Flow

I was speaking to a good friend of mine earlier this week about the concept of FLOW

It is one of the principles of Engagement

Adam asked me where I had got to with the idea of flow - ? I thought for a while and answered

Flow(s)

Information Flows, Flows of Communication, Flows of Ideas across borders, boundaries and through people.

Those flows at speed, through time and space, Flows of Distribution.

It was curious as one could run a whole workshop on the idea of FLOW - what it means philosophically and then practically. Go here if you want to read more about the psychology of FLOW

I was thinking about the statement that Widgets do this to the Internet - that it changes the nature of what the Internet is, where it's not a collection of pages, but a collection of information, and of course how that information flows and is distributed via a network effect, cascading and flowing in all directions

Weissbach flowing

So my other friend - yes I have two, announces that...

I made my very own widget last night. It's very simple, made up of drag and drop elements and click-to-add bits from Sprout. It's the orange box in the left hand col of my blog; Signature Posts. I find it useful because it tidies up a bit of my blog and means if (and it's a big if, I'll grant) someone wants the 10 posts I currently select as representations of my thinking, they can display it on their own page/space (rather than take my latest which anyone of course can select using rss feeds).

The process of DIY reinforced something very important for me, as it so often does. Just as I learn so much about the simple fact we are all content creators now by writing this blog, so I learn, from first hand experience, that we are all distributors now by creating a widget.

As I often say, don't just witness the power of the network – if you want to evolve to survive in this world then you have to live in its environment.

Comments

[david cushman]

Thanks for the hat tip Alan.
Widgets reveal a lot to anyone who uses them. My tip; everyone in media should write a blog and make a widget.

Here's the original post:
http://fasterfuture.blogspot.com/2008/04/build-widget-experience-disruption-of.html