Amy peak

Me atop Twin Sisters peak yesterday, Estes Park, CO. Geez, I hope it's not ALL downhill from here!... (Click to enlarge)

I’ve always said that my one true goal in life is to be a crotchety old bitch, sitting on the deck of my mountain cabin, a cup of tea or jug of wine and a plate of smoked salmon or trout at my side. I’ll have a shotgun across my knee, ready to cock it at anyone coming down the driveway and yell, “You from the gummint?”

I’m actually not kidding.

I’m not saying I’ll shoot anyone (necessarily), but crotchety old bitches tend to be able to get away with stuff like that, so why not?

The good thing about having this kind of life goal is that simply by continuing to exist, I’m progressing toward it. Today is my 45th birthday, and I’m starting it right — sitting on the deck of my cabin in the Rockies, still shaded by aspen…

I’ve been here for most of a week and have done two fabulous mountain hikes, hung out with good friends in Boulder and up here at the cabin, enjoyed an excellent motorcycle ride with a good friend, spent a day helping another friend in need, cooked some wonderful meals, spent lots of quality time with one of the most important people in the world to me, and generally enjoyed the peace and rhythm that settles over me once I’m much closer to treeline than sea level.

The only thing missing is my cats, who are probably shredding something in my honor right now back in my Oakland apartment. And my sweetheart George — but he got to enjoy this little slice of mountain heaven last month. And my friends and family who are too distant to join me here today.

I was saying to George last night that he’s much braver than I am for daring to be lyrical and personal in his blog. He’s a wonderful writer, and that’s his writing practice. Meanwhile, I’ve been neglecting my blog again — but dry spells happen, and it’s something I can always come back to.

So here I am, daring to be just a bit personal here. Roll with it, it’s an experiment. (UPDATE: This experiment mostly had good results, but led to a notable clueless PR encounter.)

I guess turning 45 makes me officially middle aged (unless you’re a singularity devotee, which I’m not), so that’s good in terms of hitting a milestone toward my life goal. But it does make me wonder: Is this the middle of my life? What do I want to do with the other half, at least en route toward eventual crotchety-old-cabin-bitchedness?

Right off the bat I’m striking off this list anything having to do with grand world-changing achievements or a personal legacy that outlasts my mortal existence. Someday I will vanish from the face of this world, no one will remember me, and that will be OK. The future shouldn’t be too heavily anchored to the past, and I’m happy not to become historical ballast.

I’ve chosen never to have children (and at 45, let’s say I’m safely past that risk) in part because I’m not maternal, but also in part because I seem to lack that craving for immortality that seems to drive why so many people become parents. I love kids and have had many in my life — and hope to always have some in my life. Kids can be amazing friends and teachers. But I don’t want them to owe me anything. Except maybe my Social Security check, but I’m not counting too heavily on that.

That said, I have always had an irrational compulsion to help, and to learn. I feel good about the work I do mainly because, more often than not, what I learn and say and teach about media and technology generally seems to help people.

Even when people disagree with me, or dispute me, or even prove me wrong, it seems I contribute value to the conversation so we all can try more new stuff and figure out what works. So that’s okay. I didn’t become a journalist so that everyone would like me or agree with me, after all.

I have lots of flaws, and I’ll always have lots of flaws. During the rest of my life I’d like to continue working on them. That’s been a pretty rewarding effort — if at times awkward, difficult, and painful.

I’ve realized, though, that in working on my flaws I must be guided mostly by my own internal compass about what kind of person I want to be. Too often in my life I’ve taken to heart criticism from others that’s rooted mostly in their own expectations or fears. That’s not to say I ignore criticism from others; but I need to consider it carefully, to figure out if their motives and goals jibe with mine, before attempting to reshape myself in light of that information.

Because this life I have — it’s mine. What I do with it needs to matter to me, and feel right to me. Especially since I’m eschewing the whole legacy deal.

For too long, I suppressed what I really felt and wanted in life. Often it didn’t seem to be what other people wanted, and it definitely didn’t seem to be what social norms said I should want — so just being one person, I had to be wrong, right? Wrong!

One of the most important things I’ve learned is that — despite entrenched social norms — relationships are not one-size-fits all. So when someone matters to me, it rarely makes sense to cut them out of my life just because the nature of our relationship shifts. Which is why I’m spending a week at my cabin with my former spouse Tom, who is (and has always been) one of my closest friends and confidantes.

