Uploading: Flattener #4

I'll be talking with a group of educators and instructional tech leaders tomorrow at the eLearning showcase at the new Puget Sound Educational Support District center in Renton, WA.

To kick off the day of exploration; Conn and Anne asked me to "keynote" for 30 - 45 minutes on the hot topic of Web 2.0.

I've decided to focus our discussion...and I hope it will be a discussion...on Uploading as defined in the recently released "updated and expanded" version of Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat.

I was the first to buy his updated version the day it arrived at our local Borders. I had read the first version and wondered how Mr. Friedman would handle the new flattener of Uploading. It turns out that his original Outsourcing section is expanded to include Uploading.

Friedman reveals that he reads blogs daily to get his information and he used Wikipedia as a source for his book. Both his daily blog fix and this Wikipedia trust can be be found in both editions.

He credits his inspiration for this Uploading notion to Wired Magazine's article, "We Are The Web." He titles the section "Harnessing the Power of Communities" and he divides the piece into 4 sections:

1. Community Developed Software
2. Community Developed Answers
3. Blogging: Uploading News & Commentary (w/ mention of Podcasting)
4. Wikipedia: Community Uploaded Content

Finally he states that Uploading has the potential to be the most disruptive Flattener even though the number of Uploaders is still relatively small.

I have 25 examples of Uploading to discuss; all have been Uploaded in a ThumbStack presentation which I'll use to guide the discussion.

I'd be curious to hear what you think...seriously.