My friend Lorraine told me if you want something done, ask a busy person.  This is true.  You’d think it would be better to find someone who has the time to accomplish the task but no, the person who will get it done is the one who is already doing things.  Think about it, think about everyone you know who gets things done and compare them to your friends who don’t do a lot and see how it’s the one who is in get it done mode seems to find the time.  So maybe this is all a state of mind thing.  For me though, I am in that get it done mode.  For me it’s that I do things that people around me don’t know how to do and I like doing what I do, so I take on those tasks knowing that my plate is full (whatever that means).  Troy had some good advice when he said that I need to exercise the teacher in me and be teaching everyone around me how to do what I do so that, in time, I am surrounded by an army of people that know how to do what I do.  For some reason though, I haven’t been able to inspire that kind of interest and am so booked with projects that there’s no time to show people (very bad yes I know).

The tool I found is called divvy.com and it is a free online sharing system — a system to help you share your resources with others that manages the mundane scheduling and availability negotiations completely.

With divvy.com, you list the things you have or do as well as the times you have available to share those things.  Then people can look at your resources and schedule you.  I will give this a try.  I will list a few things that I know and when I’m free to teach someone how to do it.  Then I will print up some of those free business cards (what’s the name of that company that does free business cards?) and give them out to the people around me.  Depending on the task, I will create assistive materials that range from a screenr demonstration to a set of print instructions.  Hopefully we’ll have some takers because what I hope to get out of it is the joy of sharing (I really do like teaching others things they want to learn), and a person who “owes me”.  I know that’s a horrible way to work, but I’m sure most won’t mind the opportunity to reimburse me in time.

If the net effect of this effort is more people who can help me get things done, then I will be happy.  If not, I will try again.  This morning though, after I spend some time on divvy, I will look for the real divvy us and see if I can’t list the remaining tasks in the social network project I’m working on so that Andre can help me finalize it.

What you will need:

• A company to host your installation ($6/month)
• A URL to point to your installation ($8 / year)
• A credit card or paypal account (priceless)

When I was researching which host to choose, I learned that if they support Buddypress, everything was automated.  The highest recommendations I got were for Bluehost and Dreamhost.  I tried both and like both — they  both use a tool called cpanel which is your control panel for everything related to the site.

1. Purchase hosting with Dreamhost or Bluehost.  ($6/mo)
2. Log in to the Cpanel (URL will be given in email)
3. From the Cpanel, click on Domain Manager
4. Select and purchase the domain name you want to use (sometimes they’re free in conjunction with hosting)  ($8/year)  Take your time looking for this and I would try http://domai.nr for ideas
5. Go back to cpanel and select Simple Scripts.
6. Choose Buddypress off the next screen and when it asks what URL, select the URL you just  purchased.
7. Copy the Info (username, password, site url, admin url) down in a safe spot.

That’s it!  Want me to elaborate on something? Feel free to ask.

Remember the housing Bubble of the early 2000′s?  How it looked like we were entitled to houses for $500 down and $500/month?  And how it really wasn’t true and the mistake initiated the biggest financial downturn of our time?  Well, consider the Fall of Ning your warning alarm.  And the subsequent Ning-xodus,  another fallacy-exposing lesson for us.  The lesson? Services cost money.

Services cost money.

People actually work for companies that offer free services though, and they don’t work for free.  How do they get paid if the company’s product is free?  In a good economy, advertising is a miracle worker because when they have it, Americans LOVE spending money.  It humors me how people do it for fun!  (i.e. I’m bored, let’s go spend money.  YES LETS)

Maybe during the product infancy of web apps and services, the cost to roll out our favorite innovative web2.0 gizmos didn’t  exceed the  financial target that it made sense for companies to offer their services for free.  Some of these companies figured out alternative revenue streams and stayed free.  Best example, Google is free-ish.  You know how they make money?  They sell all your search habits, behavior patterns, and other data gathered from your experience in front of the computer.  Yes, the free search engine makes money from selling your online persona — essentially, you.  So what was the cost to you?  It wasn’t free, it cost you your privacy as every communication through the search giant is subject to worldwide exclusive irrevocable  reprint rights by the free search engine with the funny name.  In summary, the free model of web2.0 services eventually has to end and nothing causes this end faster than a tanking economy because your expendable money is different now, and you’re not clicking on ads as much.  Expect to see more of our favorites passing out the collection basket.

