Where I've Been...And Where I'm Going....
Recently, I received an email from Laura (who blogs at Starling Fitness) wondering where I'd been the past few weeks...
Well, I've been working pretty hard--and pretty crazily--as Deputy Director of Participation at Assignment Zero.....
If you haven't heard about it, Assignment Zero is the "first whack" at creating a piece of investigative journalism by employing "crowdsourcing."
What's "crowdsourcing"? Good question. And a tough one to answer. The best way to put it, besides getting into James Surowecki's hypothesis on it, is that AZ is asking "the crowd"--that means folks who dwell on the Internet--to contribute bits of wisdom they have on particular topics associated with the larger story (mostly through online interaction) Have you, and bunches of other people, posted something to a site that was then incorporated into an article? Well, if you have, you've been "crowdsourced".....
Slashdot did it in 1999, when it asked members of its community to contribute to a story they were doing...but that was before we had a James S.'s theory and a new buzzword....
So, I'm helping with participation matters--helping people communicate online who need the help, and doing some blogging. We've got a number of great journalists involved in the effort, who are serving as editors, but some don't know how to communicate online, use blogs, etc. And those of us who've been online realize it's a different set of communciation skills than IRL. It's a strange and difficult medium, with no body lanugage nor voical inflection to know how a person is saying the words on the screen or what the other person means by those words. It's a medium that can lead you to think that you've communicated everything that's going on in your head, when you haven't, and no one knows what's going on in your head. It's fascinating, disorienting, and gives the impression that everything is URGENT...when everything has a FLOW....
One of the most difficult aspects is defining boundaries--when the workday starts and ends. If I log into work email, it's assumed that I'm working. If I log into IM, it's assumed that I'm working. Magically appearing online is not longer just social for me, where I'm flowing in and out at my own pace. There is now an expectation that I'm there to be asked questions, to be part of a work-related conversation, to be able to give feedback on a moment's notice to whomever needs it.
It is, in a term, chaotic. It doesn't have to be--but teaching and learning appropriate boundaries hasn't been one of the goals of most Internet-related ventures in general from what I've experienced and heard from others. There is an assumption that we know boundaries already--when, because this is a new, always-on medium--we don't know the boundaries. When boundaries are fluid, they are easily transgressed....
And when there is no f2f, no personal interaction, it becomes easy to creat artificial us/them divides. This is, I think, human nature. The one you don't know is always foreign, and easily dismissed for the known quantity. Teaching others to put aside differences of opinion and to see the Other, who is not seen, as Person, can be difficult...
So, working at AZ is a challenge. But there are amazing people involved in the project, and we are *ALL* learning various aspects of co-ordinating a team journalism effort in an environment where there is little direct personal contact...
So, as far as this blog goes, I may be dark for a bit...I have loads of demanding work to do daily....
And I'm finding there are some odd fires burning here in W. Mass--some folks rumbling on the airwaives about bloggers and journalists. Yet all the people involved are all journalists--doesn't matter that some are using blogging tools. Bloggging tools do not make one a Blogger....
I may post when there's a massive upheaval in my life, but considering life's a bit more of a fishbowl than it was, I might not. It all depends.
But it's mostly the time. I don't have much of it to spare. I guess that's what I'm kind of sad about....just not having the time to be as personal in my blogging as I once was...but personal blogging wasn't paying the bills....
oh, well. never know what's going to happen....
Well, I've been working pretty hard--and pretty crazily--as Deputy Director of Participation at Assignment Zero.....
If you haven't heard about it, Assignment Zero is the "first whack" at creating a piece of investigative journalism by employing "crowdsourcing."
What's "crowdsourcing"? Good question. And a tough one to answer. The best way to put it, besides getting into James Surowecki's hypothesis on it, is that AZ is asking "the crowd"--that means folks who dwell on the Internet--to contribute bits of wisdom they have on particular topics associated with the larger story (mostly through online interaction) Have you, and bunches of other people, posted something to a site that was then incorporated into an article? Well, if you have, you've been "crowdsourced".....
Slashdot did it in 1999, when it asked members of its community to contribute to a story they were doing...but that was before we had a James S.'s theory and a new buzzword....
So, I'm helping with participation matters--helping people communicate online who need the help, and doing some blogging. We've got a number of great journalists involved in the effort, who are serving as editors, but some don't know how to communicate online, use blogs, etc. And those of us who've been online realize it's a different set of communciation skills than IRL. It's a strange and difficult medium, with no body lanugage nor voical inflection to know how a person is saying the words on the screen or what the other person means by those words. It's a medium that can lead you to think that you've communicated everything that's going on in your head, when you haven't, and no one knows what's going on in your head. It's fascinating, disorienting, and gives the impression that everything is URGENT...when everything has a FLOW....
One of the most difficult aspects is defining boundaries--when the workday starts and ends. If I log into work email, it's assumed that I'm working. If I log into IM, it's assumed that I'm working. Magically appearing online is not longer just social for me, where I'm flowing in and out at my own pace. There is now an expectation that I'm there to be asked questions, to be part of a work-related conversation, to be able to give feedback on a moment's notice to whomever needs it.
It is, in a term, chaotic. It doesn't have to be--but teaching and learning appropriate boundaries hasn't been one of the goals of most Internet-related ventures in general from what I've experienced and heard from others. There is an assumption that we know boundaries already--when, because this is a new, always-on medium--we don't know the boundaries. When boundaries are fluid, they are easily transgressed....
And when there is no f2f, no personal interaction, it becomes easy to creat artificial us/them divides. This is, I think, human nature. The one you don't know is always foreign, and easily dismissed for the known quantity. Teaching others to put aside differences of opinion and to see the Other, who is not seen, as Person, can be difficult...
So, working at AZ is a challenge. But there are amazing people involved in the project, and we are *ALL* learning various aspects of co-ordinating a team journalism effort in an environment where there is little direct personal contact...
So, as far as this blog goes, I may be dark for a bit...I have loads of demanding work to do daily....
And I'm finding there are some odd fires burning here in W. Mass--some folks rumbling on the airwaives about bloggers and journalists. Yet all the people involved are all journalists--doesn't matter that some are using blogging tools. Bloggging tools do not make one a Blogger....
I may post when there's a massive upheaval in my life, but considering life's a bit more of a fishbowl than it was, I might not. It all depends.
But it's mostly the time. I don't have much of it to spare. I guess that's what I'm kind of sad about....just not having the time to be as personal in my blogging as I once was...but personal blogging wasn't paying the bills....
oh, well. never know what's going to happen....
posted by Tish Grier at 9:26 AM
4 Comments:
Good luck in your new venture, Tish! Hope it goes well for you.
Sending good karma your way! Don't worry. These things come in phases. Just enjoy the work when you have it and enjoy the time off when you have it.
This, too, will pass.
Tish - sounds like a great opportunity that brings so many of your talents together. Very best of luck!
Thanks so much Ladies! So far, it's been an interesting journey. We'll see what happens next...
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