networks. Their networks include everyone they directly interact with and influence. Leaders who lack unique value have redundant value in their network.
The more connected networks become, the more likely it is that leaders have redundant value. This is one dimension of the leadership crisis today, exacerbated by the fact that the more asset redundant leaders become, the more irrelevant they feel and the more control they exert to restore ego equilibrium.
Reality is, in networks leaders can gain unique value in at least two ways. They create unique value when they create a niche of unique value for themselves. And they gain unique value when those in their network intentionally leave them a space of value uniqueness that no one else takes on.
This is a huge culture shift to see the value of leaders as equivalent to the uniqueness of their real time knowledge and skills relative to their networks. It is a shift that requires us to question the value of positional power that leaders assume in their leadership roles.
Positional power is the assumed power to control money and people. We have abundant and growing evidence that it takes no unique network value to exercise control over money and people.
Scope of control has nothing to do with unique value in a network. If scope of control had any causal relationship to scope of unique value in networks, monarchs, autocrats, and dictators would be guaranteed the most unique knowledge and skills in any networks at any levels around the world.
Understanding leadership through the lens of unique network value profoundly changes the conversations we have when we interact with leaders in our networks at the relative levels each of us has access to these kinds of interactions.
It becomes imperative that everyone understands the unique assets of their leaders. Before they enter any leadership position, we need to gain a collectively clear and accurate picture of their unique and redundant assets relative to our and their networks. When they enter these positions, we need to make it collectively clear what unique assets they have that the thrivancy of our networks require. We also then need to negotiate the areas of asset uniqueness they would provide the network.
But because of the intrinsically dynamic nature of networks, their relative asset uniqueness and possibilities of uniqueness constantly shifts and changes as other people in the network expand their unique value, making the leader's assets redundant, but still possibly quite valuable. Asset redundancy at optimal levels is key to network resiliency.
Networks are also constantly shifting landscapes of opportunities and expectations and so leaders always have opportunities to grow their unique assets to meet these. And this emphasis on asset and network based leadership makes it immediately more possible for leaders across boundaries to collaborate more successfully and intelligently to do together what they cannot possibly do alone, apart or in opposition.
This is an incredibly important shift if we seek a world where leaders help build thriving communities at micro to macro levels.
In this construct, perhaps the most salient characteristic of network relevant and valued leaders is that they have a passion for knowing their networks and continuously reinvent the unique value in knowledge and skills they bring to their networks.
This calls for a profound shift in how we develop, select, and assess our leaders. And the time to begin is now.
Twitter @jackzen / Jack's profile: JackRicchiuto.com
Thursday, February 03, 2011
Mapping Twitter Chats
This is a network map of the almost 1000 tweets during the #ideachat 1 hour session in November 2010. Individual participants in the chat are shown as purple nodes and the "whole group" is shown as the large green circular node. If someone tweeted to everyone in the group, at least twice in the session, an arrow would be drawn from their node to the big green node. People who tweeted to each other [@ messages or RTs], at least twice in the 1 hour session, will have arrows drawn from the tweeter node to the subject node. @blogbrevity <--> @cocreatr indicates that they both sent 2 or more tweets to each other during the session. [We do not show the hundreds of single tweets in the session -- we are looking for key participants.]
Node size on the network map reflects a new network metric we are experimenting with called "attention" which tries to determine both quantity and quality of links pointing at someone. It's not just the number of tweets pointed at you, but who they come from that matters. We will also post an interactive version of this map that will allow you to filter on the type of tweets and their timing during the 1 hour session.
From: blogbrevity's posterous Thanks, Angela!
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
9 Indicators of Growing Networks
Here are 9 simple indicators of network growth, to this purpose. They become both indicators and strategies for the intentional growth of existing networks.
- People in the network gain broader and deeper awareness of the available assets in the network
- People in the network gain broader and deeper awareness of potential new collaborators and co-conspirators in the network
- People in the network spend more time introducing people to one another who are 2+ steps away from each other in the network
- People in the network spend more time introducing themselves to others who are 2+ steps away from them in the network
- People in the network discover more new opportunities to engage and combine their assets to create a future different from the past
- People in the network have more conversations together about their dreams and assets than their problems and deficiencies
- People in the network value change and differences as more valuable to the network's growth than similarities and protecting a status quo
- People in the network become "network weavers" who intentionally commit time and imagination to looking for new ways to connect unconnected people in the network
- People in the network together become more self-organizing, innovative, agile, inclusive, strengths-based, and dedicated to shared thrivancy
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Killing our Neighborhoods
I wonder if a Goldman Sachs executive would spend a night in the house above? After all, they do kind of "own" it.
The house, in the Slavic Village neighborhood of Cleveland, had a mortgage that was part of the Goldman Sachs synthetic CDO, ABACUS 2007-AC1. In 2008, the house was foreclosed upon, and still sits abandoned today.
At least the ivy devouring the south side of the building seems happy.
I am writing this in the Red Chimney restaurant, a social hub for the locals in Slavic Village. This place is probably the only thing that has not changed drastically in the last ten years in this neighborhood. It feels very comfortable -- old networks get rejuvenated here. Every community needs a gathering place, especially in times of trouble.
