How does a community get a creative momentum

I have been quite active on the We Are Smarter Than Me website (see link on the right). One of the issues tht I have been interested in is how does one rekindle the interest of the members of community who have joined in anticipation of being part of the writing group. The effort is similar in intent to that of Charles Leadbeater's We Think (http://www.wethinkthebook.net/home.aspx) but the execution makes it much more difficult to accomplish this task.

My difficulty is that the whole direction of the project, while noble and clearly with merit, lacks sharpness necessary to reign in contributions from many sources. However, I have plunged to be the first to take ownership of several Chapters as Moderator to see how I can move the actual content generation on.

What bugs me is the comment in Value Networks exchanges that Community is a worthless term. I have to exploire further.

Getting connected

As I continue to move through Blogland, I get every time into the new and unexpectedly interesting spaces.

The one I am really inetested to pursue further from today's visit is Wikia set up by Mark Elliot to explore and further develop General Theory (and Practice) of Collaboration called MetaCollab
http://collaboration.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page/



More new links to follow.

The Happiness Project

I was reading today Bob Sutton's blog and then decided to follow up on some of his blog links. This is how I came across a real gem under the title

The Happiness Project

The author is an obviously special woman, Gretchen Rubin and I recommend you now go straight to it at http://www.happinessproject.typepad.com/

Take the extra step

Highjacking the Nation

On the topics of the day, just came across a really interesting post on

The Highjacking of a Nation

by Sibel Edmonds (formerly of FBI) at
http://pissedoffamerican.blogspot.com . Reminded me of Dorothy Rowe's book on our relationship with money and conspiracy not to count enormous amounts that go into:
1. arms dealing (of all kinds) and 2. narcotics trade

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murder[er] is less to fear.” -- Marcus Tullius Cicero

This is the quote from the end of the article! Love it - and will try to try to find Latin original.

I am not alone

Ok, it seems there are some Beta problems with Blogger formatting and picture upload. Phew, not just me being thick. Subscribed to Help messages, so will see.
 

trying new line

Ok, this should be easy -

- this is new line

and this.

let us see!

Internet + spoken word

I have discovered the joy of podcasts since getting broadband last month. It is early days, so I am just finding my way around the amazing options available.

For instance, today I have listened to:
- Telegraph Podcast: 30mins intro to daily news (interesting - I hever read the paper!)
- Democracy Now: Amy Goodman radio program (USA - progressive, interesting)
- HBR Ideacast: Harvard Bussiness Review weekly podcasts (USA - boring, will go easy)
- John Cleese: listened to several of his podcasts (nowhere close to Michael Palin)
- Malcolm Gladwell: on Human Nature (very interesting, would really need the images that went with it)

This is just great - I sit by my computer, work and still I can be listening to interesting people from all over the world.

Long may it continue.

Getting foothold

For the start, let me introduce 5 of my favourite spots on the web:

We Are Smarter Than Me: coomunity of authors creating a book about communities at work
http://www.wearesmarter.org/

Brad de Long, Berkley economics prof
http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/

Times newspaper columnist Bryan Appleyard, science and thinking
http://www.bryanappleyard.com/blog/

Prof Martin Seligman and his team, Authentic happiness and Positive Psychology tests
http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/newsletters.aspx

The Edge, The third culture journal, multidisciplinary
http://www.edge.org/