Embarking

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you may remember that I moved to Portland for grad school.   It has been simmer for about two years, and now I’m finally ready to turn off the crock pot and dish out some fun.  In that sense, I am imagining a renewed interest in blogging.  To be honest, in the past several months, I don’t feel like i’ve really had much to say, so I’ve stayed silent.  But now, like a prism scattering light, my mental energies will be directed in a thousand new directions (interesting ones).

So perhaps I’ll have things to say, and perhaps you’ll read them.

To bring you up to speed: For the next 3 months, I will be taking pre-requisite classes as a crash course in business jargon and financial what-not.  As a humble elementary school teacher, this is mostly new territory.  Then begining this September, I will start a very intense 15-month 75-credit Master’s of International Management. at Portland State University.  One of the highlights will be learning Chinese.  Since I love learning languages so much, that will likely be a running theme here.  Also, the degree really focuses on Asia, which I think is a neat place, so I might write about various goings-on in that part of the world.

Why I love Wikipedia

Wikipedia has its critics to be sure.  How can an encyclopedia written by anonymous amateurs be considered a reliable source?  Why do so many people turn there to settle factual disputes in the heat of an argument.  (I’ll admit, one of the reasons I wanted to buy an iPhone was so that I woud have unbridled access to this treasure trove of knowledge).

The argument goes someting like: Wikipedia articles can’t be trusted.  ANYONE can simply write whatever they want, or edit an existing article, maliciosly (or unwittingly) re-writing history.  That is a valid concern.  I’m not sure I want my grandmother to be the one writing an entry on WW2.  (Her memory might not be very trustworthy).  But I believe this weakness is Wikipedia’s greatest asset.  It is the quintessential peer-edited jounral.  Errors are quickly dealt with.

In their book “The Starfish and the Spider” Brafman and Beckstrom write about the power of community collaboraion: “..put people into an open system and they’ll automatically want to contrubute.” (pg 74)  Wikipedia has a large user base that thrives off the chance to write, re-format, or edit erroneous information.

Of course it is a bonus that the real-time nature of an internet resource means that mistakes do not come with a costly printing price tag.

Everything (no matter the source) shold be read with a grain of  salt.  This applies to your printed textbooks and newspapers as well.  Errors find their way into all sorts of places.  We cannot escape that.  What we get from Wikipedia though is a vibrant community of collaborators who are excited about spreading and imporving human access to a limitless body knowledge.

Finding a Group to Lead

Have you read Tribes by Seth Godin?  If not, I highly recommend it.  It’s a quick read.  If you are armed with a good pot of coffee and a warm spot to sit, you might tackle it in a day.  But it is the kind of book you can consume in bite-sized pieces if you wish.  In his conversational style, Seth writes about the phonomenon of tribes.  Now before you get your warpaint and blowdart gun ready, it’s not that type of tribe (although I imagine Seth might support your quest to lead such a tribe.)

Tribes are simply groups of people united around a common interest, goal, or idea.  There are literally dozens of groups like this that are waiting to be activated. It could be a group of Korean langugae enthusiasts (shameles plug), civil-war era stamp collectors,  or it could be your sales team at work.  Whoever it is, these groups need someone to lead them.  Seth encourages his audience to be the leader for some group.  To find it, and lead it.  In fact, in the modern internet age, these groups are even easier to find.  The internet also makes collaborating with these groups incredibly easy.

What groups are you a part of?  What groups could you lead?  Isn’t there something about which you are passionate, and around which you could gather people to collaborate?