The WELL: Topics in the inkwell.vue Conference

inkwell.vue.369: Brian Dear, on PLATO, Eventful and further adventures

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:32:00 PST

Brian Dear steps into the spotlight at Inkwell to talk about his adventures with people who built a community using one of the prototypes for all social computing, PLATO, plus his fascinating collaborations that have followed that experience! Leading the conversation is Ari Davidow, one of the community-building pioneers at The WELL as well as on sites he has created.

Brian and Ari, welcome! Please say a little more about yourselves as we get going, since my introduction lacks some of the juicy details. [Read entire topic]

inkwell.vue.368: Christian Crumlish, Designing Social Interfaces

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:32:00 PST

For our next open Inkwell conversation, let's welcome Christian Crumlish and his recent work, "Designing Social Interfaces," written with Erin Malone, and inspired by the groundbreaking work Christian has been doing at Yahoo's design pattern library. This is a great topic because so many of us here have been using interactive tools together for decades, and are sometimes all too aware of the social implications of tool design.

Christian Crumlish has been participating in, analyzing, designing, and drawing social interactive spaces online since 1994. These days he is the curator of Yahoo!*s pattern library, a design evangelist with the Yahoo! Developer Network, and a member of Yahoo!*s Design Council. He is the author of the bestselling "The Internet for Busy People," and "The Power of Many." He has spoken about social patterns at BarCamp Block, BayCHI, South by Southwest, the IA Summit, Ignite, and Web 2.0 Expo... and he's been a guest at Inkwell.vue previously. As <xian> he is a host of the <blog.> conference here at The WELL. (You'll find his blog at http://xianlandia.com/ ) Christian has a bachelor*s degree in philosophy from Princeton. He lives in Oakland with his wife Briggs, his cat Fraidy, and his electric ukulele, Evangeline.

Leading the discussion is Jon Lebkowsky.

A Social Web Strategies Founding Partner, Jon Lebkowsky is a culture and business strategist and thought leader focused on the Internet, the World Wide Web, and the social uses of digital technologies. An early host on The WELL, and a founder of Fringeware - one of the first Internet businesses - Jon has been a direct participant in the formative conversations that have generated our contemporary global digital society. Writing on digital culture, technology, media, and global sustainability, he was one of the web*s first bloggers, and has blogged regularly since 2000. He is an acknowledged authority on the social web, online communities, web development, public wireless broadband, and e-democracy. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Lebkowsky)

Thank you both for joining us, and taking us into such interesting territory! [Read entire topic]

inkwell.vue.367: Tom Vanderbilt, "Traffic"

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:32:00 PST

Please join me in welcoming Tom Vanderbilt for a conversation about his latest book, TRAFFIC, Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What it Says About Us)

Tom has written for numerous publications, including The New York Times Magazine, Wired, The Wilson Quarteerly, The London Review of Books, Nest, The Baffler, and The Nation, and is contributing editor at Artforum, I.D., and Print. He is the author of SURVIVAL CITY: Adventures Among the Ruins of Atomic America, and has contributed essays to many other books. We're looking forward to learning about his bestselling, critically acclaimed book, TRAFFIC: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What it Says About Us), described in the NYTimes Book Review as "surprising, enlightening look at the psychology of human beings behind the steering wheels... Required reading for anyone applying for a driver's license..." and in the Sunday Telegraph as "Fascinating...an incident-packed journey for which it is a pleasure to accept the role of passenger".

Guiding our community discussion of TRAFFIC is Sharon Fisher, a long time participant and a host of a remarkable variety of conferences and conversations over the past two decades here at The WELL. Sharon has written about technology for many years. She also writes about politics, city planning, kids and sustainable agriculture, and probably much more that I'm not aware of just yet. Most recently here in the Inkwell project, Sharon led the discussion on the urban chicken raising book. I'll refrain from any musing on fowl street crossing behaviors and just say welcome, Sharon.

Glad you're hear, Sharon and Tom. I'm looking forward to learning about TRAFFIC and how it works, or doesn't. [Read entire topic]

inkwell.vue.366: Bruce Pollock, By The Time We Got to Woodstock

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:32:00 PST

1969 was an historic year for so many reasons. Woodstock symbolizes so much of it, yet there was so much more. We are fortunate to have Bruce Pollock, author of "By The Time We Got To Woodstock:The Great Rock-n-Roll Revolution of 1969" with us.

