Participants in open source projects, in Wikipedia, in YouTube and Second Life are no longer merely consuming or using preproduced material, but neither are they at all times acting as fully self-determined producers of fully formed new works; rather, they occupy a hybrid position as produsers of content. Via Axel Bruns: “The 8220;The concept of produsage points to the shift away from conventional producer/consumer relationships, and highlights the more fluid roles of users and contributors within social media environments.

We’re republishing an important contribution from Ismael Peña-López : “In October 2009 I had the chance to be one of the participants that took part into the Open EdTech Summit 2009: Exploring Learning Solutions Together. To do so, a hypothetical assignment was put onto the participants: to create, from scratch, a brand new university for an imaginary country. We are witnessing a move towards de-institutionalization, from an education that works for the institution towards institutions that work for education, or from a democracy that works for parties and governments or parties and governments that work for democracy.

In our “Participating int he Social Media Ecosystem” research project from January of 2010, we saw that only about 1/2 (56%) of the participants had a comprehensive social strategy in place – meaning, only 1/2 of the organizations had spent time assessing and researching where their community currently was, and the opportunities for on and off domain engagement. Photo cred: [link] The sacred cows I mention below have been on my mind for sevral months now, but I was inspired to take action after a community management panel that I attended at SxSWi.