Just a rough recap of my day, because I promised myself I would record of my this for public consumption. 

Plenary Session, "Transforming the Internet?"

Panelists

• Genevieve Bell, Intel Digital Home Group
• Howard Rheingold, UC Berkeley and Stanford
• Andrew Keen, author "Cult of the Amateur"

A very interesting talk, and I have to say I don't think I agree with a lot that was said during this talk.  I suppose I expected some of that going in though...

First off, Genevieve presented on the topic, "Transforming the Internet?", then Howard Rheingold and Andrew Keen gave a few different insights to what Genevieve presented.

My head hurts too much to really sum up everything mentioned in the presentation, but here's a few points that I did get down.

• There are many futures to the internet, it's about more than just the technology we use to connect.
• The internet is moving off of computers and to other devices; phones, televisions, and it is become more transitive.
• China has eclipsed the number of American users on the internet... how do we deal with people entering the internet where Enlgish is not their first, or even second language.
• Different types of infrastructures, "find the 'killer app' and it 'screws' it for everybody else"... she used BBC's iPlayer as an example.  The idea being that the popularity of something kills the infrastructure enough to disadvantage "normal" users.
• Internet regulations, especially in the way of the government as stakeholders.
• Socio-technological concerns like privacy, authenticity, reputation, and access.
• She summed up by talking about how to design for the web, and how there is the possibility of "many webs" and no fixed notion.  Information passes through devices in many ways.

I mentioned my head hurts, it was actually killing me through this session, I think it had much to do with the drive and not the actual presentation, it was hurting before I walked in the door... I really did try to concentrate, but I know I missed a lot.  Next up Howard Rheingold discussed his thoughts which focused a lot on literacies.  Then Andrew Keen... oh Andrew Keen, I am still not a fan...  No I haven't read the book, "Cult of the Amateur", yes I have always intended to, I don't like people who criticize what people say without reading the book, but his thoughts have never been popular with me based on a number of interviews I've seen him do now.

Andrew talked about his theory of the internet quite a bit, views on authenticity, the attractiveness of anonymity, the normal "fears" that people have.  He said that "the internet is not the real world, it is an idealized world".  He actually goes as far to say that most individuals are not ready for this technology and that what worries him is the "idealized" vision that people will have on the world because of the internet.

The most interesting comments came right before the question and answers though... my favorite:

Genevieve discussed how offline conversations can manifest themselves into online conversations, and vice versa.  Andrew's response somewhere in there, "How do "they" manifest disappointment? (meaning the people participating in the online environment) Genevieve's response was "How do they manifest disappointment now?" (meaning the people in an offline environment)

Which sort of hints why I'm not a fan of Andrew's thoughts... I felt he's too focused on the individual and does not give any credit to how communities form and operate online.  His "idealized internet" is too idealized, and he's creating fears out of situations that really aren't a big deal.  He says the internet is not reality, but I disagree... the internet is a part of a lot of people's reality, it is certainly a part of mine and I don't see anything wrong with that.

There was a lot that came out of this session, I know there was a lot I missed, and there was certainly a lot I disagreed with... even some of the less harsher views of the internet seemed harsh.  I'm not saying there are not issues with authority and privacy online, but I think there's a lot that is overexaggerated at times, and I don't see those issues any different than many of the issues cultures have dealt with without the internet... they're just presented in a very transparent way now.  It's kind of here to stay... or at least I hope so, I think I would be bored without the internet.

Poster Sessions

I visited poster sessions next, I found out last night that my advisor was presenting!  Here are the three I found most interesting:

• Bin Li: An Inside Look at Travelers’ Information Suitcase (my advisor at Wayne State, yea!)
• Elisabeth Jones, Harry Bruce, Predrag Klasnja and William Jones: I Give Up! Five Factors that Contribute to the Abandonment of Information Management Strategies
  • Personal information management has been a real interest of mine lately so I enjoyed this poster.  The main take away is that regardless of the tools that people use, there does seem to be a commonality to why people "quit" their systems.
• Paul Aumer-Ryan:  Interface Effects on Digital Library Credibility Judgments
  • Paul has been looking at "no results found" results from digital library search systems and how users may take that information to definitively mean no results, when the information could actually be there. 

After the poster session I went to the leadership program, there's not much to really say about this, I thought it was more interesting last year actually... this year it was more of a question and answers thing with the various leaders in ASIS&T.  I was mostly frustrated with lack of internet and phone signal by this point anyway.

Finally, I added some images to Flickr from the Welcome Reception and the dinner with SIG-Management.  I edited the photos, but I'm too tired for doing the full blown tagging tonight, but if others want to tag for me, have at it.  I think anybody else can tag...

At the dinner I passed my camera around the table and just let other people take the pictures, I liked this!  I got more pictures than what I normally would've taken myself and I got some interesting perspectives too, not to mention a couple pics of myself, one with closed eyes, one without... I definitely think I'll be trying this fun trick again.