Web 2.0 technologies seem ubiquitous in business and personal life these days. For those of you who don’t quite know what web 2.0 is, think of this blog: that’s a 2.0 technology. Social networking, sites that offer online collaboration like wikis and such.
A&SC uses 2.0 tech here, in this blog, to communicate and sometimes even just to keep track of what we’re doing. We have a Facebook page (join up and be a fan!) and we’re still trying to figure out how to make the best use of that. Some of the other 2.0 technologies, we’re still assessing to see if, or how, we might make use of them.
And of course, universities use these technologies a lot. For communication, for decision and policy making, and so forth. Which then becomes the question: if these were static documents, we’d assume they were university records and many would be considered to have permanent retention value. What do we do with the 2.0 technologies to save and preserve this type of information, especially when such information is constantly evolving?
Something to ponder, anyhow. If you’re interested in a nice introduction to the issues involved, check out an interview from Federal News Radio today. And to show you how 2.0 technologies are useful in the workplace, Arlene became aware of the interview via Facebook: she found a high school friend, Cheryl McKinnon via Facebook a few years ago, and Cheryl is the one being interviewed. So a social networking site provided an opportunity for professional education. And apparently the hosts of the radio program found Cheryl via Twitter. In some respects, 2.0 is making the world smaller. Now if we can just figure out how to preserve it…