Hyde and seek
Interesting talk by Lewis Hyde on the commons - thanks to Jon "Wirearchy" Husband for the pointer. David Weinberger live-blogged it here.
What is proper to Hyde's talk - just the talk? It seems the Berkman Center thinks so. The Berkman offers a ton of interesting talks on its site. What's not here is any follow-up discussion, exploration. Where does responsibility toward ideas and their dissemination begin and end?
What is proper to Hyde's talk - just the talk? It seems the Berkman Center thinks so. The Berkman offers a ton of interesting talks on its site. What's not here is any follow-up discussion, exploration. Where does responsibility toward ideas and their dissemination begin and end?
Labels: Berkman Center, commons, David Weinberger, intellectual property, intelprop, Lewis Hyde
posted by Tom Matrullo at Thursday, June 18, 2009
16 Comments:
It seems that no commoners were invited to participate in the discussion. It appears that only a select few were invited into the elite Berkman enclosure.
"There is a fellow somewhat near the door, he should be a brazier by his face, for o' my conscience twenty of the dog-days now reign in's nose..." #
Kent, the event was open to the public. Most of the people in physical attendance were not members of the Center. All events are also webcast and are open to all. There's also an IRC chat during the events, again open to all.
Tom, I'll check on why we don't have comments on the media pages. I doubt it's because we don't like discussion of what we post.
David, I didn't assume it was that. Rather, I think as the affordances of video, podcasts, and other means of presentation become more widespread, the desire to use them might outrun a more cautious curation that would regard both immediate presentation and give and take, and more distant responses, anticipations, and echoes. Some day we might see far richer contexts for such talks and the talk they give rise to.
Tom, then I'm confused. I read your post as a criticism of the Center for not providing on its site "any follow-up discussion," etc. What is it that you're suggesting that the Center do? There's too much going on -- as you say, a "ton" -- to allow us to do much more than post the video and throw it out into the world (via CC).
I do feel they should offer the follow-up. But as the locus of some serious thinking about matters of intellectual property and the importance of dialog, the Center might explore a means for doing more than "throwing...out into the world" a talk that persists in part because it generates comment, response, and further thinking. The editorial labor of tracking the fate of a conversation might seem onerous. On the other hand, putting the talk out there in a sort of orphaned state - because technology allows one to do so - seems unsatisfying. An editorial hand could link from the talk to the discussion, to the live blogging of it, and comments flowing from that, and other observations and notices. If a talk like Hyde's cuts a swath through the world, the site where it first came online might be a good place to engage to follow that path. I.e. commit to the development and after-history of ideas, not merely to their initial expression, because otherwise that capture of the expression becomes yesterday's news, when it fact it might also be today's.
IMO this:
n editorial hand could link from the talk to the discussion, to the live blogging of it, and comments flowing from that, and other observations and notices. If a talk like Hyde's cuts a swath through the world, the site where it first came online might be a good place to engage to follow that path. I.e. commit to the development and after-history of ideas, not merely to their initial expression, because otherwise that capture of the expression becomes yesterday's news, when it fact it might also be today's.
.. is the core point of having the linky-thinking and tagged "talking" capabilities the Web affords us. What better to show the both / and of centralization and de-centralization operating in simultaneous asynchrony.
Putting "the gift" out there whilst also curating, in a place that may matter, some of the deep and rich dialogue that may eventuate.
Tom, in a perfect world, the Center would both track the traces the out-throwing causes and provide ways to interact more. But, the Center instead strikes a balance (as we all do). So, while obviously more could be done on the media pages (like the one with Lewis Hyde's webcast), that webcast is not the only way the Center participates in the life of Lewis' work. The Center has a couple of dozen multi-year projects underway...including supporting Lewis in his research and thought. (The Center isn't the only community supporting him, of course). The webcast is itself just one manifestation of its support, one way of engaging with Lewis' work.
