Comments on: When Social Technologies Become AntiSocial

By: joshuamross

joshuamross — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 11:32:23 +0000

Cliff – of course you are right – technology is not inherently social or antisocial. How we take advantage of so-called social technologies can be either positive (supporting conversation and mutual understanding) or negative (alienating and divisive) based on how we structure it. That was my point — Your book is timely and I hope to read it soon.
J

By: joshuamross

joshuamross — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 03:32:23 +0000

Cliff – of course you are right – technology is not inherently social either. It all speaks to the feasibility that a technology affords us… how we take advantage of so-called social technologies can be either positive (supporting conversation and mutual understanding) or negative (alienating and divisive) — Your book is timely.

By: cliffatkinson

cliffatkinson — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 13:37:34 +0000

I like the intriguing title of your post, but it's not the technologies that became anti-social in this case, it was the people who used the technologies who became anti-social. Audience members often use Twitter during presentations to praise presenters, offer additional information and connect with one another – all of which are positive social uses of the technologies.
There's more in-depth exploration of this issue in my new book “The Backchannel: How Audiences Are Using Twitter and Social Media and Changing Presentations Forever” – you can download a free sample chapter at http://www.backchannelbook.com

By: joshuamross

joshuamross — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:55:26 +0000

Lars – Fantastic link. I have been wanting to use this for some time… but again, wanting to make sure that the implementation serves a clear purpose (also, I run a Mac so these tools aren't yet compatible). J

By: Lars Voedisch

Lars Voedisch — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 06:58:31 +0000

Hi Joshua, great post in sharing this experience and bringing it down to the most crucial but basic question: What do you want to achieve; rather than putting tools or tactics over objectives.

On the tools part, the folks at SAP developed a few nice twitter modules that you can include in your presentation: http://www.sapweb20.com/blog/powerpoint-twitter... – allows for some twitter-based interaction – when and where you want it.

By: McGee’s Musings : Learning to love the backchannel

McGee’s Musings : Learning to love the backchannel — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 04:00:30 +0000

[...] When Social Technologies Become AntiSocial – Opposable Planets Some additional insight and commentary on danah boyd’s Web 2.0 Expo keynote experience [...]

By: joshuamross

joshuamross — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 21:39:20 +0000

Great point David. I have also tried to understand how someone outside of their organization would derive any added value from that feature (for those that haven't seen it – the website David refers to has a constant feed of activity that is occurring within the company – including emails being sent out. They don't show the contents of the emails but the destinations etc.). In this case the trend is “Be transparent” being taken to mean “show everything” I think a little bit of filtering might be in order…. Then again, those guys are pretty smart. I may be missing something.

By: davidburk

davidburk — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 20:47:50 +0000

I find this in a league with Dachis group making the destinations of their emails part of their web site. As you point out, the experience wasn't architected correctly. But there is this other side of social media–the temptation to display too much and the voyeur's delight in seeing too much. As you have told me, social tools follow social rules. Everyone needs their own policy about how they wish to use these media.