I liked the plagairism one too.

I think Jon doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but if someone does reinvent it, he’ll screencast that.

You’re still in my fave five, Jim. And who knows — I mean, really, New Zealand? Obviously a fling.

Yeah, I began following Leigh through Stephen Downes and Brian lamb’s blogs and he’s been thinking through so much of this for a long while now with that whole subversive crew. I was blown away by his recent post on “It’s not plagiarism, it’s an easy essay”: sharp, funny, and framing a new way to think about some of the things that we all have formed so many assumptions about.

I think that alludes to so much of what you are talking about here, it’s not so much about being a genius thinker (for what is a genius? or a thinker?) as you suggest -it is a matter of making connections and being able to re-imagine the uses and application of things. That is what I love about Udell’s work, he doesn’t necessarily re-invent the wheel, he justs shows us a new path to roll it down (his library search, screencasts, and citizen political action pieces all do this so well). Thinking through this stuff is somewhat akin to jamming and improvising, not necessarily simply a “CREATION” that leaps from Zeus’s head!