6 rules for using free services

With the withdrawal of the free version of Ning being announced on their blog, I’ve witnessed some interesting responses. One colleague was rather dismayed as he was just about to use Ning for a new social community he was setting up. This simply emphasised to me the differences people have towards the philosophies underpinning current technology and innovation. For me it’s not about a service being withdrawn and then going into panic mode, but perhaps we do need something like this to remind us of modern working practices.

Here’s some comments:

1. A service can be withdrawn anytime. It seems obvious, but many become lulled into a false sense of security.
2. Treat such events as opportunities. When this happens it allows you to examine what you are doing, how you are working, and revise your practices. Update and improve your practice. After using Ning for a few years perhaps it’s time for a change.
3. Always be on the lookout for alternatives. New and better services are springing up all the time. Keep experimenting.
4. Always have a backup plan. If a particular service is vital to your activities, back up the data you hold with that service using another similar service. E.g. back up your social bookmarking by using Diigo and Delicious, store copies of your blog posts elsewhere.
5. Don’t be too precious about you stuff. Consider if it really matters if some things are lost. I recently cleared out the garage and found a right load of rubbish I’d been clinging on to; research from nigh-on 20 years ago, I’m not actually going to miss it now it’s gone into recycling.
6. Keep moving, things change (it’s the only sure thing), just deal with it.

It also emphasised to me the importance of the PLN. After starting a discussion about the loss of the free Ning service, there was a flurry of alternative solutions offered.

Openness via Martin Weller

I really like Martin Weller’s thinking, and have referenced him during presentations in the past. I enjoy his ‘The Ed Techie’ blog, and his comments often get me thinking.

Today I had the pleasure of reading his Reflections on openness post. Whilst reading it and watching his presentation via Elluminate I typed the following.

Surely if you where going to start a university now, you wouldn’t do it.

Universities would seem to be institutions designed to perpetuate elitism. With open education are we really still tied into the promotional rewards of these institutions. Should the emphasis in reward come from the community and its valuing of the resources you provide to them, the time you invest, the quality of the discussions you initiate/perpetuate? I believe one has to question from a society perspective the value of closed environments for education now; when digital resources are enabling free access by anyone to some of the greatest thinkers in the world, and providing a platform for anyone with a well-reasoned opinion to be heard and entered into dialogue with. We no longer have to be told who the experts are, we can make a more valued judgement ourselves. I’m not foolish enough to believe that the openness presented to us by this digital world will lead to a free, utopian education for all, and the demise and dismantling of universities, but there are people willing to provide their time and effort to assist by freely sharing their time and resources without necessarily requiring re-numeration for their work. Creative Commons is showing us that.

Whilst accessing Martin’s post, I also had the pleasure of following Mark Smither’s link to his blog. Here is someone else whose writing are going to influence some of my thinking from now on.

I love this social web thingy, and the path of inquiry it can lead you on; a winding path for sure, but one with many places of interest.

I’ve been following Martin on Twitter for a while, and I’m now also following Mark.

A couple of other things occurred to me whilst reading the post and response:

Has the idea of a journal gone to the wall, when open information can have reviewed directly by the community – i.e. peer review?

The Cloudworks concept seems to be looking at unifying resources, a concept that I considered a couple of years ago and then abandoned. It seemed to me more appropriate to retain information on the open web and search for it there, rather than ‘close’ it down again; cloudworks  potentially is an elitist approach attempting to corral and vet information and therefore a philosophy I don’t necessarily hold with. Not even sure it will work. Howard Rheingold created something similar, and I found I didn’t have the time to engage with that. I’m personally moving further away from several Ning based communities for similar reasons or time and access.