The Open Author

David Wiley has an excellent post on what direction we might want to take as institutions of higher education. I read the post today, and then came across a story in a book I’m reading that I think also applies. I’ll summarize.

On Christopher Columbus’s last voyage, he needed to find gold. Spain wanted to wage war with France, and needed the money. Columbus was sailing around Jamaica but got held over for a time on the north part of the Island. He had been having problems with the natives and feared they might be planning to attack him and his men. One of his men, a man by the name of Diego Mendez, volunteered to go scope out the situation. Here is what happened.

He and his sidekick, a young guy by the name of Diego de Escobar, paddled upriver to do some reconnaissance. They found where the army of natives were gathering but unfortunately were taken captive. Mendez decided he wanted to talk to the head chief, but was not allowed. He attempted to make his way to the tent, but things got ugly. Some of the natives started shouting, and the next thing you know Mendez is surrounded by warriors. He can’t plead his case to the chief, he can’t make his way back to the boat, and things look very grim. What would you do?

Exactly, that is just what Mendez did. He pulled out a comb and some scissors, and told Escobar to give him a haircut.

No, don’t bother reading that again, you read it right the first time. He’s surrounded by warriors, he is minutes away from a violent death, and he orders his sidekick to give him a haircut.

The kicker is that his plan worked brilliantly. The natives, never having seen scissors before, became fascinated. He made a gift of the scissors to the lackey who was keeping him from the chief, and within minutes he is eating and drinking at a feast, thrown in his honor.

A few days later, the natives still attacked, and killed some of Columbus’s men, but that is another story. Mendez and Excobar left the natives as heroes.

Anyway, how does this relate even remotely to Wiley’s post? I’m a fan of trying new things. Sometimes we get locked into doing things as we’ve always done them, because…well, we’ve always done them that way. Sometimes that is fine, but if what we are getting in the end is not what we’d like to get, then we have to try something new. And sometimes we even should try things that just don’t make any sense. I think that is why I like the idea of podcasting or giving away my book online. On the surface it makes no sense to give away something that you’d much rather sell. But the kicker is that for several authors who have done just this, it works brilliantly. Check out the work of Cory Doctorow as just one example.

So, if we’re happy with what we’re getting out of public and higher education, let’s keep tweaking and fine tuning it. If we’re not happy, let’s try something completely different. Let’s whip out the scissors, trim up the hair, and see how the natives react.

At our church, we have a large group meeting to begin with. The meeting runs 70 minutes, and it’s mainly talking and singing. We were 65 minutes into the meeting, and at the end of a fairly long talk. I found the speaker to be quite interesting, but he had been going on for about 20 minutes. My son John leans over and passionately whispers to my wife, “Dang it, this guy is wasting our time!”

A friend of mine wrote a random post to his blog. He received a random comment. It’s the best comment to a blog anywhere.

“There is a verse in the bible that says when you go to hell it is where the worm doesn’t die. Research worm on google.”

My family has a website, and one of the sister-in-laws posted an idea about using a Jedi Master/Padawan idea to teach your kids to work. The idea is that you are the Laundry Master or the Dishes Master, and you take a young Padawan under your wing and teach him/her how to do the job. In the end, they are the master, and can teach others.

So last night I pulled Spencer in after dinner. Everybody had left their plates on the table, food was all over the floor, the chairs, the walls, and there was a small fire in one corner. So about normal.

I put my arm around Spencer and said, “Boy, I have some good news. Do you know what a Jedi Master and Padawan is?”

“Yeah,” he said, “The master knows everything, and the padawan learns from the master, and then in the end, the padawan kills the master.”

I thought about that for a minute and then said, “Yep, that is exactly right. Why don’t you go play while I do the dishes.”

I’m not taking any chances.

Just got my invite to the Web 2.1.340 close beta. I’m excited. I’d tell you all about it, but…NDA, sorry.

A revolution is easy to spot when looking backward, but they are much harder to see when they first happen. Microsoft, Apple, eBay, Amazon…all revolutions with ramifications that weren’t seen until much after they first released a product, or came online.

But I predict a revolution in an event that took place just a few days ago at the Worldwide Developers Conference where Steve Jobs announced the latest version of the iPhone. I know, I know, you’re thinking that I missed the boat. The iPhone revolution already took place; this is old news.

