Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Your Power

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

Power is often described as a primitive, a thing-in-itself. That's the sense I got reading this article, as Julian Stodd looks at different types of power: his iPod battery, his connections to the world, his power as a Social Leader (his capitalization). Continuing the analogy allows him to write things like "Power rarely flows downhill like water: instead it may clump and cluster, or even become attached to other things, like a magnet." But what is power. I draw inspiration from physics: power is the ability to get work done. The work may be simple, like voting in an election, or difficult, like waging war, or creative, like building a road. You can shape and influence opinions all you want, but it's not power until it gets something done. And my focus is on personal empowerment - being able to get work done myself, as opposed to convincing other people to do it for me.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Dec 22, 2024 09:28 a.m.

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