Social Networks, Communities, & Rich Learning Environments

The following two posts are about advertising and new business models. My interests in them is about how we learn new things, share ideas, social information management (SIM) and flow in a workplace social network or community. In other words, how do we create a rich learning environment? One that helps employees and stakeholders sort through the clutter?

Note: I'm grateful for smart people like Mr. Hagel and Ms. Dyson. They help me clarify ideas that I simply don't have the time or skill to write about.

edge perspectives, John Hagel, "Shift Happens – The Future of Advertising...social network sites provide increasingly robust platforms for us to learn about what our friends are interested in and purchasing (although in many cases still trying to figure out the appropriate balance between privacy and attention).

"Release 0.9: Don't Cry For Me, MicroHoogle!,"Esther Dyson

"User-managed metadata

...the new world of social networks, user-generated content and metadata. These aren't the "walled gardens" of yore, controlled spaces offered by outfits such as AOL. These are walled gardens custom-made by users for themselves.

Facebook, unwittingly or on purpose, has been teaching people to manage their own data about themselves. While Facebook's launch of the Beacon user-as-product-shill service was a PR fiasco, it familiarized millions of users with the notion that they can control information about themselves online and determine to whom it is visible. What might seem a horribly complex and tedious task to their elders - categorizing "friends," managing newsfeeds, handling intersecting communities of contacts - feels natural to the Facebook users of today. They want more granularity of control, not less."

I'm practicing what we've been trying to pass on to clients about social software - learn new things. I picked up on Mr. Hagel's post from two sources. One was here, and the other was on a private social bookmarking site.