End User Services Programming
In our routine experience of the Net we unconsciously consume and produce information services. When I search for a video on YouTube, I'm consuming a service. When I tag a video for you to find, I'm enhancing an existing service. And when I publish an RSS feed based on a query for that tag, I'm composing a new service. How can we help people understand their experience of the Net in these terms? The prevailing language doesn't help. When we talk about users, content, and (worst of all) user-generated content, we're missing the point. This talk will explore, and invite discussion of, strategies for enabling people to see themselves as active agents in a collaborative web of information services.
Jon Udell is an author, information architect, software developer, and new media innovator. His 1999 book, Practical Internet Groupware, helped lay the foundation for what we now call social software. Udell has been a software developer at Lotus, was BYTE Magazine's executive editor and Web maven, and has worked as an independent consultant. A hands-on thinker, Udell's analysis of industry trends has always been informed by his own ongoing experiments with software, information architecture, and new media. From 2002 to 2006 he was InfoWorld's lead analyst, author of the weekly "Strategic Developer" column, and blogger-in-chief. During his InfoWorld tenure he also produced a monthly series of screencasts about software, and a weekly series of audio interviews with innovators. In January 2007 he joined Microsoft as a technical evangelist. In his new role he'll continue to explore and explain a broad portfolio of technologies, both inside and outside Microsoft. He aims to build bridges not only within the technical community but also, and crucially, across the chasm that divides elite technologists from everybody else.