Feature Interview with Clay Shirky on Canadian Radio (CBC)

I recently finished reading Clay Shirky’s new book (New York: Penguin, 2008) entitled Here Comes Everybody: the power of organizing without organizations. If you have been following the shift from presentation mode to participation mode in education and training, then you won’t find many startling ideas in this book, as Shirky covers topics already well discussed by other writers and bloggers. The ideas include the importance of sharing to build community, the fact that we all can be contributors to the information explosion, the increasing speed of change, challenges to established institutions, social media, small worlds, and that failure is a good thing in terms of learning. But, if you are still mystified by the changes in information and learning technologies and find them overwhelming, then this book is a well written primer on the new order of networking and connecting to find what you need rather than depending on instructors and trainers.

About a week ago, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) had a lengthy radio interview with Clay Shirky, about the ideas in the book. The interview is available as a downloadable podcast or you can listen to it directly from the blog page. The blog that supports the weekly program Spark that featured the interview has lots of good comments, both pro and con. Of course the book has its own blog, which contains an extensive “webibliography” and more comments on the book. (GW)

Cognitive Surplus | Spark Blog | Nora Young | 24 December 2008