For an in-depth look at the players and financial flows involving this house , see Connecting the Dots of the Mortgage Meltdown.
Valdis recently helped CNBC with a documentary about Goldman Sachs and the recent mortgage crisis.
Friday, April 09, 2010
What is A Network Weaver?
If you at at the NTEN conference, or want to think about what it means to be a conscious Network Weaver at any conference, check out the Google Doc we created to gather what we learn. We are particularly interested in learning what it means to witness others being Network Weavers. How can we notice and support people who are natural Network Weavers?
Sunday, March 28, 2010
The possibilities of a networked commons
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Overlapping Boards
Let's look at a simple example. Organizations, whether for-profit, or not-for-profit, usually have a Board of Directors. We can think of this Board as a network that belongs to the organization. All members are linked if they sit on an organization's board together. We might view the Boards of the top 50 U.S. companies like the diagram below -- individual clusters, each belonging to the parent company. The gray links show co-membership ties between the individuals.
Directors are not limited to the number of Boards they can be members of. Board members are limited to the number of Boards they sit on only by time, energy and invitation. Below is an example of a Board member who sits on the Board of two organizations. This may be Steve Jobs, who sits on the Board of Apple and Disney.
We now choose a different color for those Directors who sit on multiple Boards. We see how the Boards of the top US companies are actually interconnected in the diagram below. Blue nodes are Directors who sit on multiple Boards.
The blue nodes in the network above are conduits that move information, ideas, and knowledge between the clusters -- they are at the intersection, where two networks overlap. The blue nodes are well placed to be Network Weavers -- their opportunity to close triangles is great.
Contagion of ideas and practices between organizations often happen through flows via their Boards of Directors. We apply social network analysis [SNA] to this social graph and we see who may be key in this diffusion process. We apply a new SNA metric, called Awareness -- it measures potential awareness of a node to what is happening around it [directly and indirectly] based on it's pattern of connectivity. Those nodes with higher awareness are shown in a larger size in the diagram below.
It is usually beneficial to be connected to those who have a good view of what is going on. Information and knowledge is often shared [intentionally or unintentionally] with trusted others, close by. Information leaks and flows, but never too far. Board members who are connected to other highly-aware Board members, have a higher probability of finding out more -- but the range is limited. Even those who just sit on a single Board can increase advantage by being connected to multiple blue boundary spanners. This is reflected in the diagram below. Node size is derived from awareness of what is happening in the network. Some Boards have greater awareness of what is happening in their ecosystem.
This was a simple illustration. An actual network between the Board members will be denser, based on their possible multiple ties -- employment, memberships, and other current & past associations. The full multiplexity of the individuals was not known, nor shown. Yet, we see how even some knowledge of a social system increases our potential to target messages to influence that system. Of course, the better our data, the better our targeting. A telescope may be preferred, but even binoculars provide advantage over the naked eye. And binoculars that reveal what is usually invisible, are even more useful!
What Board overlaps can you utilize?
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Network confidence
These small acts include solving common problems and problems in common together and sharing learning, knowledge, opportunities, talents and resources together. Every instance of success adds to the network's collective self-confidence that incubates even more collaborations and successes, resulting in "virtuous spirals" of thrivancy and thrivability.
And of course, the narrative culture within networks accelerate and scale ripples of confidence throughout the network and beyond to other networks.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
The 4 Developmental Stages of Networks
Best of all, unlike human development where phases cannot be skipped, effective network development can involve immediate acceleration to an emerging and scaling network of adult connections.
People in the network feel dependent on formal leaders to make things happen in the network. Their whole life is structured around demands that parent leaders take care of all their needs. Their whole thrivancy is based on the trade of compliance for protection.
People in the network are interested in making things happen, but only things that require permissions and funding from the parental formal leaders. They are focused in this phase of getting more support from parent-leaders for the things they want to do. They live in continuous demand from a position of entitlement.
People in the network give up dependency on their parent-leaders, but still believe the "pie of resources" is still finite and so compete with peers to satisfy their needs. In this phase, people in the network believe that others' loss is the necessary cost of their gain.
People in the network take responsibility for their destinies and know that working together expands the pie in ways that allows everyone to thrive. They believe that people in the network can achieve more together than they ever could apart or in opposition.
Network weavers help people move into the adult phase more quickly and successfully, accelerating the possibilities of more strong networks.
Sunday, March 07, 2010
Need Help with Network Weaver Handbook
As you may know, I've been working on a Network Weaver Handbook for some time now. I've got almost 100 pages of activities and stories that you will be able to use with your networks, and I think it will end up around 200 pages before I'm through.
But right now, I need your help!
I have loaded the Table of Contents in a google doc and hope you will click on the link to the page, then add comments, questions, edits, etc. Here are some questions:
1. Which part looks most interesting or exciting to you?
2. What is missing that you would like to see included?
3. What is included that you don't think is that important?
Thanks so much for working with me on this!
