A nice quote on networking

It also occurred to me that I could use a blog to save my favourite quotes. One that has inspired me comes from Paul Engel's and Monique Salomon's 1997 book 'The social organization of innovation':

'Social actors are continuously, either spontaneously or in a more organized way or both, building relationships with each other to create opportunities for joint learning, increasing their understanding, and imporving on current practices.'

If you want to find out more about this book, you can find it on the KIT website at: http://www.kit.nl/specials/html/rk_raaks.asp

Funny poem on social capital

Well, I mentioned in my profile, I'm interested in social capital. I like a paper by Ben Fine on social capital in development. In this paper, Fine has amended a poem by Philip Larkin (which is very funny) to focus on social capital not mums and dads as the original one does. The Fine version goes like this:


They f*** you up with social cap.
They may not mean to but they do.
They fill you up with faults on tap
And add some extra just for you.

But they were f***ed up in their turn
By fools in rational hats and coats
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on social cap to man.
It deepens like a costal shelf.
Get out as early as you can
And don’t have any for yourself.
Fine, after Philip Larkin

As you will see, I have put *** instead of the real word. You can view the original Philip Larkin poem in full at: http://www.artofeurope.com/larkin/lar2.htm
Well, I'm afraid I don't really know blog-etiquette - and this is an experiment, after all. Hope this is not going to offend anyone's feelings....If it does, please let me know and I'll remove even this censored version...

Welcome to my blog

Inspired by a meeting last week, I'm now creating my own blog. I'm planning to add draft papers, work-in-progress and links to things I really like. My fields of interest are development (as in developing country development), information and knowledge management, online communities of practice, and social capital.

Sarah