17 January 2005

The Social Affordances of the Internet for Networked Individualism

Ran across this paper - The Social Affordances of the Internet for Networked Individualism - as I began to prepare for teaching my next Master class Working with the dynamic network structure of Brands, Identity & Concepts using Applied Connective Dynamics (ACD).

Though it was written in the spring of 2003, it has more relevance now than then. Webspace is rich in choice for social networking platforms - LinkedIn, Ecademy, OpenBC, and many, many more - and collaborative spaces like wikis. Blogs and aggregators have democratized publishing. The tools we have at hand for managing our expeditions in webland multiply weekly - ping sites for getting our blogs and sites recognized and listed in search engines, del.icio.us for tracking bookmarks and following what others are reading, Flickr for cataloguing and posting photos, flash based polling tools for keeping a live pulse on what people are thinking and doing, and so many others.

As I finish writing the reader for my students, I question what is relevant and what will remain relevant. I want them to build a brand out of their human content using a wiki for working simultaneously online and a blog for expressing and sharing their experiences in doing this.

What do they really need to know without overwhelming them?

No comments: