community
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Communities Notes
A winning non-strategy When I headed to the Bay Area in 1984, years of success and championships followed for the 49ers, the A's, and the Giants. When I came to Boston in '07, the Patriots went undefeated (except for the Super Bowl), and the Red Sox and Celtics won championships. Then the Pats and the Continue reading
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My Three Hooks
For many years, I attended an annual gathering of folks who wanted to save the Internet for future generations. Aspirational guidance was provided by the metaphor “big hooks:” ones meant for catching big fish. Since I was a kid, my life has always been about big hooks, especially ones that maximize personal and collective agency, Continue reading
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Monday, June 30, 2025
Toward future downtowns. Two tabs I just opened on a conference call that I need to read later: Re:Permissioning the City, and Permissioning the City 2025 Update. Has stuff that's too important for news stories. Even if you disagree with it. Heather Cox Richardson interviews Barack Obama. Are we in one now? On a call Continue reading
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Come from Everywhere
IIW, the Internet Identity Workshop, is the UN of identity. While located in the U.S., it has always represented and welcomed the whole world to work on global problems best addressed in person. As it happens, IIW was born exactly twenty years ago tomorrow—20 March 2005—at Esther Dyson’s PC Forum in Scottsdale, Arizona. A group Continue reading
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What Works After a Disaster Happens?
When Hurricane Helene hit Western North Carolina, the Swannanoa River rose three storys above its shores, all but erasing the town named after the river, and leaving hundreds homeless. But the challenge for Swannanoa was not just recovery. It was regeneration. For that, Swannanoa’s residents formed new kinds of partnerships and problem solutions that could Continue reading
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And Now the #HughesFire
Twenty-fourth in the News Commons series Eigth on the #LAfires 7:35 am January 23, 2024—It’s morning now. The Hughes Fire is 17% contained but no longer interesting. The Sepulveda Fire broke out last night along the 405 freeway. It stopped at forty acres, and doesn’t matter much now. Here’s the path of one fire helicopter Continue reading
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How communities without one can build a local library
That’s what Charlie Schweik and friends will be talked about in the Beyond the Web series at Indiana University, hosted by the Ostrom Workshop and the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. The salon was held at the latter for locals and on Zoom for the world, at Noon Eastern time on Wednesday, December 4th. (Upcoming salons are Continue reading
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Remembering Dewayne Hendricks
Thank Dewayne Hendricks for Wi-Fi. Hell, thank him for what Bob Frankston calls ambient connectivity: the kind you just … assume. Like you are now, connected to the Internet without wires. Dewayne wasn’t alone, of course. Far from it. But he was instrumental. I learned about that during the 3+ hour memorial zoom we had Continue reading
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Think Globally, Eat Here
Fifteenth in the News Commons series. This semester’s Beyond the Web salon series for the Ostrom Workshop and Hamilton Lugar School at Indiana University is themed Think Globally, Eat Here—Small Solutions for Big Tech Problems. I will give the opening talk, about the News Commons (subject of fourteen prior posts here) at noon (Eastern) next Continue reading
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DatePress
Sixth in the News Commons series. The Big Calendar here in Bloomington is one fed by other calendars kind enough to syndicate themselves through publishing feeds. It is put together by my friend Dave Askins, who writes and publishes the B Square Bulletin. Technically speaking, it runs on WordPress, and uses a plug-in called ICS. Continue reading
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Truckin’ forward
Welcome to my new old blog. My old-old (but not oldest) blog—the one I’ve written since 2007—is still there, in complete archival form, at blogs.harvard.edu/doc, where it has always been. It is now also here with a different URL: doc.searls.com, which had pointed at blogs.harvard.edu/doc for many years. Now it points here, to its native Continue reading
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Is Mastodon a commons?
Glenn Fleishman has a lucid and helpful introduction to Mastodon in TidBITS that opens with this: Cast your mind back to the first time you experienced joy and wonder on the Internet. Do you worry you’ll never be able to capture that sense again? If so, it’s worth wading gently into the world of Mastodon Continue reading
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Community Governance Outside the Web’s Dictatorships
It’s one thing to move off centralized online spaces run by corporate giants, and another to settle the decentralized frontiers where we create new communities. As those communities get organized, forms of governance emerge. Or are deliberately chosen. Either way, the subject could hardly matter more, if those communities wish to persist and thrive. At this Continue reading