Welcome to European Tribune. It's gone a bit quiet around here these days, but it's still going.

ET Network thoughts.

by Colman Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 04:37:30 AM EST

In my previous diary it became clear that I really, really need to try and explain my thoughts on expanding ET's reach via affiliated blogs rather than by simply trying to grow audience.


My theory is that, in the current European context, you can neither build a dKos like site, nor would you want to. There's no partisan them vs. us to build a big site around. My theory is that we'd be better off with a network of tightly and loosely affiliated sites with aligned interests, in several languages, rather than with trying to build a monster site.

There's also the issue of tools that ET doesn't provide for activism - collaborative editing and so on. These need to be integrated to some extent to make them more easily usuable and to get better feedback from the community.

To that end, I've been trying to work out how to handle that sort of affiliation and integration.

A few axioms:

  1. The people running affiliated blogs are going to be willing to accept different levels of integration with ET. es.eurotrib.eu might be willing to accept a lot more than ThatBritBlog, for instance, while the Oil Drum Europe would accept a lot less.

  2. People are more likely to comment if it is easy to do so.

  3. We have very limited technical time available, and building new tools is not what we're here to do.

  4. We don't know what we're going to want to be able to do in the future.

Given those, and given my natural tendency - which is to glue pieces of software together rather than to write new monoliths - the following system seems natural to me:

  1. We make headlines from the affiliated blogs available on the front page of the site. We're not a commercial organisation, and we don't actually care very much which of the affiliates people choose as their focus. The headlines are passed around by RSS.

  2. We make it possible to integrate logins between parts of the network. There are various ways of doing this: I'm thinking of putting in place an LDAP interface to the Scoop authentication mechanism which would be available to trusted network members. There are ways of doing it that could be made available to untrusted blogs as well - this is a reasonably well studied problem in the security world. An LDAP interface to most of the blog authentication mechanisms shouldn't be too hard either.

  3. The collaborative tools - the wiki for example - would use the same logins as ET and would accept logins from network members.

  4. Other toys would be provided by RSS as well. I personally like the idea of Sven's media feed, and that could be provided as a network service as could other ideas.

Display:
ET's penetration seems to be one active user per between 500k and 1M english speakers. Maybe affiliated sites in other languages can achieve a similar penetration relatively quickly.

"It's the statue, man, The Statue."
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 04:49:50 AM EST
That's part of my thinking - we definitely need other language coverage with cross-over users.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 04:54:24 AM EST
[ Parent ]
And, in my case, it costs me the same effort to write a fully bilingual diary or comment as it does to post a diary or comment on each site in parallel.

"It's the statue, man, The Statue."
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 04:57:27 AM EST
[ Parent ]
that's ight.. wht really takes time is the translation.. once you ahve done it.. posting in two sites is easy.

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

by kcurie on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 05:02:14 AM EST
[ Parent ]
es.eurotrib.eu will accept posts in "any Spanish Language".

"It's the statue, man, The Statue."
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 05:10:08 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Which of course means that your stories will be ideal for crossposting on a linked platform of allied language versions. Or rather, one 'story' shared across two language instances of ET, with some mess of comments in two languages that we figure out how to work with somehow...
by someone (s0me1smail(a)gmail(d)com) on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 05:02:39 AM EST
[ Parent ]
some mess of comments in two languages that we figure out how to work with somehow...

You guys have to do some of the work... ;-)

"It's the statue, man, The Statue."

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 05:07:06 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Maybe a "Comments on this story at ... " box at the bottom(?) of the story(?) - just fill in the list of places you crossposted to into the story?
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 05:09:38 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Or a possibility to define language of comment in a pull down menu? With the possibility to write a bilingual comment with both language 'tags'? And the ability of users to decide which languages to view? (And an understanding that if you wish to do a bilingual response to a comment in language 'A' in a diary in languages 'B' and 'A', you better translate what you are responding to. We'd get nice, bilingual stories with little bilingual comment bridges as well as monolingual ones.)

