I’m in Rome at the moment, at a large conference on Web 2.0 for Development, and I wonder whether anyone is having similar discussions in the environmental field. There’s a lot of excitement in the room, people speaking of the joy of exploring, of sharing – but also an awareness of the challenges: This is not a discussion about new tools, it has to be a discussion about communication and learning within and amongst organizations, and we need to foster openness, and participation and trust.

The buzzword of the morning was ‘aggregation’: Blog tools are great to collate the history of an organization and its activities, wikis can help to make implicit knowledge explicit, and all other media can supplement the information flow (links, pictures, video, audio, slides). Some of the beauty is in finding intelligent ways of presenting the wealth of information, and they can be software driven. Ismael Peña-López has a summary of the presentations.

Participatory web environments are far from new: Newsgroups and list serves have existed since the beginning of the web. New tools make it easier for people to direct their own flow of information, and make sharing and searching easier. I believe such a ‘participatory web’ needs three things to function:

1. An issue (what unites us?)
2. A target audience (who do we want to collaborate with?)
3. A constant feed of information (what can we learn together?)

Managing this communication centrally is very difficult and time consuming. Yet, it always needs contributors, and guardians. There is a trade-off between quality control and community driven processes.

There’s no shortage of information in the environmental community, but I sometimes feel that we’re not doing too well in using it. IUCN’s experts and scientists remain in their own corners. But knowledge is created through exchange and adaptation. How can we encourage this communication? How can we convince people of the benefits of contributing their information? How can we ensure quality in community driven processes?

My nickname, zarahminor, is turning five and a half tomorrow. She’s curious as ever, and has explored many pockets of the read/write web over the last years. Jetzt.de, with its wonderful online/offline mix of editorial and user-generated content for Germany’s generation Y, provided a safe home for the first years. And what a community: Lots of thanks to Alex for the mix-tape, to Christiane for guest-book gossiping, to Stefan and Hinnerk for the weekend in Edinburgh and to Daniel for just being there.

Stumbleupon was her next stop: What a great place to spend time on the web and discover new worlds when the one thing you should be doing is write your thesis. I liked the ease of commenting on websites, and of connecting to other users with the same taste. However, I stopped using it when it became too distracting. My feed reader has long taken over the function of pointing me to interesting articles.

Web2.0 had slowly arrived, and soon Zarah had assembled accounts all over, sharing pictures at Flickr, links at del.icio.us, music at Last.fm and a growing collection of blog posts in various places. This page at Blogger has been great to streamline these multiple identities.

While the tools have matured, Zarah has grown up as well. The playground has transformed into a learning space, and a tool to connect my real-world identities and places. Still, few people know that zarahminor is known as Wiebke Herding in the real world. As Zarah approaches school age, it is time to connect the two more authentically. It is also time to move from ready made tools and templates to something that is more suited to my needs and style.

Expect change.

As someone who’s major was Artificial Intelligence, I have great admiration for Turings seminal essay “Computing machinery and intelligence”. More than fifty years after its publication, it remains surprisingly relevant for such a fast-changing field as computer science. Here’s how I tried to explain this fascination of mine to my Toastmasters club:

Können Maschinen denken?

Es ist schon erstaunlich, was Computer heutzutage können.
Sie übersetzen Texte und staubsaugen den Boden, sie spielen Schach und finden Außerirdische, sie schreiben Gedichte und führen Krieg. Eine gewisse Intelligenz ist ihnen nicht abzusprechen.

Aber denken? Das wäre wohl zu weit gegriffen.
Denn wer sagt denn, dass eine Maschine zwischen Recht und Unrecht unterscheidet? Dass sie manchmal traurig ist? Dass sie kreativ ist und dass sie Erdbeeren mit Sahne mag?

Doch Moment – woran merken wir eigentlich, dass jemand, dass etwas denkt? Woher weiß ich, dass Monique, dass Agnes ein denkendes Wesen ist? Woran können wir eine intelligente Maschine erkennen? Im Endeffekt ist das äußere Verhalten unser einziger Anhaltspunkt.

Der britische Mathematiker Alan Turing hat sich diese Fragen bereits vor sechzig Jahren gestellt und damit noch heute maßgeblichen Test für künstliche Intelligenz entwickelt. Sein Turing-Test versucht festzustellen, ob das Verhalten eines Computers von dem eines Menschen unterscheidbar ist.

