Web 2.0-ness

First let me say that I miss OSCON terribly this year. I've been for the last two years and enjoyed it a great deal, but with the Italy trip this year, it just wasn't in the cards. OSCON is the annual open source convention, primarily for practioners, and I enjoy going to it and reflecting on what is new. It is a great way to remind a professor that the state-of-OUR-art actually begins in industry, not in academia.

One of the memes from last year's OSCON is still generating much buzz: Web 2.0. Now Tim O'Reilly has a nice posting that attempts to delineate the various levels of Web 2.0-ness. He asks and answers: What makes the difference between the "2.0-ness" of Flickr, Ebay, and wikipedia? And where does Amazon fit in all this? It's a nice article and very clear.

Why Blog?

Nice article in the Chronicle about why it is good for professors to blog and to read blogs. As if I needed any encouragement... read the repost by the author here: Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: The Invisible College.

counter-signaling

I was reading on one of my favorite economics blogs (Marginal Revolution) this morning, and came across a posting about counter-signaling. Ciunter-signaling is when you deliberately send signals to others that are counter to expected signals (a professor dressing in jeans, for example, ha ha).

There is a link to another article in which the authors examined whether it is wise to disclose one's own good news. (Posting about oneself on e-net comes to mind. I have discussed this numerous times with colleagues before and we are never sure of the etiquette surrounding self-congratulatory postings on e-net).

The abstract:

Is it always wise to disclose good news? We find that the worst sender with good news has the most incentive to disclose it, so re-porting good news can paradoxically make the sender look bad. If the good news is attainable by sufficiently mediocre types, or if the sender is already expected to be of a relatively high type, withholding good news is an equilibrium. Since the sender has a legitimate fear of looking too anxious to reveal good news, having a third party disclose the news, or mandating that the sender disclose the news, can help the sender."

So basically, having the dean issue a policy that demands that "all faculty must post about ourselves on e-net" would improve the likelihood that we would not be seen as bragging. Alternatively, sending one's information to an intermediary (say, the Office of University Relations) for posting on our behalf would also improve the liklihood that the good news would be received positively.

In the article they also discuss the restaurant health rating system, one of my favorite topics, and something with which we are all familiar here in North Carolina. (Here is the link to Alamance County restaurant ratings (notably out of date), also each numeric and letter grade rating is posted in the restaurant when you walk in. This applies to the whole state.)

The methodology uses signalling of a PhD title in voicemail greetings and course syllabi (hypothesis: professors who identify themselves as Dr or Professor at a research university are being ridiculous because everyone has a PhD, but if you identify yourself as such at a lesser university, you're signaling your value, so this is useful information and not bragging).