A nice piece on the challenges and opportunities that are part of social software design from Gentry Underwood.

Here's some excerpts:

The problem: "...for all of the press and fanfare, most social software is, well, socially awkward. " "...design is profoundly awkward for more nuanced social interaction. " "...most social software tools are clumsy and ineffective at smoothly facilitating interpersonal interaction.

The opportunity: "...From an historical perspective, we are still in the early days of social interaction design." "...social software is pretty far from mature" "...there is ample opportunity to produce something truly new."

Success requires: "...different skills than those employed traditionally in software design." "...a deep understanding of the unseen elements of relationships, power dynamics, and cultural rules in social systems."

Here's a link to the original article

And here's a video of him giving a talk based on that article:

From Paddy's Valley 2007. This clip below was taken down in San Jose where we went to see Gunther von Hagens' Anatomical Exhibition of Real Human Bodies,. REal human bodies = spell-binding blend of the fascination and horror. If you get a chance...its a must. (Photography was forbidden) Afterwards we went upstairs into the Tech Museum of Innovation. Lots of fun to be had. You can stand on a platform that simulates earthquakes of different intensities (the ground jumps a HELL of a lot more than you would have thought) and insert jellyfish DNA into bacteria to make them flouresce. The clip below is of a simple robot arm that picks up blocks to spell out a word of your choice. I like the echoes of Winograd's SHRDLU natural language program here. But I especially enjoy the way a small child beside us reads out "Paddy's Valley". Its a nice reminder of how technology has so much more to say when it ignites that human connection.