Expect to see more of our favorites passing out the collection basket.

Now let’s change the scene.  In walks the stretched to the limit  edtech pioneer.  A tech-evangelist at heart, the edtech pioneer is a hero, always dreaming new ways to leverage technology to improve student learning or increase the efficiency of our technology team.  The thought of being burdened by the support needed to migrate their social network to ANY platform is unnerving.  SO, why when choosing another platform, do most edtech people select the hosted Grou.ps as a new home for their blog.  You know it won’t be long before they start advertising or charging for core services, or for add-on services?

I’ll be the first to admit:  setting up a free WordPress / Buddypress solution is more difficult than setting on up on Grou.ps.  But it’s not that difficult.  Actually, as the WordPress community has demonstrated one of its greatest advantages — its ability to organically evolve into more than it was without a company investing in R&D and without it being officially sanctioned.  With a repository of 10,804 plugins designed to do EVERYTHING that can be done on the web, WordPress/Buddypress offers the most flexible, expandable platform available today.

So why, oh fellow beleaguered edtech soldier, after being burned by a hosted solution, would you put your trust in another hosted solution?  Hosted solutions are good for newly emerging networks, networks that are led by people who may not know whether or not to use a blog or discussion forum for their next topic, but not for you.

Hosted solutions are an excellent vehicles for those new to PLNs because the concepts, components, and communities facilitated by social networks are complex enough that the additional burden of managing the technology behind it is asking too much for the average person exploring the technology.

This is the role of hosted solutions, in my mind.

Take a look at this comparison chart created by my blog reviving blog-sister, the Innovative Educator and myself:

I hope I haven’t stepped on too many feet with my diatribe.  Taking all the drama out, I would say to my colleagues:  Don’t miss out on an opportunity to challenge yourself to learn a rewarding open source social network platform because of the intimidating learning curve.  YOU are the highly technical person who needs to take off the training wheels and explore more than what you are comfortable with.  You’ll be building capacity in yourself, planting yourself in a fertile ecosystem of innovation, and creating opportunities to lead the technology into new directions that only an educator can dream up.

Jamestown Tyran on a pleasant spring day

Hello invisible readership.   I am re-introducing myself to you as therapy for my horrible addiction.  I am addicted to technology.  I suffer horribly from my inability to stop using technology or reading about it or talking about it.  My therapist (a very knowledgeable chat-bot AI) says the problem is that I’m not sharing out what I am learning and that I am suffering from technology overload.  So here goes…

Hi, my name is Jamestown Tyran, and I am a technology omnivore.  When I go to work I love technology, when I come home, I use my laptop, in the middle and before and after I have my cell phone permanently attached to my hands and I can’t stop using it.  When it’s time to eat, I go on seamlessweb, when it’s time to sleep I can’t because I am learning about new apps for my phone, when it’s time to … well you get it.  I’ve slept with my laptop, gone swimming with my phones, and so I am a technology omnivore.

Kidding aside, I wonder how much of that should really be considered a problem?  Probably the part that’s true — I do love technology.  But I love technology for its ability to create new channels of learning primarily.  I love it for its ability to connect me to my friends and family, to give me opportunities to meet new people, and to share and learn how people are using it to better their lives.  Like Cisco, I believe it’s the human network, so I will attempt to share what I learn in hopes that you can learn how best to fit technology into your life.

My interests lie in the following:

1. educational technology
2. mobile technology
3. web apps, social networks, and blogging
4. virtual reality for immersive learning environments
5. web design and development
6. technology predictions (especially in the educational technology realm)
7. reflections on news and happenings in the world of technology

So, this is a one person blog, and this time, I’m only going to say I live in New York City because I am a mystery and my chat-bot suggests a quarantine of the condition will spare the free time of countless others.

Thank you,

Mr. Jamestown Tyran