I just started reading "The Book of Genesis Chapters 1-17" by Hamilton from the New International Commentary on the Old Testament series. Very interesting read so far. The author is discussing the ten occurances in Genesis of the Hebrew 'elleh toledot in Genesis, which translates as "this is the account of X" or "these are the descendants of X" depending on the context. The first occurance of 'elleh toldeot, Genesis 2:4, is the only one which does not reference a person - "These are the generations of the heavens and the earth". Apparently there is debate whether the statement refers to the verses AFTER the statement, or refers to Gen 1:1 - 2:3. The author argues in favor of the reference to verses after 2:4. The interesting part is he sees 1:1 - 2:3 and 2:4+ as two complementary stories of creation - the first focusing on man's divine origins, and the second focusing on man's mundane origins. Further he notes that the first story shows man as HAVING authority - as per Gen 1:29 "you shall" vs. the second story showing man UNDER authority - as per Gen 2:17. This further emphasizes the divine vs. mundane focus of each section.

 Filed Under: BIBLE STUDIES | TRUTH | Leans Academic
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Business Week: Get Creative!

IDEO's David Kelley is building a "D-school" that aims to put students in direct contact with the people they're designing for

David Kelley is building a new "D-school" at Stanford University, where he teaches engineering. The "D" stands for design, and the co-founder of the world-famous design consultancy IDEO plans to make it a center for a new kind of design thinking. Kelley's brand of design is far removed from cool colors and shapes. It's all about using design methods, such as going out in the world and observing real people before, not after, you make something for them. It's about new ways of innovating.

Kelley is at the center of a small group working to formalize this design thinking to teach it in school -- and in corporations. He recently talked to BusinessWeek design guru Bruce Nussbaum. Here are excerpts:

Q: The business community is desperately seeking to learn how to be innovative today. Where should they go to learn how to be more creative?
A: It's not exactly where they go, but that they realize they're going to have to change their behavior -- they need to get involved. We don't have great success until designers actually commit to getting involved physically. Go out and hang with users, visit people that they wouldn't have normally visited. It's about physically going out there.

Q: Where do they learn to do that?
A: There are plenty of books. Jane Fulton Suri's Thoughtless Acts is really starting to take off. People are really trying to get their minds around this kind of human-centered approach to life. But in addition to reading the latest stuff, managers really need to get out there in the early phases of design. Go out and visit somebody in your marketplace.

Q: Are any B schools teaching this?
A: There's Roger Martin [dean of the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto], and I think the London School of Business is good and Northwestern University. But it's so new.

Q: What about at your D-school?
A: Of course, at the D-school we're changing from a more conventional kind of design school to a school that actually takes companies out there, takes students out there, and makes them follow somebody for a day and observe. They need the visceral feel of the user experience rather than just sitting in their cubicle at their computer.

 Filed Under: Leans Academic
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The idea of this article (Complex Adaptive Systems) reminds me of the simplicity and new movement of tagging even taggings relationship with digital photos or simply putting your own words with photos and then throwing these into the vast world of the Internet to see how others find your photos and ultimately connect to them. Google's Brinn put it this way: "...tagging -- the various forms of more-precise user-generated structured data we're able to get, the better search experience we'll be able to produce. Today, the amount of the latter that is out there is fairly small but it's indicative of the potential in the future."

It's crazy that people who catagorize their own work (user generated tags) works at all (complex) yet amazing how everyone is moving in this direction, and order begins to evolve and then quickly becomes useful.

From the Article: So if only one part of the church is in entropy, that part that has hitched itself to modernity, what part is showing the signs of complexity, or balance? The return to orthodoxy, to a catholic expression of the faith, to signs, symbols, ritual and icons, evidence the aspects that were missing from modernism. The new direction then is not an emergence to something totally new, but from something deficient to a system that is more robust and complex.

 Filed Under: Leans Academic
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In the World, but …

Richard Niebuhr's Christ and Culture is 50 years old—and still has something wise to say to evangelicals.
By John G. Stackhouse Jr.

The theological world owes a great debt to Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Texas, which invited Yale professor H. Richard Niebuhr to deliver the lectures that resulted in Christ and Culture (1951), one of the most influential Christian books of the past century. Perhaps no other book has dominated an entire theological conversation for so long. Niebuhr's famous "five types" continue to serve as the launching point for most discussions of the interaction of Christianity and culture.

 Filed Under: Leans Academic
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Here is Herman Dooyeweerd, on fashion, from A New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol. 3: The Structures of Individuality of Temporal Reality. Paideia Press, 1984 , pp. 591-593.

The integrating character of fashion. Fashion and national dress.

“Fashion??? is a very interesting example of social imitation, Its proper nature asserts itself quite obviously in the horizontal inter-individual societal relations. Here fashion integrates the way in which people dress, their inter-individual behaviour in general, the choice of their recreations, etc., without uniting the individuals to a temporal societal unity. To the contrary, fashion in this sense is experienced as a dividing factor in human society. Originally it was a means used by the higher classes to distinguish themselves from the lower classes, although the latter are always eager to imitate them.

