Doug Belshaw – Read Write Collect

Bookmarked https://dougbelshaw.com/blog/2025/06/01/weeknote-22-2025/ (dougbelshaw.com)

After listening to me, Johnny (my therapist) drew a bucket on the whiteboard, filled with some water. This represents ‘stress’. If we represent events and things in our life as ‘rocks’ being added to the bucket then the water level rises. Eventually, it spills over. The idea is to have ‘holes’ in your bucket to prevent the water overflowing. These holes might be exercise, positive relationships, various forms of relaxation, etc. The problem is when these ‘holes’ fill up and the water (i.e. stress) levels rise.

Weeknote 22/2025 – Open Thinkering by Doug Belshaw

Replied to https://thoughtshrapnel.com/2025/06/13/ai-use-case-primitives.html (thoughtshrapnel.com)

It’s not often I link directly to a LinkedIn post. However, the author of this, Ben Cohen, doesn’t seem to have posted it elsewhere, so needs must. Cohen also doesn’t cite the original source of the analysis he references, but it looks like it comes from an OpenAI report entitled Identifying and scaling AI use cases

6 AI use case primitives | Thought Shrapnel by Dr Doug Belshaw

Doug, I cannot help thinking about your work on digital literacies alongside the use cases.

Create stuff → ‘Creative’
Find stuff → ‘Cognitive’
Build stuff → ‘Constructive’
Make sense of stuff → ‘Confident’
Think stuff through → ‘Communicative’
Do stuff automatically → ‘Constructive’

You can shake up the water and oil all you like, but it always settles back down the same way?

Liked https://thoughtshrapnel.com/2025/06/18/our-society-is-in-the.html (thoughtshrapnel.com)

It’s not easy to summarise this 13,000-word article by Ed Zitron, nor decide which parts to pull out and highlight. The main gist is that our economy is dominated by managers who lack real understanding of their businesses and customers. Their poor decisions are fueled by decades of neoliberal thinking, which promotes short-term gains over meaningful contributions. The name Zitron gives to these managers is “Business Idiots” who thrive on alienation and avoid accountability.

Our society is in the thrall of dumb management, and functions as such | Thought Shrapnel by Our society is in the thrall of dumb management, and functions as such | Thought Shrapnel

Liked https://dougbelshaw.com/blog/2025/06/08/weeknote-23-2025/ (dougbelshaw.com)

There are “selfish” activities, he said, which you do without thinking about other people. The opposite of that would be “selfless” activities in which you think of others without thinking about yourself. His point was that there are also “self-full” activities that allow you to meet your own needs while not preventing others from meeting their own.

Weeknote 23/2025 – Open Thinkering by Doug Belshaw

Liked Colophon by

Doug Belshaw (dougbelshaw.com)

I first came across the word ‘colophon’ about 15 years ago on the blog of someone I really didn’t like. Because I’m pretty, small-minded, and unable to separate concepts from their instantiation, I didn’t copy the good idea. However, now that I’m a bit older, and some people I do like have created theirs, it’s time for me to create this page.

A colophon is a page or section (typically in a footer) of a site that describes how the site is made, with what tools, supporting what technologies, and often published on personal sites at a top level /colophon page. (IndieWeb)

Do not expect great insights. Any time you find yourself asking “why?” just imagine me responding with a shrug ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Colophon – Open Thinkering by Colophon – Open Thinkering

Liked https://blog.weareopen.coop/what-makes-for-a-good-ai-literacy-framework-423c57f01e9a (blog.weareopen.coop)

We used a traffic light (red/yellow/green) categorisation system to score each framework on the above criteria. Only one of the frameworks we reviewed, the OECD Framework for Classifying AI Systems, meets all criteria with a ‘green’ rating.

