CSCW '08 & SNCR

Two big social media (broadly construed) events happen this past week. The first was the ACM 2008 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work in San Diego. I feel a little guilty for not being there but with dissertation behind schedule and the proceedings available on line, I'll try for next year. I was struck by the large presence of IBM researchers in the largely academic crowd. That's a good thing and shows how serious IBM is about social media and basic research. It also gives a clue as to the diversity and breadth of their research program. The Social Networking at Work and School session looked particularly relevant to my interests and I look forward to getting beyond the abstracts.
If you don't already have access to the publications of the ACM a good place to go would be your local university library.

With more of a practical focus on social media, the Society for New Communication Research presented its Visionary of the Year award to Charlene Li (present in cardboard) and Josh Bernoff for Groundswell. That book, as Josh noted in his acceptance speech, is of high quality because it is based on research. The social media participation scales they created may become a standard after some validation in academic research. IBM had some wins at SNCR but nothing on the scale of CSCW '08.