Symposium on Social Architecture

I hate red-eye airline flights, but I am going to be taking one so that I can participate in Corante’s Symposium on Social Architecture in Boston next Tuesday.  The topic and the people coming together are just too good to pass up. Billed as an “un-conference”, the gathering is going to focus on: the overarching themes and underlying technologies that are driving the massive uptake of people-centered, user-driven, individual-connecting applications, communities, content, and services.

The organizers (or is it “un-organizers”?) are promising a series of highly interactive sessions with strong audience participation. The sessions will be covering the following topics:

• Is Business Ready for Social Software?
• Engines of Meaning: How Will We Scale Our Understanding?
• Is Social Software A Mirror Or a Lens?
• How Will The Social Web Change Media?
• A Case Study in Web-Based Civics: Katrina and Recovery 2.0.

Stowe Boyd and David Weinberger are key ringleaders of this event, but some of the featured participants include Seth Goldstein, Kaliya Hamlin, Mary Hodder, J.D. Lasica, Liz Lawley, Kevin Marks, Chris Nolan, Andrew Rasiej and Thomas Vander Wal.

I am going because I am convinced that social software will play a central role in driving the next wave of value creation for the enterprise.  For the past couple of decades, the primary focus of IT investment in the enterprise has been to standardize and automate business processes.  Over the next couple of decades, the real opportunity will be to amplify practices by supporting collaboration on demand – helping people both within and across enterprises to connect more flexibly and richly with each other around real business needs.

I am looking forward to being at the symposium, but I am going to need some strong coffee when I arrive – did I tell you I hate red-eyes?

Comments

[Dave Bayless]

"I am convinced that social software will play a central role in driving the next wave of value creation for the enterprise...Over the next couple of decades, the real opportunity will be to amplify practices by supporting collaboration on demand."

Absolutely. Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to tell my friend Duncan Work at LinkedIn that I finally discovered the usage context that makes paid membership in his company's network worthwhile. My colleagues and I have found the tool increasingly useful in identifying and engaging with very specific sources of industry and product development expertise in order to do real work, right now. Collaboration on demand, indeed.