A VC - Latest Comments in Default To Public

Re: Default To Public

fredwilson — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 09:38:24 -0000

Unclass - I love it!

Re: Default To Public

Kyle Mathews — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 00:13:39 -0000

I'm helping run an experimental class at BYU where the class is run mostly over an collaboration site. Students choose their own topics of study and self-organize into groups where there's a shared interest. A key part of the design of the class is as you say, the default for everything that happens is public. All homework, projects are submitted to the group website so students can see each other's work and learn from one another.

This is a huge difference from a regular class where students submit work into the dark belly of the homework beast, never to see the light of day again.

The class website:
https://island.byu.edu/grou...

Re: Default To Public

Kyle Mathews — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 00:12:25 -0000

Ha! Completely agree.

Re: Default To Public

Dorian Benkoil — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:57:51 -0000

Teams using wikis is a great idea. Not sure it works for individual assignments, where the students' voices need to be preserved as distinct.

Re: Default To Public

skmurphy — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 15:02:26 -0000

Wikis dissolve individual authorship into a team or group. For class assignments that are group projects you might find your students already using wikis: they are a great way for a small team to reach a working consensus on a document against a deadline.

Re: Default To Public

fredwilson — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 06:36:06 -0000

Good points about where a wiki comes up short

Re: Default To Public

Dorian Benkoil — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 23:11:31 -0000

Thanks. I'd love to hear more about how you think a Wiki could/would have been useful in such a class. I could imagine incorporating one, in addition to the social network. I considered a wiki, but guessed that for the purpose of assignments, and the requirement that I grade them, I had to have contributions remain distinct and separate, to know what an individual student contributed. Also, wikis I've used tend to require a bit more acumen -- the user, at the least, has to know how to do simple linking and understand basic Web authoring. Finally, social networks make it easier to sift and segment -- this stuff here is assigned, that stuff over there is optional, and so on.

Separately, I could imagine a Digital Marketing Wiki -- something to which anyone teaching a course like this, or who is interested in participating in the scholarship, could contribute. Something to start, perhaps.

Re: Default To Public

fredwilson — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:40:18 -0000

Wow, that¹s great dorian

It¹s interesting that you used a social network platform like Ning instead
of a wiki platfrom like media wiki

Re: Default To Public

Dorian Benkoil — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:18:55 -0000

I don't know that it's generational. More of a mindset, I'd conjecture. my comment below notes that some in a marketing class I taught eagerly contributed to a social network while others were resistant, regardless of age.

Re: Default To Public

Dorian Benkoil — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:14:16 -0000

Today, I've made public the Ning social network my students and I used in my MBA-level digital marketing class at the Zicklin School of Business at Baruch. (I first gave the students multiple chances and notices to delete any material they did not want the world to see -- during the class, whose grading period formally ended yesterday, I wanted all to be in a "safe" environment free from possible embarrassment, employment risks, etc.). It's here http://internetmarketingbar..., including dozens and dozens of links to articles, etc, from the students and me.

The students' weekly assignments were posted publicly, as were discussions, videos and more. Some students took to it, and enhanced each others' material. Others, despite urgings, continued to send material to me privately and resisted posting publicly. I can say that I learned from the students' public sharing in a way I might not have had they not shared and discussed with each other, and I believe the level of discussion improved both on the network and in class, as well. It's been a learning experience for me, and I believe the next classes I teach will be enhanced by this experience -- I also hope the experience for students will continually get better.

Re: Default To Public

Michael_Josefowicz — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 11:53:22 -0000

Nice quote. Education may turn out to be fixed with a "get out of the way" approach.

from Michael Rattner, in the post.
But what was cool was that once the discussions became public, the answers kept getting better, because rather than me interacting with one student at a time, I was continuously challenged by all my students at the same time! And students were helping students.

Unfortunately university policy was to delete the forums after a class was over, to prevent cheating, or some such petty reason.

Re: Default To Public

Joe DiPasquale — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 11:47:29 -0000

That type of course info-sharing is also what we're going for with http://www.CollegeWikis.com . . . everyone adding, sharing, and creating information for all to see from the wisdom of crowds.

Re: Default To Public

fredwilson — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 06:29:06 -0000

Thanks!

Re: Default To Public

Guest — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 21:23:12 -0000

Oh PS, the guy said he was 13 and never thought any differently.
Your trip sounds amazing - you will keep up as the kids go to school but I
know exactly what you mean about travel changing. They have opinions and
want to do what they want to do so things change. But my kids remember
their years of growing up in terms of our traveling (much like yours)...so
far so regardless of stress it seems it has been the best investment we ever
made in terms of our family unity. I am only one year ahead of you with my
oldest by the way. Safe travels!