The few times in my life I’ve had to remove people from my life, that’s been very difficult and painful for me. But mostly, I can find ways to accommodate changes, and additions.

My inclinations for almost all kinds of relationships are mostly “both/and” not “either/or” — which is why I’m polyamorous, and probably also why I’ve been self employed for so long. I’m often amazed, amused, puzzled, or dismayed when I encounter people who require hard lines and clear roles in their connections with others — as if things like monogamy, a full-time job, a college degree, a conventional family, or legal recognition will ensure safety or happiness. I’m not saying they’re wrong and I’m right. I’m just saying, it’s a mindset I have a hard time understanding. But I respect that these things mean a lot to people, including many very smart people I care about and respect deeply.

In the past decade especially I’ve really grown to love diversity in most aspects of life: Diversity of thought, diversity of people, diversity of cultures and ethnicities, diversity of age, diversity of experience, diversity of desires, you name it. And I am part of that diversity.

This doesn’t mean I need to (or can) learn to appreciate or like everything — for instance, creationism? Oppression and racism? Iceberg lettuce? The Iraq war? Anime? Las Vegas? Humid weather? I don’t think so. But I generally have found that understanding why other people fiercely embrace and enjoy things I find abhorrent helps me navigate this world better. And I don’t need to agree with people in order to learn from them.

In the last few years especially I’ve become keenly aware of how much place matters to my sense of well being. I need to feel like I have a home, in a place I can love. I can live other places for a while, and enjoy that — but eventually I feel the need to go home. I’m at one of those points now. I’ve lived for a few years in Oakland, a city that has taught me much, where I’ve found many friends and amazing love. But it’s not home for me, and I need to start searching for home.

Fortunately, I don’t have to rush. Since I’m self-employed and can work from anywhere with internet access and that’s not too far from an airport, I’m not tied to any one location for external reasons. And I also don’t have to have a hard deadline for moving. I’ve arranged my life to offer lots of flexibility, and that’s perhaps the smartest thing I’ve ever done.

I’m not sure where I’ll live next. I’d always assumed I’d eventually just go back to Boulder, Colorado — a place that I’ve always loved and that was a wonderful home to me for many years. And I may still do that. But right now, at this point in my life, Boulder feels a little small and insular to me.

So I’m considering some cities like Portland and Denver. I need to live in a place that’s not totally ruled by cars, near real mountains, where the summers aren’t humid and the winters aren’t relentlessly frigid. And where there are people I enjoy, with a culture that’s diverse and generally friendly and flexible.

Oakland offers many of those things, but I feel constantly hemmed in by concrete and cars there. And California’s mountains are too far away. But there may be other California options for me, I’m not ruling it out. Mostly I’m hoping to find a place I love that doesn’t requiring owning a car.

Life can change drastically or end at any moment. While I’m here, I want to experience it, and enjoy it, and to be good to others and to myself. I’ve been gratified to have so many wonderful people in my life: family, friends, lovers, colleagues, teachers, and more.

I’ve been surprised to realize what a social creature I am, but I need my private time too. So I’m really glad to be around at the dawn of social media — a tool that allows me to foster and maintain a wide range of connections from all parts of my world. One of the first things I did today was post to social media, to let people know it’s my birthday, because birthdays actually matter to me and I’ve learned it’s not reasonable to expect people to be telepaths.

Anything that helps me communicate with and connect with people is probably mostly good, as far as I’m concerned. And I’ve tried to learn how communication can do the most good and the least harm. I think the ability to communicate has largely defined how humans have evolved, for better or worse. It’s powerful. I enjoy learning how to do it better — even though it hurts like hell when I screw it up.

So this post is rambling, and personal, and it may or may not make sense. But it’s just where I’m at right now, a snapshot of a work in progress. And since I’m scared to post it, for fear of embarrassment or criticism, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’ve learned the most from facing my fears and inhibitions.

Thanks for reading, if you’ve read this far. The direct sun is hitting my cabin deck now, so I’ll take a deep breath and post this — and then make some more tea and breakfast, and get ready to welcome some friends up here to celebrate later today.

If you come down my cabin driveway today, I promise not to shoot.

deck

Crotchety old bitch, in progress....

This set some pretty interesting context for the Future of Journalism panel discussion that the Monitor hosted last night in Boston. This session was webcast live. (Video will be available later today.) I watched it online and covered it via Twitter.