Also very nice for when one knows one of the languages "well", and the second "a bit", and can sort of make do in both together.

by someone (s0me1smail(a)gmail(d)com) on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 05:15:39 AM EST
[ Parent ]
It depends how closely linked the other site is to ET. If it's just an ET section, then maybe what you're talking about would work. However, if it's more automonous than that it won't. We'll already got the idea for ThatBritBlog, which ThatBritGuy has expressly said he wants to be at some distance from ET, a Spanish language one closely linked and someone else is talking about a French language one that would probably be between the two as far as I can make out.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 05:21:58 AM EST
[ Parent ]
How closely integrated can the Spanish site be?

"It's the statue, man, The Statue."
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 05:29:24 AM EST
[ Parent ]
are you talking in terms of wishes or int erm of capabilities?

As a wish.. my post below... as a capability.. I think it would not be a big problem to be strongly linked...but maybe only with an independent address..given the trademark issues.

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

by kcurie on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 05:42:48 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I'm asking how close integration Jerome would allow, because I'm all for just building a multilingual infrastructure for the main ET: es.eurotrib.com = es.eurotrib.eu = eurotrib.es = Spanish front-page

"It's the statue, man, The Statue."
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 05:48:01 AM EST
[ Parent ]
That was my question of the trademark.. Would he allow us to use it? Is it a good idea?

How would you check the bandwith.. and share the costs?

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

by kcurie on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 05:59:33 AM EST
[ Parent ]
You own the server, you audit the bandwidth, you share the costs. That is not difficult.

"It's the statue, man, The Statue."
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 06:01:36 AM EST
[ Parent ]
TI would be another technical issue to consider if we share the name.

If we do not share it... we would have to pay fare and square... so that was my question about Jerome wanting to do it..

I do not know.

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

by kcurie on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 06:03:56 AM EST
[ Parent ]
trademark issues?????
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 05:48:49 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Yeah, as in Jerome still hasn't registered the trademark ;-)

"It's the statue, man, The Statue."
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 05:55:12 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Like Jerome does not wanting it.

At the end of the day it is the same questions as Migeru.

Migeru is all for putting the es... I am not sure that Jerome would like it...

And of course I have no idea about if it is a good idea to get more audience or not.

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

by kcurie on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 05:58:21 AM EST
[ Parent ]
How about...

If you choose "two languages" you get a split comments box--left for language A, right for language B....with...a link to babelfish or google translate (or a.n. other) at the midsection (could be a vertical button with a pic of a fish...or ET Translate...or sommat)...with the question (on a mouseover?):

"Would you prefer to write your own translation, or would you like [name of piece of software] to...[have a go?]"

Language A would usually be "first choice language" (for those who read left to right I suppose.)

Then you could choose to:

View Comments in Language A
View Comments in Language B
View Comments in LA + any bilingual
View Comments in LB + any bilingual
View All Comments

Only much more funky and less clunky.

But overall, worra great way of getting multilingual without everyone having to learn four new languages.

(I can read and speak english and italian; I can--if I work at it--read french (hmmm, well, some) and spanish (again some, but a different set of some.)  German no, scandinavian, no, greek, no, dutch, no, russian, no...and what about the soon-to-be-arriving input from China, Korea (N and S), Japan, Thailand etc?

Babelfish...

(Always worth re-telling.)

The Babel fish is small, yellow and leechlike, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centres of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language.

Are we prepared for all that (potential) chatter?  ET publicity offshoot--fantastic resource for language teachers!

(I wonder if you could limit the length of bilingual comments until a user posting them got a certain number of recommends?  To stop people posting huge screeds then clicking "translate"--I don't know why I think that would be a problem...really...but discrete bilingual gives me the chance to learn another language.  Huge texts mean I go with the one I know...may just be me.)

My tuppence ha'penny.

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 07:04:44 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Start simple... Let's see if we can add a "language" attribute to diaries.

"It's the statue, man, The Statue."
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 11:11:39 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I think that you already know my idea about it.

For those loosely related to ET English , a link an a couple of links to the two leading history would be enough. The same would go for the news feed.

For those more closely related there should be a Front-page in the language with the ability to do diaries/contributions in the language. But the page should also shown the rec diaries and recent diaries in the Englsih language so you can access from the same site I agree with all the points about common nickname and number)

Once you have done this, it is easy to contribute to any english diary as always.