Veteran journalist, lyricist, novelist, humorist, essayist, columnist,editor, music historian, and record producer Bruce Pollock is the author of ten books on music, including By the Time We Got to Woodstock, Working Musicians, The Rock Song Index, Hipper Than Our Kids, When Rock Was Young, When the Music Mattered, and In Their Own Words, as well as three novels. He is the founding co-Editor in Chief of GUITAR: For The Practicing Musician, produced over 100 record compilations for BMG and Sony/BMG Music and was the editor of 17 Volumes of Popular Music: An Annotated Index of American Popular Songs (1983-1999). He is currently writing a mystery, a young adult novel, a celebrity bio, and massive history of 100 years of music.

Leading our discussion is David Julian Gray.

David Julian Gray, aka <djg> is a musician, musicologist, media technologist and long time host of the WELL music conference. In 1975, djg helped found The Klezmorim, the band universally recognized as in fountainhead of modern klezmer music. His research for The Klezmorim led to pioneering work in computer aided musicology and audio restoration. He.s restored and remastered recordings for Folk Lyric, Trikont records and the San Francisco Opera and consulted on audio production around the world. David joined National Public Radio (NPR) in 1996 to architect all digital production work-flows and speaks frequently at broadcast and media conferences. David became a beta-tester for the Whole Earth .Lectronic Link in 1985 and was the original co-host of the music conference (with Jim Stockford), a role he.s served again since 2001. Never abandoning his clarinet, djg leads the group Klezcentricity and (occasionally) performs as a guest soloist with klezmer and blues groups internationally.

Thank you both for joining us. [Read entire topic]

inkwell.vue.365: Brian O'Dea, High

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:32:00 PST

For this edition of our Inkwell guest author project, we're delighted to welcome Brian O'Dea, award-winning author of HIGH, Confessions of an International Drug Smuggler. This book is an acclaimed chronicle of high-stakes drug dealing, the prison cycle, personal change and the need for changes in the drug laws. Leading the conversation will be one of the mainstays of the Inkwell project, Lisa Harris.

Brian is currently working with the Culture Division of the City of Toronto developing "Shouting Out," a television and film project for at-risk youth in troubled neighborhoods in the city of Toronto. Brian's Consequences of Choice presentations have benefited thousands of people in prisons and in schools across Canada and the United States. You may also know him as the Producer and host of "Creepy Canada" which airs on networks around the world currently as "Creepy".

Lisa Harris is a business owner AND stay at home mom. She runs her Shade Sails and Landscaping businesses out her home so that she can be there to care for her two school-aged children. Lisa is a co-host in Inkwell.vue, an avid Scrabble player, a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, a baker and a supporter of the legalization of marijuana (not necessarily in that order).

Great to have you here. [Read entire topic]

inkwell.vue.364: Scott Rosenberg, Say Everything

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:32:00 PST

How much has blogging really changed things? We're delighted to explore the sweeping influence of this young medium with our next Inkwell guest.

Scott Rosenberg got his first experiences online at The WELL, but succumbed to the Web in 1995, when he helped start Salon.com with a group of colleagues from the SF Examiner. After a decade as technology editor and managing editor there, he took time off to write DREAMING IN CODE. He returned to Salon to start the Open Salon project, then left in 2007 to write his new book, SAY EVERYTHING: How Blogging Began, What It's Becoming, and Why It Matters. Today he's working on a new project funded by the Knight News Challenge called MediaBugs.

Leading the conversation is Dr. Jeff Hershberger, who spent seven years as a staff scientist for the U.S. Department of Energy, working on improving the efficiency of the nation's trucking fleet, and is now in the semiconductor industry. Since the late 1990s he has participated in online communities tabletalk.salon.com and The WELL. His year-old personal blog is at myfuturepast.blogspot.com. He is interested in the face-to-face network-building aspects of blogging and newer forms of social media.

Welcome, Scott and Jeff. [Read entire topic]

inkwell.vue.362: Mark Dowie, Conservation Refugees

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:32:00 PST

Mark Dowie is up next at the Inkwell, with his new book entitled, "Conservation Refugees: the Hundred Year Conflict between Global Conservation and Native Peoples."

