As a journalist at Computerworld Australia:
Often touted as the inevitable next generation of the Internet, Web 2.0 technologies are fast gaining pervasion beyond the stereotypical MySpace teen. The question now is not if, but when, new social computing trends become an absolute realisation in the workplace, and the worry for businesses is: can we keep up?
With applications in marketing, customer support and problem solving, opportunities for Web 2.0 technologies are abundant in the business world, according to Sheryle Moon, Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA).
"There's no doubt that everyone is very engaged with the sites that allow interaction with people," she said. "If you put a business spin on that, then there's an opportunity to develop communities that support business. I think there's a huge opportunity for organizations to develop communities of practice that can work on some of the bigger issues."
But a lack of training, as well as recruitment issues in attracting young, fresh blood into the industry, may currently be keeping social computing at bay, Moon said, explaining that the adoption of new technologies often requires a change in mindset as well as new technical skills.
"The ICT industry is an aging industry, so there's a bunch of people who have grown up in an industry which operated under completely different business models," she said. "And so of course they need to be retrained and brought up to date, and we need to continue to be able to attract young people who will bring those new ideas and the familiarity with different models for interacting and influencing other people."
"It's much wider than just the technology. We almost need degrees or courses in marketing in that online environment, because you're looking at completely different ways in connecting with people, and influencing them, than most marketing people in most marketing organizations are used to," she said.
Moon's observations are in agreement with those of Susan Barnes, a professor of communication at the U.S.-based Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) who was recently awarded a two-year $US149,786 grant from the National Science Foundation to develop an undergraduate online course in the new discipline of social media.
"The introduction of social media software programs is a major change in the way that people communicate on the Internet. It is both a social and technological change that deserves academic attention," Barnes said.
RIT's new social media course debuts early next year to a trial group of 90 students, and will double as a case study of technology and social networking that is expected to further Barnes' research into the potentials of social computing in learning.
"A focus of our course will be to introduce students to career possibilities," Barnes said. "Social networking combines IT with communication, so we need students from both Liberal Arts and computer backgrounds ... the types of skills that are needed in industry."
Training programs in social computing are less prevalent in the Australian market, leading to fears that the country may be left behind. While current AIIA figures estimate there being less than nine percent of Australian small to medium enterprises that trade on the Internet, Moon estimated this figure to be around the 50 percent mark in more mature markets, such as the U.S.
"We are way behind in being able to trade," she said. "While I think that ICT companies are very good at developing the technology, we're looking at the application of that technology in a totally foreign environment that most ICT companies are still coming to grasps with."
One Australian company that is currently heavily involved in the Web 2.0 space is Hyro, an ASX-listed online services provider with offices in Australia, New Zealand and Thailand.
Recognising the growing relevance of social networking sites and systems in the market, Hyro has expanded its portfolio from developing traditional Web sites, to designing MySpace pages and even building virtual [[ArtId:120083918|Second Life]] presences.
"Social networking sites are becoming quite an important channel to market for a range of our customers," said Richard Lord, the company's Chief Operating Officer. "For Hyro, this is translating to a number of clients asking us to include social networking sites as a part of our overall digital services programs for them."
While Lord acknowledged that most businesses still have an incomplete understanding of Web 2.0 services, and that there are currently no "real stand-out training providers" for such technologies, Hyro has set up an internal Web 2.0 network where its staff collaborate on developing their shared understanding of Web 2.0 principles.
"Different specialist teams use tools like mail groups, forums, blogs and wikis to share their knowledge and to promote new innovations they create or discover, with their peers," Lord explained. "With the Hyro team touching 500 people in three countries, there is a lot of knowledge, experience and capability to innovate within the team."
Meanwhile, AIIA's Moon mentioned Web 2.0 and social marketing classes currently being developed by a consortium of Victorian University Libraries. Other organisations, such as education.au, are hosting conferences to discuss Web 2.0 opportunities as well.
"We [AIIA] probably won't push specific courses but we are starting the dialogue," she said. "I've got my own blog, I've got my own MySpace page, I'm up on Wikipedia, we're putting AIIA up on Second Life; we are looking at how we as the association lead our members to think about the opportunities that exist in this brave new world."
