Time to start writing about the stuff I did, papers noticed, talks liked, people I met...
Francesca Taponecco and Roya Foroughi were at the Applied Computing 2005 conference with some eLearning stuff. But they ended up listening in on a lot of Web Based Communities 2005 presentations. (Official Site) Why was that?
1. Applied Computing hat lots of papers. After all, what is *not* applied computing?
2. Web Based Communities was a lot about eLearning – learning together online, Asynchronous Learning Networks, etc. High buzz-word factor!
3. Web Based Communities 2005 was a lot smaller than Web Based Communities 2004. A lot less papers, only two tracks instead of one.
Taking a plunge... 14°C! I had a wonderful chat with *Matthias Finck* and *Monique Janneck* about the design of social software – their CommSy design seems to have been guided by the very same guidelines that we have been using in wikilandia – SoftSecurity, GuidePosts, the things we called the WikiWay. I’ll have to read some of the papers they’ve written. Matthias is also interested in usability testing in free software projects, and Monique is interested in social software design from a usability and workflow perspective. How does the software affect the way we work, what kind of software do we want to work with? Anyway, that’s how I remember our talk over some Portuguese fish in a tiny restaurant in Carvoeiro. I really need to read more about their work. I’ve also had some wonderful off-topic chats with both of them on German politics, relationships, etc. (See OnAndOffTopic.) And I managed to jump into the ocean with Matthias, too!
#Conferences
