Power to the People - Talk 1b

After reading the reader 'professional communication technology' (about ten times) I came to several conclusions about web 2.0.

• It allows us to share our expertise and ideas with others not only in our specific practice but with the wider community

• It can help us become a better practicioner as it gives us a platform of many tools

• Web 2.0 is constantly moving forward.Bruns focuses on this in his journal when talking about Produsage. His definition of the work being; "the collaborative and continuous building and extending of existing conent in pursuit of further improvement. " Which I feel sums up web 2.0 very well. 

Those three bullet points were sum up my immediate reactions to the reader but after reflecting on my thoughts I decided to look further into web 2.0 and the many aspects it had. The Campus Session we had enabled me to develop these thoughts through a discussion process and also let me see what everyone else had to say about it too.  We went from Grubers views of what is trust worthy on the net to Lorenzos views of being 'Net Savvy.

I personally think that web 2.0 is brilliant and with out it then for starters we wouldn't be able to do this degree! Like everything in life is has its pros and cons. For example is Facebook going to take over the world? And I think the answer to that question lies with us. Like Reich says "the future of the web is dependant on who uses it." Which I think is a very valid point and takes us back to Produsage. From looking at others peoples blogs I am not the only one who raises this issue, Lee Taylor questions no longer meeting up for coffee in Starbucks but scheduling in a quick catch up over Facebook. Following the link on Lee's Blog I also found Liam Conman's views on this very interesting. As he questions that "as well as this technology aiding us and helping to make things easier, it is actually starting to encourage us to become lazy and socially inept in the physical world; existing too much in cyberspace."  I personally feel its all about moderation. Yes its great to catch up with your friends that are dancing on cruise ships but nothing beats a catch up over a coffee. It is us as the consumer to limit our usage and ultimately decide if Facebook will take over the world.

I feel that web 2.0 has so much to offer us especially in our industry. Not only can we use it as a platform for networking socially we can also use this to create contacts in the business world. We can promote ourselves by uploading show reals and use the likes of spotlight and have an online Cv. There are so many resources available for us to get the latest song or piece of sheet music, the list is endless.

Yet you do have to be careful and although we do have instantaneous information another negative about web 2.0 is not all of it is correct. As we have both the Semantic web which is authorised and checked information but we also have the Social web which contains the likes of wikipedia. (Gruber focuses on this in his journal) But its all about awareness and harnessing the correct information in the correct way.

I think we can all safely say that web 2.0 helps us every day and with out it you would be lost. You just need to become 'Net Savvy' to understand the pros and cons and use it to your advantage. I admit that there are 10 year olds who know more about it than me so I have a long way to go but we will all get there eventually even my Gran can email! With Smartphones, Ipads and Laptops we have everything by the click of a button. So to conclude my thoughts on web 2.0 I want to say.....Power to the People.