reciprocity
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A Couros birthday and user generated content
I'm sure many of you will have seen this, but it's worth showing again. Below is a video that Dean Shareski compiled for blogger Alec Couros's 40th Birthday (Dean describes the process here). It's fun and heartwarming, but it's also a great example to show people about the power of the network. As I understand it someone suggested the idea on twitter, Dean then put together a Google Doc with the lyrics and contacted people in Alec's network to assign them lines. They then uploaded or emailed him the video clips, which he then compiled together. Here's why I think it's interesting, beyond it being for Alec who's a…
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On economy as metaphor
Stephen Downes takes me to task over the reciprocity economy, stating that "One thing people tend to get wrong about networks is to interpret them as some sort of economy or value proposition… I think this metaphor is really misleading. As I write in the comments, "It's not about reciprocity. It's about sharing. Completely different concept." I'll defend the post against these counter-arguments in a couple of ways. Firstly by talking about the nature of metaphor and secondly by exploring the role of sharing. I knew Stephen, being the lovable old socialist he is, wouldn't like an economy metaphor. But we don't have to like, or take all of the…
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The Reciprocal Times
Following on from the previous post about The Reciprocity Economy, I am going to try another of my rarely successful experiments. This time I want to test whether Twitter can act as an easy aggregator for examples of the reciprocity economy in action. So, I've set up a Twitter account: @reciprocaltimes (see, it's like the Financial Times for the reciprocity economy?). I will use it to tweet examples of when I encounter the reciprocity economy in action. But also, by sending a reply to @reciprocaltimes you, yes YOU, can also help collate them. We can then analyse them and see if there are any common themes and if the reciprocity…
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The reciprocity economy
<image Reciprocal roof decking by Ziggy Fresh http://www.flickr.com/photos/smallape/2943537392/> In my talk on digital literacies I mentioned a 'reciprocity economy', and just wanted to expand on the idea. We are accustomed to the idea of the attention economy – it's getting eyeballs that counts online. As each person develops their PLN online it seems to me that it's not attention that is significant, but establishing reciprocity. I have come to believe that your personal learning network (it probably doesn't need the 'learning', it's just your personal network) is increasingly the most valuable asset you will have. And that's valuable as in 'adds value to your life', not economic value. It will…
