Unfettered Clips & Quotes

Now that the first podcast transcripts from Unfettered Mind have been published and the tool to create and deliver audio clips from the podcasts (appended with a notice of the source of such a clip) has passed its first real world user test, here is a new place (blog) to make further use of it all:

Unfettered Clips & Quotes
QUOTATIONS AND AUDIO CLIPS OF BUDDHIST TEACHER KEN MCLEOD

As it will grow over time hope it will contain something for you. Of course, if you think there is something missing from the podcasts or Ken's teachings that you deem to be important or that is meaningful to you and that should be added there, it would be great to learn about it.

Survey results

A few weeks ago Unfettered Mind announced a new offering. Now available on the Unfettered Mind website, are five examples of podcast transcripts presented in conjunction with audioclips. To inform the on-going development of this innovation, and to make it as useful as possible, Unfettered Mind invited everyone connected to the network to participate in a survey The task involved personalizing the following short story:

As a ___________________________________

e.g. non-native speaker of English

I want to_________________________________

e.g. have the podcasts in written form with accompanying audio

so that I can ______________________________

e.g. study and practice more effectively

Those responding were invited to submit multiple stories in order to share as fully as possible the range of uses they envisioned.

Over 70 people responded. We've put together an overview of the results in a short Google Doc presentation. Once you've opened the file, click on Start Presentation for a full screen view, or if you wish to read the explanatory notes, remain in the Google Docs view and click on the "view speaker notes" icon at the bottom right of the screen.

The presentation follows the story line.

• The first slide is about how users describe themselves.
• The second and third slides are qualitative and quantitative ways of showing how people responded to "I want to..."
• The fourth and fifth slides are two views of the "so that I can...." responses.
• The sixth slide is a quantitative snapshot of what different users want.
• The remaining slides summarize some key messages that we've drawn from this information.
• The final slide shows how people heard about the survey.

Please share your comments and questions.

survey sent

Franca and I worked on the transcript survey this morning, messing around with Google Forms, etc. We discovered that we can insert html tags into the Google form and create a better looking form as a result. You can see the finished form, and let us know your ideas for the podcasts and transcripts by clicking here.

Leave No Ashes

Leave No Ashes by Ken McLeod from What to Do about Christmas?

when something is experienced completely, good or bad, it’s done, that’s it. Yes?

Student: I have a question [unintelligible]

Ken: All of this is connected with impermanence because we know the passage of time by recalling what we’ve done and that engenders all of these feelings. But as we’ve seen, if you experience things completely in the moment, they tend to leave fewer traces and fewer reverberations or resonances around. So that’s one of the things to take out of this.

In the Zen tradition, Suzuki Roshi says, “Whatever you do, do so completely that there aren’t even any ashes left.” Which is an extraordinary intense way of living. But you see this reflected in the attitude of a lot of athletes, of basketball players or somethings that don’t leave anything on the court. Which is: do it totally.

So I just want you to think for a few moments about what it would be like that everything you do, you do with your total attention. Complete, there’s nothing left. What would life be like that way?

This is a quote, both in audio and transcribed form, from a class given by Ken in 2004.

The transcription of this class is kind of a warm up side project from the group transcribing all 37 Now and Then classes. It is a big undertaking started many months ago by a group of volunteers out of the UM Ning site (and fortunately with the full support of Ken himself, who again makes the material generously available for the public). When they first made their efforts known by asking for more volunteers, I was excited about the project, as the podcast sessions are and have been very dear to me.

I thought it would be wonderful to search in them for special sections I do remember, but that are hard to find amoung the many hours of audio content. Also, it would be very nice to select and send a quote to someone who isn't necessarily interested in meditation or Buddhism, yet something gets touched that might be relevant to them. But I wouldn't have the patience or skill myself to contribute directly. However I had created by hand individual audio clips for my personal use with sections that spoke to me. This was a way of finding certain locations again in order to listen to such a clip repeatedly for a better understanding and also to let things sink in.

At the first meeting with all the volunteers it became clear that there might be some synergies with the transcription project and also that it would be nice to have a tool to conveniently create new audio clips.

As a first result as part of the bigger undertaking you see on each of the transcripts pages audio icons interspersed in the text, which let you listen to just a particular section. BTW, the timestamps have been added by the transcribers, they are then used to create the appropriate clips automatically.

