An article published in the March/April 08 issue of Technology Review and titled Between Friends discusses the concept of the social graph and how sites like Facebook are proving the value of this concept.
This article is best viewed in colour as the colour graphics help in understanding what is meant by 'social graph'. It's about links between users and blogs (based on subject(s) in common), comments (one user commenting on content in another's online presence, eg MySpace), Twitter, IBM's Atlas (social networks in the workplace), and viral marketing (using consumers' social connections for marketing).
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Facebook 101
This article, by Thomas Krivak is subtitled 'Ten Things You Need to Know About Facebook'. It gives a succinct overview of Facebook. The ten things are:
- Who is using Facebook? Numbers and %ages by age group, rate of joining, how much time is spent per day there;
- What can you find on Facebook? People's interests.
- Why are people using Facebook? It's an easy icebreaker, you can upload and share photos.
- What kinds of third-party programs can you add?
- What are advertisers doing there? Advertising - to quote one, they find it 'invaluable'.
- Who else is joining the Facebook network? It's not just college students, and political figures are there too.
- What groups are now on Facebook? Lots, including professional organisations.
- Why is Facebook so popular for sharing photos? Easy to upload. More photos than Flickr.
- How do you find old friends and new colleagues? It sounds easy.
- What about privacy? There are ways to avoid being visible to the whole world, but it's up to the user to implement them.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
The Wirearchy versus the Heirarchy
An article by Beverley Head titled 'Go with the Flow' and published on pages 34-36 of the November 2007 AFR Boss magazine discusses how knowledge within organisations is far more easily shared, so leading to a wider spread of power across and through these organisations.
The article quotes Jon Husband's definition of wirearchy: "a dynamic two-way flow of power and authority based on knowedge, trust and credibility, which is enabled by interconnected people and technology". An organisation's staff, suppliers and clients, now "easily connected by the internet", can "freely share information and opinions using a variety of tools from simple email to blogs or wikis."
Maybe there's nothing really new about this, given that organisations have long had both an official framework, usually an heirarchy, and an unofficial network of the "hubs, gatekeepers and enablers" who actually get things done. New tools just make it quicker and enable more people to have a say.
The article quotes Jon Husband's definition of wirearchy: "a dynamic two-way flow of power and authority based on knowedge, trust and credibility, which is enabled by interconnected people and technology". An organisation's staff, suppliers and clients, now "easily connected by the internet", can "freely share information and opinions using a variety of tools from simple email to blogs or wikis."
Maybe there's nothing really new about this, given that organisations have long had both an official framework, usually an heirarchy, and an unofficial network of the "hubs, gatekeepers and enablers" who actually get things done. New tools just make it quicker and enable more people to have a say.
The Horizon Report 2008
The New Media Consortiumand the Educause Learning Initiative collaborated to produce the 2008 Horizon Report. The report "seeks to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have a large impact on teaching, learning, or creative expression within learning-focused organizations."
This report describes 6 emerging technologies or practices that are likely to become mainstream in such organizations over the next 1 to 5 years. For each technology/practice there is an overview, a discussion on its relevance for teaching, learning, and creative expression, examples, and links to further reading. The last includes a link to resources tagged on del.icio.us by the Horizon Advisory Board for the technology/practice, and readers are invited to add their own, appropriately tagged links. Also described are a set of challenges and trends that will probably influence us within the above time frame. The precise research methodology used to compile the report is described. So, on to the technologies ...
Time to adoption horizon: 1 year or less
1. Grassroots video, easily produced, edited and made available on the Web by anyone with the right hardware, software, and ideas.
2. Collaboration webs, using free or inexpensive web-based tools to set up collaborative workspaces, allow users to easily work, share resources and capture ideas.
Time to adoption horizon: 2 to 3 years
3. Mobile broadband, perhaps best illustrated by the statement that "mobiles are increasingly about networking on the go", with an ever-expanding variety of content.
