SMLC featured in workshop @ UGA

I recently visited the Terry College of Business @ University of Georgia and gave a talk about the SMLC to their Department of Management Information Systems.  I really enjoy the lively intellectual community @ UGA  - the Information Systems Faculty actually like each other, they like to talk about ideas, and they care about their students.

Over the course of a two hour presentations about the founding of the SMLC & what we do ... questions surfaced about the ethics of "Listening" surfaced - Are we spying?  How do you listen responsibly?  Who else is listening? How do you teach kids to listen? How do we build this into our curriculum?

While we didn't answer all of these questions (many were posed by me as part of the presentation :), my position is that if academics ignore listening, we're like ostriches with our heads stuck in the sand.  The Social Web has emerged as a rich source of data, ideas, and opportunity.  Academics need to a) know what folks in industry are doing, b) study the implications of listening (be it by Smuckers around Grape Jelly to the DARPA around terrorist activity, and c) engage in a discourse with practice about how online communities form, evolve, and dissolve on the Social Web... The lingering question is will academics rise to the challenge?

My day @ Georgia ranks right up there as highlight of my year!  Thanks to Elena Karahanna, Nick Berente & Dale Goodhue for being great hosts!