As I always do, I used my amylive account to provide this live coverage to over 200 people who specifically want it. That’s because my volume of live-coverage posts would tend to overwhelm the nearly 1400 people who follow me at agahran.

Several other Twitter users were also covering or discussing this event, including the Monitor, Jeff Cutler, Wayne Sutton, and Dave Poulson. Many of used the hashtag #CSMFOJ to make all of this easier to find.

Here’s my complete Twitter coverage of this event. I’m posting this as an experiment, to see if this kind of archiving helps me or others. What do you think? Please comment at the end — and bear in mind that posting this compilation is very different from the Twitter experience…

(NOTE: This is Twitter. Things move fast here. Please excuse typos and abbreviations.)

Moderator: John Yemma, CSMonitor editor.

Panelist: Ellen Hume, Research Dir., MIT the Center for Future Civic Media: http://civic.mit.edu

Panelist: Mark Jurkowitz: Associate Director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism: http://journalism.org (good domain grab!)

Panelist: Douglas K. Smith: Exec. Director, Sulzberger News Media Executive Leadership Progam, Columbia U: http://snurl.com/56qey

Panelist: Sree Sreenivasan: Columbia J-school new media program head & Dean of Student Affairs: http://sree.net

Context for this talk: Monitor is switching to weekly rather than daily print edition, beefing up web news operation. Somewhat controversial

@100yearsofcsm Name, title of woman speaking now, please?
Up now: Moderator: John Yemma, CSMonitor editor. Panelists are seated.

If you’re on a mac and having trouble viewing this webcast, I made it work by selecting the Windows Media Player version via safari

Yemma mentioned a bunch of people who are watching this webcast online — but they didn’t mention Twitter

Jurkowitz: “Who’s going to pay for quality journalism? Cheap news = TV pundits. $$$ news = investigative, bureaus, beats (incl. envt.)”

Jurkowitz: Seems to be defining “quality journalism” only as packaged stories by pro news orgs. I strongly disagree. Process, not product!

IMHO, this will be the big hurdle: Getting journalists (but NOT the public) to understand that quality journalism can take very diff forms.

Jurkowitz: “10-15 yrs ago, media world would have recoiled about wealthy private financing of journalism like Propublica.”

Jurkowitz: “A little good news: 91% news execs surveyed think investigative journalism is still important: http://snurl.com/56r0h

@100yearsofcsm They still haven’t mentioned Twitter yet, any way to nudge moderator on that?

Ellen Hume, MIT Center for Civic media up now…

Hume: “The yen for real information in communities is pracitally universal. People want to know what’s going on.”

@100yearsofcsm My Q: Can the panelist envision journalism that isn’t confined to pckgd stories, but rather is conversation, updates, etc.?

Hume is mentioning that TalkingPointsMemo community is where atty gen scandal emerged.

Hume: “You (anyone) can commit an act of journalism” (I like that she talks about tasks of journ, not just stories.)

Hume: “Journalists should not be popular. If they’re popular, there’s something wrong. If J’s just popular/comml. viable, something’s wrong.”

Hume is describing Ft. Myers News-Press crowdsourcing effort on sewer billing: http://snurl.com/56r6x

Up now: Douglas K. Smith: Exec. Director, Sulzberger News Media Executive Leadership Progam, Columbia U: http://snurl.com/56qey

Smith: “News orgs were 1:many. Technically monopolies or oligopolies. We need to deal with that.”

Smith: “News org cultures grew up around biz/editorial Berlin wall for 40+ years. There are consequences to that.”

Smith: “News orgs have inherited armed camps, internally. That’s a problem.”

Smith: “What’s broken today? Who is the audience, what do they have in common w/ ea. oth? How do you find/keep them?”

@DPoulson I agree, but I’m surprised the sewer bill anecdote is still news to a lot of MSM folks

Smith: “Existing news orgs have very few gen mgrs – broken leadership/mgmt model. Most impt broken piece of news biz today.”

Smith: “If you don’t have gen mgmt perspective, you don’t have any way to blend components to creat sustainable news orgs.”

Smith: “Most of us, we live our lives in markets, networks, orgs, friends, family.”

