Category: Making Connections
-
Howard Schultz on Human Needs: Community and Health Care
I keep coming across inspiring references to Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks. Last week, I discovered a recent interview in KNOW Magazine entitled The Art of Creating Passionate Consumers, which included the following quotes: … consumers are demanding more. They want products or services that create a powerful and enduring emotional connection. The fracturing…
-
One World: Disasters and Responses
Listening to, reading and watching news reports of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, I’m struck by the refrain of terms that reminds me of human responses to other disasters, natural and man-made. Injuries, death, destruction, sickness, shortages of electricity, water, food, shelter and medical care, inadequate preparation and/or slow response by the authorities, refugees, refugee…
-
Reciprocal Self-Disclosure
I spent a delightful hour reading "Hello, My Name is Scott: Wearing Nametags for a Friendlier Society", by Scott Ginsberg, yesterday (while waiting for a McCrea wine tasting to start). Scott has worn a nametag every day since October 2000 because "it makes people friendlier and more sociable and also helps them remember my name."…
-
A Gathering on Gatherings
I attended the Pomegranate Center’s Annual Gathering today, whose theme was "Community-Built Gathering Places". The center’s gathering places model is based on the premise that "unintentional encounters happen in intentional environments": Gathering places are where social encounters happen freely and unexpectedly, contributing to a stronger sense of community, better relations among neighbors, reduced vandalism and…
-
Object-centered Sociality: Digital Affordances in Physical Spaces
Jyri Engeström claims that the problem with some social networking services is that they focus solely on people and links, ignoring the objects of affinity that those linked people share. He invokes the concept of "object-centered sociality" (borrowing from Karin Knorr Cetina) to explain how the inclusion of shared [digital] objects, such as photos, URLs,…
-
What’s in a Name Tag?
Scott Ginsberg ("that guy with the nametag") has been wearing a nametag every day since November 2, 2000. The nametag creates, in effect, a personal "front porch", projecting an openness that enhances approachability, with respect to both other people’s willingness to approach him and their willingness to be approached by him. Scott’s web site includes…
-
43 Things: Goal-based Social Networking
43 Things is a recent entry into the social networking services world that has received a great deal of publicity lately. What sets 43 Things apart from others is its focus on goals: the site offers members the opportunity to list their goals (those that they want to accomplish as well as those they have…
-
Zen, Motorcycle Maintenance and the Church of Reason
danah recently wrote an interesting and provocative blog post about "why i’m in academia", which reminded me of some interesting and provocative statements made by Robert Pirsig about what he calls the Church of Reason in his book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" (not that I want to imply that they share the…
-
Oprah on The Joy of Connecting (and Disconnecting)
The December issue of O: The Oprah Magazine has a special section on the benefits of connecting with and relating to one another … and (of course) a number of suggestions for ways that people can connect — or disconnect — with others. I felt more than slightly self-conscious going through the checkout line of…
-
Representations of Identity: Digital and Physical
CSCW 2004 was a great conference on multiple dimensions (for me); personal highlights include participating in a great workshop, exploring Chicago, co-presenting a paper, co-organizing a panel and being inspired by the closing plenary. I’m going to post separate entries for each of these, starting with the workshop. The workshop was on "Representations of Digital…