It's always gratifying when meetings and discussions turn into actions and forward progress (and it happens far less often than most of us would wish).
The just-announced Social Software Alliance is an excellent example of exactly that. This group grew out of of the "Emergent Democracy" discussions that Joi Ito started a back in February, and that have grown a bit in terms of scope and focus.
The idea is to start bringing together the people who are interested in and knowledgable about social software, to start developing standards and tools in a collaborative way. There's a lot of working at cross-purposes and duplication of effort right now, I think, and this may be one answer to how to create a community of developers and researchers.
That's an awesome idea. Can students join too, who are interested in becoming more involved with development and the learning process? I have the interest part but am slowly gaining the experience aspect.
I am very interested in the weblogs and democracy discussion, or weblogs and civil society. Could you from time to time, for those of us who are not technically competent, blog about social software, not so much the high tech hows, but the more philosophical "whys and hows." In other words, will social software help create communities of interest, inside or outside corporate firewalls, how susceptible will it be to gaming by established power systems, such as government, law, and business. Will it, as a social force, go the way of Napster?
Hi Liz,
Re: my "pioneers at socialtext" blooper. Sorry about that. The group was introduced to me by PeteK and I hadn't followed the Emergent Democracy thread so I didn't see it's real genesis.
No offence to the rest of you guys intended.
Regards,
Matt
I can't seem to find information on how to join. I also note that there is apparently a mailing list, but I don't see information on how to join the mailing list.
Any info on this?