Hashtag to follow for Monitor webcast on future of Journalism (live now): #CSMFOJ http://snurl.com/56rhj

Up now: Sree Sreenivasan: Columbia J-school new media program head & Dean of Student Affairs: http://sree.net #CSMFOJ

Sree post-election context: “Smart use of tech had a central role in eventual victor of pres. race.” #CSMFOJ

Sree: “Obama campaign brought a souped-up NASCAR engine to a go-cart race.” #CSMFOJ

Sree: “Hard to imagine, but in last pres. election cycle, YouTube did not even exist!” #CSMFOJ

Sree: “Old news tech was abt perfection. New news tech is abt good enough. We shouldn’t lower our stds, but learn from new tricks” #CSMFOJ

Sreetells how Flip video connects his kids’ grandparents in India to his kids lives fast. #CSMFOJ

Sree: “Google is celebrating its 10th anniversary NOW. Looking fwd, we need to blieve & know there’s good stuff still coming.” #CSMFOJ

Sree: “Keep an open mind (to media future) but don’t let your brains fall out.” #CSMFOJ

Q&A starting now;

Hume: “Media channels are merging — on your phone, computer. Much richer experience, but puts more pressure on journalists.” #CSMFOJ

Hume: “MIT is developing tools to select video clips by finding a few words, being able to search & select.” #CSMFOJ

Hume: “Video is at the heart of everything.” #CSMFOJ

Smith on broadcast future: “Inside ABC news, for Iraq coverage the expectations for perfection were very expensive.” #CSMFOJ

Jurkowitz: “Will broadcast journ students have anywhere to go? Yes. Things change, but not instantly.” #CSMFOJ

Jurkowitz: “Perpetual Q: When is nightly newscast gonna end? It won’t. TV is a powerful, persuasive advertising medium.” #CSMFOJ

Q: “How do you verify info (esp photos) in crowdsourcing situation?”

Hume: “We all have to develop more new media literacy. You have to take more responsibility for what you take seriously.” #CSMFOJ

Yemma: “When you’ve got the ‘good’ and not the ‘perfect,’ how do you deal with veracity concerns?” #CSMFOJ

Sree: “Audience has responsibility. If you get a photo and are not sure it’s true, don’t forward it.” #CSMFOJ

Sree: “What I see: recommendations from friends taking precedence over recommendations from news orgs.” #CSMFOJ

Sree on Friend recommendation priorities: If 1 friend recommends, skeptical. If lots, pay more attention. #CSMFOJ

Sree: Even Wikipedia says it’s not a first source. THEY tell you to stuff out. #CSMFOJ

@jeffcutler I don’t think entire population needs to be a “skilled reporter.” Just more caveat emptor mindset, which IS possible.

Hume: “Journalism is a flow, but news *papers* are not. Big Q is how do we serve democracy by distributing facts, not just opinion?” #CSMFOJ

Jurkowitz: “Print newspaper will continue to evolve into more niche, less time-sensitive channel.” #CSMFOJ

Yemma: “Print increasingly seems like a specialty product.” #CSMFOJ

Yemma: “Online you have infinite space, but not infinite access to attention.” #CSMFOJ

Jurkowitz: “On NY subways everyone IS readin print paper; The Express: Cliffnotes version of todays news.” #CSMFOJ

YAY! Yemma just acknowledge us here on Twitter!

Sree: “Still photos remain powerful. I think you’ll have both — stil photog AND video. Doesn’t have to be either/or. #CSMFOJ

Sree: “We’re in a golden age of radio now! We just call it audio. #CSMFOJ

Hume: “Can a pro photog get paid for taking pictures when everyone has a dig cam? I don’t have the answer for that.” #CSMFOJ

Q: Are j-schools really prepping students for the work & jobs they will be doing? Great Q! My answer: Mostly not #CSMFOJ

Yemma just admitted that the narrative lede doesn’t really work well in print, let alone online. I agree. #CSMFOJ

Hume: “I love that when you do the story online, you can assemble not just info & content assets, but access to active groups.” #CSMFOJ

Sree: “It was a lot easier to teach online media in 1999 because no one knew anything.” #CSMFOJ

@jeffcutler pretense of not existing is ONE WAY to do journalism. Not the only (or only valid) way.

