I had never heard of Clay Shirky before I saw this talk on TED, but I am definitely going to pay attention now. He talks at first about the difference between one-to-many or one-to-one communication that we’ve had in the past (print, telephones, recorded media) vs. the many-to-many model we have now (with Twitter, the web, etc.). He goes on to analyze how organizations or countries that try to censor and control such citizen-powered communication end up failing miserably (i.e. China), whereas organizations that “convene but do not control” their citizens succeed spectacularly...

If you haven’t already seen this, it’s worth a watch. Susan Boyle’s name is being spread across Twitter and email as the perfect example of why you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. She appeared on “Britain’s Got Talent” as a self-described 47-year-old unemployed woman who has never been kissed with a cat named Pebbles. When she says she wants to be a professional singer, the audience members and judges laugh, roll their eyes, etc. No one believes in her. And then…well, just watch the video: Now there are multiple fan sites for Susan Boyle, as...

I think this video is a really interesting glimpse into the truth of the changing world we live in. It may look familiar to you – Karl Fisch, an educator at Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colorado, created his original “Shift Happens” presentation as a glimpse into the changing world of communication and learning. It quickly became an Internet phenomenon, with various versions viewed on YouTube more than five million times. The version above has been remixed by Sony BMG Music Entertainment, and updated for 2008. I do think it’s funny that the last statistic they focus...