The only question is the time it will take for the front-pagers iun , say, spanish, to write the diary in two languages. This is hard. Once you have done is easy to X-post.... although then you would have two separate discussions (as Jerome diaries in kos in ET).

In any case, the serious problem here is the time it takes to translate a diary (and of course doing more diaries).. I think we will contribute less in the English site at the end of the day.. and even at some point we may stop translating altogether.

The only way to overcome this is that around 8-10 people take care of the FP in the new language and post short items in the language and do one long diary during the week....that will not reduce our contribution in ET english too much. Are we 8-10?

My take.

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

by kcurie on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 05:12:51 AM EST
Entirely agree that translating takes time and is a major problem.

Can we do an overview of translation tools that might be of use to us (they may save just a little time) and could be patched on to the ET blog cluster? (ET blog cluster is just me talking and means nothing technical... ;))

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 05:48:04 AM EST
[ Parent ]
ET blog cluster

We would need a name for it which wasn't invented by me when in tech mode!
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 05:49:54 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Cluster is perfect...

The tools are bablefish.. but the time is spent on checking hte translation..and still bablefish is a must.. I took into account that we used it somehow.

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

by kcurie on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 06:01:17 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I think I used babelfish once to translate something for ET and it didn't result in any appreciable time gain, so I haven't done it again. It misses too many syntactic and lexical quirks so it requires pretty much a full rewrite. But we could always add "translate this" buttons at various points, including the comment/diary editing interfaces (next to the "preview" and "spellcheck" buttons).

"It's the statue, man, The Statue."
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 06:07:00 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Yes, babelfish didn't really gain much time for me, or so it seemed to me.

Has anyone knowledge of anything else that might be useful?

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 06:43:00 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Quick comparison

Google http://www.google.com/translate_t

Le stelle

Le stelle
non hanno fidanzato.

Tanto belline,
le stelle!
Aspettano un rubacuori
che le porti
ad una sua ideale Venezia.

Tutte le notti s'affacciano
alle grate
- oh cielo di mille piani! -
e fanno segnali lirici
ai mari d'ombra
che le circondano.

Ma attente,ragazze,
perchè quando morirò
vi rapirò una dietro l'altra
sul mio cavallo di nebbia.

The stars

The stars
they do not have fiancèe.

Much belline,
the stars!
They wait for rubacuori
that the ports
to one its Venice ideal.

All the nights s'affacciano
to the grates -
oh sky of thousand plans! -
and they make marks them lyric
to the shadow seas
that they encircle to them.

But careful, girls,
because when morirò
you rapirò one behind the other
on my fog horse.

Babelfish: http://babelfish.altavista.com/

Le stelle

Le stelle
non hanno fidanzato.

Tanto belline,
le stelle!
Aspettano un rubacuori
che le porti
ad una sua ideale Venezia.

Tutte le notti s'affacciano
alle grate
- oh cielo di mille piani! -
e fanno segnali lirici
ai mari d'ombra
che le circondano.

Ma attente,ragazze,
perchè quando morirò
vi rapirò una dietro l'altra
sul mio cavallo di nebbia.

The stars

the stars
do not have fiancèe.

Much belline,
the stars!
They wait for rubacuori
that the ports
to one its Venice ideal.

All the nights s' point out
to the grates -
oh sky of thousand plans! -
and they make marks them lyric
to the shadow seas
that they encircle to them.

But careful, girls,
why when morirò
you rapirò one behind the other
on my fog horse.

Conclusion: they're doing the same thing and have the same vocabulary (almost.)  Someone who can read (but maybe not easily write) in two languages could tidy up (though it will read stilted.)  Someone who doesn't know the translation language could write (maybe have set phrases?):

"If you'd like a translation of any of the words, let me capire."

(It might get very confusing...)

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 07:37:25 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Good idea to try this, thanks. I'd say one is using the other... It's not surprising they'd do something similar, but this... is surprising!