Q: Monitor reader: “Online J does not need a newspaper. So how does news biz preserve editorial integrity to sustain print journ? #CSMFOJ

Smith: “J values incl accuracy, skepticism, effective storytelling. But diff audiences have diff needs, weight those differently.” #CSMFOJ

Smith: “News orgs NEED aud members to interact to help guide how the news org brings those values together in coverage.” #CSMFOJ

ACK! I just lost the streaming video & audio! #CSMFOJ

OK, just refreshed browser window, stream back now #CSMFOJ

Q for Sree: How do we marry “perfection” with “good enough?”

Sree: “I hesitate to romanticize great historical journalism like Watergate coverage like it only existed in the past.” #CSMFOJ

Sree: “You see new examples, new voices of great new journalism. like Nate Silver of http://fivethirtyeight.com” #CSMFOJ

Sree: “http://fivethirtyeight.com had best polling this election of all poling operations, using technology & ground reports.” #CSMFOJ

Sree: “Nate Silver is a baseball stats geek, not a trained journalist!” #CSMFOJ

Great idea! RT @waynesutton: I really think it’s time for @newmaya & I to start our journalism camp for newspapers & journalist #csmfoj

RT @100yearsofcsm: @BarbaraKB The entire video of tonight’s event will be posted on the FOJ website tomorrow afternoon.

Sree: “If I’d invested in Rafat Ali years ago, I’d eventually be a millionaire many times over. http://paidcontent.org” #CSMFOJ

Hume: “J-students: The public will capture the moment/headline. Your job is to be a tour guide in media landscape, bring expertise. #CSMFOJ

Hume: Face time is still deeply important with sources, community. Don’t just rely on tech, even phones. #CSMFOJ

Jurkowitz: “When you watch “All the President’s Men,” today, amazing how slowly it’s paced. No studio wld greenlight today.” #CSMFOJ

@100yearsofcsm Oh bummer, are they just going to blow off all Twitter questions for this event? :-/ #CSMFOJ

@100yearsofcsm People have always chosen news/channels that suit their worldview. That’s not really new to online/mobile.

@100yearsofcsm Ok, so conversation “continues” at monitor, but how can people not at the monitor participate?

Apparently, entire video of this webcast will be posted on tomorrow pm: http://snurl.com/56tfn

This concludes my live coverage. My main twitter ID is @agahran, please follow me there. I use this ID only for event coverage. Thanks!

@100yearsofcsm When you say “check back w/ us for updates” – where? Twitter? Web? Other? about 14 hours ago from twhirl

My main twitter ID is @agahran, please follow me there. I use this ID only for event coverage. Thanks!

Thanks to TechGRL for the tip!

(NOTE: I originally wrote this for Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits. I’m cross-posting it here because I think it might also interest Contentious readers.)

This morning I read in the New York Times a cold litany of everything that’s going demonstrably wrong with the newspaper business. (Found it thanks to Jim Romenesko.) It’s a long, depressing, and familiar list: layoffs, buyouts, papers folding, declining revenues, etc.

A couple of things Richard Pérez Peña wrote in that story caught my attention.

First, “Newspaper executives and analysts say that it could take five to 10 years for the industry’s finances to stabilize and that many of the papers that survive will be smaller and will practice less ambitious journalism.”

Yeah, no kidding. Personally, I’d be surprised if many dailies are left standing after the next 7-10 years, if they don’t make fast, fundamental changes to their revenue strategies. (I touched on this theme yesterday.) I realize this is dire news to people who can’t envision doing anything but working for a traditional newspaper. But on the bright side, for those with flexibility and a bit of business savvy, I think that right now there is more space than ever in the news market for entrepreneurial journalistic ventures.

Why my optimism?…

Pérez Peña also wrote: “The paradox is that more people than ever read newspapers, now that some major papers have several times as many readers online as in print. And papers sell more ads than ever, when online ads are included.”

Here’s how I see it: News providers, ad networks, search engines, and advertisers all function together in what I like to think of as “the relevance industry.” I think this industry needs better infrastructure, collaboration, and mutual understanding and respect in order to fully develop and thrive.

I suspect the first step to make it all work is by news orgs finally figuring out how to constructively partner with online ad networks to deliver greater relevance at a more granular level. Also, we need to enhance systems and strategies for selling and placing locally relevant ads online, via mobile content, and even in print.

These measures could keep the money rolling in, to support a diverse array of quality journalism that would in turn engage diverse communities on many levels. Right now, most online ads presented by news orgs are poorly priced and sold — and shockingly lacking in relevance.