There are several other frameworks which we judge as meeting the criteria as ‘green’ except for one criterion (‘yellow’). Listed alphabetically by organisation, these are:

Artificial Intelligence in Education (Digital Promise)

AI Literacy in Teaching and Learning: A Durable Framework for Higher Education (EDUCAUSE)

Digital Competence Framework for Citizens (European Commission)

Developing AI Literacy With People Who Have Low Or No Digital Skills (Good Things Foundation)

AI competency framework for students (UNESCO)

Source: What makes for a good AI Literacy framework? by Doug Belshaw

Replied to https://thoughtshrapnel.com/2025/04/18/i-just-think-that-people.html (thoughtshrapnel.com)

I just think that people who write about technology should have a disclaimer about the tech stack they use

Doug, I really like the idea of a /colophon page to my site. I think it would be nice to do something like a /now page, where it displays the latest Now post. This would then allow me to update it if/when it changes.

Another thing to add to my itches.

Liked Doug Belshaw (@dajb@social.coop) (social.coop)

“I’ve come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:

1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.

2. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.

3. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”

― Douglas Adams

Source: Doug Belshaw (@dajb@social.coop)

Replied to Doug Belshaw (@dajb@social.coop) (social.coop)

Oh my days, how am I only just discovering the latest album by jamie xx (released last September)?

What an absolute banger 🤘

https://album.link/gb/i/1746750796

I totally agree Doug, In Waves is an awesome album. I was really intrigued by Smith’s discussion of the power of mistakes in making the album.

Liked Backstage blogging by Doug Belshaw (dougbelshaw.com)

Perhaps the future of meaningful online discourse lies not in trying to find another ‘public square’ — as Twitter was a decade or more ago — and instead embracing both performance and process? Treating blogs as spanning both front of house and backstage, we can create spaces which allow for both authenticity and artistry, and blur the line between ‘creator’ and ‘audience’.

Source: Backstage blogging by @dajbelshaw

Liked You’re welcome to my exhaust by Doug Belshaw (dougbelshaw.com)

Rejecting intellectual property is in alignment with anarchist ideals of dismantling hierarchies and promoting voluntary cooperation. Open sharing breaks down the barriers created by traditional ownership, helping to build communities and societies where knowledge flows freely and individuals collaborate without coercion.

Source: You’re welcome to my exhaust by Doug Belshaw

Bookmarked Digital Credentials: why context matters by Doug Belshaw (dougbelshaw.com)

At their core, all credentials are relational. They represent an attestation from one party to another—a way of saying, “This person did this thing” or “We vouch for this individual.” This relational nature is fundamental to their function, yet it’s often overlooked when people are talking about digital credentials.

Source: Digital%20Credentials%3A%20why%20context%20matters by Doug Belshaw

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Doug Belshaw on the relational nature of credentials and the place of privacy.

Replied to Secret, Safe and Informed: A Reflection on Facebook, Cambridge Analytica and the Collection of Data by

Aaron Davis (readwriterespond.com)

There have been a lot of discussions lately about Facebook, social media and connected society in light of the Cambridge Analytica revelations. Here are my thoughts on what it might mean to be more informed consent. Secret and Safe?
At the start of Lord of the Rings, Frodo Baggins inherits a ring fr…

Doug, I was looking back at a past post today, and was reacquainted with your DML Central post on the ‘Brief History of Web Literacy’. You attempted to map the eras associated with the internet:

A few years ago, Doug Belshaw made an attempt at mapping the internet. He divided it into five eras:

1993-1997: The Information Superhighway

1999-2002: The Wild West

2003-2007: The Web 2.0 era

2008-2012: The Era of the App

2013+: The Post-Snowden era

I have been thinking lately, with fake news and data breaches, maybe we are entering a new era, what Belshaw mooted as an ‘informed era’.

Source: Secret, Safe and Informed: A Reflection on Facebook, Cambridge Analytica and the Collection of Data – Read Write Respond by Aaron Davis

I was left thinking that in addition to the ‘informed era’, we may have entered a new era with AI?

Liked Increasing your ‘serendipity surface’ by

Doug Belshaw (web.archive.org)

Expecting your career, social life, or significant relationship to develop in new, unexpected ways when you do the same things over and over again is, after all, how Einstein defined insanity. Increase your serendipity surface!

