In the mosh pit of The Generous Web

Web 2.0 is reality because humanity does not want to be alone, and ideas and thoughts are meant to be shared. There may be no new ideas under the sun, but when we share our ideas we find a new level of understanding and new paths of interaction. I believe that I am at my best productivity level when I spend myself sharing time and thoughts with others who are thinking and working on similar efforts. Sometimes those others don’t even have to be thinking about the same subjects, but pursuing parallel courses in the universe of knowledge.

I read 2 posts this evening about this subject:

Kathy Sierra in Creating Passionate Users talks about “knowledge sharers” and “knowledge hoarders.” She talks about the synthesizing of ideas derived on the work of others and the resulting creative leaps of innovation. There is a great chart comparing linear movement on “progress on the ‘shoulders of giants’” to distributed knowledge producing innovation through the “wisdom of crowds” and “progress in the ‘Mosh Pit’”

I then followed Kathy’s link to Bill Kinnon's Achieving Ends. He talks about “The Generous Web” and a “sea of people generously sharing.” He references the term “A-list bloggers” and says that he has found them “open and accessible . . . which is partly why they are as successful as they are.” He quotes David Freeman’s difference between Arrogance and Pride - "Arrogance is 'I'm valuable, you're nothing.' Pride, or dignity is 'I'm valuable, you're valuable.'"

When I entered the biblioblogosphere it was scary. I wrote and wrote, just as I have for most of my life, first of all in a pink mini-keyed diary and later in spiral-bound journals. I started blogging (very privately) after my return from Internet Librarian in 2003. But, I guarded my URL and even put the (perhaps ineffective) meta tag in the header: meta content="NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW" name="ROBOTS".

I blogged for over 2 years before I made my big ta-da into the blogosophere. Well it wasn’t long before I was carrying on exciting electronic conversations with librarians and information professionals from the A, B, and C list of bloggers. I now regularly share ideas with people I previously idoled from afar on stages at conferences or in columns in professional journals. I’m honored when others ask me questions and I’m enlighted when they answer mine. As Kathy says “Issac Newton said, ‘If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.’ That was just fine in a world where knowledge doubled in half-centuries, not mere months. To make progress today, it's more like, 'If I have seen further, it is by being thrown up by the mosh pit of my peers.' And we all get a turn."