Michael Zimmer.org

Blogging has been light lately as I have been quite busy in “real life”:

• I’m pleased to announce that the “Identity and Identification in a Networked World” graduate student symposium was a smashing success this past weekend. Well over 100 people attended, and the diversity of opinions and approaches for understanding issues of identity, identifiability and identification in our digital world was incredibly stimulating. We’re already talking about doing it again next year, and some wondered aloud whether we’re on our way to developing a new field of “digital identity studies”…
• I’ve been working on a new paper with Noëmi Manders-Huits, who is visiting NYU from Delft University of Technology, regarding the pragmatic challenges of engaging in Value Conscious Design within real-world technical design teams. Our working title is “Values and pragmatic action: The challenges of engagement with technical design communities”
• And I’ve been planning my European tour (as I’ve come to call it) where I will spend October (leaving tomorrow!) visiting and learning from other scholars interested in the intersections between technology and human values. First stop is the Social Software and Web 2.0: Critical Perspectives and Challenges for Research and Business seminar and workshop hosted by Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark on October 6, 2006, where I will present a talk called “The Panoptic Gaze of Web 2.0: How Google, Flickr and other Web 2.0 Platforms Act as Infrastructures of Dataveillance”