4. Data mashups, web applications that combine data from a number of sources
Time to adoption horizon: 4 to 5 years
5. Collective intelligence can be explicit (such as Wikipedia) or tacit, resulting "from the data generated by the activities of many people over time", eg Google's PageRank system.
6. Social operating systems, of which Facebook and MySpace are precursors. Such systems recognise webs of links, both actual and potential between people.
The critical challenges identified by the Horizon Advisory Board members include:
- Significant shifts in scholarship, research, and creative expression leading to a need for innovation and leadership at all levels of the academy;
- Higher education facing a growing expectatin to deliver services, content and media to mobile and personal devices;
- The renewed emphasis on collaborative learning that is pushing the educational community to develop new forms of interaction and assessment; and
- The academy being faced with a need to provide formal instruction in information, visual and technological literacy as well as in how to create meaningful content with today's tools.
The significant trends identified include:
- The growing use of Web 2.0 and social networking, combined with collective intelligence and mass amateurization is gradually but inexorably changing the practice of scholarship;
- The way we work, collaborate, and communicate is evolving as boundaries become more fluid and globalization increases;
- Access to and portability of content is increasing as smaller, more powerful devices are produced; and
- The gap between students' perception of technology and that of faculty continues to widen.
Also in the Report is a reflection on the first five years of the Horizon Report. The topics identified each year have proved without exception to be "worthy of our attention". Three metatrends are becoming clear:
- The collective sharing and generation of knowledge;
- Connecting people throug the network; and
- Moving the computer into three dimensions.
The Report concludes by listing the 36 members of the 2008 Horizon Project Advisory Board. They come from higher education institutions around the world (including two from Australia), representatives of the New Media Consortium and Educause, and people from a number of private and public sector organisations.
The 2008 Horizon Report is well worth reading.
Post-script
The Horizon Report Australia-New Zealand Edition for 2008 was published subsequently. This report follows the same format as The Horizon Report 2008. It's "the first in a new series of regional reports and examines emerging technologies as they appear in and affect higher education in Australia and New Zealand in particular."
Key trends include production of mobile phones "driving innovation and adoption of ever more capable portable devices", "an increasingly important set of influences from the workplace that are impacting how learning is designed and conducted", the increasing connectedness of people is continuing to reduce collaboration costs, and the set of technologies available to educators increases as both computers and the network increase in connectedness and capability.
Critical challenges include protectionism limiting "access to materials, ideas and collaborative opportunities", teachers lacking skills needed to make use of emerging technologies and teach their students how to do so, need for assessment before adoption, and poor quality broadband limiting options.
Technologies to watch include:
A. Time to adoption horizon one year or less:
1. virtual worlds and other immersive digital environments;
2. cloud-based applications;
B. Time to adoption horizon two to three years:
3. geolocation;
4. alternative input devices;
C. Time to adoption horizon four to five years:
5. deep tagging; and
6. next-generation mobile.
As with the original 2008 report, or each technology there is an overview, a discussion on its relevance for teaching, learning, and creative expression, examples, and links to further reading. The last includes a del.icio.us-tagged resources and readers may add to these.
Finally, the methodology is described and the members of the ANZ advisory board are listed.
Again, this report is well worth reading.
This report describes 6 emerging technologies or practices that are likely to become mainstream in such organizations over the next 1 to 5 years. For each technology/practice there is an overview, a discussion on its relevance for teaching, learning, and creative expression, examples, and links to further reading. The last includes a link to resources tagged on del.icio.us by the Horizon Advisory Board for the technology/practice, and readers are invited to add their own, appropriately tagged links. Also described are a set of challenges and trends that will probably influence us within the above time frame. The precise research methodology used to compile the report is described. So, on to the technologies ...
Time to adoption horizon: 1 year or less
1. Grassroots video, easily produced, edited and made available on the Web by anyone with the right hardware, software, and ideas.
2. Collaboration webs, using free or inexpensive web-based tools to set up collaborative workspaces, allow users to easily work, share resources and capture ideas.
Time to adoption horizon: 2 to 3 years
3. Mobile broadband, perhaps best illustrated by the statement that "mobiles are increasingly about networking on the go", with an ever-expanding variety of content.
