Deborah Schultz

Deborah Schultz: "It breathes - connecting theories and practice. I have now had a few days to reflect on Supernova and I realize that what was most striking to me was how the event was emblematic of the intersection of theory and practice. You had Weinberger and Keen arguing the finer points of informaiton & internet culture and Clay Shirky discussing the Love Economy, in the same room where start-ups like Pando unveiled their peer-to-peer content delivery platform (bottomline - cheap and fast) and Spock demonstrated their wicked people search app (u can never hide again).

SECOND LIFE

This 'theory into practice' reality has been steadily bubbling up over the past few months. I am not referring to the froth of investments or purchases but to the fact that individuals and companies are building stuff that takes the concepts of connection and expression and are building living breathing entities. In Wednesday's Innovation session TechSoup demonstrated how they use Second Life to recruit volunteers and Rolando Brown talked (via video) on how he uses social media tools to promote the Hip-Hop Association. We also have Google announcing they will pay developers to make cool stuff and Facebook opening the world to its platform."

Helge: I did open a Facebook account today, the intention being to figure out how it could be used to develop VIRTUAL ORGANIZATIONS and to build global networks. Not a small challenge.