Connections: Where Good Ideas Come From

Bear with me for a moment. My wife says I tell my stories three times too long. When you view the video below, my ramblings might make sense. Maybe.

#JED21 is a Twitter Hashtag for people tweeting about "Jewish Education in the 21st Century. Someone (I am not sure who) has been publishing a a Paper.li (an online newspaper developed from connections the publisher has through twitter) called #JED21. This past Sunday, it included a link to an article about a group of Israelis who had in the course of an hour developed a free program to link Google+ to your FaceBook Profile. I had tweeted it and posted it to G+ and FB. The #JED21 Paper.li published it and credited me. So I tweeted:

Read The #jed21 Daily ▸ today's top stories via @carlossguzman @lookstein @lmeir ▸ paper.li/tag/jed21

Yosef Goldman

I also tweeted about some other Paper.li journals that had come to my attention: Yosef Goldman is someone I have never met. In his online profile he describes himself as a "Rabbinical student, Heterodox Jew. In to: religion in society, music, environment, lgbtq activism, mideast peace, interfaith, Judaism & Jewishness. progressive." (sic) We connected through Twitter (@yosgold). His Paper.li is called The Jewy Journal. He tweeted this past Monday that a new edition was out:

The Jewy Journal is out! http://bit.ly/i2qiaP ▸ Top stories today via @babaganewz @irajwise @shmarya @jdubrecords @jwaonline

I am @irajwise! I was thrilled! So I retweeted.

Judah Isaacs

And Judah Isaacs is the Director of Community Engagement for the Orthodox Union. Coincidentally, our children who are now 18 were in day care together in Oak Park Michigan when they were toddlers. His Paper.li is called The Jewish/Community/Ed Daily. That link is to Wednesday's edition, in which he linked to my previous blog post. And yes, I retweeted!

Jonathan Woocher

So yesterday I get tweet from Jonathan Woocher, Chief Ideas Officer at JESNA and Director of the Lippman Kanfer Institute. He wanted to talk about the proliferation of different Jewish Educational Paper.lis and tell about a paper.li called New World of Jewish Education, which JESNA now publishes.

The concept of the Paper.li as I see it is to allow anyone to become a curator of information on a regular basis, by following people who they think are worth “hiring” as reporters for their newspaper. Each Paper.li has its own unique voice. While there is much to be said for one-stop shopping, I am mindful that my parents used to read both the Sun Times AND the Chicago Tribune.The internet has made it possible for everyone to have a voice. Whether anyone listens depends on what they say and even more, how well they reach out.

So I started to compose a reply via e-mail (sometimes 140 characters doesn't get the point across - witness the Tea Party sponsored Republican Presidential Twitter Debate) to Jonathan, and wanted to reference something from the Jewish Educational Change Network he helped develop. (Go there. Not yet. Finish this and watch the video. Then go to http://www.jedchange.net/ and join. Really.)

And that is where I found this video, which Jonathan had posted. So watch the video. Visit the Paper.li publications. Start one of your own (and please feel free to put the link in the comments on this blog). And let's keep combining our hunches and making new ideas...together.




Now go to http://www.jedchange.net/ and join. Really.
I am going to buy the book now.