Ditto.

Snopes Gets RSS Feed

"Tell one, tell all, the invaluable Snopes.com has finally gotten an RSS feed!

Snopes is required reading for people on the Internet. If it sounds too good to be true, if it's a little too conveniently in favor (or against) your favorite ideological position, or if it's a little too horrifying to be true, check it on Snopes before you get upset, or worse, spread the claims further. Because you'll meet someone who has nearly the entire site indexed in their head, and there's little that's more damaging to your point then to have it conclusive rebutted on Snopes.

I'd just like to take this opportunity to thank Barbara and David Mikkelson (FAQ link substantiating the names) for providing such a fine resource to the Internet.

And it's darn fun stuff, too.

Pass it along." [iRi]

[The Shifted Librarian]

Another great RSS resource. Subscribed

UPDATE: the actual RSS feed was at

http://www.snopes.com/info/whatsnew.rss

although all of snopes appears to be unresponsive at this precise moment. I have gotten material from the url and it was RSS

10:20:24 PM •  • comment  

Once again, Judith finds an excellent resource.

social (software) entrepreneurs?....

While performing a 'social software' search last evening, I found a paper that was written five years ago on 'business' and 'social' entrepreneurship.

J. Gregory Dees published this paper, on Social Entrepreneurship, for The Stanford Business School's Center for Social Innovation. At that time he was the Entrepreneur in Residence, Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and Miriam and Peter Haas Centennial Professor in Public Service, Graduate School of Business Stanford University. Currently Professor Dees is with Duke's Fuqua School of Business.

In this paper Professor Dees gives a brief history of the evolving definition of 'entrepreneur':

[...snip...]

Peter Drucker: "the entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity." Dees goes on to interpret Drucker's definition as: "Entrepreneurs have a mind-set that sees the possibilities rather than the problems created by change."

Howard H. Stevenson, a leading theorist of entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School, defines the heart of entrepreneurial management as "the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled."

[...snip...]

In conclusion Dees states:

"Social entrepreneurship describes a set of behaviors that are exceptional. These behaviors should be encouraged and rewarded in those who have the capabilities and temperament for this kind of work. We could use many more of them. Should everyone aspire to be a social entrepreneur? No. Not every social sector leader is well suited to being entrepreneurial. The same is true in business. Not every business leader is an entrepreneur in the sense that Say, Schumpeter, Drucker, and Stevenson had in mind. While we might wish for more entrepreneurial behavior in both sectors, society has a need for different leadership types and styles. Social entrepreneurs are one special breed of leader, and they should be recognized as such. This definition preserves their distinctive status and assures that social entrepreneurship is not treated lightly. We need social entrepreneurs to help us find new avenues toward social improvement as we enter the next century."

Based on Professor Dees definitions, both borrowed and advanced, of 'Social Entrepreneurship' - Who do you think are the 'Social Entrepreneurs' of the 'Social Software' movement?

[judith meskill's knowledge notes...]

As a side comment, I continue to be amazed at the quality and the quantity of great material that Judith Meskill continues to find and share.

10:01:43 PM •  • comment  

Wikipedia timelines. Whoa. Wikipedia -- the free, user-edited, almost-3-years-old, 191466-article-strong, encyclopedia that's just raised more than 30,000 dollars from surfers like you -- features a truckload of hyperlinked timelines, many of them quite detailed. Astronomy, biology, chemistry...
[Seb's Open Research]

I've contributed to Wikipedia's fund raising; have you?

8:38:45 PM •  • comment  

Good Experience: Five Ideas for 2004. I have five ideas for you to consider this year. They're not exactly predictions - you can get those almost anywhere, this time of year - but rather thought-starters for you to consider as the new year begins. [Tomalak's Realm]

This got picked up recently with most bloggers picking up on 

IDEA 4. Blogs are just content management systems,

but I am more intrigued by

IDEA 5: Managing one's bits is an increasingly essential skill.

Last fall I began coaching a friend of mine on his bit literacy - the ability to manage one's bits: e-mail, pictures, files, contacts, calendar, applications,... everything that laptops and other digital devices might hold.

I've learned that bit literacy is a skill that most people don't have, and almost no one else is talking about. Yet it's an increasingly essential skill. We deal with more and more incoming bits every day - and not just spam mail. Bit literacy is the ability to manage it all and still be effective

I think Mark Hurst is on to something important here, although I don't think it is about the bits. It's about the related notion that the products of knowledge work all pass through a bit stage somewhere in their creation and use.  On the plus side, with a common representation, new forms of analysis and management become possible. On the negative side, the uniformity and invisibility of bits makes it harder to take advantage of our other skills for managing knowledge work products (think of the value of piles of paper). What we need to do, and what Mark looks to be thinking about, is what kinds of new skills will we need to develop to take advantage of the opportunity and compensate for the limits of a world of knowledge work that is fundamentally digital. I'll be watching for certain and contributing where I can.

8:29:00 PM •  • comment