Memorandum
Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2000 08:53:32 -0800
| From: | Bernie DeKoven, bernie@dekoven.com |
| To: | Rod Welch, rowelch@attglobal.net |
| Subject: | DKR and Collaboration |
Thanks, Rod. I understand and appreciate the connection [set out in your letter yesterday, January 22, 1999].
My interest is in nurturing a dialog about new human roles and skillsets that will need to coevolve with the evolution of the DKR.
The technographer is one such example. It refers to the facilitation of real-time gathering and synthesis of information that takes place during a computer-augmented meeting. The skill of the technographer rests on both social and technological mastery -- human and computer processing -- to engage people in a dialog towards the production of a document that reflects their common knowledge and wisdom. Doug was experimenting with this in the 60s, and though he apparently became very adept at facilitating on-line, real-time collaboration, he never, to my knowledge, identified the skillset he was employing. This skillset is what I have come to call technography.
There are other related skillsets. The on-line moderator or on-line facilitator who works to maintain effective dialog in chats and discussion groups is of real significance to our exploration of the human side of DKR.
Nancy White...
...is one of my prime referents in this art. Her website and discussion group...
...are excellent resources for anyone interested in exploring the dynamics of this new role. Howard Rheingold has identified a role he calls "Cybrarian." The Cybrarian helps create needed connections between conversations and other on-line resources. For more on this, join Howard's "Brainstorms" community...
By the way, I was very impressed by your use of hypertext, and how you integrated that into journaling, etc., and would hope you share more of that with us -- how you arrived at that, why, what tricks you use, what new skillsets you've evolved in doing so....
Sincerely,
Bernie DeKoven
Founder and President
The Technography Center