A heartfelt plug for “A history of the world in 100 objects”

Statue of Ramesses II at the British Museum
Ramesses II at the British Museum

The BBC in conjunction with the British Museum is putting on a new series this year, “A history of the world in 100 objects”. Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, has chosen 100 objects from their remarkable collection to illustrate the sweep of human history, ranging from early stone axes through modern icons such as credit cards. Each object gets a 15 minute episode broadcast on BBC Radio 4, and available on-line and as a podcast.

They’ve finish 4 weeks (or 20 episodes), and the objects and their stories have been consistently engaging and informative. Some standouts have been the carving of the swimming reindeer, the Egyptian clay model of cattle, and the Rhind mathematical papyrus, but it’s awfully hard to choose favorites when the quality has been this good. If I had to pick just one out of what they’ve broadcast so far, it would probably be the Jomon pot episode. This type of pottery changed the way we understood the development of this crucial technology, and the way these objects were revered in Japan thousands of years later is quite wonderful. This particular pot, made some 7,000 years ago, was valued so highly a few hundred years ago that it was lined with gold and incorporated into the tea ceremony.

I’ve been to the British Museum several times over the years, and taken way too many photos there. (A few on my “main” Flickr account, and way too many on my events account.) One thing that’s been cool about the series is that in the first 20 episodes there was only one object that I remember seeing and actually photographed: The statue of Ramesses II up above. He’s huge and pretty hard to miss there next to the Rosetta Stone. Many of the objects in the series have been small and subtle, however, which nicely illustrates the value of a cool program like this. Some objects are pretty remarkable in and of themselves, but others benefit enormously from a guide who suggests we slow down and really look at this stone or that statue. Here MacGregor and his guests help us understand the significance, context, and impact of these objects, and totally make me want to go back to the Museum and seek these treasures out.

There are some other objects in the series that I’ve seen and photographed (such as the Assyrian Reliefs below), but most of them will be new to me. I’m eagerly looking forward to the remaining 80 episodes!

And the world just keeps rolling along
Detail from Assyrian Reliefs in the British Museum

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Cool discussion of Web 2.0 by ThoughtWorks crew

I spent a lot of time on the road to & from the Twin Cities in the last few weeks, so I used that chance to catch up on some old podcasts and explore some new ones. A really nifty discovery this weekend was a panel discussion on Web 2.0 by the smart folks at ThoughtWorks. The discussion is led by Martin Fowler. Fowler goes through Tim O’Reilly’s seminal “What Is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software” from 5 years ago, where O’Reilly lays out what he believes to be seven defining principles of Web 2.0. Fowler and the panel discusses each of these seven principles, looking at how they’ve held up over time. While the panelists didn’t think that all had held up equally well, in general O’Reilly had successfully identified many of the key trends. One might think this conversation is pretty esoteric, but I think it would be understandable and valuable to anyone looking to better understand what the web has become (and is still becoming). Definitely recommended!

It’s interesting to see in what ways various organizations do and don’t “get” these changes. Sadly, the U in general and the Morris campus in specific, for example, aren’t generally real on top of things when it comes to modern web technology. What’s particularly frustrating is the U’s unwillingness to work with and empower their users to help generate and manage content and value. Big Web 2.0 successes like Google and Amazon, Twitter and Flickr are all about leveraging user generated content. The U has its little fits in that direction (the U of M wiki, the UThink blogs), but they’re always peripheral to the life of the University, always in the back alleys instead of on the front page.

The ThoughtWorks discussion runs about an hour, and they divided it up into three chunks for podcasting. Unfortunately they haven’t released a new podcast since last July, so it appears that I’m late to the party and the party may be over. I look forward to listening to their other podcasts, and I certainly hope that they start making new episodes sometime soon.

If you’re interested you can find all their podcasts on the ThoughtWorks What We Say page through either RSS or iTunes.

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