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IT for Gen Y: Social Media and the Net Generation

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Anirban Dutta

- by Anirban Dutta, Web Producer

Tidal wave?

The concept that has sent a Wave of excitement through the tech and non tech community alike comes from the innovative giant on the web – Google.

They’ve named it Google Wave.

Google Wave logo.

Founders of the Google wave are Lars Rasmussen, Jens Rasmussen (brothers) and Stephanie Hannon - the same team that came up with the Google Maps application.

 

As Lars Rasmussen, co-founder of Google Wave highlights, email was created some 40 years ago, before the creation of the Internet its self and it was done without the experience and knowledge we now have of things such as wikis, social networks, sms, instant messaging and so on. He introduces the Wave as “Google Wave is what email would look like if it was created today”. He says as opposed to emails which try to instantiate a point to point conversation, the Google Wave is "one metaphor for hosted conversations" object hosted on a server somewhere.

 

The Wave concept typifies an utopian Web 3.0 world where we have all the caliber of Web 2.0 ie emails, IMs, wikis, blogs, bulletin boards, Social networking, sharing and collaboration merged with a much more real time focus; so we have all of the cool stuff happening in a single browser session in a single pane with more enhanced features like we never imagined!

 

So how does this Sci-Fi set look?

Google_Wave_snapshots_inbox.png

 

Features like real time translation in 40 languages, contextual spell check, grammar checking and all in one drag drop file sharing, document creation, sharing and editing, starting forums. It certainly packs the thrills of a Spielberg flick!

 

Plus a very cool feature is its Playback option which lets you refer back to a conversation trail and see which participant added what and at which time and locate the origin of the Wave - each conversation is a wave.

 

Open Source and the Wave

Google shared its baby with the world at Google's Developer Preview forum Google I/O May 2009

Watch the launch video

Google has actually invited the developer community to participate in the Google Wave program by throwing open a forum to contribute to its features. Majority of the Wave's code is open source and the developers would be given accounts in a sandbox within Google's system  to start developing add on features and extensions to coincide with the launch. This is way too cool.

There is also a feedback capturing mechanism if you wish to be updated on whats going on - Fill up the form

I think I can definitely suggest some cool aliens in this movie on the semi technical side straight to the directorial suit.

 

The Wave is a platform in iself and it supports robots to automate tasks and functions, embed Waves into external blogs and web sites, “talk” to popular web services such as Twitter collaborate across different platforms, merge other Google tools and gadgets in short Google calls it a "Game changer".

I enhanced my open source knowledge from whurley's podcasts.

 

I'm not walking the technical line on this red hot topic - there's enough out there on the internet, a particularly good read is the Google Wave guide.

 

Concerns, resistance to change?

Does this mean the end of the world of CCing and BCCing and SMTP mails and the very recent blogging? How would it impact my business/ Do I have to resort to cloud computing? Would the corporate world accept the wave? Would the concept be scalable enough? These are some of the initial questions that make the tag cloud of this mega project but coming from an organization like Google I have full faith on their to realizing abilities.

 

My part of the shock was when I realized the concept of the Google Wave was so massive and yet so simple that Social Media would be turned into a subset of this giant - where I always thought Social networking encompasses all - I feel this Tide has a magnitude of possibly redefining Tim Berners Lee's www into World Wide Wave.

 

Cant wait for the tide to come sweep us over!

The postings in this blog are my own and don't necessarily represent BMC's opinion or position.
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0 Comments Permalink Tags: bmc, corporate, gen_y, social_media, api, web_2.0, open_source, collaborationdeveloper_community, dell, blogging, bmc_communities, chat, culture, generation, twitter, google_wave, developers, blog, facebook, web_3.0, www, communication, developer_network, google, definitions
Alena Hitzemann

- by Alena Hitzemann, Associate Web Editor

 

Green IT is a hot topic here at BMC. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what it means in the context of our products and solutions... but I think it has something to do with consolidating servers, virtualization, automating systems, using less energy and generally making things more efficient (plus saving some money, of course.) Which is great. I'm all about reducing resources and doing right by good old Mother Earth, and for a lot of our enterprise customers, those changes may be an excellent way to do so.

 

The thing is, though, those are all pretty high level initiatives. Kind of like saying, "if you want to live green, you need to put an entirely new sustainable energy system into your house." It would be awesome to have everything run off of solar and wind, but what can I do in the meantime? What are the little steps in Green IT, the ones equivalent to switching off lights, taking shorter showers, and just putting on a goshdarn sweater in the winter instead of cranking the heat? (That last one is for you, Dad. I've finally learned.)

 

I think social media provides a platform for taking some of those smaller steps. It may not be direct, in the sense that turning off a light turns down your electric bill, but I believe it's relevant all the same. More and more organizations are using social media to drive campaigns that ultimately address the same goals as BMC's Green IT: using less energy and being smarter with our resources.

 

This article offers some great examples. A recent Twitter push by the United Nations Environmental Programme, for instance, resulted in the planting of over 10,000 new trees... one for every tweet that their Twitter account received during a one week period. What an awesome program, right? Talk about easy... shooting off one tweet is definitely easier than cutting short a nice hot shower. The article also mentions Dell's use of Twitter, blog posts and banner ads to promote their World Environment Day contest. The respondent with the best tweet on combatting climate change won $1000 to donate to the NGO of their choice... again, all for taking a few minutes to craft an answer in 140 characters or less.

 

But I believe the biggest impact that social media can have on the Green movement is increasing awareness. Through this new, global conversation, it becomes So Much Easier to learn about the issues and what you can do to help. Even if the results aren't tangible, like a thousand bucks or a new tree in the ground, every tweet, blog or forum discussion that addresses envrionmental issues raises the volume on the conversation. The conversation then acts as the precursor, the antecedent to the small steps. By reading how others are incorporating Green values into their daily lives- including IT- we can all get ideas and inspiration on making changes ourselves. And those changes, the ones that seem tiny and insignificant, lead to big changes. Enter Green IT in the enterprise.

 

Ok, I'm off my environmental soapbox. What do you think defines "Green IT"? How will social media help shape that definition? How will Green IT continue to evolve?

 

Oh yeah, and if you are interested in the whole Green conversation, check out these guys. Serious enviro-buzz.

 

The postings in this blog are my own and don't necessarily represent BMC's opinion or position.
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0 Comments Permalink Tags: unep, green_it, twitter, social_media, bmc, dell

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