Der Aufbau: Ein Fragesteller interviewt das Untersuchungsobjekt schriftlich. Er weiß nicht, ob es sich dabei um Mensch oder Maschine handelt, und soll dies durch geschicktes Fragen herausfinden. Was meint Ihr – können heutige Computer Menschen in einer schriftlichen Befragung von ihrer Intelligenz überzeugen?

Die Antwort ist ‘Nein’. Und selbst wenn sie es könnten – wäre dies Nachweis des Denkens? Schließlich ist ja alles was sie tun, vorgegebene Regeln auszuführen. Ein Gedankenexperiment: Eine Person, nennen wir sie Anna, erhält Anweisungen auf Chinesisch, spricht aber selbst kein Wort. Sie hat aber Zugriff auf einen Stapel Regelbücher, die auf Englisch genau ausführen, was bei welchem Symbol wie zu antworten sei. Anna’s Antworten sind daher stets korrekt und können von außen nicht von denen eines Muttersprachlers unterschieden werden. Versteht Anna Chinesisch?

Die Erforschung der künstlichen Intelligenz hat sich über diese Frage in zwei Richtungen gespalten. Die eine davon setzt sich mit der Frage auseinander, wie Maschinen intelligenter werden können, komplexere Probleme lösen und aus Fehlern lernen. Die andere versucht sich an der Untersuchung des menschlichen Geistes. Wenn das Gehirn im Endeffekt auch nur als Millionen Neuronen besteht, die miteinander kommunizieren: Lässt sich dieses Verhalten abbilden?

Denn eins ist klar: Was auch immer Denken ausmacht, und ob Maschinen es jemals können werden – Denken hilft.

The assignment for this speech was ‘say it clearly’. The particular challenge I set for myself: Explain complicated things in a complicated language – German. I finally paid tribute to the bilingual nature of my Toastmasters club.

Today on Apple.com:Now let’s go and make this happen, let’s move from words to action!
A big thanks also goes to the folks at greenmyapple.org.

Last weekend I met with an old friend who specializes in providing trainings and tools for grassroots organizing in Germany. One of her campaigns had introduced her to the content management system Joomla, and she was wondering whether this was a good occasion to create a website to promote her business.

here are now some ideas and reflections on where to start when starting a website.

Web publishing has become so easy that there no excuse anymore not to put things online. As a trainer – and as a learner – you have plenty of opportunities to discover new things, to explain good concepts and to evaluate processes in your everyday life.

I would encourage you to build a web presence around this. As I indicated, I believe that every website should have static and dynamic content: A few static pages explaining who you are, why you are doing the things you are doing, and how you can help others with your work. These will only have to be updated every now and then. With dynamic content, you can create a continuous mechanism in addition to that to let people know what you’re up to, to archive material for specific events, and most of all – to write, reflect and learn. Some people would call this blog.

Why do I think this could be powerful for you?
To explain something to others is often the best way to understand it yourself. Blogging is a wonderful way of sharing the little things that we learn everyday: The book that I’ve just read, a speech that I’ve given or a quote that has touched me. Over time, you build a repository of wisdom – for you and others to learn from.

• A colleague of mine has started the blog “Welearnsomething” entirely devoted to learning within her unit.
• Some people write blogs to get into the habit of writing for a books or a thesis.
• And of course, there are my Minor Contributions.

Lots of freelancers have discovered blogging as a way to build their reputation: A number of good blog posts tell the story of their skills and qualities a million times better than a brochure written in marketing speech.

• Colleen Wainwright, a freelance designer from LA
• Penelope Trunk, a career writer
• Beth Kanter consults non-profits on technology

But how to get started?
Remember: Not the technology is the hard part, it’s the content. Pick technology that is fun to use, and gets stuff online in a breeze. What you’ll need (in order of importance / chronology):

1. A good name for your site: Is it just your name? Is it a slogan?
2. Text describing who you are and what you offer
3. A very simple content management system or blogging tool (I still love Blogger) with a standard template
4. Your first four posts (one every week?)
5. Your own domain
6. Most important links/content in your navigation bar
7. More content
8. A custom template/look for your website

As you can see from this list, such a website would be an ongoing project, but I believe that it’s worth the effort. Once you’ve reached step 5, you can start promoting your website. The easiest way: Put the address in your email signature, and on all your training material. And if people like the content that they find on your site, they will keep coming back.

Thus far, I hope this answers your questions. I’d be more than happy to help you getting this started!

Hugs,

More information on how to start a blog: [Squidoo] or [WeLearnSomething].