Thursday Meetings at Berkman Blog

Neither j nor Erica can host a meeting this week. If anyone wants to gather the group together for food or some other fun activity, either post details here and send a note to the list or get j to update the blog for you.

Upcoming meetings & events:

• Want a cool internship? Berkman is hiring! (hint, the Open House is a great way to get plugged in)
• Want a cool job? Berkman is hiring for several open employee positions.
• 10/9: j plans to lead a meeting despite it being Yom Kippur. Thoughts on a topic are welcome.
• At some point, we should take advantage of Berkman’s RockBand set and have a music party in lieu of a normal meeting.
• It’s getting to be time to have another dim sum gathering, too.
• See the Berkman Calendar for other upcoming Berkman stuff.
• Feel free to publicize related events here! Let Erica or j know, comment, or add them yourself if you have an editor account.

Jason Pramas from Open Media Boston will join us this week. About OMB:

Open Media Boston is an online media outlet dedicated to regularly publishing fair and accurate news, views, arts, and entertainment content in text, image, audio and video formats from a progressive political perspective for the Boston, Massachusetts, USA metropolitan area. We are an audience-centered publication that will constantly solicit submissions and commentary from the general public using the latest social media technology while maintaining professional journalistic standards at all times. We will always strive to balance open participation with editorial control in the service of this goal.

Upcoming meetings & events:

• Wednesday, 9/24: Berkman Open House, 7 p, 50 Church Street in Harvard Square
• Want a cool internship? Berkman is hiring! (hint, the Open House is a great way to get plugged in)
• Want a cool job? Berkman is hiring for several open employee positions.
• NO MEETING Thursday 10/2 (both Erica and j have unavoidable conflicts). j does plan to lead a meeting 10/9 (which is Yom Kippur).
• At some point, we should take advantage of Berkman’s RockBand set and have a music party in lieu of a normal meeting.
• It’s getting to be time to have another dim sum gathering, too.
• See the Berkman Calendar for other upcoming Berkman stuff.
• Feel free to publicize related events here! Let Erica or j know, comment, or add them yourself if you have an editor account.

This week, let’s have an open forum. Between recent speakers and activities, we haven’t had a chance for folks to bring up general questions or issues in a little while. Have something you want to say? Wanna talk about Harvard’s recent WordPress Mu upgrade? Join us!

Next week, Jason Pramas from Open Media Boston will tell us about that project.

Upcoming meetings & events:

• Saturday, 9/20: Software Freedom Day in Boston and elsewhere, hosted by the Free Software Foundation
• Monday, 9/22: Microsoft Research New England Opening in Cambridge, MA
• and One Web Day (Hosting YouTube Town Halls across Massachusetts)
• Tuesday and Wednesday, 9/23-24: Internet Safety Technical Task Force Open Meeting
• Tuesday, 9/23: John Palfrey and Urs Gasser talk about their book Born Digital, Austin North Classroom, Austin Hall, Harvard Law School
• Wednesday, 9/24: Berkman Open House, 7 p, 50 Church Street in Harvard Square
• Want a cool internship? Berkman is hiring!

• At some point, we should take advantage of Berkman’s RockBand set and have a music party in lieu of a normal meeting.
• It’s getting to be time to have another dim sum gathering, too.
• See the Berkman Calendar for other upcoming Berkman stuff.
• Feel free to publicize related events here! Let Erica or j know, comment, or add them yourself if you have an editor account.

We will not meet because of Ignite Boston 4. 6 to 10 pm at the Hooley House, 25 Union Street, one block from Faneuil Hall in Boston, MA. It is up to you to RSVP: IgniteBoston at oreilly dot com.

Note updated URL with more details!

Upcoming meetings & events:

• At some point, we should take advantage of Berkman’s RockBand set and have a music party in lieu of a normal meeting.
• It’s getting to be time to have another dim sum gathering, too.
• See the Berkman Calendar for other upcoming Berkman stuff.
• Feel free to publicize related events here! Let Erica or j know, comment, or add them yourself if you have an editor account.

Blog group member (and head of one of Harvard’s interdisciplinary research centers) Zach Tumin has been thinking about open access in the university, and wondering how to open up Harvard’s discussions even more – both to the public, and within the internal Harvard community:

What’s the problem? There exists huge untapped potential to see, use and advance research going on around the University. Today it lies behind the boundaries of Harvard’s stand-alone schools, and locked into statuses like “student” or “staff”.

That potential represents the University’s greatest assets: its brains and its reputation.

How would we specify/launch a social media capability for Harvard where any student, faculty or staff could post papers, do crowd research, share bookmarks – and collaborate across the boundaries of the schools and statuses?

Come help us brainstorm about what we’d want, ways to go about it, etc. If you could build something like this today (for Harvard or any other school), what tools would you use? What would you want it to be like?