So, take a different weekly lunchtime talk. Say it's the digital natives project reporting on some research. The webcast shows up on a Berkman media page like the one for Lewis'. It might look like the Center is doing nothing but throwing a video out onto the waters, but that video itself is only a small part of the Center's multi-year support of the research, which includes engaging in public discussion in many fora, bringing in student interns and visiting fellows to study this topic and go back into the world, writing papers and books, etc.
So, I agree that the webcast pages could use some ways of encouraging interaction and furtherance, etc. But: 1. We don't have the resources to do much more than we're currently doing; 2. The webcast pages are already only one way in which we're trying to engage and further the conversations.
If there are ways we can further engage that don't require us doing more than our already stretched resources can do, I'm sure the Center would be open to ideas.
Your fan,
David W.
David, thanks for your kind fanhood (reciprocated) and additional thoughts. I see the Hyde page at the Center links to his talk and to your and EZuckerman's blogging thereof:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2009/06/hyde
At least the beginnings of a path are there. Editorial designers might consider a how the word cloud for a particular post might be made to reflect linkbacks to particular words in the post from other sites.
Anyway, I did not intend to single out Berkman. The point was how presentations are often presented and then absented - as in current forms of commercial journalism - pretty much everywhere. E.g., Yale lectures on Milton do not (or didn't the last time I looked) link outward to other resources, other lectures. Everyone sort of thinks it's their game, when in fact the game is so much larger.
Fwiw, see the emphasis in this follow-up post.
David and Tom -- Thanks for clarifying. My first impression and comment was incorrect -- sorry to have posted it.
We are working on an integration that would provide more context around videos on the main Berkman Center site, as well as providing better synchronous conversation around webcasts. In the meantime, because we're aware that our current video pages are thin, we also post digital media on a separate blog (http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mediaberkman) with comments enabled (for Lewis, see this post). (Some videos are posted in a third location, on YouTube.) In any case, thanks for this thread; we're always experimenting with how to present and re-present presentations at the Center -- and always looking for feedback. -Seth, Berkman Center
Thanks, Seth, for the links, the information, and the work behind all of this.
Cheers, Tom. Your follow-up post is fascinating, trenchant, articulates some of the things the Berkman core staff obsesses over, thus the endless tweaking and experimentation with digital media outputs and other bits of what They call "content."--Would love your thoughts on how one can overcome the contradictions in sharing conversations "qua segment, qua object" (and not simply in the Berkman Center context). To indicate where in larger dialogic flows these conversations can be located is a vexing problem -- both in staff bandwidth terms and when you move toward technical implementation online. All of which is to say, we appreciate any/all feedback; please feel free to email me (email can be found in the Berkman staff listing online) so that I can share with the relevant Berkman folks. -Seth Young
This comments thread is verging on being a "conversation".
It would be (will be ?) interesting to follow some of what has been reiterated, amplified and carried forward into other "conversations" (Tom's more recent post being an example of "carried forward").
One might carry the conversation forward by jumping back a couple of weeks to David Bollier's talk at Berkman: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/interactive/events/luncheons/2009/05/bollier.
Jon, Seth, thanks for the comments, the link to Bollier (friends are excitedly reading him), and your interest in the problem. There is the incongruence -- the somewhat poor match between the rich thicket of semantic relevance (amid the vast miscellany in time) and the pure metaphoric simplicity (forward/back, up/down)and illusional trap of space. Design and editing are in a constant state of tension around this, no?
My issue fwiw with many sites is they begin by forgetting there is anyplace else. Any other locus. I call this media network solipsism (MNS);), and find it rampant. It took the NY Times years to "discover" it could link outside itself. Brands cannot allow those they intend to seduce to think of anything but themselves. It's an irritating absence of self-sufficience, aggravated by commercial systems (loaded for bear) in precarious markets. I'll try to keep up with the Berkman, Seth, and look forward to further tweakments. (Exit, pursued by a bear)
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