NetSquared is simply a great idea. Just got the email from Michelle Shutzer of TechSoup on this – congratulations to them for all the hard work. Here is a good bit that describes their purpose,
The conversations will take place both online at www.netsquared.org through collaborative blogging, tagging and posting, and at Net Tuesdays, a series of face-to-face gatherings in the San Francisco Bay Area. (www.netsquared.org/participate). These events offer the opportunity for hands-on learning and exchange, and include demonstrations of these new tools.
I am really looking forward to supporting more of their efforts and figuring out how we can best work together. In one sense, what we are trying to do could be considered a project under the same umbrella, though perhaps it should be considered as more of a joint project with them and people from other sectors. In another sense, they serve and attract one of the most important groups of people to what I hope we can ultimately accomplish as more and more people feel empowered to pursue their own Noble Pursuit in this life. I guess it is more of a paramedia effort perhaps that goes beyond the online world of blogs and RSS with out shared goal of empowering more people to understand and better utilize technology.
My approach vis-a-vis BrainJams starts with building trust and tolerance between disparate types of people to for the purpose of sharing knowledge and ideas about things that are important to them. It could be how to launch an idea like BrainJams, how to increase donations to a non-profit, an idea for a fundraiser, an idea for a new tool, a new perspective on how you have been communicating your big idea or even something as simple as how the 49er’s might shake things up to make a comeback or how to cook beer can chicken. Then the next piece of the puzzle is to get people out of the conceptual mode into the practical mode of actually doing things towards accomplishing what they are most passionate about more effectively and efficiently. This is why the afternoon session is about real people sharing their stories of how they get things done using the Internet – showing each other step by step, answering questions and receiving group feedback in real time.
As another friend reminded me, this could be a great business…. but that is not the point, this is only the beginning of the Knowledge Economy, there are plenty other business opportunities to come in the near future, but I have digressed too far. Back to the point.
One of the reasons I love these guys at TechSoup so much is because they are just cool and they get it. The other reason is more kizmic (sp?) – when we first met, I just knew I had found other ‘peaceful warriors‘ with similar life purposes. Here is what Daniel Ben-Horin, CompuMentor’s President and co-CEO had to say about the launch of NetSquared.
“Wikipedia, DeanSpace, MoveOn, Firefox Campaign, craigslist – none of these succeeded because they had faster servers or fatter pipes than anyone else. They succeeded because they understood and enabled the power of user-generated content and the power of peer networking.”
As I have said previously, the point is people.
Technorati Tags: ad-hoc collaboration, brainjams, brainjams3dec2005, brainjams:3dec2005, brainjams:planning, NPTECH, The Open Web, Web2.0, Web2.1, netsquared, net2