4. Data mashups, web applications that combine data from a number of sources
Time to adoption horizon: 4 to 5 years
5. Collective intelligence can be explicit (such as Wikipedia) or tacit, resulting "from the data generated by the activities of many people over time", eg Google's PageRank system.
6. Social operating systems, of which Facebook and MySpace are precursors. Such systems recognise webs of links, both actual and potential between people.
The critical challenges identified by the Horizon Advisory Board members include:
- Significant shifts in scholarship, research, and creative expression leading to a need for innovation and leadership at all levels of the academy;
- Higher education facing a growing expectatin to deliver services, content and media to mobile and personal devices;
- The renewed emphasis on collaborative learning that is pushing the educational community to develop new forms of interaction and assessment; and
- The academy being faced with a need to provide formal instruction in information, visual and technological literacy as well as in how to create meaningful content with today's tools.
The significant trends identified include:
- The growing use of Web 2.0 and social networking, combined with collective intelligence and mass amateurization is gradually but inexorably changing the practice of scholarship;
- The way we work, collaborate, and communicate is evolving as boundaries become more fluid and globalization increases;
- Access to and portability of content is increasing as smaller, more powerful devices are produced; and
- The gap between students' perception of technology and that of faculty continues to widen.
Also in the Report is a reflection on the first five years of the Horizon Report. The topics identified each year have proved without exception to be "worthy of our attention". Three metatrends are becoming clear:
- The collective sharing and generation of knowledge;
- Connecting people throug the network; and
- Moving the computer into three dimensions.
The Report concludes by listing the 36 members of the 2008 Horizon Project Advisory Board. They come from higher education institutions around the world (including two from Australia), representatives of the New Media Consortium and Educause, and people from a number of private and public sector organisations.
The 2008 Horizon Report is well worth reading.
Post-script
The Horizon Report Australia-New Zealand Edition for 2008 was published subsequently. This report follows the same format as The Horizon Report 2008. It's "the first in a new series of regional reports and examines emerging technologies as they appear in and affect higher education in Australia and New Zealand in particular."
Key trends include production of mobile phones "driving innovation and adoption of ever more capable portable devices", "an increasingly important set of influences from the workplace that are impacting how learning is designed and conducted", the increasing connectedness of people is continuing to reduce collaboration costs, and the set of technologies available to educators increases as both computers and the network increase in connectedness and capability.
Critical challenges include protectionism limiting "access to materials, ideas and collaborative opportunities", teachers lacking skills needed to make use of emerging technologies and teach their students how to do so, need for assessment before adoption, and poor quality broadband limiting options.
Technologies to watch include:
A. Time to adoption horizon one year or less:
1. virtual worlds and other immersive digital environments;
2. cloud-based applications;
B. Time to adoption horizon two to three years:
3. geolocation;
4. alternative input devices;
C. Time to adoption horizon four to five years:
5. deep tagging; and
6. next-generation mobile.
As with the original 2008 report, or each technology there is an overview, a discussion on its relevance for teaching, learning, and creative expression, examples, and links to further reading. The last includes a del.icio.us-tagged resources and readers may add to these.
Finally, the methodology is described and the members of the ANZ advisory board are listed.
Again, this report is well worth reading.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Imagining Tomorrow's Future Today
This article by Art St George and the Educause Evolving Technologies Committee reports on the seven evolving technologies that they consider are having the most direct impact on higher education. The report is based on the white papers written by individual members of the committee. These white papers can be found on the Evolving Technologies Committee web site.
- The Web in 2007: It's not Just a Browser, It's a Platform. Not only do we have APIs (application programming interfaces) and mashups, we also have RIAs (rich internet applications) - tools that can be moved out of the browser and onto the desk top. RIAs could become the 'balance point that joins the advantages of Web and Internet access with the "user experience" of desktop applications.'
- Integrating Google Apps for Higher Education. These Apps range from Gmail to Google Groups and GoogleSketchUP6 and they can be used to enhance collaborative learning. They're part of the whole Web 2.0 environment - users can publish, discuss and become part of the content.
