Your Crimson Connect example for the “authenticity” slides was spot-on—when students or staff are frustrated by not being able to accomplish certain tasks via institutional tools, they’re going to say, “This is stupid—[insert freely available tool here] allows me to do this, so I’ll just build it myself and open it up to other folks who might get some use out of it.” They don’t care about why an institution can’t provide a particular tool or service. There’s an increasing disconnect between what can be done using freely available web services and what institutions are able to provide.

I wanted to point you to an post by Derek Powazek that I’d intended to use in Friday’s session but didn’t get around to discussing. Here’s a quote from Powazek’s post:

“People have been posting product suggestions, customer support, and personal biographies to the net since its invention. But for a long time the net has been considered this “other place,” disconnected from the real world. These sites show what an outdated notion that is. The web is no more a separate virtual world than the phone network is … I think sites like these also signal a shift in the balance of power. Companies (and even people) no longer have a choice about their participation on the web. We are having the conversation now, whether you like it or not.”

http://powazek.com/posts/732