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I just realized something… Of the 3 weblogs we had set up for the “Small Pieces Loosely Joined” session at NMC2004, only the “Centralists” weblog is still alive… Hmmm…

I just posted some pics from our trip to Vancouver and Victoria for the NMC 2004 Summer Conference.

View the photos

The NMC 2004 Small Pieces session yesterday went extremely well (I think ) – it was very chaotic, noisy, confusing, loud, and messy, but I think it was interesting or at least entertaining for all.

There was activity on the wiki, some on the weblogs, and some iChatAV video conferences. The Decentralists group wound up too deep in a very compelling discussion to break away for iChatAV. Our discussion turned into one of the most vibrant and engaging experiences I’ve had in quite a while (thank you Decentralists!)

We’ll all be keeping an eye on the wiki and weblog over time to see what happens after the conference…

The Norman family is just about ready for the big trek across the Rockies. We’re heading to Vancouver for NMC 2004 Summer Conference, then across to the Island for a few days before returning home.

As a result, things are likely going to get quiet(er) around here. I’ll likely be blogging something from the NMC 2004 conference, but aside from that, I hope to be completely offline for the week following the conference.

My major deliverable before the conference was a sorta-functioning XStreamDB EOAdaptor, so WebObjects apps can talk to XStreamDB without jumping through a bunch of hard-coded hoops. That’s working pretty darned well, so there are only a couple of minor things I need to take care of before the conference. I’m planning on some productive time in the car during the trip through the mountains, if Evan behaves…

It should be rather quiet around the Learning Commons, as Mike and King are also making the trip to NMC 2004 – for Pachyderm and APOLLO stuff.

I’ll try to check in a bit in the next week, but after that, I’m tuning out for a week.

UPDATE: We’re being total tourists. Stopped at Hell’s Gate, Capilano Suspension Bridge, Vancouver Aquarium, followed by an amazing beach barbeque provided by Brian and Keira on Spanish Banks (thanks Brian and Keira!)

We’ve taken 160 pictures since Monday morning. I’ll hopefully dump around 80% of them, but there are some real gems in there…

I’m in the NMC 2004 conference until Saturday afternoon, then it’s off to Victoria for a couple of days, then the long drive home…

Well, we’re about an hour away from the Small Pieces session at NMC 2004. There has been a surprising amount of interest from people in the hallways, and some actual traffic on the weblog and wiki.

My gut tells me this may go exactly one of two ways, either:

1. Raving success
2. Confusing chaotic failure

My vote is currently on the first one (I think this is going to be fun for all involved, too), and I’m hoping that the real meat of the session shifts away from the tools themselves and into the somewhat contrived discussion we’ve tried to set up.

I’m sure more posts will follow in about an hour…

I’m trying a little experiment over on the Decentralists Weblog for the NMC 2004 Summer Conference.

The weblog can be edited via the web, and is password protected. I’m going to try it for a while with a public password, so folks can add/edit content. I’m not crazy. I’ve backed it up so if things go south I can restore it pretty quickly.

Flame-retardant suit is handy, just in case…

Alan, Brian and myself are hitting the road again. This time, we'll be presenting at the NMC 2004 Summer Conference in Vancouver (June 16-19, 2004).

The topic of this presentation is "Small Pieces Loosely Joined", and it's a session that we hope will be a bit, well, different. It's a hands-on session, with attendees actually playing with (er, using) some of the various tools that are available.

The plan is to take the folks in Vancouver, and split them into 3 groups. We'll assign each group to a role. They'll become either "Centralists" ( bent on global domination with the One True Application ), "Decentralists" ( complete anarchists, with bits and pieces scattered across and off the 'net ), or the more conservative "Fence Sitters" (who will try whatever works, but aren't religious about it).

The point of the exercise isn't to sort people into they groups they feel they belong to – that would be boring and less-than-productive. Nope. You're going to get randomly assigned a group, and you'll get to think critically about the pros and cons of a particular perspective. You might even learn something

As another twist, we're counting on contributions from the Rest of the World. Those who can't make it to Vancouver are encouraged to participate in the session online. There are a whole bunch of people who have volunteered to contribute already! Here's your formal invitation

We've got a bunch of tools available:

• Small Pieces Loosely Joined Wiki – Session Mission Control – collaboratively created and edited website (feel free to add/edit content!)
• Centralists Weblog
• Fence Sitter Weblog
• Decentralists Weblog
• Session Weblogs At-A-Glance
• NMC 2004 Conference Weblogs At-A-Glance

As yet another twist, we're experimenting with as many tools as possible, and trying to duct-tape them into a cohesive system. We're blogging in 3 completely different environments (MovableType, Plone, Blosxom), using a wiki, using RSS all over the place, iChatAV/AIM/ICQ, and probably a few other tools I've forgotten about.

All of the content is being actively worked on, and will grow/evolve between now and the conference (and hopefully beyond). This is proving to be a truly organic project – it's taking on a life of its own already!