Saturday, March 06, 2010
How to Create a Sandbox for Learning
Beth Kanter and I met at a workshop for foundations last fall. She loved the concept of Network Weaving and we decided to spend some time figuring out the synergies between Network Weaving and social media. We decided to use a call line she had but Skype would work as well. Meanwhile, she set up a little exercise for us to do, which she described on a google doc she set up.
1. Create 3-5 slide powerpoint with photos that defines/explain network weaving and your key ah ha from session
2. Upload into SlideShare
3. Put in the Network Weavers Group
4. Comment on someone elses slides
5. Create a new deck based on feedback and/or remixing the other person's
I invited a friend. Good thing as Deborah was the only one who did the assignment! Beth then took us to www.flickr.com and showed us how to search the Creative Commons (free to use) pictures there. She was sharing her desktop but letting us make decisions about what pictures to use. It was lots of fun! We noticed the power of slides with only a few words – the image was what had the power to help people get new concepts.
I went back and made a new deck, using yarn and knitting images to represent network weaving and feeling a great sense of accomplishment. We invited several addition friends to the next session, and it was great to meet some new people. We got on Slideshare again and Beth talked about how people loved puppies and babies and so we made a deck using images of kids. Beth always had us spend the last half hour reflecting on what we had done. This time we noted the importance of helping people make an emotional connection to concepts to help them better remember and apply them.
In the next few sessions, a major shift took place. Someone else helped set up the next time using www.doodle.com. At each meeting, we'd decide what we wanted to learn or talk about. Sometimes we explored new social media: Google Wave, web-based project management, etc Sometimes we had clinics, where one person asked for advice. Sometimes we spent most of the time deeply introducing ourselves to each other. But what ever we did, we laughed a lot, appreciated each other and reflected on what we had learned.
After Beth's initial guidance, there was no designated leader, not even a coordinator: we all took responsibility for making sure the needed tasks got done, we all took notes together (which is possible on google docs), and we took turns facilitating as needed (watching the time, making sure we spent time on reflection). This kind of collaboration can work!
I encourage others to start a sandbox of your own. All you do is invite a few friends to a skype call and figure out what you want to learn or do together. Let me know how it works out!
Friday, March 05, 2010
Structural Folds and Innovation Dynamics
Vedres and Stark studied relationships among businesses in Hungary over the last 20 years. In contrast to Ron Burt's concept of structural holes, they explore the concept of structural folds.
The concept of structural holes describes how individuals who span two different clusters or groups can become powerful by brokering the relationships and information flow across the clusters. Managers who span structural holes often move quickly up the corporate ladder.
Using the concept of structural folds, Vedres and Stark argue that moving ideas from one cluster or group to another is not enough to spawn innovation. Groups need to overlap. They need to recombine and do something together to generate innovation that leads to growth. However, this overlap is often disruptive, and can lead to disintegration of the groups.
The trick is to move to another level, looking at the whole set of groups as part of a larger network. Then you can see that the larger network has some stability over time – individuals or businesses continue to be part of this larger network, but are recombining with others in different configurations over time. This looks disruptive, but is actually the source of much creativity and growth. The larger network, meanwhile builds a culture of collaboration that encourages and supports even more collaboration.
These ideas are very compatible with our Smart Network model. A Smart Network has a core of overlapping clusters. Clusters could be different organizational types (such as entrepreneurs, non-profits and foundations), different geographies, different business sectors, etc. In most Smart Networks, people are recombining through self-organized, collaborative projects. Vedres and Stark remind us that it's important that these projects contain at least several people who have worked together before, but that including new faces from different clusters is likely to increase the success and growth of the project.
Thursday, March 04, 2010
Using the Opportunity Process to Catalyze Self-Organization
How do we get started with self-organization?
One simple process (adapted from a Peter Block activity) I've used many times is the Opportunity Process. Here's the simple steps:
1. Have people put their interest or current passion or challenge on a 9 x 12 sheet of paper or PostIt. Have someone sort into Action Groups of 3-10 people.
2. Have each group identify opportunities in that area where something could really make a difference right now.
3. Generate ideas for small projects/small acts that could help the group explore that opportunity. Each act needs a champion.
4. Identify the gifts (skills and resources) that the project team already has to accomplish that act.
5. Figure out who and what else they need to make the project successful and then invite those individuals to join their project.
6. How will the project be managed? Use a project management worksheet or online project management site like TeamworkPM so everyone involved knows what they are to do. Have a volunteer be project coordinator.
