Jeremy Keith:

“The web does forget on what you stay or do.”  Read: don’t be afraid about Google of Facebook.
“Storing information on a long term is a problem.” Keith’s advice: DIY (hosting), ‘open’ rules (format, data) and use a liberal policy (Creative Commons).

Jeremy Keith on Phare Conference from REC Radiocentrum on Vimeo.

Gary Vaynerchuck

“Twitter is about listening, not about talking.”
“Content is King, context is God”.

Gary Vaynerchuk on Phare Conference 2011 from REC Radiocentrum on Vimeo.

They just introduced InMaps (found via BVLG), a product that let’s you visualize your network. The result is a color-coded map that represents the different groups in your network. Colors are given to people who have (or had) the same employer, people working in the same industry etc. This is my map (click to enlarge):

On my map, I found 3 groups related to a former employer, 2 groups who are related to a specific industry and 3 groups who where difficult to label. A lot of my network consists of people I met on unconferences, blogdinners or via social media networks. The only thing they have in common is a blog and/or a Twitter-account.

Something interesting are the bigger names on your map. They represent people who are the most connected within that specific cluster or group. Most probably they are they are the ‘influentials’ within that group.

One more thing. I can’t really see who is closest to me on the map, but one of them is my better half. Funny.

If you’re not familiar with Leweb, they bring the hottest entrepreneurs, investors and media personalities of the internet on stage. This year, my two favorite talks were a bit more off topic. They have been labeled as “TED“-talks and I agree on that.

The first talk I liked was by Dr. Bertrand Piccard from Solar Impulse. His grandfather made the first ascents into the stratosphere, his father made the deepest dive ever and Betrand himself was the first to fly around the world in a balloon. His next project is even more challenging; fly around the world in a solar airplane. I admire people like him a lot, their drive and belief to change the world. They just do it:

The second talk was given by Ariel Garten, CEO of Interaxon. Her company is all about thought controlled computing. I was stunned about the possibilities their technology can offer: from a greater gaming experience to a medical revolution for those sitting in a wheelchair. I have to say, Ariel made me think of a character in a fairy tale, but she and her technology are not fiction but reality. Have a look at this great technology:

More of Leweb on YouTube and Ustream.

In my first study, we search for reasons behind the technology acceptation of learning management systems (LMS) by secondary school teachers and also investigate the instructional use of the LMS. I ‘ve been writing 2 conference papers about it and they are submitted to international conferences. My first scientific article is almost ready to be submitted. If they get accepted, the results will be available… somewhere next summer.

So unfortunately, I can’t publish lots of details already, but I did publish my first international conference presentation on Slideshare.

Looking forward to your comments.

I’m especially interested in weeks 2 topic “contrasting personal learning with institutional learning”. More specifically the question: is a PLE the opposite of an LMS, or can it be part of it? Just in case you don’t know, my PhD research is about the use of LMSes (also known as VLE or ELO) in secondary schools.

My focus on the LMS topic is one of the main reasons I guess, why this MOOC will be different for me then the previous one. I have this one niche domain now I will focus on. Other reasons are the fact I did CCK09 for credits (Belgian PhD requirements) and I was a MOOC newbie last year. To conclude: I will focus and scan this time, instead of drowning.

If you want to follow the course, you can still subscribe. If you just want to lurk, you can choose between the daily newsletter, the Moodle course, all sorts of online publications tagged #plenk2010 or my favorite (non-official) channel: the #PLENK2010 Daily.

That’s exactly what scientists do by peer reviewing articles of other scientists for the academic publishers. Research being a tax-payer funded activity, one could expect the output is freely available. Wrong. Most universities suffer from an almost never ending subscription price increase. Last week, this resulted in the University of California considering a boycott of the Nature Publishing group (via Frederik Questier on Twitter).

So I wondered, me, being a junior researcher and a big fan of open access, who wants to publish 2 articles next year (*), would I be able to publish in Open Access journals only?

The answer today is ‘No’. I did some research, and it looks like in my field almost no journals are already indexed in the ISI Web of Science. So I guess I will have to spend some tax-money myself (by writing an article for free) in order to obtain my Ph.D. Disappointing.

(*) At my university, only articles published in journals who are indexed by the ISI Web of Science databases ‘Science Citation Index’, ‘Social Science Citation Index’ and ‘Arts and Humanities Citation Index’ are considered ‘valuable’ (**) for a Ph.D.

(**) Update: Only students who published at least 2 of those articles will receive their Ph.D.

Tim Ferriss gave a short keynote (video) at The NextWeb 2010 in Amsterdam on how to deal with haters (and their negative feedback). A part of that keynote was dedicated on 7 principles that help you deal with negative feedback (they were originally published on Mashable by Amy-Mae Elliot).

1. It doesn’t matter how many people don’t get it. What matters is how many people do.
2. 10% of people will find a way to take anything personally. Expect it.
3. “Trying to get everyone to like you is a sign of mediocrity.” (Colin Powell)
4. “If you are really effective at what you do, 95% of the things said about you will be negative.” (Scott Boras)
5. “If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.” (Epictetus)
6. “Living well is the best revenge.” (George Herbert)
7. Keep calm and carry on. Focus on impact, not approval.

The principles were originally meant as a (mental) response to the commenters on Tim’s blogposts (somewhere between 200 and 2000 comments a post) and overall critiques he received on his book, but I think they are worth a thought as well for negative feedback you receive in your personal or business life.

Note: I’ve been writing a lot on my Dutch blog about the ideas and principles of Stephen Covey, David Allen and Tim Ferriss. If you’re into GTD and Lifehacking, I would recommend you to read them as well.

Anyway: keep calm and carry on.

During my previous workshop, a participant suggested to incorporate my own PLE as an example. That’s why I decided to make a Prezi presentation. It’s my first Prezi ever, so don’t expect a spectacular effect.

Making a Prezi seems pretty simple, but I have to admit I spent a few hours just on creating the one included above.

The workshop (Dutch) can be found Slideshare.

The list of speakers was quit impressive: Gina Bianchini (CEO Ning.com), Jeff Jarvis (Buzzmachine.com), Lawrence Lessig (Creative Commons), Jay Rosen (prof. journalism), George Siemens (connectivism) and David Wiley (reusable learning objects).

I will include David Wiley’s one, as he plays an important role in my own Ph.D. research:

More information can be found on the TEDxNYED website, all video’s are published on the YouTube TEDxTalks channel.