- The Evolution of Web Conferencing. This technology 'provides a way for individuals and groups to bridge distances and to communicate in exciting new ways."
- M-Learning. In this context it means portable and personal technology and its use in higher education can produce much greater flexibility and enhanced communication.
- 3D Printing: Turning Virtual Models into Hard Copy. This can add a tactile experience to design work.
- Virtualization: Applications, Systems, and Beyond. Allows for greater customisation in the delivery of applications.
- Information Lifecycle Management and Physical Storage Technologies for Digital Preservation. As increasing amounts of material is digitised, or born digital, ways of preserving it for the long term become increasingly necessary.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Let's share
Another article in the AFR of 18/1/08 is titled 'Social sites must learn to share'. It's on page 79. It highlights the problems associated with transferring your content from one social networking site to another. For example, you might want to move from MySpace to Facebook or Twitter, or transfer your photos from Yahoo! Flickr to Google's Picasa, but the current lack of standards mean it's almost impossible to do so.
Companies that own these sites may be reluctant to allow this, but users are saying that they (the users) own their friendships, not the sites.
There's now an Australian-based working group, Dataportability.org, that's 'aimed at creating and promoting open standards for personal data across the internet'. One member of this group is quoted as predicting that the company that's the first to allow such data portability is in a powerful position as users would become committed to such as site, knowing that they can move in the future if they wish.
Companies that own these sites may be reluctant to allow this, but users are saying that they (the users) own their friendships, not the sites.
There's now an Australian-based working group, Dataportability.org, that's 'aimed at creating and promoting open standards for personal data across the internet'. One member of this group is quoted as predicting that the company that's the first to allow such data portability is in a powerful position as users would become committed to such as site, knowing that they can move in the future if they wish.
Offices Face up to networking craze
The Aust Fin Review from 18 January 2008 has an article on the use of Facebook in the workplace (see Pages 1, 57). For example, Qantas group QF Crew is for staff using it to swap stories about their 'high-flying workplace'. Then there's the Qantas Flight Atendants group for, you guessed it, flight attendants.
In some workplaces Facebook is now seen as a third means of communication (the others being email and phone). Members can include senior staff and board directors - this is especially likely in 'knowledge work' in industries such as consulting, legal and financial services.
Included in the article is a table of Australian based companies showing their attitudes to the use of Facebook in the workplace. These range from 'official corporate presence' to 'tolerates it' and 'bans it', plus one company, AMP, which is believed to be working on an alternative.
Those that ban it cite reasons such as time spent on the site and the effect on bandwidth of 'content-heavy' pages. Most of those that tolerate it provided employees' use doesn't breach internet usage guidelines. Some use it as a way to communicate with staff and customers. Some are also investigating developing their own internal facilities because of the potential value as a team space.
One concern cited is that of security, that is, the potential for sensitive or confidential company information to be inadvertently revealed to the world.
However, 'ultimately, if there is one message that corporate Facebooks users commonly espouse, it is that the technology and social networking are here to stay'.
In some workplaces Facebook is now seen as a third means of communication (the others being email and phone). Members can include senior staff and board directors - this is especially likely in 'knowledge work' in industries such as consulting, legal and financial services.
Included in the article is a table of Australian based companies showing their attitudes to the use of Facebook in the workplace. These range from 'official corporate presence' to 'tolerates it' and 'bans it', plus one company, AMP, which is believed to be working on an alternative.
Those that ban it cite reasons such as time spent on the site and the effect on bandwidth of 'content-heavy' pages. Most of those that tolerate it provided employees' use doesn't breach internet usage guidelines. Some use it as a way to communicate with staff and customers. Some are also investigating developing their own internal facilities because of the potential value as a team space.
One concern cited is that of security, that is, the potential for sensitive or confidential company information to be inadvertently revealed to the world.
However, 'ultimately, if there is one message that corporate Facebooks users commonly espouse, it is that the technology and social networking are here to stay'.
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