But there is something in this iPhone that in my opinion will change things dramatically in the coming year; GPS.

GPS on the iPhone has the potential to allow users to link content to a specific location. For years as I’ve talked with colleagues about this topic, the single biggest hurdle we’ve seen is the hardware problem. First there wasn’t a device that provided everything ‘all in one’. Then, as devices started to have the necessary features, few people actually owned them.

With the new iPhone we now have a device that provides access to the internet, true GPS navigation, and the ability to record audio and take pictures. What does that give us?

Information is useful, but information given in context is even more so. That is why 100 years ago if you wanted to learn about barrel making, you didn’t go to the library, you became an apprentice. You learned the information at the location where it made the most sense.

Today, we have access to almost limitless amounts of information. Much of this information is about the physical world around us. A user can learn about species of plants and animals, virtually visit far away lands, or read about the history of places around the globe. Unfortunately, as soon as the user steps away from their computer and into the outside world, their access to this information is severed.

My family and I just went to Oceanside, California and enjoyed some time at a lovely beach. While there I wondered what the weather would be like tomorrow. I wondered if there were any tricks to body surfing, or if there was a place nearby that rented boogie boards.

Imagine if I could have turned on my iPhone and found articles and contents left by other users. The information would have been delivered to me not by searching for it, but based on my location. Users might have linked the location of the beach to Wikipedia articles on surfing, local weather, eateries, current tide conditions, news about recent shark attacks, etc. There may have even been information that I found useful that I wouldn’t have thought to search for.

Sure, there are times when I want to turn off technology and just get outside. But there are also times when I want to learn about the great outdoors, and I’d rather be doing it out in the sun, than stuck in front of a screen.

I predict that in the coming months and years, we will see the information age leave the basements and stuffy rooms of our houses, and break out into the great outdoors.

From the good folks over at Common Craft.

Interesting article over at ZD Net UK. The idea is that people don’t need to go to a search engine to find what they need. If they want a review of a product, they will go to Amazon or cnet. If they want to find out about a place or person, they will head straight to Wikipedia. If they want something funny or interesting, they’ll got to YouTube or Digg.

I find myself doing this. Instead of going to Google (that will return 6 million pages), I will often head straight to Wikipedia. I’m not saying I don’t use Google, but I am finding that I use it less. If I’m looking for a review of a product, Google is simply unusable. Instead, I’ll go to any number of sites that I have found useful (and bookmarked), to find that information.

And this doesn’t even bring into account the possibility that the new iPhone brings into play, finding information based on where you are.

While I don’t see search engines going away, I do see them losing power. The question remains, what fills the void?

We put on quite the show at the little league game tonight. The kids were playing with the keyless remote to our van. Somehow they engaged the alarm. Since we came separately, my wife left first (with the only keyless remote), and I was left to bring up the rear in the van.

I had an arm full of supplies and when I got to the van I saw the window was rolled down but the door locked. I reached through, unlocked the car, and went to get in.

That is when the alarm went off. The horn started honking, the lights started flashing, and the game stopped so everybody could gape.

Did I mention my wife was already on the way home with the keyless remote?

I figured that if I proved that I was the real owner, the car would stop its bleating. I got in the car, turned the key…nothing. I started the car…nothing.

My mind raced. Everybody was watching me (the game had stopped). I figured the only thing to do was drive to my wife and have her hit her remote. But first I had to load the car, because I’d dropped all my stuff next to the van.

So, I hopped out, loaded the car with the collapsible chairs (that I never wanted in the first place), and backed out of the parking spot.

That is when I saw my wife. She had done what any sensible person would have done in her position; walked the other way and pretend like she didn’t know me.

Not really. She had tried to turn off the remote, but was too far away, so she was now motioning for me to turn the key. Of course, I already had the van going, so that wasn’t going to do any good. I drove across the parking lot, she pulled out her keys again, and finally the noise stopped.

Everybody in the bleachers cheered.

I didn’t know which kid had engaged the alarm, so I had to ground all of them.

We visited the Pacific Ocean today. The waves terrified me, as usual, but that is a story for another day. I was walking along the beach and my almost 4 year old found a large feather. He said in a voice and fluctuating tone too cute to convey with mere words, “I will tape this feather in my room…No! I will tape it in the front room, so that anybody who comes in the door will say, “Wow! Where did you get that feather?””

The vacation is fun, pics to follow soon.