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Re: [xmca] copy of Change Lab paper

I sometimes wonder if issues of intellectual ownership, copyright, etc., are particularly thorny for newer, less established scholars who run a somewhat higher risk of having their ideas appropriated by (and ultimately associated with) more well known, influential scholars; or is it possible that the well established scholars whose ideas have taken hold have more to lose by seeing their ideas used in ways that make them uncomfortable?
Anyway, one thing I know is that as a young academic committed to openness and transparency, I'm constantly struggling against myself-- these horrible capitalistic desires to protect my ideas, to become the top dog, to 'make my mark' on the field, keep rising up at the most inopportune times!
This is one reason I like the Creative Commons licensing movement and its efforts to help people deal with their demons. Instead of allowing the work I post online to be covered by default by antiquated copyright laws, for example, I can attach a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License to it. The fine print of this license (which you can see at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/) tells you that you can use my writing for your own research or creative purpose, as long as you tell people where you got it from and don't try to make money off of it. Also, if you choose to appropriate my writing or ideas, this license informs you that you're bound to make any resulting research or creative production available under the same license. ShareAlike!
It's not a perfect solution, but at least it's better than many of the alternatives. 






~~

Jenna McWilliams
Learning Sciences Program, Indiana University
~
http://www.jennamcwilliams.com
http://twitter.com/jennamcjenna

~
jenmcwil@indiana.edu
jennamcjenna@gmail.com




On Oct 2, 2010, at 4:05 PM, mike cole wrote:
Guess I am wrong again, Yrjo. Lets hope its not getting to be a habit!! Could you point us toward an article or book that discusses the intrusion of commercial interests into academia of the kind we do back in the 1990's? Is the story of Jean's problems written up anywhere, or just part of the lore of the field? I have had conversations about these issues (along with the military, of course) but I missed the published discussions of how these 
trends influence our work. Mea culpa.
mike

2010/10/2 Yrjö Engeström <yrjo.engestrom@helsinki.fi>
Mike, the trade mark attached to the Change Lab has never before bothered researchers around the world - and we have not bothered them by taking it up. It is indeed given away in the research community. I don' t think that "the initial problematics of the Change Lab (registered trademark) have changed for researchers." The trademark was obtained very early on, I think already in 1996, as we noticed the attempts of consulting firms to take commercial advantage of our work without respecting its substance. The whole 
thing is old news.

Cheers,

Yrjö




mike cole kirjoitti 2.10.2010 kello 20.46:
Beneath the banter, there are serious issues at stake in the exchange over 
trademarking. I did not
mean to hijack that conversation into loyalty oaths, let alone phone-sex 
workers with tenure (she should never have dragged in a student).
The original issue DOES seems worth discussion. Everyone is constrained in what research they can do, what jobs they can hold, etc., for reasons that could be termed "political-economic." It would be a seriously interesting undertaking to find out how people manage to fund deviant research in the way in which one sometimes hears it said that CHAT scholars do. LCHC has 
played the artful dodger, but its not easy to remain nimble for many
decades. Lois and her colleagues have an unusual model for funding their 
work. I am not sure if "All Starts" can be a trademark, or if the
organization faces such pressures, but i can imagine it. As Finland has 
privatized, the initial problematics of the Change Lab (registered
trademark) have changed for researchers there. Etc.
The issue of a needing a trademark to keep from getting ripped off by BIG CAPITAL seems real, but somehow, to me, unfortunate. Its feels like it 
reduces the public sphere.
Perhaps just my limited understanding, but I think that the intersection 
of
ideas, careers, and the political economic conditions we work under, and their combined influence on what we can think and say, would be worth 
trying
to inform each other about. A lot of us are in the same boat and the
aquatic
termites are pretty busy eating us into the water.

