NFAIS 50^th Annual Conference 2008

The 50^th anniversary of the founding of NFAIS was recognized at the opening session with a resolution from the City of Philadelphia.  I’m sure the founders in 1958 would not have predicted that the theme would be The New Information Order: its Culture, Content & Economy.

Dual keynotes and the subsequent panel provided a picture of how dramatically our world is changing. 

David Weinberger is from the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society; he is the author of Everything is Miscellaneous: the Power of the New Digital Disorder and co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto.  In his talk titled “Beyond Authority”, David shared his ideas that challenge the audience of publishers whose expertise is deemed to be authoritative. His premise that the current view of authority is based on the print world where physical limitations result in scarcity rings true.  In the digital world we have the freedom to put content in more than one place – which is impossible in the print library or print index. 

Hierarchical trees show the order of knowledge, not because it necessarily develops that way, but because it can be logically organized and displayed in print.  I know that librarians understand this principle of grouping content so it can be readily found.  David gave the front page of the newspaper as another example that shows the competition for positioning articles above the fold on the page for visibility.  Authority condones power and that power is based on limitations of the physical world.

David noted three forms of order:  the objects themselves (singular), the metadata (limited to 4 or 5 subject headings), the reference points of users (multiple). 

1 - Metadata should be put in more than one place.

2 - Messiness is helpful online as it enhances the value of information. 

3 - Metadata (that we search by) is what we know – the actual item is what we don’t know.

If everything is metadata we just got smarter.  Contents serve as connections.

4 - Users own organization.  Tagging allows users to put content in their own context.  Articles on www.Digg.com  change location on the page based on thumbs up or thumbs down vote of readers. 

Given the growth of information, David believes that we must rely on social networks to organize the information for us.  Humans are too varied for middlemen to filter content for everyone. The new rules are to include everything and let users filter worthwhile content to the top.

We have moved from an era of scarcity to abundance.  In most cases ‘good enough’ is ‘good enough’.   Only a small percentage of users need the level of accuracy and authority common in the print world. 

Wikipedia is more credible by allowing notices that critique the nature of the content. Traditional sources have economic and social reasons for appearing to be authoritative.  David suggests that we’ll stop listening to those who are not willing to acknowledge their fallibility.  

Conversations surface biases, drive bugs out and improve the quality of the conversation.   Knowledge is between us – it is what we argue about.  Students are being social in their learning when they are online with each other as they do their work. 

Authority is multiple and nuanced – read the discussion.   It’s an opportunity for contextual and specific information.  The key is to be inclusive and organization will follow.  Give users just-in-time organization and classification tools.  It’s imperfect but it scales. 

The value is in the metadata.  The solution to the problem of too much information is metadata. User generated tags complement and give users additional ways to find stuff.  We don’t know what will be of interest to us. 

David’s blog is http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/

Lee Rainie is the Founding Director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project http://www.pewinternet.org/ .  Their main funder, Pew Charitable Trust, is located in Philadelphia.  Lee spoke on “Communication and Information Behavior in the New Information Order.”

Characterizing our era is that information is digitized and media and gadgets are ubiquitous part of everyday life.  Internet is at the Center of the story and has evolved in all directions.

• Broadband deepened the story enabling users to rely on it to explore information and wireless is changing their relationship with others.  Wireless users are distinct.
• The Internet is different because we can talk back to it and be innovators.
• Computing communications and storage are cheaper every day. 

As Chris Anderson (The Long Tail) notes – the volume of information grows and the long tail of information expands and becomes more visible.  Hal Varian who charted the growth of information is giving up on charting it in part because of it size.  It’s the truth of the blogosphere – it changes the way we think about culture, information and each other.

Lee presents a long list of observations seeking feedback from the audience on qualities of the nature of information that affect our lives.

Velocity of information increases and ‘smart mobs’ emerge according to Howard Rheingold.   He gave an example of 30 friends arriving on the scene of an accident of one of their friends prior to the emergency vehicles.  When people leave a movie, they will be emailing their friends telling them whether its worth seeing. 

Venues of intersection with information and people multiply the availability of information.

Vigilence of information refers to continuous partial attention.  Online readers’ attention is attenuated and elongated as they read deeply about stories that matter to them. 

Venturing for information changes users’ search strategies and expectations spread in the search engine era.

Valence  is the relevance of information.  Between 35-40% of users organize information for themselves.  However, instead of insulating themselves in information bubbles where they might lack a common cultural view, they report reading more widely from links, and articles they discover.

Variety  abounds and users encounter information more serendipitously now.  They bump into news.   People no longer feel they need to watch the news or read the paper as they will learn about vital information through their friends. 

Vitality  denotes that the character of information changes as borders blur and life merges.  They think about their environment in a very different way.  We see the colonization of public spaces with private lives. 

Vetting  information becomes more social.  Credibility tests change as people ping their social networks.  He postulates that they personify their network sources and wonders if others would agree with this view.

Voice of information democratization and visibility of new creators is enhanced.  More voices and creators result in more finable information due to the power of search.  Users haven’t yet researched what it means for privacy. 

Viewing of information is disaggregated and becomes more horizontal.

Voting and ventilating of information proliferates, building collective intelligence.  The Press was the 4^th estate and William Dutton is saying the Internet is the 5^th estate. 0ur collective intelligence is expanding.

Viability of important personal encounters changes as people can be easily reached.

Vivid information results from social networks that become more meaningful.  We can see relationships within networks and we don’t yet know how to mange it all.  Folks in Facebook are trying to decide how to recalibrate ‘friendship”.

Lee offered a user typology defining 10 types and noted that William Gibson had said the future is unevenly distributed.   His description ranged from omnivores that are typically male and use all features to connectors that are more likely to be female and less likely to be content creators. Lackluster veterans may use it but don’t like it, while productivity enhancers appreciate its value at work.  Mobile centrics thrive on being connected from anywhere, while others are connected and feel hasseled.  Inexperienced experimenters represent 49% of users.  And those who are indifferent and off the network are out of the loop.

I’m looking forward to providing highlights of the upcoming NFAIS program here in Philadelphia.  The theme is the New Information Order: Its Culture, Content and Economy which will look at the rapid adoption of technologies that are creating a user-centric culture with it’s own value proposition and economy.

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