 Filed Under: Leans Academic
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The Naked Public Squares Revisited

by Ray Pennings

There are three basic tacts to choose from. We can debate our understandings of beauty. They clearly think our religious clothes are ugly; we think their lack of clothes is lewd and vulgar. We could try to point out the impracticality of their approach. Without wearing the clothes of some religious or moral code, it is impossible to make any arguments of what citizens ought to do...

The first is that there is such a thing as ugly religious clothes. This ugliness takes many forms, and there are plenty of examples even in our recent history to create quite a rogues gallery. There are those who speak in the name of truth and love but have no hesitation getting caught up in the political game and misrepresenting their opponents in the most uncharitable manner. There are those who speak about the importance of speaking from conviction, but show no respect for the deeply held convictions of others with whom they disagree.

 Filed Under: Leans Academic
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An "Interactive Recognition Service" is a process that simply integrates components from loose networks, establishing an entirely unique brand and form of interactivity. The ideal involves personal and small group recognition designed to form locally united communities. Initial interaction places emphasis on individuals and groups to input their unique information. Sharing unique information engages and establishes recognition, creating a foundation. Unity begins to establish value, need and passion.

Communities that invite interaction function from primarily two design elements:

• Organic Growth
• Aliveness

It is implied that an interactive community can not be established in isolation. Communities exist to the extent that members interact together and with other communities. It is this relationship of interconnectedness that supports the very rhythm of life, repairing the world around and within. However, I believe membership becomes more coherent, more whole when individuals are encouraged to ‘define’ their identity within the community. This can be accomplished through factual metadata (criteria); personal, professional, or listing desirable attributes. Missing the importance of defining identity is a common oversight that can suffocate the development of social communities. Once identity, such as a personal digital lifestyle, has been collected and organized, the ability to discover members, conversations or products based upon our own created “pivots??? establishes what most of us believe to be most true; our personal perception.

Individuals communicate ideas based primarily upon internal perceptions. The ability for members to accurately articulate who they are establishes a sense of perceived commonality. Personal profiles accomplish two very important aspects in the development of community.
1) Members initial interaction within the community starts first with a personal profile. Early adopters tend to talk about themselves.
2) Members are able to draw aliveness from the community based upon their own perceptions as articulated within their personal profiles. Clay Shirky (I'm mentioned in this article) states there are two elements social software must have – Groups and Conversations--. Based upon my points above I think it is FIRST–Self, (then) Groups and Conversations--.

Evolution involves adaptability to a changing environment and new competitive realities. Innovation, however, capitalizes change, defines success, and reshapes the environment.

When loose networks are connected the potential of geographically driven information will coalesce and mature into empowered communities. This connectedness will transform the local utility of the Internet, publishing and broadcasting. My passion is to connect people through their relationships: Relationships to one another, relationships to their geography, and relationships to their interests. Discover Relationships.

Relationships form the basic pattern of human need in every environment: People need people. Questions need solutions. Sellers need buyers. Writers need readers. Communities need relationships. Relationships need patterns. The character of what is built will be given to it by the language of patterns used to generate it.

Basic Principles of Civilization; a collection of unified life patterns!

1) Discover: People – Trust; Love; Self Esteem; Jobs WHY Do People Unite?

2) Discover: Nourishment – Food, Entertainment [DVDs, Restaurants…]

3) Discover: Knowledge Exchange - Communication [Questions and Solutions]

4) Discover: Barter, Bid, Trade
[Classifieds]

5) Discover: Events, Activities
[Date and Location Specific]

• People unite in order to FIND ways to develop
• Not only is there strength in numbers, there is aliveness
  

Survival – Success: Competition is a complex activity. It is characterized by external/unpredictable forces that are uncontrollable. The ability for one to rapidly and accurately change orientation/perspective is the most important compass of survival. The evolution of any system is not random; innovation creates new systems. SEEK FIRST

Over the years, I've developed a number of thoughts to help establish successful online communities.

Communities are very much like designing a neighborhood of character and life, where homes, streets, even local stores compliment one another and each has an easy to demonstrate PURPOSE, both individually and collectively. The idea is all about 'flow.'

1) To build successful online communities there must ALSO be a demonstrated focus (built into core design) on 'real world' PURPOSE. Without this it becomes YASNS (yet another social network service).
2) Purpose almost always relates to connecting to the physical world.
3) Members must be able to people watch... And should not forced into a corral or inside personal silos with links to friends and family.
4) "I'm moving and need to find a new church" where can I post my question publicly and get an answer? Where can I go and "self serve" this question? In other words, this is a perfect place to connect back to the physical world.
5) Search functionality is EVERYTHING this is how we discover.
6) Never underestimate intuitive design, functionality and flow.

I've formulated this as a simple starting point in order to focus building success into the online communities I design and also as a foundation for discussion with the Yahoo! 360° team:

Central Idea: Discovery is a social process.
Generally, the current proliferation of the term SEARCH could be refined to focus upon DISCOVERY. When discoveries are made most enjoy sharing them.

In other words: I want to discover, I have to search, I want to share.

Members who utilize Yahoo's vast service offerings want to fulfill their needs...search is the method, but the goal is ultimately discovery. I feel that so much emphasis has been placed upon the method that the goal of discovery and the ability to share has faded into the background.

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