Webstock: Look Ma, no quills!

Oops, due to foreseen circumstances I missed the deadline for sending the [tag]Webstock[/tag] team the synopsis of my presentation. Maybe I'll be consigned to a footnote. Anyway, here it is.

Look Ma, no quills!
Rachel will talk about the phenomenal feats of communication performed daily by people at work, and why every new tool to make communication easier also makes it harder.

We have to figure what we want to say—and even that's not easy. Then the paradoxes kick in. Documents are interrogated by enterprise search and EDRMS, viewed on 2- or 17-inch screens, replicated, cloned and mutated. Technology makes demands, some obvious, some sneaky.

Jo Deskworker has to cope with the permanence and volatility of digital records. The upsidedownness of blogging. Shapeshifting memos and the stern demands of metadata. F-writing for the Web and intranet. The oxymoron of team editing, the etiquette of comments and wikis, the non-intuitive brilliance of styles. The way PowerPoint incarcerates audience and speaker. The use of FaceBook without enabling paedophiles or the CIA. Evolving audience expectations. And so on and on and on.

Are brainy people being pushed beyond their technological limits? Rachel promises not to mention more than 100 examples, and may even provide some advice.

Webstock '08 - you're not too late.