Citizendium Blog

Well, I am now back and “back in the saddle” after a full week away.  First I went to Oxford, to have a public debate with Andrew Keen.  That was fun.  I especially enjoyed walking around the different colleges and meeting different people.  Andrew wrote his Independent column about the event.  Yep, I was honored to be invited to talk to the dons after dinner, but I think that’s just because one or two of the guests wanted to chat — nope, Andrew, it wasn’t to “illuminate the rest of the Balliol community with the secrets of wiki business.”  I did talk with the Master of Balliol who was a disarmingly unpretentious man, exactly the opposite of what some might expect, but which I found very much in keeping with old stories I’d heard or read about Oxford.  I heard from the man himself that Adam Smith, J. M. Keynes, Joseph Raz, and a host of other luminaries were or are at Balliol, and wandered that very quad.  We did not talk about how Balliol or Oxford might get into the collaborative knowledge production business. 

Then from the very old to the very new, I went to Santa Barbara to participate in a very interesting meeting, without presentations per se — but instead the more creative format of a giant group conversation.  S.B. may soon have a Social Computing program.  Liz Losh wrote about the proceedings in her blog.