Re: Default To Public

Doug Kersten — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 21:10:43 -0000

You got that right!!

Re: Default To Public

fredwilson — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 18:33:10 -0000

That would freak me out too!

Re: Default To Public

Guest — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 14:28:04 -0000

Fred my kids are the same, won't friend me. But if you go to the niece (I'm sure she is connected to you-that's the case for me) and look at her friends, you will find your daughters there and can click on her to see everything via that connection. Unless they knew to go and make their settings super private (not the default, which is "let all friends and friends of friends see me, or something like that).

Re: Default To Public

Guest — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 13:40:13 -0000

I'm not either but I had something happen with my younger daughter (now 15)
2 years ago that scared me. I got a phone bill with hundreds of text msgs
to Utah. We don't know anybody in Utah. Found out it was someone she met
on an MMO in a game, 23 years old, she was too naive and actually gave out
her phone number for text. And I had given plenty of talks about privacy,
but somehow in a game she felt differently. She referred to him as her BF
in a text (I asked her to show me her phone after I saw the bill). I agree
totally with giving my kids privacy but - just in case. I am sure she
learned her lesson from that at a young age, she was absolutely freaked out
(so was I).

Re: Default To Public

fredwilson — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 13:33:06 -0000

I am not that eager to watch what my kids do on facebook. I just wanted to tag them in a photo

Re: Default To Public

fredwilson — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 12:27:20 -0000

I couldn't tag my daughters in a facebook photo from my niece the other day because my daughters won't 'friend" me on facebook

I understand why they won't friend me, but these privacy settings get in the way of discovery (in this case their discovery)

Re: Default To Public

fredwilson — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 12:27:17 -0000

I think the gotham gal would sympathize with your career challenges and choices

With two daughters, I am acutely aware how hard it is on women who want to have a career and a family

Re: Default To Public

fredwilson — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 12:26:09 -0000

I love what you all are doing with getsatisfaction. It clearly shows that publicly customer service is a better model

Re: Default To Public

tempo — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 02:31:38 -0000

"Default to public" is our refrain at Get Satisfaction. The big question that we started the business around was "what would customer service look like if it defaulted to public?" We had the Flickr anecdote in mind, and thought this inversion of traditional assumptions could be transformative not just for the company, but for customers, too. The social norm for customer service interactions is usually all around defensiveness, so we hypothesized that the right kind of public context could change the social norm to mutually sympathetic. We've been very pleased with the results, though the perennial challenge of anonymity and misaligned expectations are still tough nuts to crack.

Re: Default To Public

Yule Heibel — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 19:11:39 -0000

Well, my career *was* short-lived - my son was born at the same time as I finished my dissertation (he was 9months old when I got my first teaching gig at MIT), and my daughter was born 3 years later (after a teaching stint at Brown that involved commuting from Boston's North Shore to Providence, RI - crazy).

I would have loved to have stayed at MIT, but it's very hard to find all the extra hours to meet the demands of what at the beginning is basically a vocation, almost monkish in terms of what it requires in devotion. My colleagues mostly had wives at home - but in my case, I was the wife, lol...

I'm the first person in my family to get any kind of secondary education, so obviously also the first to go to grad school and get a PhD. No immediate role models to speak of, and my Marxist academic advisor was too busy critiquing the capitalist system (all from a safely theoretical perspective while ensconced at Harvard and later Berkeley, of course) to do anything much to support or mentor *any* of his students, perhaps because in his mind helping us in a practical way (through networking support, for example) would have implied buying into "the system."

Left largely to my own devices I didn't do as well as I should have, that's for sure. I guess it means I have some personal experience with failure... ;-) Anyway, now I'm oversharing!

Oh, and PS just in case anyone is wondering: Mark Zuckerberg was never in any of the art history sections I taught at Harvard. I think he was there in the mid- or late-90s?, while I got my PhD in 1991. ;-)

Re: Default To Public

Guest — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 16:33:40 -0000

Hi Fred,

This posting, in combination with your post about Facebook still being the center of the world for your kids, prompted me to start a long overdue blog about how different generations view (and use) social media. I just don't think that "Public" is too easy for most of the upcoming generation unless they feel they are insulated (like a college website) - they've been taught to be careful by their wise parents! (us) Facebook is save and insulated too (people used to feel that way about AOL, although they used screen names). I linked back to your post from my blog, and I will have my teenagers occasionally write. 3 generations and how they all live with social media (www.livingsocialmedia.com) , it is interesting to think (and write) about.