Upcoming meetings & events:

• September 11: We will not meet because of Ignite Boston 4. 6 to 10 pm at the Hooley House, one block from Faneuil Hall in Boston, MA. It is up to you to RSVP: IgniteBoston at oreilly dot com.
• At some point, we should take advantage of Berkman’s RockBand set and have a music party in lieu of a normal meeting.
• It’s getting to be time to have another dim sum gathering, too.
• See the Berkman Calendar for other upcoming Berkman stuff.
• Feel free to publicize related events here! Let Erica or j know, comment, or add them yourself if you have an editor account.

The Olympics are over. Please come back to blog group because we have exciting visitors this week! Remember Michael? He’s leading a group of folks from Japan to various tech gatherings in the Boston area, including our group this week. They will talk about blogging in Japan and various other related topics. Join us for a fun cultural exchange!

Upcoming meetings & events:

• September 4: Zach Tumin
• September 11: We will not meet because of Ignite Boston 4. 6 to 10 pm at the Hooley House, one block from Faneuil Hall in Boston, MA. It is up to you to RSVP: IgniteBoston at oreilly dot com.
• At some point, we should take advantage of Berkman’s RockBand set and have a music party in lieu of a normal meeting.
• It’s getting to be time to have another dim sum gathering, too.
• See the Berkman Calendar for other upcoming Berkman stuff.
• Feel free to publicize related events here! Let Erica or j know, comment, or add them yourself if you have an editor account.

We basically didn’t do anything ’cause the few folks who showed up didn’t stick around to chat.

Sure, you want to be home watching the Olympics. I do, too. But at 7 p on Thursday night, you’re going to realize the Olympics don’t start until 8 p. I’m not going to watch them because of the contradance anyway. We may as well discuss technology for a while. My suggestions:

• Technology and the Olympics: who’s doing what? How are people or athletes using it this time around?
• Continue the discussion from last week about marrying Web 2.0 technology with the needs of people seeking real estate, especially roommate situations
• I’m looking for recommendations about cool sites to share with librarians during an 8/22 talk
• Handling spam via WordPress: what’s available besides Akismet?
• Great XML directories: where do you send a new RSS reader who wants to subscribe to lots of feeds?

What are your suggestions? Upcoming meetings & events:

• At some point, we should take advantage of Berkman.s RockBand set and have a music party in lieu of a normal meeting.
• It.s getting to be time to have another dim sum gathering, too.
• See the Berkman Calendar for other upcoming Berkman stuff.
• Feel free to publicize related events here! Let Erica or j know, comment, or add them yourself if you have an editor account.

Berkman needs the conference room this Thursday so we’re planning a picnic! Since our last picnic kinda got rained out, let’s have some fun outside the HLS student center (Harkness Commons), which has a beach volleyball court, tables, etc. and has an indoors area we can retreat to if the weather decides to get snarky.

Berkman has a bocce set; we need someone to bring a volleyball. Bring your own food, tho if folks also want to bring snacks / sides / desserts / beverages to share that’s a bonus.

UPDATE:

We ARE still planning to get together tonight, but we will be INSIDE due to the rain (what is it with us trying to have picnics and rain?). Go to the Harkness Commons (the law school student center) and go DOWNSTAIRS. There’s a nice little lounge area and also a nice tables-and-chairs area; we’ll see what works best depending on the size of our group. Harkness Commons is the building with the volleyball court outside it – if you’re in the right place, you should be able to look out the window and see the beach volleyball court. (Map)

REMEMBER, bring your own food! The Hark isn’t open for buying dinner in the summer. If you’re out of ideas, there’s always Montrose Spa on Mass Ave right by HLS. Feel free to bring snacks etc to share if you so desire.

Upcoming meetings & events:

• At some point, we should take advantage of Berkman’s RockBand set and have a music party in lieu of a normal meeting.
• It’s getting to be time to have another dim sum gathering, too…
• See the Berkman Calendar for other upcoming Berkman stuff.
• Feel free to publicize related events here! Let Erica or j know, comment, or add them yourself if you have an editor account.

Tonight’s one of our good old tried-and-true grab bag nights. j has a presentation she’d like advice on, but this is also a great night for bringing your own conundrums, neat sites, etc. We haven’t done one of these in a while.

Upcoming meetings & events:

• August 7: Berkman needs the conference room so we’re planning a picnic! Since our last picnic kinda got rained out, let’s have some fun outside the HLS student center (Harkness Commons), which has a beach volleyball court, tables, etc. Berkman has a bocce set; we need someone to bring a volleyball. Bring your own food, tho if folks also want to bring snacks / sides / desserts to share that’s a bonus.
• At some point, we should take advantage of Berkman’s RockBand set and have a music party in lieu of a normal meeting.
• It’s getting to be time to have another dim sum gathering, too…
• See the Berkman Calendar for other upcoming Berkman stuff.
• Feel free to publicize related events here! Let Erica or j know, comment, or add them yourself if you have an editor account.