7. Check in with and coach the project coordinators.
8. After the project is underway, identify "patterns of success."
Economic growth indicators for networks
- Number of new college-degreed & non-degreed jobs created by current organizations in each sector
- Number of jobs created by new organizations in each sector
- Number of new organizations coming to locate here from outside in each sector
- Number of new organizations started from within the community in each sector
- Number of new product and service lines offered by community organizations in each sector
- Number of people in the community less or no longer dependent on public services and aid in each sector
- Number of businesses performing better in each sector
- Number of organizations with successful strategic processes in each sector
- Number of residents with increased housing value in each sector
- Number of students graduating to the next levels in each sector
- Number of students starting new businesses and organizations in each sector
- Number of employees re-skilled for new industries in each sector
- Number of consumer dollars shifted from non-local businesses to local businesses in each sector
- Number of businesses and organizations shifting to local suppliers in each sector
- Number of people whose health care, education, and energy costs have decreased in each sector
- Number of children with reading, writing, research, financial, and cultural literacies in each sector
- Number of older citizens living longer and with few costs of living in each sector
- Number of employers satisfied with the local pool of talent for open positions in each sector
- Number of organizations winning grants, awards, and funding for local projects and efforts in each sector
- Number of occupied commercial and retail spaces in each sector
- Number of employee owned businesses that spawn new businesses
Monday, March 01, 2010
New Directions for Funding - A Case Example
In Appalachian Ohio, a small group of non-profits worked with a regional/community foundation to set up an Innovation Fund called the Yellowroot Fund. This fund had less than $15,000 a year. It provided small seed grants ($500-3000) to small collaborative projects in the region. All projects had to include a mix of both entrepreneurs and support organizations (non-profits, tourism bureaus, local gov't, etc). The first year 15 projects were funded. Most were successful in small ways, but several were very dynamic and successful, and we helped them access larger dollars.
Innovation funds encourage people to work collaboratively -- but in small self-managed groups that have a high likelihood of success. Many of the projects linked people across counties. For example, the Mural Corridor Project developed a map showing a trail people could follow to see all of the 17 murals that had been painted on the sides of buildings in small towns throughout 5 counties. Because local businesses were part of the project group, the final map included locations of local businesses such as restaurants and bed & breakfasts – which increased traffic for these small enterprises.
The fund only lasted a few years, but by the time it ended many more people in the region knew how to self-organize: come up with a project idea, find others who are interested in working on that project, and make something happen. This fund helped people develop all of the skills described in Jack's post, below. Local Network Weavers were involved in most of the projects and helped people become more aware of their networks and use them to access the resources they needed.
Now, even without those funds, hundreds of small projects are formed every year to develop new trails, festivals, brands, markets and other initiatives. Self-organizing has taken off, and it's cascading throughout the region.


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Blood and Water - DVD
Catalogue Number: NFB541504
Producer: National Film Board Of Canada
Producers: Kent Martin
Directors: Rohan Fernando
Producing Agencies: National Film Board of Canada (Montreal)
Subject: Canadian Social Studies, Diversity, Documentary, Early Childhood Education, Family Studies/Home Economics, Global Issues, Global Studies, Music, Psychology, Social Issues, Social Studies
Language: English
Grade Level: Post Secondary, Adult, Educators
Country Of Origin: Canada
Copyright Year: 2006
Running Time: 117:46
Closed Captions: Yes
Click here for pricing
When the 2004 tsunami hit the coast of Sri Lanka, 65-year-old Anton Ambrose's wife and daughter were killed. "In five minutes," he says, "I lost everything."
A year later, Anton returns to Sri Lanka. With him is his nephew, award-winning filmmaker Rohan Fernando.
A Tamil, Anton moved to California in the 1970s and became a very successful gynecologist. His daughter, Orlantha, made the opposite journey, returning to Sri Lanka where she ran a non-profit group that gave underprivileged children free violin lessons. Anton and his wife, Beulah, were visiting her when the tsunami hit.
Blood and Water is the story of one man's search for meaning in the face of overwhelming loss, but it is also filled with improbable characters, unintentional comedy and situational ironies.
To honour Orlantha's work, Anton is building a music centre and hosting a fundraising concert. Eccentric characters and oddball events immediately take centre stage. Exiled Iranian country singer Ann Claire is focused on media attention as much as on the concert. Shondale, an energetic African American computer analyst, is so moved by Orlantha's story that she drops everything to become the concert's chief organizer. The concert itself loses money, although - in a final irony - some of the underprivileged children it is designed to serve come from among the richest families in the country.
Meanwhile, Anton tours his old neighbourhood, spends time with his daughter's closest friends and seeks out advice from the archbishop of Sri Lanka. ("That's life!" the archbishop says, when Anton describes his loss.)
All this against the backdrop of Sri Lanka - a country coming apart as the decades-old civil war between Tamil Tigers and the government heats up.
Ultimately, Blood and Water is a film about the coming to terms with loss. As Anton Ambrose seeks meaning in tragedy, he must re-evaluate all he has taken for granted. In so doing, he comes to understand his daughter better than he ever did when she was alive.

subset: commoncrawl


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Stick to what you (don't) know
One of the dumbest forms of criticism is to shout down an expert in one field who speaks up about something else. The actor with a political point of view, or the physicist who talks about philosophy. The theory is that people should stick to what they know and quietly sit by in all other situations.
Of course, at one point, we all knew nothing. The only way you ever know anything, in fact, is to speak up about it. Outline your argument, support it, listen, revise.
The byproduct of speaking up about what you don't know is that you soon know more. And maybe, just maybe, the experts learn something from you and your process.
No one knows more about the way you think than you do. Applying that approach, combining your experience, taking a risk–this is what we need from you.


