: It is a soul crushing environment and after ten years in east Texas I got the hell out of one of the worst cultural backwaters of the US or I would become like so many of the people I knew. To tell these folks about events and places that they do not know about(thank the US educational system) can lead to an information overload and when capacity for handling social information is pushed to the limits,
: many fall back upon stereotypes as mental shortcuts.Which is a coping strategy to save cognitive effort.: To at least understand this much is something we need before we can make much headway and to get many people who go by their conventional
: ideas and notions to rethink their positions over. We have our work cut out for us and some reading too.
The Net can make our job a lot easier. I thought of myself as a very politically-aware person, yet even I have learnt so much since I came online last month. Just think what the average American could learn ***if they were pointed in the right direction***. And the kids as well - just think - they're so much more open-minded, imaginative and exploratory. We should encourage kids to spend *hours* on the Net (with breaks of course) - it's so educational!
Two big things that would help: targeting people and opening up access to computers and the Net. With sites like McSpotlight, we need to make sure that 100% of people who are looking for something in that area find it, and that it's near the top of the list - and lots more people happen on it "by accident". How can we do this? 1) Get search engine hits; 2) Get linked to by big-hit sites; 3) Link to each other, a lot more, more prominently. BUT NO SPAMMING!! (it just annoys people)
There are already guides being sold on search engine targeting: this will be big-money business for commercial advertisers - I mean *big*. But it will be even more important for us non-profits and individuals with messsages to spread. At the moment these guides cost money. However, I have no doubt that some enterprising person will think up the idea of giving this info away free (maybe with advertising to pay for it). What we want is a system where we can choose a certain topic, and find all the most popular search engine queries in that area. Then we can make sure we're near or at the top of the list on nearly every relevant search query, by tailoring the keywords on our sites! Wouldn't that be brilliant!
The second one, opening access, is being covered a lot by public education programmes around the world, and by Bill Gates' "computer in every library" scheme (bless his soul - he's done something right for once!). I'm also working on a program now called Evolution, which will make computers and the Net easier, more natural, very flexible, and maybe more fun! It's an ambitious project, so I'm afraid I doubt there'll be anything much to see for a few years - particularly seeing as I'm at University at the moment.
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Robin Green, 1st-year undergrad @ Lancaster University, UK
Likes: computers, teaching (!!), politics/activism, serious
talk, new ideas, colourful people! >>>>> Nickname: bluejet
Please visit http://www.lancs.ac.uk/ug/greenrd/home.htm
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McSpotlight notes:
Look forward to lots more hits thanks to your efforts.
Please let us know how you get on.
None.
