On Connecting Networks

Thank you, Jack, Shannon, and the Meshforum team for sharing this guest blogger space with me. Meshforum in Chicago in May is about networks of networks so I'm fascinated. Not yet sure I can make it to Chicago but I know a bit about networks. I feel lucky (though sometimes a bit tired!) that my networks stretch from Aztlán to Greeneville and Asheville, Washington, DC, Rome/Roma, Port-au-Prince, Skopje, Mogadishu, Nairobi, Paris, London, Zagreb and points in-between. I'm also examining our human group boundaries; our intersections and divisions. The links & gaps between human technological and other 'capabilities' versus our 'willingness' or 'unwillingness' to network and communicate with each other. A related online project of mine is an information and research-sharing site called COMING OUT COLORED: Negotiating the Digital divide in social Computing. When I think back on big innovations in human communication technologies - like the radio and the telephone - but especially those in human mass comm (versus the more intimate interpersonal comm) - it's hard for me to find anything else quite like the Web. There's also our work as humans on refining & tweaking our still-developing Social Networking capabilities - the tools: software and technology - along with managing, "massaging", cultivating/growing our level(s) of willingness to network and to communicate. One of the "biggie" issues across the globe remains realities of needing to better bridge and link our diverse yet inter-related language/linguistic communities. Our work - and a bit of FUN (and travel) along the way - is cut out for us... Peace, & Ciao a tutte/tutti!