text: Hi there people I did the Ubuntu Perfect Install. The webpages all load great, the domains resolve properly, but my problem is with email. I've got several domains on it. I have a problem with one and the other seems good: ptsgroup.ca ragault.com When I send mail to [email protected] the email goes through and I receive it at that box. But in my ISPConfig I configured it to forward it to another email (and keep a copy). The email is never forwarded but the copy is there. When I send mail to [email protected] the email doesn't get through at all, after 13 hours I receive an error msg saying Timed Out. Both DNS configurations of ragault.com and ptsgroup.ca look pretty much the same, so I really don't know what's making this happen. Can you maybe dig the servers and see what's wrong, or tell me how to fix it in ISPConfig? Thanks in advance Dave


text:
(HealthDay News) — For individuals with advanced cancer, reluctance to participate in exercise may be due to symptoms, lack of specific guidance, and lack of recognition of the role of exercise in mitigating symptoms, according to a study published in the July issue of the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management.
Andrea L. Cheville, M.D., from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and colleagues conducted semistructured interviews with 20 adults with stage IIIB or IV non-small-cell lung cancer. The participants' level of activity; influence of their symptoms on activities; perceived barriers and facilitators for exercise; and exercise-related instruction from professional caregivers were assessed.
The researchers found that usual daily activities were overwhelmingly reported as the source of "exercise." Symptoms, specifically treatment-related symptoms, discouraged patients from participating in exercise, with younger women experiencing a significant concern regarding fear of harm. Participants recognized that exercise was important for physical and mental well-being but did not appreciate its role in mitigating symptoms. Current exercise behaviors were modulated based on weather, recalled levels of premorbid fitness, and exercise participation. None of the participants reported having received more specific encouragement other than to "stay active," with a lack of direction taken as an approval of their current exercise status. Participants preferred to receive guidelines from their oncologists and seemed less receptive to advice from ancillary health professionals.
Continue Reading
"Effective use of exercise and activity modification to ameliorate cancer-related symptoms appears to require a linkage to a patient's usual and past activities, proactive negotiation of potential barriers, education regarding symptoms and exercise, and the positive support of their oncologist," the authors write.


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Two proposed offshore wind projects in Maine have received important federal grants that officials say will help put the state at the forefront of developing a commercial, deep-water wind power industry.
U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced awards of $4 million each Wednesday, for projects near Monhegan Island and in the Gulf of Maine off Boothbay Harbor.
A team led by the University of Maine plans to install a pilot floating offshore wind farm with two, six-megawatt direct-drive turbines on concrete, semi-submersible foundations. The turbines will rise 300 feet above the ocean — taller than the Washington Monument — and have blades 500-feet in diameter.
Additionally, a project led by Stamford, Conn.-based Statoil North America plans to deploy four three-megawatt wind turbines on floating spar buoy structures off Boothbay Harbor, at a water depth of about 460 feet.
The spar buoys and the University of Maine project will be assembled in a harbor to help reduce installation costs, and then towed to the site to access extensive deep-water offshore wind resources.
Floating wind turbines can be placed further offshore, so they aren't visible from land.
The Energy Department said the projects will help clear hurdles to installing utility-scale turbines in U.S. waters, connecting to the power grid and navigating new siting and permitting processes.
The Maine projects are two of seven awards that will help speed the deployment of stronger, more efficient offshore wind power technologies and showcase innovative technologies — helping to further lower costs and drive performance improvements.
In the initial phase, each project will receive up to $4 million to complete the engineering, design and permitting processes. The department will select up to three of the projects for follow-on phases that focus on siting, construction and installation and aim to achieve commercial operation by 2017.
The final projects will receive up to $47 million each over four years, subject to congressional appropriations.
"It's probably the largest research grant to the state of Maine," said Habib Dagher, the UMaine professor who has spearheaded the school's Offshore Wind Laboratory.
Dagher said the university already has lined up roughly $42 million in private money to supplement the larger federal grant. The university also is planning to deploy a scale model of the technology next year off Monhegan Island.
Offshore wind represents a large, untapped energy resource for the United States that could generate four times the nation's current total generation capacity.
According to a new report commissioned by the Energy Department, a U.S. offshore wind industry that takes advantage of this abundant domestic resource could support up to 200,000 manufacturing, construction, operation and supply chain jobs across the country and drive over $70 billion in annual investments by 2030. Offshore wind represents an economic and energy opportunity that could mirror the success of land-based wind development, the report said.
"The United States has tremendous untapped clean-energy resources, and it is important for us to develop technologies that will allow us to utilize those resources in ways that are economically viable," Chu said. "Today's announcement of awards to the first offshore wind projects in the U.S. paves the way to a cleaner, more sustainable and more diverse domestic energy portfolio that develops every source of American energy."
The federal grants were praised by members of Maine's congressional delegation, which has been especially active in advancing the university proposal.
"I am thrilled that the innovative deep-water offshore wind initiative, New England Aqua Ventus I, led by the University of Maine, has been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy for this competitive federal grant," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. "This extremely important announcement is a vital step that could eventually help harness the vast potential of deep-water offshore wind energy and lead to the potential creation of some 20,000 new jobs."
Seventy organizations applied for awards from the Advanced Technology Demonstration Program.