Established news brands (like major dailies) may have a major advantage in persuading ad networks to collaborate and innovate — should they choose to stop squandering it. So far, the more sophisticated, specialized, lucrative ad networks have been pursuing the low hanging fruit. News orgs, thanks to institutional inertia and byzantine ad systems, have not looked very tasty in that context. That can be fixed.

But if the major news orgs fail to adapt, it’s important to keep in mind that you don’t necessarily need to be a big company in order to be a good business — especially as the era and appeal of mass media wane. Smaller, more numerous, entrepreneurial ventures with less overhead and inertia could be the future of journalism.

This could be implicit in what blogger Dan Kennedy wrote today in his critique of the NYT article: “I think [Pérez Peña] is …wrong that news sites (let’s not call them newspapers) will be less ambitious. Perhaps by ‘less ambitious’ he means more focused on local news. That’s true. …But that’s not less ambitious — it’s just different.”

(By the way, I found Kennedy’s post via the Wired Journalists community, which I mentioned earlier.)

Lately I’ve been learning more about, and getting quite intrigued by, the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program. Yesterday I listened to an IT Conversations podcast talk by Michael Evans, VP of corporate development for Redhat, one of the leading producers of Linux and open-source technology. That really tied together for me why this project is so compelling.

Originally I’d thought this project was interesting but rather frivolous. I mean, when millions of kids are dying around the world every year from malnutrition, dirty water, preventable diseases, and toxic environments — let alone the lack of energy and communication infrastructure in many populous parts of the developing world — a laptop sounds a bit like like Disneyland.

But now I think I get it. Here’s what I find so compelling and significant about OLPC…

1. It aims to give human minds a chance to grow and connect – especially in places where they’ve been actively thwarted from doing so, well, forever. Creating more smart, literate people who can talk and create together is the most fundamental step toward addressing killer thorny issues like food security, endemic violence, energy production and distribution, environmental degradation, public and personal health, and more. It also has the potential to topple oppressive power structures (social, economic, governmental, ethnic, religious, gender-based, etc.).
2. It’s become a kind of high-tech Apollo project. Several major players in forward-thinking technology companies and from the education world have devoted some of their top minds to this nonprofit collaborative effort. Like the “man on the moon” effort of the 1960s, this can lead to many kinds of tech breakthroughs that have diverse applications.
3. Shedding old tech baggage. The target market for this project are kids — even as young as four or five — who have never used a computer and therefore have no assumptions about how it should look or work. This allows freedom to completely rework basic ergonomic, networking, and user interface issues; which kinds of software and features to include; and generally how to make technology conform more to developing human minds (instead of the reverse, which is how we’ve ended up saddled with many of the more limiting aspects of current computers, like the desktop metaphor).

I’ll be following this project more closely — especially because I think some cutting edge minds from the media and journalism world could, and should, get involved.

This project could open the minds of an entire generation to a world of information. And they won’t be simple audiences, they will be content creators who will form collaborative communities. How are they going to perceive all that information, and what will they do with it? They’re going to need something that goes beyond “media literacy.” My colleague Justin Crawford suggested yesterday that they’ll really need “information literacy.” I think that’s a great idea, and I plan to explore it further.

Of course, altruism is combined with self-interest, or at least survival skills. Look at it this way: If this project (or something like it) takes off, it could represent a fundamental shift in what future markets for news and information (i.e., future generations) will be like, what they will want and expect, and the role media organizations and professionals can play in meeting those changing demands.

I suspect this shift will go far, far beyond trying to save print newspapers. It’ll probably be more about shifting from the publication concept to building new businesses around creating relevance, supporting discovery and collaboration, and enhancing public conversations. Just a guess.

…I’m not saying OLPC is a perfect project. It has its detractors, and its schisms. But it definitely seems, to me at least, to be less of a misbegotten boondoggle than “No Child Left Behind.” It’s worth a look, and media folks probably should be paying attention and getting more involved. We have a role to play here, too.

To get started, here’s the OLPC project overview, and the OLPC wiki.

What do you think? Please comment below.

The bottom line is that he predicts the software we use will not be something packaged that we buy, but rather something we cobble together from modular components available online that get recommended to us by communities. This could have a lot of implications for flexibility, customization, security, and speed.

Makes me think of how I use the Firefox web browser right now. I couldn’t do my work without my Firefox add-ons. And yes, GTDinbox is quickly proving indispensable to me for managing tasks.

Thanks to Amy Webb for the tip.