Mark Dowie is an investigative historian. His previous work has included histories of organ transplantation, land use, the environmental movement and philanthropic foundations. He is a former editor at large of InterNation, a transnational feature syndicate based in Paris and a former publisher and editor of Mother Jones magazine. He lives in Point Reyes Station California.

Leading this conversation is WELL member Anne Boyd.

Anne is a project manager at a landscape architecture firm in Los Angeles, specializing in parks and public work. Her professional interests include the expression of narrative, history and the arts in landscape; memorial landscapes and cemeteries; urban wildlife habitats; and ecoregionally appropriate landscape design. She first read William Cronon, Alfred Crosby, and Donald Worster as an undergraduate at Brown University, and has maintained an interest in environmental history ever since. She blogs about landscape architecture, urbanism, nature, and the ethics of being a design professional at http://theparsley.wordpress.com/

Thank you for joining us here, Anne and Mark! [Read entire topic]

inkwell.vue.359: Douglas Rushkoff, Life Inc.

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:32:00 PST

A warm welcome to our next author, a returning WELL alumnus.

Winner of the first Neil Postman award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity, Douglas Rushkoff is an author, teacher, and documentarian who focuses on the ways people, cultures, and institutions create, share, and influence each other's values. He teaches media studies at the New School University, serves as technology columnist for The Daily Beast, and lectures around the world.

He has just released his most important book to date: an analysis of the corporate spectacle called Life Inc. for Random House, as well as a series of short films called Life Inc Dispatches.

Leading the discussion is Jon Lebkowsky.

A Social Web Strategies Founding Partner, Jon Lebkowsky is a culture and business strategist and thought leader focused on the Internet, the World Wide Web, and the social uses of digital technologies. An early online community moderator on The Well, and a founder of Fringeware - one of the first Internet businesses - Jon has been a direct participant in the formative conversations that have generated our contemporary global digital society. Writing on digital culture, technology, media, and global sustainability, he was one of the web*s first bloggers, having blogged regularly since 2000. He is an acknowledged authority on the social web, online communities, web development, public wireless broadband, and e-democracy. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Lebkowsky)

Thank you for joining us here, gentlemen! [Read entire topic]

inkwell.vue.358: Paul Midler, Poorly Made in China

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:32:00 PST

We're pleased to welcome Paul Midler, the author of "Poorly Made in China," a recently published book that highlights issues related to China manufacturing. Paul graduated from college in 1992 with a concentration in Chinese history and language, and he holds an MBA from Wharton. He has lived in East Asia for over ten of the past fifteen years, mostly by playing go- between for American companies in the region. In the course of his manufacturing career, he has assisted companies of all sizes in a diverse range of industries, working directly with hundreds of manufacturers in China. Midler's book has received praise from many corners and has been called a "must-read" for anyone doing business in China today.

Leading the discussion is Cynthia Barnes. Cynthia is a long-time WELL member whose work has appeared in National Geographic, Humanities, Voyaging and Salon. Her Slate series, 'Timbuktu for the Timid' was listed as "notable" in Best American Travel Writing 2006. A graduate of the University of Missouri- Columbia, she recently (and somewhat reluctantly) relocated from Bangkok, Thailand to Boulder, Colorado. Her online home is www.cynthiabarnes.com.

In true Boulder fashion, she is currently typing with one hand, having broken the other while cycling. She begs your indulgence.

Sorry about your injury, Cynthia, but great to have the both of you here. Welcome! [Read entire topic]

inkwell.vue.357: Paula Span, When The Time Comes

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:32:00 PST

We're very happy to welcome our next guest to the Inkwell.

Paula Span is a veteran journalist. She spent 16 years as a Washington Post reporter, has freelanced for dozens of publications, and now teaches at the Columbia University J-School. She contributes frequently to the New Old Age blog on http://www.nytimes.com. She's a native New Yorker, a theater goer, a movie buff. She keeps tabs on her 86-year-old father (see http://www.paulaspan.com ) and is a caregiver in waiting.

Leading the discussion is Lisa Harris.

Lisa is a business owner, mom, and co-host of Inkwell.vue on The WELL. Lately, Lisa has also been a distant care-giver for her mother, and an involved, yet non-primary care giver for her 95 year old grandmother. In her spare time, Lisa likes to bake bread and practice Tae Kwon Do.

Welcome, Paula and Lisa! [Read entire topic]