But maybe its silence that's golden?
mike

mike


On Sat, Oct 2, 2010 at 10:01 AM, smago <smago@uga.edu> wrote:

Scroll to the bottom of
http://www.busfin.uga.edu/forms/security_oath.pdfto see the loyalty oath 
required of Georgia System employees. I also had to

sign one at the U. of Oklahoma where I taught from 1990-8. I don't
violate
the constitutions of Georgia or the USA that I know of, but some cases 
are
interesting. See e.g.
http://chronicle.com/article/article-content/124369/.

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu ] 
On
Behalf Of mike cole
Sent: Saturday, October 02, 2010 12:55 PM
To: Yrjö Engeström
Cc: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] copy of Change Lab paper

Hi Yrjo-- Great that you had time to write.
I guess I just never noticed the trade mark before. It seemed to speak to 
the issue of commercialization that came up a couple of weeks ago.
As to what would happen if some consulting companies copied our ideas, 
our
name, and went out to make money on them? Yes, its a problem. Like Jean 
Lave
developing the idea of community of practice and being told not to use 
the
term because Xerox had the trade mark (or so the rumor goes).
The words, 5th Dimension, were not first employed by LCHC, although we 
used
them in a somewhat unusual way. Remember the band? Probably their name is trademarked and we are infringing... except that we are too insignificant 
to
bother with.
My own position, having been raised in California, completed a public university when it was a public university (now about 80 % privatized), 
is
that I am bound by my contract as a faculty member to give away my ideas. The University makes me sign some document these days that says if I 
invent
something, they get a cut. (Back when i attended UCLA professors had to 
sign
a loyalty oath... those times may be coming back in addition to
privatization, unfortunately).
I think a really productive discussion could focus on the differences 
between what is possible in terms of research in different
socio-political-economic circumstances. The US has gone hyper neoliberal capitalist, as if everyone was reading Das Kapital. Finland has moved in 
the
same direction, but perhaps retains some of its past. Brazil has its restrictions, etc. How does this affect the potentials for developing 
CHAT
research as a public good? What public?
Meantime, we'll keep trying to give it away. Its all I know how to do, or 
care to do.

mike
2010/10/2 Yrjö Engeström <yrjo.engestrom@helsinki.fi>

Mike, for your information, we got a registered trade mark for the

Change
Lab already in the 1990s for the simple reason that some consulting 
companies started to use the name and some elements of the method,


watered


down or mutilated in many ways, for their commercial purposes.

What if you saw your 5D being used like that?

Cheers,

Yrjö




mike cole kirjoitti 2.10.2010 kello 2.22:
Mine opened. Thanks very much for sending it, Sarah. I can forward if 


that


helps, Mary.

And guess what?
Its not the Change Lab any more. Its the change lab (registered trade 
mark!).
Quick, somone, register lchc before it too goes overseas!!
I am having the devil's own time keeping up with this modern
generation.
mike

On Fri, Oct 1, 2010 at 3:37 PM, Katerina Plakitsi <kplakits@gmail.com


wrote:



I CANNOT OPEN THE DOC FILE. DO YOU?



--------------------------------------------------
From: "Sarah Eagle" <s.eagle@bristol.ac.uk>
Sent: Friday, October 01, 2010 2:23 PM
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Subject: Re: [xmca] copy of Change Lab paper


Dear Mary

The paper is available online at






http://www.uio.no/studier/emner/matnat/ifi/INF5220/h04/undervisningsmateriale/EngestromEtAl_ChangeLab.doc
On 1 October 2010 10:01, Mary van der Riet <vanderriet@ukzn.ac.za > 
wrote:

Does anyone have a copy of
Engeström, Y., Virkkunen, J., Helle, M., Pihlaja, J. & Poikela, R. 
(1996). The Change laboratory as a tool for transforming work.


Lifelong



Learning in Europe, 1(2), 10-17.


thanks
Mary
Mary van der Riet; School of Psychology; University of KwaZulu-Natal 
Private Bag X01, Scottsville, 3209

email: vanderriet@ukzn.ac.za
tel: 033 260 6163;  fax: 033 2605809

Please find our Email Disclaimer here:
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