Source: Increasing your ‘serendipity surface’ by Doug Belshaw

Replied to TB872: Overview of different traditions in social learning systems by Doug Belshaw (dougbelshaw.com)

A table summarising the approach of different thinkers and traditions.

Thank you for sharing this overview of different traditions in social learning systems Doug. I have dipped in and out of your learning, but more often find myself saving them for later, only for later to never quite come around. This table has me thinking about Richard Olsen’s Modern Learning Canvas and the various questions around learnings role and pedagogical beliefs.

Liked Elysium, elites, and elision by Doug Belshaw (dougbelshaw.com)

A post inspired by the UK government experimenting with AI tools, using the film ‘Elysium’ (2013) as a touchstone.

To be clear, I’m not against LLMs which are openly auditable providing quick answers to questions and to make the civil service more efficient. I am against the reductionist ‘logic’ of replacing civil servants with a black box which makes shit up.

Source: Elysium, elites, and elision by Doug Belshaw

Replied to TB872: Differences between project management and systemic inquiry by Doug Belshaw (dougbelshaw.com)

Using Agile software development as a touchstone for linking systemic inquiry and project management.

Doug, I have really enjoyed your current learning out loud with your Masters in Systems Thinking. This piece really stuck with me. I have been grappling a bit with project management and the agile methodology since been asked to complete a course as a part of my change of roles where I work. I think I had thought that I was being agile (maybe little a agile), but was left struck by the rigidity required in actually sticking to the process. (I am guess this is where your focus on being deliberate fits in?) The thing that has struck me is the conflicted nature of the push and pull. I agree with the intent, but unless everyone is onboard and clear about expectations, it all becomes a bit of agile-washing.

The other thing that has really struct me is the world of project management and the lived reality. It feels like a lot of people want to do project management, without actually doing the hard work. Lines are drawn, positions set, but when the game starts and chaos ensues, they are lost at sea. I have been left wondering if project management really exists and if so, what does it look like? I hear the successes and achievements, this pie chart and that bar graph, but the reality feels like something different. I am therefore intrigued by your discussion of system inquiry. It reminded me of Dave Cormier’s discussion of ‘complex’ versus ‘complicated’:

We are confronted by the complicated/complex division everyday in education. Do I want to know if a medical students has remembered the nine steps of a process of inquiry to work with a patient or do I want to know if they built a good raport? How often do we choose the thing that is easier to measure… simply because we can verify that our grading is ‘fair’. How often do we get caught in conversations around how ‘rigourous’ an assessment is when what we really mean is ‘how easy is it to defend to a parent who’s going to complain about a child’s grade’.

Source: Making Change in Education II – Complexity vs. Lean Six Sigma (learning isn’t like money)

Might be something I need to dive into further.

Replied to Weeknote 37/2022 | Open Thinkering (dougbelshaw.com)

What I’ve been up to this week.

Doug, I was reading your Weeknote and was confused with all your Thought Shrapnel posts. I thought, I have not seen them show up in my RSS feed. I then checked the feed and noticed that the last post seems to be June. Not sure if it is just me or if the feed has broken?

Bookmarked 10 steps to running an event I’d want to attend | Open Thinkering by Doug Belshaw (Open Thinkering | Doug Belshaw's blog)

This post is the outgrowth of an (online) conversation I had yesterday after an event I’d attended. It was a conference I used to go to every year which, for some reason this year mostly left me cold.

Doug Belshaw reflects on a negative conference experience. In response he shares ten steps associated with running an event:

1. Encourage participation
2. Provide clear scope
3. Ensure a diverse range of speakers/facilitators
4. Challenge the audience with different views
5. Have tracks and/or themes
6. Provide space for chatting
7. Recognise off-stage talent
8. Provide a mix of session formats and lengths
9. Get the food right
10. Build a community

This reminds me of a post I wrote a few years ago, but with more depth.