"This is a major grant and puts Maine at the center of the development of the offshore wind industry," said Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine. "The University of Maine has used advanced materials to create a technology that allows the turbines to be bigger and last longer in the harsh marine environment, and that is going to translate into lower energy costs."
"I vehemently supported UMaine's Aqua Ventus project and I am profoundly pleased that the proposal was approved, so our incredibly talented students and professors can begin work on this historic endeavor," said Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine.
Staff Writer Tux Turkel can be contacted at 791-6462 or at:
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Beat Around the Bush with CloudDancer the Aimiably Amorous Alaskan Aviator as He Takes you on his Many Comedic Capers
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text:
Full Movie Under the Skin Full StreamingWatch Movie Under the Skin Streaming In HD with duration 108 Min and broadcast on 2013-08-29 with MPAA rating is 158.
- Original Title : Under the Skin
- Movie title in your country : Under the Skin
- Year of movie : 2013
- Genres of movie : Drama, Science Fiction, Thriller,
- Status of movie : Released
- Release date of movie : 2013-08-29
- Companies of movie : Scottish Screen, UK Film Council, FilmNation Entertainment, Nick Wechsler Productions, Creative Scotland, British Film Institute, Film4, Silver Reel, JW Films,
- Countries of movie : Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States of America,
- Language of movie : English,
- Durationof movie : 108 Min
- Average vote of movie : 5.9
- Youtube ID of movie : wW4zekk-ue8
- Translation of movie : EN,PT,RU,FR,EL,DA,ES,PL,TR,NL,DE,ZH,HU,KO,SV,IT,HE,
- Actors of movie :
- Scarlett Johansson ( Laura )
- Kryštof Hadek ( The Swimmer )
- Paul Brannigan ( Andrew )
- Michael Moreland ( The Quiet Man )
- Scott Dymond ( The Nervous Man )
- Jeremy McWilliams ( The Bad Man )
Under the Skin Synopsis:
Play Streaming Under the Skin Jonathan Glazer's atmospheric, visually arresting abstraction stars Scarlett Johansson as a seductive alien who prowls the streets of Glasgow in search of prey: unsuspecting men who fall under her spell, only to be consumed by a strange liquid pool. Watch Movie Under the Skin Full Movie HD
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Director : Jonathan Glazer, Screenplay : Walter Campbell, Producer : Nick Wechsler, Producer : James Wilson, Screenplay : Jonathan Glazer, Novel : Michel Faber, Music : Mica Levi, Cinematography : Daniel Landin, Editor : Paul Watts, Casting : Kahleen Crawford, Production Design : Chris Oddy, Art Direction : Martin McNee, Art Direction : Emer O'Sullivan, Costume Design : Stephen Noble, Greensman : Jon Colson, Property Master : Jim Elliott, Greensman : Roger Holden, Greensman : Will Holden, Greensman : Gavin Johnson, Sound Effects Editor : Steve Browell, Sound Designer : Johnnie Burn, Sound Effects Editor : Ed Downham, Dialogue Editor : Jussi Honka, Boom Operator : Andrew Quinney, Sound Re-Recording Mixer : Steve Single, Foley : Jason Swanscott, Foley : Alissa Timoshkina, Supervising Sound Editor : Johnnie Burn, Foley : Barnaby Smyth, Special Effects : Mark Curtis, Special Effects : Tony Turner, Visual Effects Producer : Antony Bluff, Visual Effects Producer : Earle Stuart Callender, Visual Effects Supervisor : Tom Debenham, Visual Effects Supervisor : Dominic Parker, Compositors : Pat Wong, Compositors : Nicholas Zissimos, Stunt Coordinator : Gareth Milne, Costume Supervisor : Clementine Charity, Music Editor : Gerard McCann, Script Supervisor : Claire Hewitt, Location Manager : Eugene Strange, Location Scout : Michael Campbell, Location Scout : Sean Barclay,
Yes, now you can Watch Movie Under the Skin Full Movie Streaming and get the link to Under the Skin In HD


text:
By National Osteoporosis Foundation, March 28, 2014
The National Osteoporosis Foundation is the preeminent organization in the United States for information and research regarding osteoporosis. Here is how they describe themselves on their website:
"The National Osteoporosis Foundation (NOF) is the leading health organization dedicated to preventing osteoporosis and broken bones, promoting strong bones for life and reducing human suffering through programs of public and clinician awareness, education, advocacy and research. Established in 1984, NOF is the nation's only health organization solely dedicated to osteoporosis and bone health."
We quote the following very sobering passage from the NOF website:
"About nine million Americans have osteoporosis and an estimated 48 million have low bone density. This means that nearly 60 percent of adults age 50 and older are at risk…one in two women and up to one in four men age 50 and older will break a bone due to osteoporosis."
If you, or someone you care about, is dealing with osteoporosis, osteopenia, or related bone density issues, we strongly suggest you visit the NOF website. It's extremely comprehensive and very user-friendly, with all sorts of information regarding treatment, research, strategies for coping with the disease and ways to find help and support.
Please visit The National Osteoporosis Foundation to read more and support their great cause.
You can also read more here about the bellicon and it's outstanding benefits in assisting the fight against Osteoporosis.