But just as the transcriptions might be useful for more than reading them top to bottom (and we are very interested in getting to know how you would like to use the material, as Valerie and Jesse are preparing a short questionaire), hopefully there will be more uses for individual audio clips as well. If you can't wait what's next in store, make sure we learn about your ideas and needs, and if you want to contribute, e.g. creating your own audio clips or collections thereof, just get in touch.

Ciao, Clemens

Projects related to podcasts

I'm Valerie, a student of Ken McLeod and George Draffan. The podcasts are the way I discovered Ken and was attracted to his teachings, so I guess it is natural that I've been active in the various online manifestations of Unfettered Mind. I follow the discussions on the UMNing site (my profile) and frequently speak up in the various threads. The online portion of UM has been my link with teaching and sangha.

My interest in the podcasts lead me to join the transcription effort that started last February. I am now the overall project leader. Currently there are three teams, Transcribers, Podcast Clips, and Taxonomy. I've also served the effort as the Taxonomy team leader.

Recently our efforts have reached the point where we can share some of the transcripts. I'm looking forward to hearing what others in the UM community and beyond have to say about them.

Unfettered Mind Ning

Kia ora from New Zealand! I'm Ann, one of the site administrators for Unfettered Mind Ning, UM's social network. The others are George, Tracy, Franca, Peri, Susan and Jesse. We do things like checking to make sure new members aren't spambots, dissuading anyone who attempts to use the site for self-promotion or commercial purposes, posting new events, organizing the appearance and content of the site, welcoming new members and responding to questions and suggestions for improvement. If you haven't visited The Barometer, The Privacy Watchdog or the FAQ, take a peek at these for an idea of some of the questions and issues that have come up since UM Ning was initiated. We welcome your comments, suggestions and offers of help. Please post these on The Barometer or send a message.

I'm also involved in monitoring use of the UM Ning site with Google Analytics and through direct observation, occasionally blogging about findings in a series called Visualizing Unfettered Mind. As a member of the transcribing group, I'm excited about the launch of podcast transcripts and look forward to hearing about the creative uses that people will inevitably dream up for them. For more about this see this post by Jesse.

Unfettered Mind Store

Hi, I'm Franca, the person who updates the main Unfettered Mind website. Recently we've developed a single area in the site where people can go to purchase the items Unfettered Mind has for sale: a couple of Ken's books, a poster, and some archived on-line teachings of a very special nature.

Before this, you could only buy one item at a time, ordered through different areas of the website. This pulls it all into one area and makes it possible to use a "shopping cart" if you want to get more than one thing. It's also (hopefully) easy to use.

You can check out (and beta-test) this section by clicking here. Your comments on the section are very welcome below.

News from the UM Transcription Team

Hello!

Jesse here. I coordinate our amazing and dedicated transcriber team, hailing from all over the planet: Ann, Carolyn, Fred, Janet, Loren, Mark, Mary, Tracy, and Tsogyal. I also meet regularly with Ken and the other team leaders at Unfettered Mind: Valerie (Taxonomy), Clemens (Audio) and Ann (UM Ning Community).

In addition to the leadership role, I also find myself frequently up to my elbows in technical gears and grease as I work with a variety of technologies to get the raw typed transcripts out to the web in a standard, readable way.

Within the last month, the Transcription Team finished transcribing all 37 of the Then and Now podcasts, and are now moving forward with our Auditing phase, to ensure the transcripts are complete. We're also starting up proofreading and editing the transcripts, and would definitely like to hear from anyone with proofing and/or editing experience who has some time.

Right now, I'm working directly with Franca, our UnfetteredMind.org web designer, to put up five sample transcripts for UM readers to enjoy. We have the various sections of the podcast broken out into topics, and each topic can be listened to with Clemens' clipping utility that he wrote for Unfettered Mind. I think it's going to bring a whole new dimension to transcripts!

As a part of this effort, we also are working with Valerie and our Taxonomy team to get an index of keywords to make the podcasts searchable beyond the standard full-text search. It's exciting and a little bit of a stretch sometimes as we bring together a wide variety of skill sets to make this happen.

I'll be writing more as things shift and grow.

Jesse

about this blog

Unfettered Mind now has a small complex of 8 or 9 websites, largely maintained by a global network of volunteers. While we don't operate at quite net speed, we are constantly developing and testing new features.

Here you will find news of updates, what's working, what's not working, and what's being done about it. Contributors to this blog include Franca, our main website designer, Valerie, Jesse, and Clemens, who all lead teams connected to the transcript project, Ann, who oversees the ning site, and, of course, yours truly.

Ken