Really, isn't there some monkey business going on? <cue rg to post pic of monkey> ;)

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 10:55:57 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Probably the same underlying translation engine: this stuff is hard.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 11:30:49 AM EST
[ Parent ]


Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 01:25:13 PM EST
[ Parent ]
This shows that these free automatic translators should really not be used by anyone who doesn't write well in the target language, and even then there is a high likelyhood of an absurd expression in the target that can only be corrected by being able to at least read the source.

Though it might be useful to be able to translate a foreign comment in order to reply to it, by just pressing a button instead of having to go to an external site.

"It's the statue, man, The Statue."

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 11:15:19 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Forget about automatic translators for now. They're dumb and they massacre the target language, making any content look ridiculous.

I think we have two separate problems here. One is content and link integration. The other is language translation. Some random thoughts:

1. The person writing a diary does not have to be the person translating the diary. We already have people who translate outside content because they think it's interesting enough to share. Translating internal content is the same problem.

So all it takes to spread good content around is some volunteers willing to translate - say - a French posting into German if they find it interesting enough.

2. Network integration bvy degrees is probably not a a problem that can be solved.

I'm tempted to axe the idea of differentiating local and and remote blogs altogether. How about amalgamating incoming streams into a user-selected ÜberBlog, with language, source and locality selected as a tag/search attribute/whatever?

If you're sharing logins, sharing Wikis, and sharing content, you might as well go the whole hog and just merge everything. Use one distributed interface for access, and make it customisable with a bit of localisation for different reader groups.

This gives you instant syndication. Authors can decide which tags and labels they release diaries with. Readers can decide which streams they want to read, based on those tags and labels - which could include a blog name, a language, an author, any of the above, or something else entirely.

The 'blogs' are now search criteria entered via login portals. But in theory any diary can be shared across the network instantly.  

And the ET hive mind sits in the middle, amalgamating and distributing everything. (Or rather, organising the amalgamation.)

It's round about here that someone is going to say 'But Scoop doesn't do that.'

Indeed, it doesn't. But if we're going to start networking things, is Scoop still the right platform for that? If we start building something ambitious with it now, will there be problems building the network later?

If you give readers the choice to decide which tags they want to read, it's much more useful to them than giving them a choice about which blogs they want to read. It also minimises duplication, because the diary can be in one place instead of copied between many.

And I don't necessarily want to have to log into a different blog to read and comment on an interesting diary. (Etc.)

I can see some problems with this approach - will it delete the community feel? - but I think it's at least worth considering as an option.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 01:07:55 PM EST
[ Parent ]
  1. It is still a problem...if you decide not to translate by default waiting for someone else to translate .. i it will probably lead to what afew fears... desintegration of the net.

  2.  I think it is a good idea.. but I do not see it happening because of the time needed to to the program and also I am not sure a first-time visitor will not find  it very complex..Some kind of fixed structure with on-spot explanation is my preferate...

So I would put something beside the rec dsicussions like "Do you want to star one?".. or the salon logo at the beginning.. do you want to join?"

The same with feed of news... a default  set-up.. and if in the future we can change the code and make it personal... it will be ok.

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

by kcurie on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 01:33:59 PM EST
[ Parent ]
1. I think the net only disintegrates if the content is considered non-local. For example I wouldn't expect someone in turkey reading TBB to care about a local protest in Swindon.

ET is international(ish) by definition because the content is either explicitly European or has a Euro angle.

Not every blog needs to have a scope that's quite this wide. You can easily split content into International, Euro-wide, national, local and subject-specific issues, and let people pick and choose which they want to read. If someone on the Euro side finds some local content interesting, they'll very likely translate enough of it to make it worth discussing.

2. You don't need to confuse the user. You can have a themed log-in portal that picks out one stream - e.g. energy news - by default. Then once they're in they can read a note that says 'By the way, did you know there's more...?' and they're off and running.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Tue Jan 23rd, 2007 at 06:12:35 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I see the logic and like this (second part), but, beyond the need for a more comprehensive CMS than Scoop, I would in fact be a bit worried for the community feel.

Metaphors I have used when thinking/talking about this are that ET should be the crossroads, the meeting-place, the agora. How to automatise individual choice while still respecting that ethos?

