Sunday, March 2, 2008

The Social Web and Digital Natives

This week's Boston Area Windows Server User Group meeting will feature a presentation which sounds especially interesting:

"The Social Web and Digital Natives:
Understanding the Expectations of Tomorrow's User Base"

Presentation by Anthony A. Pino of Harvard College

Emerging modes of social production such as blogs, wikis, social networks, tagging, folksonomies and mashups have changed the face of the internet and hold important considerations for those developing and implementing the next wave of applications. As "Digital Natives", those who have grown up in a digital world and for whom connectedness is taken for granted, mature and both forge the online space into a more social one and become mainstream users of software, it is important to understand how they interact with technology, information, and with each other online. We'll look at the concepts and tools that form the "web 2.0" buzzword with an eye towards helping administrators who will be responsible for implementing technology platforms in the future. The talk will include a primer on blogs, wikis, tagging and social networks; the importance of a feedback loop for users; the merits of peer review and the wisdom of the crowd; why we all need to "set our data free" so it can be "mashed up" with other data, services and visualizations; and how to stay abreast of these new happenings. The presentations aims to be informative to those already familiar with the expectations and assumptions of Digital Natives as well as those who are curious about the changes afoot in the way people are using technology to communicate and manage information.

 

Boston Area Windows Server User Group meets at Microsoft's offices on the sixth floor of 201 Jones Road in Waltham, MA.  Meetings begin at 6:00 pm, this presentation is scheduled for 7:00-8:00.

 

Jack