News

Web 2.0 and Communities of Practice conference

CPsquare is holding an online mini-conference in January 2006 to focus on 5-6 major technologies (or tool groups) that reflect the qualities of what is being termed "Web 2.0," probably staying on each one for 2-3 days in an online discussion that's introduced by a telephone conference. For each tool we'll consider how it's actually used in a community of practice (or speculate how it could be used). The tools that are being considered are in the table at the bottom of this announcement, along with the people who've stepped forward to lead the discussions so far. Note that the schedule will change and items may be dropped or added, depending on people's energy. We're inviting non-members to join us in our discussions. The conference fee is set so as to give people a glimpse of CPsquare and encourage them to join. CPsquare events combine online discussion and telephone conferences. Register for the Web 2.0 conference now!

A range of new tools, architecture, and applications loosely aggregated under the label "Web 2.0" have the potential to change how we use the Web and offer specific opportunities of communities of practice. For each tool, we intend to ask a set of questions such as:

• What actual tools are included? What are good examples of the tool?
• How would the tool help an existing communities? Is it useful for launching a community? Do we see a substitution, an incremental add-on or fundamental shift?
• What potential might the tool have to create new social forms, aggregations, or interactions?
• Are there significant tool combinations or interactions that increase the tool's use to communities?
• Does the tool require technology stewardship to leverage it? How? Why?
• Does the tool have a differential role or effect in open or public communities compared to internal or closed or private ones? How? Why?
• How easy or difficult is the tool to connect or interoperate with other tools?
• How does the tool observe common notions such as "community boundary" -- or not?
• How would a community leader or leadership group use the tool to keep the community together or stimulate a community or whatever?
  

When? We will launch the conference to discuss goals and processes on Tuesday January 3rd at 20:00 GMT (noon on the west coast of the US, 8 PM in London, 7 AM Wednesday in Sydney). Teleconferences will be scheduled at the same time of day on the following days during the course of January. All teleconferences are recorded and an MP3 file is posted for those who miss the call.

Telecon Date	Topic	Facilitators
Tuesday, January 3	Conference launch	John Smith and John Barben
Friday, January 6	Blogs and RSS	Susanne Nyrop, Nancy White, Martin Roulleaux Dugage
Monday, January 9	Wikis	Eric Sauve, Nancy White
Thursday January 12	Tagging	Bronwyn Stuckey
Tuesday, January 17	SNA, FOAF & networking	Rosanna Tarsiero, Susanne Nyrop
Friday, January 20	Podcasting and audio applications	Bronwyn Stuckey
Monday, January 23	Mashups	Marshall Kirkpatrick
Thursday, January 26	Interoperability	Kirk DeFord
Tuesday, January 31	Final reflection and summary

We're still negotiating the calendar, as other topics have been proposed. Join us now! Register here. This conference is by and for CPquare members and their guests. (CPsquare members do not need to register here, as the conference cost is included in their membership.)