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 02:37:52 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I enjoy how they translate poems, leaving in the original the words the software can't translate...sometimes it creates its own poetry.  Maybe it's how it doesn't reconstruct the grammar.

BELLA

Bella,
como en la piedra fresca
del manantial, el agua
abre un ancho relámpago de espuma,
así es la sonrisa en tu rostro,
bella.

Bella,
de finas manos y delgados pies
como un caballito de plata,
andando, flor del mundo,
así te veo,
bella.

Bella
con un nido de cobre enmarañado
en tu cabeza, un nido
color de miel sombría
donde mi corazón arde y reposa,
bella.

Bella,
no te caben los ojos en la cara,
no te caben los ojos en la tierra.
Hay países, hay ríos,
en tus ojos,
mi patria está en tus ojos,
yo camino por ellos,
ellos dan luz al mundo
por donde yo camino,
bella.

Bella,
tus senos son como dos panes hechos
de tierra cereal y luna de oro,
bella.

Bella,
tu cintura
la hizo mi brazo como un río cuando
pasó mil años por tu dulce cuerpo,
bella.

Bella,
No hay nada como tus caderas,
tal vez la tierra tiene
en algún sitio oculto
la curva y el aroma de tu cuerpo,
tal vez en algún sitio,
bella.

Bella, mi   bella,
tu voz, tu piel, tus uñas,
bella, mi bella,
tu ser, tu luz, tu sombra,
bella,
todo eso es mío, bella,
todo eso es mío, mía,
cuando andas o reposas,
cuando cantas o duermes,
cuando sufres o sueñas,
siempre,
cuando estás cerca o lejos,
siempre,
eres mía, mi bella,
siempre.

BEAUTIFUL

Beautiful,
like in the fresh stone
of the spring, the water
opens a wide foam lightning,
thus is the smile in your face,
beautiful.

Beautiful,
of fine hands and thin feet
like a silver pony,
walking, flower of the world,
therefore I see you,
beautiful.

Beautiful
with a copper nest entangled
in your head, a nest
color of shady honey
where my heart burns and rests,
beautiful.

Beautiful,
the eyes in the face do not fit to you,
do not fit the Earth eyes to you.
There are countries, there are rivers,
in your eyes,
my mother country is in your eyes,
I walk by them,
they give light to the world
by where I walk,
beautiful.

Beautiful,
your sines are like two breads
done of earth gold cereal and moon,
beautiful.

Beautiful,
your waist
made my arm like a river when
it spent thousand years through your sweet body, beautiful.

Beautiful,
There is nothing like your hips,
the perhaps Earth
somewhere has hidden
the curve and the aroma of your body,
perhaps somewhere
beautiful.

Beautiful, my beautiful,
your voice, your skin, your nails,
beautiful, my beautiful,
your being, your light, your shade,
beautiful,
all that is mine, beautiful,
all that is mine, mine,
when you walk or you rest,
when you sing or you sleep,
when you suffer or you dream,
always,
when you are close or far,
always,
you are mine, my beautiful one,
always.

Bad for essays, though.

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 01:15:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The grammar is so bad it's not even funny. The English may sound good to you, but it doesn't say the same as the original.

"It's the statue, man, The Statue."
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Jan 23rd, 2007 at 06:02:21 AM EST
[ Parent ]
This is great thinking and you're going to give "integrating logins" a go, which I think is one of the important things we can do to make it a network.

Good stuff Colman, I can't praise you enough for this.

by Metatone (metatone [a|t] gmail (dot) com) on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 05:25:13 AM EST
I am coming to the same conclusion as Colman: that ET doesn't have to do and be everything. But that it should seek to cluster with other synergistic forums. RSS feeds are one way to do that - having an automated method of staying aware of what is happening in other forums. Ideally this would be personal: I choose which feeds out of an 'official' list I want to to see.

Keeping it simple also keeps it low cost.

The Dicole software I am working with provides many excellent collaboration tools, but they are designed primarily for large organizations, which means it is expensive and requires expensive maintenance and very secure hosting.

