April 2008 Archives

Tony Karrer, the author of eLearning Technology notes in a post that there is a 1% rule in collaborative environments.  The rule is that for every 100 people that sign up:

• 90 will lurk (read with no active participation)
• 9 will participate in a limited fashion (maybe rate or comment periodically)
• 1 will regularly post content

This has been my experience too and usually I am the one that is the most enthusiastic contributor!  I have tried many things to overcome this which Tony discusses in the post:

• Incentives or requirements (students must blog - it's graded)
• Community cohesion
• Focus (short time frame, limited topic)
• Integrated as natural activity

It is very hard work to make online communities work.

 

Harvard Law Review - THE END OF THE GLOBALIZATION DEBATE: A REVIEW ESSAY by Robert Howse asserts that the globalization debate has ended and that there is no more antiglobalization "side" to the argument:

"Today the protesters who march against globalization are not marching in favor of the state. Instead, they are mostly advocating a set of values and causes that transcend state boundaries and that require global action."

The article reviews four books that contribute to the globalization debate:

1. CAPITAL RULES: THE CONSTRUCTION OF GLOBAL FINANCE. By Rawi Abdelal. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press. 2007. Pp. xi, 304. $49.95.
2. IN DEFENSE OF GLOBALIZATION. By Jagdish Bhagwati. New York: Oxford Univ. Press. With new afterword, 2007. Pp. xiii, 330. $16.95.
3. TERRITORY, AUTHORITY, RIGHTS: FROM MEDIEVAL TO GLOBAL ASSEMBLAGES. By Saskia Sassen. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press. 2006. Pp. xiv, 493. $37.95.
4. MAKING GLOBALIZATION WORK. By Joseph E. Stiglitz. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. 2006. Pp. xxv, 358. $16.95.

Office Live Workspace is a free web-based extension of Microsoft Office, which I have been using with several of my work teams.  This tools lets you access your documents and share your work with others. Because you are working in the full featured Office applications and only saving the files online, it lets you  retain the rich features of Office while easily collaborating with others.  Here is an example of a workspace screen: