Social computing is here to stay, and it looks like it is getting a formal curriculum wrapped around it as well. Susan Barnes, a professor of communication at the U.S.-based Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) was recently awarded a two-year $149,786 grant from the National Science Foundation to develop an undergraduate online course in the new discipline of social media.

“The introduction of social media software programs is a major change in the way that people communicate on the Internet. It is both a social and technological change that deserves academic attention,” Barnes said.

RIT’s new social media course debuts early next year to a trial group of 90 students, and will double as a case study of technology and social networking that is expected to further Barnes’ research into the potentials of social computing in learning.

“A focus of our course will be to introduce students to career possibilities,” Barnes said. “Social networking combines IT with communication, so we need students from both Liberal Arts and computer backgrounds … the types of skills that are needed in industry.”

Source: Computerworld

It’s a well known fact that the level of activity surrounding a blog (specifically in the number and quality of posts and comments) can tell you a lot about the vitality of the community that the blogger has created. However, are all posts and comments good? A few weeks ago the blogging community witnessed a pretty horrible attack on a well known and respected blogger which really captured the attention of the overall blogging community. It also sparked Jeff De Cagna’s 338 and Counting post which is what brought the situation to my attention.

In response to the situation Tim O’Reilly issued a call for a “Bloggers Code of Conduct”. Tim went on to enumerate some initial thoughts based on some discussion at O’Reilly’s ETech conference. Among them:

1. Take responsibility not just for your own words, but for the comments you allow on your blog.
2. Label your tolerance level for abusive comments.
3. Consider eliminating anonymous comments
4. Ignore the trolls.
5. Take the conversation offline, and talk directly, or find an intermediary who can do so.
6. If you know someone who is behaving badly, tell them so.
7. Don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t say in person.

While this was short of codifying universally acceptable blogging norms, it did lead to a fury of activity. Yesterday (03-April-07), Tim posted an update announcing that a draft had been created, a domain name (bloggincode.org) had been secured (not yet active at the time of writing) and a review process via a wiki will be put in place to solicit feedback.

The draft code includes the following provisions:

1. Take responsibility for our own words and for the comments we allow on our blog.
2. Don’t say anything online that we wouldn’t say in person.
3. Connect privately before we respond publicly.
4. When we believe someone is unfairly attacking another, we take action.
5. We do not allow anonymous comments
6. We ignore the trolls.

If you subscribe to the code, you can obtain a badge indicating that you do. Likewise, if you decide to be more liberal with what you allow in your comments, you can display a badge that indicates that as well.

Instead of trying to come up with a witty or extremely thoughtful synthesis, I will simply offer Tim’s own words:

As Doc Searls famously said in The Cluetrain Manifesto, the book he co-authored with Chris Locke and David Weinberger, “markets are conversations.” We celebrate the blogosphere because it embraces frank and open conversation in ways that were long missing from mainstream media and marketing-dominated corporate websites. But frankness does not have to mean lack of civility. There’s no reason why we should tolerate conversations online that we wouldn’t tolerate in our living room.

I fully believe in freedom of speech and freedom of expression but I have to draw the line at personally attacking someone simply because they are an easy target. Is the Blogging Code of Conduct an example of a socially responsible response to a horrible situation or simply common sense / respect for others codified? I suspect it is the later as opposed to the former. Regardless, it makes me wonder why moral values and respect have seemingly disintegrated, especially in such a public forum.

Everybody is talking about it (aside: most are getting it wrong but I will take that on later) but how are businesses using Web 2.0 related technology?

A recent survey conducted by McKinsey sought to answer that question by surveying almost 2900 (2847 to be specific) executives  worldwide on their adoption, satisfaction and thoughts about Web 2.0 technology. For clarification, McKinsey considers the following to be Web 2.0: “blogs, collective intelligence (crowdsourcing aka widom of the crowds), social networking (FaceBook, MySpace, LinkedIn), podcasting, RSS, peer-to-peer networking (BitTorrent, eDonkey, Limewire, etc.), web services (SOAP, WSDL, UDDI) and wikis.

Among their primary findings:

1. More than 3/4 of executives who responded say they plan to maintain or increase their investments in collaborative technology.
2. More than 1/2 are pleased with their past internet investments.
3. Many executives felt remiss in not increasing their (companies) capabilities to leverage technology.
4. Of those executives from companies that did adopt new technologies, many felt they moved to slowly.
5. In emerging markets (India, Latin America, etc.) executives intend to move more quickly to capture key benefits of these technologies.

A particularly interesting point is the fact that despite the widespread adoption of Web 2.0 technologies many companies aren’t using the better known tools (blogs, etc.). In fact they are using these tools to communicate with customers, achieve tighter integration with partners and facilitate collaboration and manage knowledge inside of the company. Of those that are using Web 2.0 technologies, few are using more than two different types.

Among the reasons cited for the use and investment in Web 2.0 are doing so either to “maintain the company’s market position”, “provide a competitive edge” or “address customer demand”. However, another more startling reason was to “match the competition.” So much for rational business decisions.

You can read / download the survey: How businesses are using Web 2.0: A McKinsey Global Survey from the fine minds at The McKinsey Quarterly (Free Registration Required).

So as association executives, how are you implementing and using Web 2.0 technology? Why are you doing it? What technologies do you feel create the most value for members? Let me know.

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