However our deal with the company is a straight exchange. They need a 'case' which companies can review and 'see how it works'. They cannot, for obvious reasons, allow potential clients access to an existing commercial client's use of the software (at least not in any useful depth). We (the SOS members) need the tools, but we don't have the money (or the skills). So there is a useful synergy.

The SOS network will probably interest several ETers (you know who you are) and thus these people will have a chance to see how it works.

But rhere is another interesting aspect that I'm not sure I have mentioned previously: My main partner and fellow founder in the SOS group is a mentor for quite a few high-level Finnish executives. The mentoring is in English. Most of his clients have come to him because they are unhappy with the way organizations are managed today, and they want to do something about it, personally. He now has the chance to reach a wider audience by formalising the reflections/insights of his one-on-one mentoring for larger groups - who will in turn reflect and customise for their own situations.

I see that an interface between these people and certain parts of ET could be very fruitful.

So, what comes to mind is the following: that we would provide a workshop area for ET at the new site gratis, with all the collaborative tools, when it is needed (ie when a subgroup of ET needs to work together on a report or something using all the tools of the system (which goes up to videoconferencing and beyond). I know this is possible - because one of the principle features of the software is the easy birth of new working groups and the rapid customization of tools and access.

Whether the software company wants to extend this possibility is another matter, but I will raise it in discussions. I can't see any reason why not, as long as it would be part of the 'case'. By that I mean that potential clients could view what was going on. And 'view' only. Just as anyone can 'view' everything at ET. Access control is very easy to manage in the system, and can be dynamic at many different levels.

Whether ETers would want to take part in such an experiment is for you to comment on.

I see what my group is doing as being a useful part of a cluster. We are specialising in methods for changing organizations, using the very tools that we think will be needed to effect and manage change. It would be great to share such insights, just as it is great to receive all the insights from being a member of ET.

So I am all for the cluster concept, providing that the ways of linking them are simple and easy to customize. And I think this will be the next software/technology focus (Web 3.0 maybe?).

I am not going up on the mountaintop, but I do have a vision of a noosphere - communities from all over the world connected together, and able to act together. There is great power in numbers. If the noosphere IS a giant brain, then it will also take on the way a brain has evolved, not as closed off neural network units that don't talk to each other, but with the synaesthetic connections of the brain.

Oh, you don't agree that speech evolved synaesthetically? Well we can argue that one too ;-)

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 12:30:56 PM EST
Ideally this would be personal: I choose which feeds out of an 'official' list I want to to see.

That was my intention, mostly. I think one default box would be a good idea.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 12:40:24 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Right.

I like the idea that one could construct one's own 'newspaper' using different parameters such as ::only show me opinion pieces from The Independent if it is written by Ms X::

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 12:59:27 PM EST
[ Parent ]
You have seen the googlzon flash movie, right?

(Otherwise, you should)

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

by A swedish kind of death on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 02:50:41 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I had not and thanks!

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 03:33:03 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Indeed. I think it will be great

COlman could you take into consideration the following?

I think it is very strange for the first time visitor to see comments and not being able to localize how to post one.. since the comment display does not appear if you are not log-in (an typical blogs make it very easy to post a comment)

Is it possible to have the comment option available and then open a log-in page if the user is not log-in.

This way we will introduce more users to the system.
I recall it took me some time to see what was going on.. typically I would have just gone away from kos.. but still...only after coming back once and again I did it.

SO .. is it very difficult to do it? Comment and reply possibilities available always.. but then asking for the user password if you are not log-in?

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

by kcurie on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 01:40:05 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I suggested on the mock layout thread that the unlogged-in screen (that non-members forcibly see) should be designed specifically with "newbies" in mind, since the mechanisms of the Scoop-a-Doop are not obvious. You have given us another example. I hope we'll be able to do this -- I think it's simply a matter of work for people who do Perl, and I think we have people who are willing to help.
by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 02:54:57 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I could not agree more...

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

by kcurie on Mon Jan 22nd, 2007 at 04:20:21 PM EST
[ Parent ]


Display:
Go to: [ European Tribune Homepage : Top of page : Top of comments ]