text:
Digging deeper into Google's search functionality leads students to surprising discoveries
"Did he seriously just ask that? How old is this guy?" Well yes, I recently seriously just asked a group of students if they knew how to use Google. And yes, the students got a good laugh from my question.
"Of course I know how to use Google," I have been told by every student to whom I have asked the question.
"Really? Let's see. This won't take long," I promise.
The truth is that every student can use Google on some level. What is interesting to me is that when I interview students about their search strategies and I ask them if they have ever asked their teachers for help with a search the answer is almost always, "No". What if our students are overconfident about their search skills?
If you watch your students use Google you will probably observe that most begin their search by simply typing the title of the assignment verbatim into Google (i.e., Iranian Hostage Crisis). They do this partly because this technique can yield satisfying answers to basic questions, and because in many cases they haven't been explicitly taught to do anything else. It is the easy way out that does not require much in the way of critical thinking.
(Next page: Digging deeper into Google search strategies)
After their results pop up, most students will look only at the first screen of results, believing that those top hits contain everything they will need to complete their assignment. In many ways, this response is natural –it's quick and easy. If they do not find what they are looking for within three tries they will likely give up and assume that Google cannot fulfill their request.
What happens when a meaningful search requires more thinking than simply typing in the assignment? The internet presents our students with the significant challenge of learning how to access and synthesize massive amounts of information from all over the world. To manage overwhelming amounts of information, it is critical to learn how to design searches that take you past the first page of results. The quality of information can lead to a over simplification of an issue or lead to a much deeper understanding of the nuances of a topic.
In today's global economy, global empathy is one of the most critical skills we must teach our students. To this end, utilizing the internet strategically can lead students to understand other cultures and viewpoints and spark authentic learning experiences. While the internet provides us with the opportunity to explore issues from multiple perspectives and exposes our simplified narratives, the reality of how Google targets basic search often leads to localized results.
The irony of having access to thousands of channels of information is that many of our students seem satisfied when they find the most visually accessible version of the truth. Students must be educated to ask themselves, "How can I design a search or series of searches that yields the highest quality results? As educators, we must equip our students with the skills and strategies to help them develop sophisticated search strategies that will enable them to engage in critical analysis.
Let's take a look at a detailed example assignment, "the Iranian Hostage Crisis."
If you key in "Iranian Hostage Crisis" in Google, and you are in North America, your search in the top screen will yield no sources from Iran, despite the fact that this was where the event took place. Prior to the rise of the internet, omitting Iranian sources may have been completely acceptable and practical in a school setting. There simply were no sources from Iran in the average well-stocked school or town library.
When I challenge students to redesign their search to yield sources from Iran, they usually add the words "Iranian sources" into the search bar. Sadly, this will also lead to zero content from Iran's perspective, and students will continue to be flooded with results detailing a Western version of the event.
Whenever students are researching a problem that involves another country, they should make use of "country codes" and/or use the advanced search tools in Google to limit their search to a particular country. (A list of country codes can be found here: http://www.web-l.com/country-codes/. )"IR" is the two letter country code for Iran. If students want the shortcut to generate Iranian sources, they can type "site:ir" into the search and the results will be from Iran. (Site: is a Google operator that limits results to content in the extension portion of a web address.)
While getting to Iran is just a matter of looking up the two-letter country code and understanding the Google operator "site," the creative part of the search is imagining the Iranian perspective. Essentially all students will type: "site:ir Iranian hostage crisis" after they are taught to limit their search to Iran. At that point, students must be challenged to question their perspective and possible biases: "Do you think the Iranians called this event the Iranian Hostage Crisis?"
This is where Wikipedia can be quite useful. With a quick scan of the Wikipedia article about the Iranian Hostage Crisis, students learn that in Iran the event is known as "The Conquest of the American Spy Den." (Many teachers decry the use of Wikipedia as an authoritative source, and it is true that consulting Wikipedia alone does not represent a comprehensive search strategy. However, Wikipedia may be used to expose researchers to content that can lead students to refine their search.)
Now that we have sorted out the mechanics of accessing the Iranian sources and perspectives, here is the revised Google search:
site:IR Conquest of the American Spy Den
Using this new search, students are presented with an entirely new set of sources, all from Iran. But why stop there? How do we know these sources are credible? What if we could isolate our search to sources from Iranian universities? To access this type of refined search, students can search:
site:ac.ir Chronology of Conquest of the American Spy Den
*The addition of "ac" indicates an institution of higher education, much like ".edu" does for American universities.
Students will notice that this new search has no resemblance to their first, and that the information contained in this latest search offers a vastly different account of the American-named "Iranian Hostage Crisis." Using this new search, students are empowered to access a perspective they may not otherwise have considered. Students have now used Google to gain a perspective than they previously imagined was possible.
When confronted with examples of using the advanced features of Google, the students who previously laughed at the question, "Do you know how to use Google?" are stunned, and in some cases even embarrassed or mad. They wonder why they have never been taught how to perform this type of search. They often are quick to ask: "What else don't I know?"
