[Edit: For a drastically simplified version of this post, see this link.]
With all that has been going on recently, from the ongoing unrest in the Middle East to the riots in London to the dispute of whether the Bay Area Rapid Transit Authority being compared to the fallen Egyptian regime of Mubarak, certain things become apparent. That society can communicate and coordinate faster than the bureaucracies that were designed to govern them is the most apparent. A great amount of attention is being given to the role of social media, be it praise or blame, but social media is just a tool.
In trying to explain what I have been doing over the last 10 years, I have found simple explanations difficult - but for the most part, I've been dealing with technology, social media and practical implications with society not from the popular and well rounded perspectives but from the trenches. From understanding and participating in discussion related to the challenges in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean to even attempting to effect (and affect) solutions to the challenges, I haven't been well known - which is as it should be. The background allows one a lot more flexibility and, despite advice from a former colleague at Linux Journal, I have stayed in the background attempting to understand more, troubleshoot more and do it from an ethical standpoint - something technologists all too often forget in the rush to get to market. Empowering people with technology rather than enslaving them with it and other romantic and idealistic notions are at the core of what I have tried to do and continue to try to do. Social media has become a buzzword for a group of technologies that can be used to those ends.
But social media, in and of itself, is a phrase used to communicate some level of connectedness - and thus it must also implicitly communicate some level of disconnectedness. Technology and society are at the core, and thus I'll break this into: Technology/Social Media as a Tool, Digital Divide and The Future.
