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This afternoon a group we have here on campus, the Carolina Technology Consultants (CTC) sponsored a talk from Paul Jones here on campus.  He is a professor in the SILS department here on campus and really one of the most forward thinkers here on UNC’s campus in regard to technology.  

He titled his presentation “Exploring the Construction Zone inside the Media Gap.”  I put the important stuff here, but he did a Google presentation that can be seen here that I would highly recommend. 

Theory Background – Like any good professor, he laid out some of the history back to the early 80’s when we started thinking about media and social media and communication.  It is interesting that we have been thinking about this since then.  He also lays out three laws that guide our progression of media to social media today.  He then moves into social media. 

Clay Shirky’s “Here Comes Everybody” – Categories for publishing in the Media Gap

1. Sharing culture of Flickr
2. Collaborative nature of Wikipedia
3. Collective action of internet groupings, like the use of a Facebook group to force HSBC to reverse it’s decision on withdrawing students’ interest-free overdrafts.

How American Nerds Fill the Gap

This was really one of my favorite parts of the presentation.  He obviously spoke to me as a nerd, but also used traits of nerds to lay out the emergence of social media.  We as nerds have these strange weaknesses that are “engineered away’ ===> into 5 SuperPowers!

1. Attention Deficit Disorder ===> Multi-Tasking
2. Asperger inablity to get visual emotional cues ===> Text-based interactions replace human Face2Face.  Visual cues become emoticons ;->
3. Hyper-literality; jargon of the tasks and games ===> OMG!  Mainstreaming of our jargon into slang.
4. Friendless geeks ===> Redefining Friendship (Dunbar’s number)
5. Idiocentric Humor ===> The power of Internet memes; our shared mindspace.

Future of the Nerd

Someone asked about the future of the Nerd.  This is really a great question.  ”Nerds” have become mainstream.  Everyone is now using social media.  Everyone has 4000 friends on Facebook.  So what do you think?  What is the future of the Nerd?  What is our future?

Bibliography

Paul put together an AWESOME bibliography for anyone interested in social media.  This is fantastic.  He said it as okay to share so I thought I might post it here for y’all.  Thanks Paul!!

• Neuman, W. Russell. The Future of the Mass Audience. 1991 – Cambridge University Press New York.
• Moore, Gordon E. (1965). “Cramming more components onto integrated circuits” [PDF] Electronics April 19, 1965. See also Wikipedia
• Metcalfe, Robert. See Wikipedia 
• Gilder, George.  Metcalfe’s Law and Legacy. Forbes ASAP, September 13, 1993.
• Reed, David P. That Sneaky Exponential—Beyond Metcalfe’s Law to the Power of Community Building. Context. Spring 1999. See also Wikipedia
• Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody:  The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. Penguin Press (February 28, 2008). See also Shirky.com
• Nugent, Benjamin. American Nerd: The Story of My People. (Scribners, 2008). 
• Turner, Fred. From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism. (University of California Press, 2006).  
• Kelty, Christopher. Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software. (Duke Press, 2008). Or online 
• Bumgarner, Brett. You have been poked: Exploring the uses and gratifications of Facebook among emerging adults. First Monday (Volume 12 Number 11 – 5 November 2007).
• Ellison, N. B., Steinfield, C., & Lampe, C. (2007). The benefits of Facebook “friends:” Social capital and college students’ use of online social network sites. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(4), article 1. 
• Small, Gary and Gigi Vorgan. iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind. Collins Living (October 14, 2008)
•  Hamilton, Jon. Think You’re Multitasking? Think Again. Morning Edition, NPR. October 2, 2008.  
•  Granovetter, Mark S. Strength of Weak Ties. The American Journal of Sociology. 1973. The University of Chicago Press. 
• Tomita, Tetsuro. “The new electronic media and their place in the information market of the future” in Newspapers and Democracy: international essays on a changing medium. Anthony Smith, ed. MIT Press. 1980.
• Rushkoff, Douglas. Playing the Future: What We Can  Learn From Digital Kids. HarperCollins 1996.
• Boyd, danah and Mimi Ito. “Kids’ Informal Learning with Digital Media: An Ethnographic Investigation of Innovative Knowledge Cultures” November, 2008.