There is great news in this response. Students do not want to feel inadequate when they use the internet. Once you start to teach them the tricks of deep research they will often ask for more. With some minor adjustments in how we think about and teach basic online research skills, teachers can help create an environment where students take pride in their ability to "zoom in" on a topic as deeply as possible. It makes huge sense for a teacher to ask students to show their search strategies as well as their results. In this way, teachers can gain insights into how students thought about querying a search engine.
You have to love it when students demand to learn more!
Alan November is Senior Partner and Founder of November Learning. Each summer Alan leads the Building Learning Communities summer conference with world-class presenters and international participants. Visit http://novemberlearning.com/blc for more details.
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Credit: Anthony C/lta362 on Flickr, under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
(WOMENSENEWS)–Adoption is often described as a "win-win" solution–for a child in need of a home and for adoptive parents longing for a son or a daughter to raise.
However, in the fuller equation adoption is too often a zero-sum game, in which the happiness of one family comes at the expense of another, particularly that of birthmothers and birth families, both in the United States and overseas, whose choice to relinquish for adoption is sometimes no choice at all.
Despite the varied but largely altruistic motivations of evangelical adoption advocates, as a movement it is directing hundreds of millions of dollars into a system that already responds acutely to Western demand–demand that can't be filled, at least not ethically or under current law. What that can mean for tens of thousands of loving but impoverished parents in the developing world is that they become the supply side of a multi-billion-dollar global industry driven not just by infertility but now also by pulpit commands.
The Christian adoption movement's rapid rise and the complicated scandals it has been party to provide lessons that are not limited to the faith-based sphere. This book focuses on evangelical Christians as the dominant group in adoption today, promoting an agenda that shapes larger trends. However, many of the same complexities are present in all adoptions, domestic and international, religious and secular. Although the Christian movement has led to particular problems and may be more blinded by the certainty that what they are doing is right and even divinely ordained, the movement's failures reflect the broader problems in the adoption industry as well as the intricate moral balance of how Americans and Westerners should engage in child welfare missions on the global stage.
Invisible Birthmother
"If you want to look at what's wrong with international adoption, state adoption and Christian adoption," one agency director told me, "it all has to do with how they treat birthmothers. The common denominator in all of these is that the birthmother is invisible."
When you get that, one adoptive parent wrote, it changes everything. Or, as another told me, "It's like 'The Wizard of Oz.' You open the door and either you have to accept it's a house of cards or you stay in denial. There's absolutely no middle ground."
When I titled this book "The Child Catchers," I thought of the tension between two possible interpretations of that phrase: a savior catching a child falling in midair and bringing him or her to safety or the darker image of someone's offspring being snatched away from her family and home. It's the same tension that underlies the dueling narratives about the institution of modern adoption, often viewed as an unqualified good or an unqualified evil, purely rescue or purely theft.
The truth, as usual, probably lies somewhere in between, a different answer from case to case. But the rise of the Christian adoption movement threatens to tip that balance, bringing millions of new advocates on board to fight on behalf of an industry too often marked by ambiguous goals and dirty money, turning poor countries' children into objects of salvation, then into objects of trade.
That's not always the story, but in the movement's short history, the sense of mission has frequently obscured the harm the industry can do, excusing missteps as the cost of doing God's work. It doesn't have to be that way, but figuring out how to do better means understanding what has gone wrong.
From the Book: "The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption." Excerpted by arrangement with PublicAffairs, a member of The Perseus Books Group. Copyright 2013.
Kathryn Joyce is a journalist based in New York City whose work has appeared in the Nation, Mother Jones, Slate, the Atlantic, and other publications. A 2011 recipient of the Knight Luce Fellowship for Reporting on Global Religion, she has also been awarded residencies and fellowship support by the Nation Institute Investigative Fund, the MacDowell Colony, the Bellagio Center and the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting. She is the author of "Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement" and an associate editor at "Religion Dispatches."
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Buy the Book, "The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption":
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The Florida Seminoles
Origins of the Florida Seminoles
Florida Seminoles originated from the indigenous peoples of the southeastern United States. They migrated into northern and central Florida beginning in the early 1700s.
Seminoles shared cultural connections with the Creek Indians. Creeks and Seminoles spoke various dialects of the Muscogee language and practiced an annual ritual cycle centered on hunting, planting, and harvesting.
Muscogee-speaking Native Americans lived in towns and villages across parts of modern-day Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. Although known by many names, today these people are generally referred to in Florida as Creeks, Seminoles, and Miccosukees.
The word Seminole formed from a combination of the words cimarron and simanoli. The Spanish term cimarron means "runaway" or "renegade." The Muscogee term simanoli means "those that camp at a distance."
Conflict and Recovery
The Seminoles fought a series of wars against the U.S. Army in the 1800s. By 1858, only about 200 Seminoles remained in Florida. Most of the Seminoles were forcibly removed to the Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River.
In the 1950s and '60s, Florida Indians obtained federal recognition from the U.S. government. Today, the Seminole Tribe of Florida and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida are powerful factors in Florida politics, business, and culture.
This unit introduces major themes, events, and individuals in Seminole history using primary sources from the collections of the State Library and Archives of Florida.