FAIR WARNING: The video embedded here is safe for work but does contain a good bit of me talking. Please proceed with caution!
My view of technology is greatly informed by a concern for the humans at the user end of it. What does it do for you? How does it make your day better? So I tend to look at what existing human dynamics new technologies either support, extend or both. That view got a big kick in the pants (in a good way) about six years ago (Gasp! Yes, right after I got out of high school ;-)) - I had the enviable task of getting the smartest people I knew and/or could find together in a room to talk about blog/wikis (we didn't even have 2.0 back then) and how they impact the enterprise. My first call was to @jaycross who in short order, helped me to hook up with folks like @jerrymichalski , @marciamarcia , @eekim , @Ross , @cshirky , @dweinberger , and @timoreilly (although he couldn't make it...stupid calendar). Anyway, I was star-struck then by assembled brainpower and am even moreso today. What a huge gift that was.
Well much like VH1, I'm trying to get the old band back together...I think the big lesson for me that came out of those sessions was that conversations are incredibly powerful (especially for learning) and the technologies of social media grant them unheard of scale and speed. I also think that those same dynamics are still at play today and that bringing back the human might be a good way to get people to understand what I see as so powerful about social media.
So this video is the first attempt at that. @jerrymichalski has access to a cool new G+ feature that allows us to record our Hangout and broadcast it via YouTube. We plan on producing a book out of all this and maybe some other items but what better way to start off looking at conversations than with a conversation. PLEASE feel free to comment with suggested resources, people we should talk to (already have a pretty good list working) and any comments or suggestions you have. We plan to do this a few times and I'll let you know when we do. Thanks and I look forward to talking to you all.
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