Slow weekend musings

After last weekend and a busy, busy first week of classes, we are taking it easy....which for me involves spending some time checking out new technologies and reflecting on my changing technology habits.  I have become a convert to flock for my web browsing, using flock 2 which is in beta.  It brings together my technology worlds in ways that seem more organic than netvibes or igoogle. I still prefer netvibes to igoogle but haven't been using either lately.

I also took a look at the schools application for facebook, which is in private beta.  The video linked here explains it very well and it looks pretty cool.  But, it still doesn't equal LearnLink, Emory's installation of the First Class product, in my opinion.  For one thing, I still can't get beyond the fact that I think it's better to have a locally hosted system, rather than a presence in a commercial social network like FB.  On the other hand, I suppose you could argue that because students are more likely to be on their personal network for their entire lives that it makes better strategic sense for a school to have a presence in these large commercial networks.  But, then, does that approach encourage the development of a school community that occurs with a closed system like LL.  When we did the usability study two years ago, the researchers made a big deal of the fact that students really liked being in the "Emory bubble."  However, what FB does well and LL doesn't currently is to provide information about individuals.  There's the resume function but no one ever uses it and it's not prominent enough.  Also, there are no status updates.

I have found it very interesting to see who among my friends takes to FB in a big way.  The mobile apps for phones does seem to make for more frequent status updates.


Here are some shots from a meeting this week on the Chemistry addition.  We are at the exciting point of actually working on the architecture of this challenging project.  It is very cool to see the design evolve and I think the architects are doing a great job and melding the Emory vernacular with the existing Atwood Hall, which I think is very beautiful but I am in the minority on that one.

One of the things I love about web 2.0 technologies is how they let me stay in contact with those at a distance.  Like Rohit S, who was the project manager from HOK on the Psychology Building.  Rohit has moved back to India to head up HOK's first office there.  Fortunately, they are progressive enough to chronicle and share via this blog, so I'm getting to keep track of his adventures.  Very cool projects -- I am a little jealous!