Sneak peek of SXSWi panel: Is Technology Weakening Interpersonal Relationships?

It's spring break and in Austin, that can only mean one thing: time for South by Southwest! Tomorrow I will be participating in a panel on the effects of technology on interpersonal relationships along with Ashley Brown (a former comm. student and advisee), Jenn Deering Davis, and Matt Weber. The plan is to discuss how our wired lives and our need for constant connection are affecting our offline relationships.

To me, there's no denying that technology is changing how we relate to other people - the question is whether it's a change for the better or worse. I'm mostly interested in the question of whether our technology use is taking a toll on our real life relationships. I think a lot of people are starting to feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of technologies (& the relationships attached to those technologies) they need to keep up with. I know I am!

For those of you who can't make it to our panel, here's a little sneak peek:

View more presentations from Corinne Weisgerber.

Another lesson in web 2.0 transparency

I just came across another good case study in web 2.0 transparency via the Ethical Blogger.

The gist of the story: A guy who created a nonprofit organization dedicated to making charities and their operations more transparent, pulls a John Mackey and throws all principles of transparency out the window. 

What exactly did he do? He used a fake online identity to post a question about where to find a good charity and then answered it with the name of his organization using yet another pseudonym. 

The result: he is asked to step down from his position as Executive Director and openly apologizes for his lapse in judgement.