Scott, quick question--does the business school require its students to take the expository writing class?

Trey

It requires either expository writing or professional writing.

Trey,

Thanks so much for this semester. This class has had a huge impact on me. I really appreciate your ability to encourage participation and get people excited - I'm trying to stir that up with the youth group I'm working with.

I know grades aren't something to get hung up on, but I had a question. Things got hectic during the semester when you were trying to get out progress reports so I wasn't sure how I was doing (gradewise). A "B" is nothing to scoff at, but I was hoping to pull off all A's my last semester at USF.

The thing is, I'm trying to get into Dartmouth's MBA program, and I'll probably need all the help I can get. If there's any way I could do some extra wiki-work to make myself "A"-able I would love the chance to do it.

Thanks,

Scott

Absolutely! Spend some time cruising the wiki, make links and leave gutters as you go, but try and keep moving for about 30 minutes or so. Then, reflect, and, sometime tonight or tomorrow morning, hit me with a plan. I would recommend this: don't worry about your 'zine focus, instead a) find some (any) implicit connections or distinctions that you find to be interesting--particularly those that require "unpacking" or more description, evaluation, or expository considerations of cause and effect--and propose to fill those gaps. In your plan, show me relevant links, so I can approve and/or modify your plan. hat's the wonder of wiki: we can find a way.

Trey

Trey,

Okay, I always tend to go meta, but here's what I'm thinking. I started going back through the course calendar. Reading through Ninja's interview of Ted I noticed he said that one of Ted's goals was " the pursuit of helping others." I also already wanted to unpack more of what Lessig covered. Does free culture lend itself to helping others? Where are the conflicts that keep some of the population from fully embracing this wiki concept of digital collaboration? Then, can we help bridge these gutters to connect the wiki-wary to the ideology of free culture and peer 2 peer collaboration? Can we learn to see free culture as a key step in "the pursuit of helping others"?

This is especially pertinent to me having sprouted wikis with various (and sometimes old fashioned) groups. It's pretty general right now. I really want to better understand the cultural shift engendered by this technological shift. That way I can better communicate to skeptics the value of what emergent technology represents.

What do you think?

Scott

Scott,

Bingo, weave both of these vectors with citation/reading of Lessig, Ted/Ninja interview and other "free culture" moments on our wiki and the wikis you've pioneered, linking as you write, but also establishing a breadcrumb trail of directives to users ("go here," "turn the page," and "head on back to..") so as to articulate a sequence and to create a limit function (a way to wrap up your query, for now). If so-called "gift economics," when they become commonplace (cf wikipedia, capitalism 3.0 http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:Iha36dIfEXsJ:onthecommons.org/files/Capitalism_3.0_Peter_Barnes.pdf+capitalism+3.0&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us&client=firefox-a ), shift from an altruistic signature to an essential dimension of all innovation and sustainable business activity, then what models, examples, and metaphors do we have for service, civic engagement, and solidarity? If you want to try and select one template as a likely model for translating distributed/digital authorship into something palatable for a community clinging to dustier models for educating, informing, and making a difference, make sure you focus on just one community/scenario.

I like the plan and the vibe, an earnest itinerary that has you exploring these well-formed questions will work, for sure; paste our dialogue to the wiki, and run with it.

Trey

Scott Peeples

The Tour

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