Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Originally Unititled
Strange! whens I began to create this new posting, I found there was no space for me to add a title; I checked a couple of times under "Edit Post" and still no space for a title; but persistence was rewarded, and now a title space has reveled itself. I think it might have had something to do with the settings for the blog. Anyhow I decided may as well go ahead and write what I was going to write.
As a gardener without a garden - living in a small space in New York's Upper West Side - I have found myself thinking of my online and database work as a virtual garden in which I find myself spending the long hours I used to spend in the last garden I had of my own, on Homestead Street in Baltimore, where I had the good fortune to buy an old three-bedroom house and an adjacent empty lot - with a total of about one third of an acre all told that I bought for a grand total of $24,000! - in which I would garden to my heart's content.
For me now, I find myself seeing the many projects, web sites, etc. that I am developing as part of a nursery in which I am tending to the growth of many different plants and species. Just as in my garden in Baltimore I would shift my focus from one area of the garden to another, not worrying about the other parts, letting them lie dormant and trusting I could come back to them whenever I needed, so it is with the many different projects that I have been cultivating in the fertile realms of information ecology.
Now, I think it is time for me to open up the nursery, and share more fully what has been growing, clarify the relationships between the various areas of growth, and rearrange the various areas to that the nursery as a whole is more coherent, create a network of paths that make it easier to see the patterns and relationships that have been growing.
It also may be time to create some clearer boundaries between the different areas, so that instead of having connections from anywhere to everywhere else, the separate spaces can become more well-defined and self-contained so as to reduce some of the confusion and bring a cleare focus on the particular nature and characteristics of each of the separate areas, and in the process, make it easier for visitors to understand the specific purposes and visions of each area.
I am very much looking forward to meeting tomorrow with Meg Connollie, with whom I have been discussing my work and vision since a serendipitous phone call from her a week or two ago, and looking at how to present the various projects - as well as the broader context of information ecology - in a way that could allow the much-needed resources so information ecology can move into a new, long-awaited phase.
UI am about to leave for the mosque, as tonight is the eve of Ramadan - the first Ramadan that I will have begun as a Muslim; it was just before Ramadan last year that I attended a dhikr at Saint Bartholomew's Church and Ramadan eve was the date of my first visit to Masjid al-Farah.
As a gardener without a garden - living in a small space in New York's Upper West Side - I have found myself thinking of my online and database work as a virtual garden in which I find myself spending the long hours I used to spend in the last garden I had of my own, on Homestead Street in Baltimore, where I had the good fortune to buy an old three-bedroom house and an adjacent empty lot - with a total of about one third of an acre all told that I bought for a grand total of $24,000! - in which I would garden to my heart's content.
For me now, I find myself seeing the many projects, web sites, etc. that I am developing as part of a nursery in which I am tending to the growth of many different plants and species. Just as in my garden in Baltimore I would shift my focus from one area of the garden to another, not worrying about the other parts, letting them lie dormant and trusting I could come back to them whenever I needed, so it is with the many different projects that I have been cultivating in the fertile realms of information ecology.
Now, I think it is time for me to open up the nursery, and share more fully what has been growing, clarify the relationships between the various areas of growth, and rearrange the various areas to that the nursery as a whole is more coherent, create a network of paths that make it easier to see the patterns and relationships that have been growing.
It also may be time to create some clearer boundaries between the different areas, so that instead of having connections from anywhere to everywhere else, the separate spaces can become more well-defined and self-contained so as to reduce some of the confusion and bring a cleare focus on the particular nature and characteristics of each of the separate areas, and in the process, make it easier for visitors to understand the specific purposes and visions of each area.
I am very much looking forward to meeting tomorrow with Meg Connollie, with whom I have been discussing my work and vision since a serendipitous phone call from her a week or two ago, and looking at how to present the various projects - as well as the broader context of information ecology - in a way that could allow the much-needed resources so information ecology can move into a new, long-awaited phase.
UI am about to leave for the mosque, as tonight is the eve of Ramadan - the first Ramadan that I will have begun as a Muslim; it was just before Ramadan last year that I attended a dhikr at Saint Bartholomew's Church and Ramadan eve was the date of my first visit to Masjid al-Farah.
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Having decided to take the plunge into blogging - with the thought of maintaining a blog for some of the key domains and concepts relating to information ecology, I am taking this blog to another level - at least for the time being - by forwarding the information-ecology.net domain to this blog.
The study & science of information ecosystems - and of information habitats and information species - based on an appreciation of the nature of information systems as ecosystems, of the fundamental nature and properties of information as evolving life forms, and of the one light in all of creation.
Although it wasn't until the Spring of 1996 - in the context of the last stages of preparation for Habitat II: the Second UN COnference on Human Settlements - that I began to use the phrase information ecology, the roots of my development of the concept go back to May 1990, when Information Habitat: Where Information Lives was conceived - at the Caring for Creation interfaith conference that was held in Washington, DC, to mobilize faith communities in preparation for the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
I had become invovled with the preparations for Rio through my participation in the Friends Committee on Unity with Nature and the process of compiling a set of Quaker Queries on Unity with Nature that had been included in an Environmental Sabbath Programme organized by te UN Environment Programme.
One of those queries in particular: "Do I extend the Quaker practice of answering that of God in every person to answering that of God in all creation?" had particular resonance for me, and I took "all creation" to mean not just the "natural world" but everything in creation. I had already been immersed in the world of microcomputing for ten years, and had taken to the medium like a duck to water, and had realized the vital importance of microcomputers and computer communications in preparation for the Earth Summit.
I had been working for the Caring for Creation secretariat, mostly organizing the registration databawe, but when it came to the conference itself, I had no particular role, but was able to get a space in the exhibit area and set up my laptop computer with a dial-up connection to IGC/EcoNet to provide access to the electronic conferences for Rio and to demonstrate the possibilities of computer communication and electronic mail, using Informaton Habitat: Where Information Lives as the name of the exhibit.
What is Information Ecology
The study & science of information ecosystems - and of information habitats and information species - based on an appreciation of the nature of information systems as ecosystems, of the fundamental nature and properties of information as evolving life forms, and of the one light in all of creation.
A brief history
Although it wasn't until the Spring of 1996 - in the context of the last stages of preparation for Habitat II: the Second UN COnference on Human Settlements - that I began to use the phrase information ecology, the roots of my development of the concept go back to May 1990, when Information Habitat: Where Information Lives was conceived - at the Caring for Creation interfaith conference that was held in Washington, DC, to mobilize faith communities in preparation for the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
I had become invovled with the preparations for Rio through my participation in the Friends Committee on Unity with Nature and the process of compiling a set of Quaker Queries on Unity with Nature that had been included in an Environmental Sabbath Programme organized by te UN Environment Programme.
One of those queries in particular: "Do I extend the Quaker practice of answering that of God in every person to answering that of God in all creation?" had particular resonance for me, and I took "all creation" to mean not just the "natural world" but everything in creation. I had already been immersed in the world of microcomputing for ten years, and had taken to the medium like a duck to water, and had realized the vital importance of microcomputers and computer communications in preparation for the Earth Summit.
I had been working for the Caring for Creation secretariat, mostly organizing the registration databawe, but when it came to the conference itself, I had no particular role, but was able to get a space in the exhibit area and set up my laptop computer with a dial-up connection to IGC/EcoNet to provide access to the electronic conferences for Rio and to demonstrate the possibilities of computer communication and electronic mail, using Informaton Habitat: Where Information Lives as the name of the exhibit.
