“Do all the good you can, in all the ways you can, to all the souls you can, in every place you can, at all the times you can, with all the zeal you can, as long as ever you can” - John Wesley
You must be the change you wish to see. - Mahatma Gandhi
What is web2.0? I believe we are adapting to the possibilities presented to us by the world-wide web and learning to integrate the platform into our lives in new ways to better communicate. Up to now, we have used web technology in a one-dimensional, linear way as an extension of writing, as the next step to printing and publishing. We are just now learning the possibilities of the web and how that will transform our abilities to communicate. Up to now, the web has been an electronic version of our old communication technologies - the pen, the typewriter, books, newspapers, magazines. Now we are learning that it is a two-way medium in which the recipient can become an author and the published media may develop beyond what the original publisher had envisioned.
What is hu2.0? I propose that as we learn to communicate differently using web2.0 principles, that we will be changed. Hu2.0 is the human element of web2.0. The web is a platform and web2.0 is a way of utilizing the platform. Hu2.0 is the human element that is the living dynamic of this new way of communicating.
Just as humankind was changed by the spoken word and then by the written word and revolutionized by the printed word, web2.0 communication will undoubtedly transform us once again. The web has already impacted humankind with the accessability to information. We have used the web to reach around the world across cultural and political boundaries. This has changed humankind.
Just as babies learn to talk and walk, we have been learning a new form of communication with baby-steps. What will the impact be of the web on us as we begin to understand the capabilities of world-wide collaboration?
As with any technology, it can be used for benevolence or malevolence and undoubtedly it will be used for both. However, I choose to hope that the human mind unleashed with rise to the higher good as collaboration should work to the benefit of all.
