Internet gardening for the advanced

In a model of a learning entity, be it a learning organisation or a student, feedback is usually a key point. Through input of results, others' opinions, ideas, theses, you can reevaluate, adapt, change, decide whether it's worth pursueing what you do or think - you grow (yes, that's where the title metaphor comes from).

I feel the internet has sped this up immensely. Looking at my own poor, tiny little blog I started a few days ago, I got "instant feedback" which I did not expect at all. My previous post was inspired by another blog entry, so I linked to it. So this morning I look at my blog, basically knowing that noone on earth will have read it because I did not promote it at all, but surprise- there was one comment. And it wasn't spam... The author of aforementioned inspiring post commented. Hallelujah, the gods of blogsphere have heareth my name. Seriously though, that was really motivating! Even though I'm not sure whether I will be able to keep up the posting this time (yes, this is not my first - or second - attempt at maintaining a blog), there was interaction and feedback, with minimum delay and no previous network at all. Yay! Now I'm already growing, I guess, since I keep philosophizing (is that a word? in German it is...) pondering why I even blog.

I feel like some people have these marvellous ideas to share, funny anecdotes, inspiring comments, awesome concepts... if I was one of them, I would have felt it. I enjoy skimming through these different blogs everywhere though, and every once in a while an entry will inspire me enough to write, which is mostly for myself, because it invites me to linger with a concept for longer than just a fraction of a second. Maybe I had this really cool idea that shed some light on life. Maybe I even had the most brilliant invention which I could have made millions of dollars with. Knowing me, I probably forgot both after 3.5 minutes because a cat came jumping on my lap loudly demanding a paw massage, or some other every-day triviality. So yes, this is the blog-against-forgetting-to-buy-milk (metaphor! metaphor!) for a 23-old with memory and concentration problems. Go buy me anti-ageing skin treatment.

Back to the growing. Since I believe that this fast, more widely-spread communication increases the speed, variety and amount of feedback we get, I think the net can help us grow - "please ask your doctor for medical advice and always read the instructions" - if applied correctly and as prescribed.

I also think that the internet itself as the meta-community grows through the same principle - buzzword time, Web 2.0, here I come! With increasing interaction and ways for the creative, brilliant, average, bored, helplessly depressed or freshly-in-love enthusiastic individual or a dedicated community to shape the internet and all it offers, with all this feedback, the internet grows in terms of technologies, concepts and communication, all the time feeding back results, preferences, new ideas and even new technologies that will transform the web.

Don't worry, I won't go so far as to suggest this Gaia-type of semi-consciousness for the internet (read David Brin's Earth?), but I do think the way the internet is devloping is fascinating to watch - it might be worth not only looking at what is developing, but also how it does that.

One of the "How To Be Creative" principles Hugh MacLeod wrote about says that in order to be creative, you need to do it for yourself. I think one of the most important skills in life is being able to distinguish between
* the situations in which you should take the feedback you get from others to heart and reflect on what you're doing, trying to grow and polish the rough edges of who you are and what you do
* and those in which you simply shouldn't give a sh*t what anyone else says, go by intuition and provide the most important feedback yourself, because that is who you are.

Amen, Reverend Jenny.