SI Wrap Up

I've returned to Toronto and spent a few days settling in to my regular life. Unfortunately, however, it seems to be taking a little while longer than expected. I keep thinking about things like social capital, facebook's implications on corporate networks, and the benefits of instant messaging in the workplace (while I waste time in the workplace on MSN). The fact is, however, 506 was a very useful course for practical things in the context of social networking... who knew?

So... to wrap up this learning journal, I'm going to review and comment on each of the 5 groups and their presentations to see what nuggets of wisdom I can pull from my memories of each presentation.

Group 1 - Facebook for non-profits - There were two very different sides to this issue. One I agree with, and one I do not. Facebook is a great way to promote events, using the social networks of people who are connected to your cause. A "cause" page is a good thing to have, as is a business/organization profile page. All good things, considering how many people use Facebook these days, especially when you take into account that there is no cost for these things. However, the idea of using facebook as a corporate directory to build social capital within the company is a bad one. If people want to do that, they can. But don't encourage people to do it when some people have social lives that they don't want to mix up with their business lives...

Group 2 - Social Bookmarking - I admit to not knowing much about the whole digg/technorati/etc. bookmarking craze, and I think this group's presentation did a good job of showing how it could be used in a real-life situation. I was more intrigued, however, by things like Google Notebook that allow you to flag specific sentences, pictures, etc. on a site and have them displayed when you return to that site.

Group 3 - We were awesome. Enough said.

Group 4 - Jeet Kune Do - I found this presentation to be a little confusing. While the design and delivery was very well done, I was left wondering what the proposed technology actually was. I reread the briefing document, and it confirmed that most of their effort was about addressing social capital problems without much use of technology, let alone a specific one. I heard some talk of the group lamenting that they didn't really have a technical person among them to take charge of technical aspects (this is grapevine chit-chat, so it may not be entirely true) but I feel that we've been in enough of these courses that somebody could have figured out a way to pick something a little more specific. Group 2, for example, deliberately chose something they knew nothing about.

Group 5 - Model UN video game - I found it unfortunate that I was supposed to respond to this presentation because I honestly thought it was the most innovative and well done. Of course, my role was to challenge them, ask tough questions, and pick their brains for possible explanations to issues they may have overlooked. Like most groups, they tap danced around the bits they didn't expect, and threw statistics and studies at the ones they did. Overall, I thought that it was a brilliant idea... I also thought it was brilliant to include a massive grant from Bill Gates to address any potential funding problems.

Overall, I found the 506 experience to be very thought provoking. As stated in previous entries, I'm a very social person, and perhaps that influences my thoughts on social interaction. It's a fascinating area of study and I could see myself spending more time in the study of such a field. Not now though... I'll be worrying about technology acceptance for the next year or so. Perhaps the PhD project will be more relevant to these topics. ;)