Web/Enterprise 2.0

Wow - I feel like my eyes have been opened and everything looks different! 

I am currently reading Andrew McAfee's book Enterprise 2.0, New Collaborative Tools for your Organisation's Toughest Challenges, and approached it with caution, having had it recommended to me by my husband.  I am pleased to report that it is an easy and entertaining read, packed with information in a straightforward and non tech-speak way.  I already knew that the web had finally achieved it's original dream of becoming participatory and collaborative but I had no idea  of the technology behind it.  What amazed me most was the cleverness in which the links and tags work "causing pattern and structure to appear over time" (McAfee, 2009, p. 48) in what most people thought would become an over-cluttered platform; the more people use the web, the more structured it becomes, and the users become the driving force for quality.  Google is also a wonderful tool.  I remember first using the internet and trying to search for things and being shown pages and pages of irrelevant drivel.  Google works using links and extensions, returning pages that have the most links to them and so are therefore more likely to be what you are looking for, and it also remembers previous searches and like-minded people's searches, so anticipates your needs.  Amazing!

In a previous life I worked for Adult Education in Cornwall County Council in the UK which had it's own huge intranet site.  It was a nightmare as you could never find what you were looking for and each individual office had to reinvent procedures.  If only Web 2.0 had been around, how much easier our jobs would have been!  My eyes are now open to the possibilities that this sharing can bring, for example,doctors surgeries adding symptoms and diagnosis may tease out patterns and causes, helping identify illnesses earlier and maybe even help find cures. 

I finish with a good description of the web from Tim O'Reilly - that the web is organic, growing as an output of the collective activity (2005, p. 2).

References

McAfee A.  (2009).  Enterprise 2.0: New collaborative tools for your organisation's toughest challenges.  Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press

O'Reilly T.  (2005).  What is web 2.0: design patterns and business models for the next generation of software.  Retrieved from http://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/4578.html

Delicious

Well, I am delicious and linked-in now and I feel that I have opened a doorway into a strange and new world.  How can it be that I use the internet and the web everyday and yet I know so little - it's like an iceberg!

I have learnt that the internet and the world wide web are two related but separate things, and that essentially the web piggybacks off the internet infrastructure.  They are both controlled by a series of protocols which remind me of some science fiction film and I can imagine internet space rangers in cyberspace making sure that everything follows the rules or risk being destroyed!  The web has changed so much over its brief lifespan and there is a very interesting website in which you can time travel back to early web pages in archive.org, so not only is knowledge present , it is also past and future!  Interestingly the web has become less of a technical, information finding tool and more of a social hub bringing people together to collaborate, chat and share.  So much for people becoming more isolated!  The internet and the web has actually made people communicate more!

I am off now to discover the delights of Web 2.0 which I am hoping, and suspect, is not your usual overhyped and disappointing sequel (Harry Potter excluded of couse!).

Sarah

Blog Virgin

Well, this is a bit scary - my first blog!  I am attempting to develop my online presence as part of my Web Communications course through Curtin University and thought I would log my reflections on my learning journey here - an appropriate place for a web based course. 

I thought I was a bit computer / internet savvy but turns out I know even less than I thought I knew - the internet and the web is a much, much bigger machine and community than I ever thought it was and the opportunities, communications and links are seemingly limitless.  I applaud the visions of the pioneers who made this possible for us, and who could see though the mundane everyday into a new age - today the world is literally on our doorstep and anything is possible

I regularly use email and I don't know where I would be without Facebook and Skype since I moved from the UK to Australia.  What a great way for keeping in touch with family and friends from far away - I see my parents more often now than I did when we lived in the same country! 

I can't wait to start blogging, twittering, googling and being delicious!