Session 2: Access and Ownership

The latest edition of Open Office Hours 3.0 examined ideas of access and ownership.

Part 1: 
We began with a text study:

Access and Ownership Text Study

What resulted was a multi-faceted discussion which highlighted, among other things, the following ideas:

• The rigidity of the rabbinic text. There was some discomfort with the way Rabbi Eliezer was treated, how - as, arguably, the more creative, innovative thinker - he was pushed to the outside and his opinions weren't held in as high regard. Nonetheless his story, as well as many minority opinions, are recorded in the Talmud.
• This led us to talk a bit about ownership and authority - what is the relationship between the two concepts?
• The value of access or ownership. The group generally acknowledged that today there is a shift in the way knowledge is accessed, and how it is valued. Teachers, for instance, used to buy curricula and rely on that for their lessons. Now there is more of a focus on creating your own lessons and making them publicly available for others to share and modify to their own liking.
• Some want ownership, but don't want to "give away all of their secrets."
• Subscriptions as a middle ground between access and ownership (more of a business model). We discussed the difference between, say, buying a DVD and streaming a movie on Netflix with their subscription service. It is even more complicated when you realize that when you buy a DVD, you don't actually own the movie; you own that particular copy. Someone else owns the rights to the screenplay, the music, that edited version, etc.
• We similarly addressed the music industry. The viability of much of the entertainment sector is based on a new type of knowledge sharing, and new concepts of value.
• The case study of Wikipedia. We talked about the process behind Wikipedia and the concept of co-creation. Though for many of us Wikipedia is all about access to information, for many it is a massive collaborative enterprise. Co-creation implies some sense of ownership. In the case of Wikipedia, we many not all take part in its building, but we all have the option and ability to do so.
• Is access better than ownership? Should we as a society not worry so much about ownership? Can we even claim ownership when the ability to do so, and the definitions, change so rapidly and so often? 

We acknowledged that we are living in a world of access, and that the definitions and differences between access and ownership are not so clear.

Part 2:

The second piece of our discussion was dedicated to skill-building. In keeping with the theme of access, we talked about making the most of our own access by improving our search habits.

There are two basic ways to better your search results:

1. Narrow/refine your search terms
2. Narrow/refine your search engine

When it comes to the first, it is important to understand the value of Boolean logic. Learning how to use Boolean logic in your search will help you narrow down the parameters of your results to just those relevant to what you're looking for.

Google Advanced Search "does" Boolean search for you by breaking it down into a form-like structure:

It is also helpful to look at the entire page before you being your search. Once a search term is entered, look along the top and down the left hand side for ways of narrowing your search by type (image, news, etc.), time (items shared a week ago, a year ago), location, etc.

It is also helpful sometimes to shift your search to another engine, or subset of the search engine, altogether.

Google Scholar can be helpful to a point, but many of the articles it pulls up require payment.

Google Books allows you to search the content of many books in addition to author and title.

Google Blogsearch allows you to see what's happening in more conversational spheres online around your topic.

DuckDuckGo is an example of a clean, ad-free search engine with helpful tips to narrow your search and improve your results.

SocialMention allows you see where a search term is coming up in conversation on various social media platforms. This can be great not only for search, but for brand management and project follow-up. It is also helpful to sometimes conduct search on Twitter where you can find curated resources from interesting people. You then have the option of following up with the people who provide the best value and add them to your network. It's a great discovery tool for both resources and connections.

What questions remain when it comes to access and ownership? How do these concepts resonate in your work?
What other tips and tricks can you share to help improve online search?

Session 1: Leaders in a Connected Age

Miriam's Intro:

Why we’re here:

We are leaders living in a connected age.

What are the implications of this? That's exactly what we'll explore in these meetings.

Motivations for initiating/hosting this:

• critical piece of being a networked organization is fluency with these tools
• important to open up the conversation with staff, get feedback, learn with and from one another
• capacity-raising, help us all get a little more tech-savvy
• opportunity to get reps from different departments together around shared idea

What’s with the name?
Open Office Hours 3.0 is intended to imply:

• drop-in style meetings - no expectation that this will be an ongoing group/network
• flexible subject matter
• but what about the 3.0?

Explanation/discussion of Web 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0
1.0: static web - the democratization of information
2.0: social web - the democratization of participation
3.0: mobile web - more ubiquitous, harder to see, more integrated


Main activity:
We watched “The Machine is Using Us”


What does this have to do with leadership?

• Ideas of form and function
• Content creation and content curation
• Interconnectedness/Linking
• Access vs. Ownership
• Collaboration
• others?

...these are precisely the concepts we need to be thinking about when it comes to leadership in the 21st Century.


There is an inextricable link between the way the Web is built, the way it looks, and how we can interact with it. In our coming sessions, we’ll talk about the point-and-click how-to-ness of the Web, but we’ll also address these bigger issues and the implications of the connected age on our work.


If you attended the session, please leave your reflections here or comment on the blog.


The next session's general topic will be concepts of access vs. ownership. Date/time forthcoming.

Vision, Mission, and Goals

The following is the proposal submitted for Open Office Hours 3.0

Big Idea: Open Office Hours 3.0* (OOH3)
*Web 1.0 refers to the static Web; Web 2.0 is all about the democratization of participation and those channels that allow people to connect with one another free of time and space (social media); Web 3.0 is the combination of the previous two - only mobile. The name OOH3 implies new technologies, mobility, relevance, and experimentation.

Vision: Every employee at the Jewish Education project will have the language, skills, and cultural context to conceptualize their work and role in the connected age, and the ability to translate that knowledge into actionable steps.

Mission: To facilitate a bi-monthly, drop-in style conversation around social media, new technologies, and the cultural shifts that accompany leadership in the 21st Century as it pertains to Jewish nonprofit professionals. The meetings will consist of:

• Guided discussion around topics chosen by the group
• Case studies/examples from our own work
• Brief, hands-on introductions to a new tool or concept

Meetings will be fairly self-contained, with only minimal continuation from one to the next. The expectation is not to create an ongoing group, but to accommodate a variety of needs and facilitate timely discussions.

Meetings will take no more than an hour and will most likely be held over lunch.

Meetings will be documented in some form (WebEx recordings, Google Docs, podcasts) depending on the quality of the discussions and desire from staff for ongoing, asynchronous follow-up.