31Og Day

I was first tipped off to 31Og Day by Go2Web a couple weeks ago, and I circled August 31 on the calendar to be the day we upgraded our site design. Life got in the way, however, and even a near all-nighter couldn’t pull off all of the technical improvements on the list. So instead, we’ll stick to the original intent and just celebrate blogging today.

One long moment on August 31st, bloggers from all over the world will post recommendations of 5 new Blogs, preferably Blogs that are different from their own culture, point of view and attitude. On this day, blog readers will find themselves leaping around and discovering new, unknown Blogs, celebrating the discovery of new people and new bloggers.

The instructions are pretty simple:

1. Find 5 new Blogs that you find interesting
2. Notify the 5 bloggers that you are recommending them as part of BlogDay 2007
3. Write a short description of the Blogs and place a link to the recommended Blogs
4. Include links to the BlogDay tag BlogDay web site
5. Post on August 31st

I’ll leave Amy to celebrate her own list, and I’ll focus on a few I wanted to highlight.

Thanks to Tyler’s insistence that I try Google Reader and a Web 2.0 explosion in the IU School of Informatics graduate curriculum, I have 255 feeds I follow with regularity. Most of those, of course, don’t post with regularity, but the ones that do keep me busy. Rather than simply pointing to some of my favorite blogs, I thought I would use this opportunity to look at a few that are likely to become favorites in the future. (Pingbacks will have to do the notification for me. I have a student revolution to help organize today.)

Storygeek
This could easily be grouped with another local blog, but I chose Storygeek because of the academic relevance of the author (and the fact he tracked me down first). If you are in the area and interested in technology, there is a good chance you have already run into Mark Bell online. Better known as “typewriter” online, Mark is a recent transplant to Bloomington to pursue a doctorate in Telecom. He has interest in Second Life (finishing a book on the subject with significant other, Intelligirl), Twitter and Wikis. Extremely knowledgeable, extremely personable, and a dad of young kids to boot. We’re talking about putting together a BarCamp for Bloomington. Mark should write more than than he does, but he’d have to drop one of his dozen active projects to do so.

The One Hour Essay Project
Informatics alum Kynthia Brunette—who spent some time abroad after graduation, tried work for a while, and is currently watching Burning Man burn (apparently multiple times)—came up with an idea to get some writers to answer questions about life, the universe and everything. The catch is that each author can only work for an hour. “The goal is to create a safe space where a variety of intelligent and interesting people are able to test out ideas without the worry of getting things Exactly RightTM before going on the record.” The next essay is due in 10 days. Whether or not I can squeeze that hour out of my schedule on a regular basis, I’ll be happily scanning my RSS feeds for new posts.

Complexity and Social Networks Blog
The activity has been slow over the summer, but that may be because the two Harvard institutes feeding the blog were on academic hiatus. Fall semesters are starting all over the country, though, which means discussion of the network analysis and complex systems theory should pick up. I’ll be particularly interested in going back to read the archives for social psychology, since I’m taking my first such class this term. CSN is a good resource not just for the latest advances in the field, but also for intelligent commentary on the value of the new research.

Startup Weekend
The brainchild of Andrew Hyde had its first successful run in July. Hyde convinced local technologists and business folk in the Boulder, Colorado area to spend an intense three-day weekend together with the express intent of starting a new business from scratch. Along the way, they blogged, videoed and otherwise recorded for posterity their process. There is a startup event in mid-October up the pike in West Lafayette, but I don’t know if I’ll have the time to go. I would love to organize one of these intensive implementation weekends for Bloomington later this year or in the spring, though. By the time that happens, there will be plenty of new startup weekends to follow through the blog.

Improv Everywhere
This performance art group, where ad-hoc members participate in live comedy situated in everyday public life, had an NBC pilot in the spring for the upcoming season. Alas, the network didn’t pick it up, but Improv Everywhere did get four missions out of it before the plug was pulled. When those get published on the Internet, I’ll know from their RSS feed. (I have written about Improv Everywhere before. This mission is by far my favorite.)

Honorable mention goes to the IU School of Informatics Human-Computer Interaction design graduate program. Thanks to some prodding, there are now three courses requiring blogging as part of the student processing of the material and projects. Not only is this a good pedagogical practice, getting designers used to cognitive dumps, but it also serves the School well by making our thought processes available to other programs and prospective employers.