I've been back from the Kingston conference for a while but I've been neglecting my blogging pretty bad. The deeper I get into the writing of the book the harder it is to pull out of it and blog. I think for the next few months I'll only be doing a post a week or so while I wrestle with laying down the foundations of the book. That process, by the way, is going well. I've got about 150 pages strung together in a rough order. I've had a few moments where I've really felt what the book is going to be like, how it's going to work. That's all I'm really asking for at this point.

So at the Kingston conference I sat on a panel with a fellow from Canadian Heritage and a professor from Carleton University in Ottawa. The panel was called "Fostering Engagement Through Social Media." I talked about how skeptical I am about the web as a medium for social change, and how everything goes through the filter of 'you' as in - how will this social cause look on your profile etc. I noted that the vast majority of activity on the web in Canada is in the hands of US-based for-profit corporate interests and if community and activist groups want to engage in social networking, they have to be careful to not be doing the work for these entities.

Anyway, I got a bit more virulent than I meant to and afterwards the Professor on the panel accused me of being part of an overall social moral panic about new technologies. All due respect to her, my argument had nothing to do with morality at all. My concern was and still is that the more we engage with things like social media and the more we 'do' Peep Culture, the more we are being shaped by entities that are not necessarily under our control or in our best interests. Before we can talk about the positives of the web - which are many - we need to understand the framework that underlies it. I don't think she got what I was saying, but a lot of people in the room did seem to appreciate my point of view.

The part of the conference I attended was, overall, very vibrant and interesting. I met interesting people like Gavin Sheppard of the Remix Project and the gentlemen behind the Stolen from Africa project/movement. Also, my pal Rinaldo Walcott was doing the keynote speech, which was very good, so I got to hang out and drink wine with him.

When I got back from the conference there was a blog comment from the organizer of the conference, Professor Rachel Laforest, with some thoughts on what I'm trying to do with this blog and on connectivity via Peep. She asks: "Will this comment here that I’ve posted have an impact on our relationship? Is it the fact that we met briefly —- will you answer me, will we develop something after our initial contact? How can this tool sustain and foster stronger relationships between people?"

It's a good question, one that's difficult to ultimately know. If I hadn't met Rachel, she wouldn't have read my blog or commented and that would be that. Because I've met her, and because we have overlapping spheres of interest, we now have an on-the-ground relationship that can be fostered further by her reading the blog and commenting and so on and so on. So, yes, we'll have a "stronger relationship" as friends and colleagues because of the blog and what I tell about myself on the blog. There are probably people out there, friends of mine, who read the blog and know what I'm up to, even though they don't comment or call me up and say so. They don't have a blog so I can't return the favor.

At the same time, everyone I speak to who is an active 'doer' of Peep Culture is obsessed with numbers. They goal is to break out of your little circle of people you've actually met and form a much bigger 'community' made up of globally dispersed strangers who are ultimately more your fans than your friends. And that's why I talked about being wary at the conference. Because the ideology of fame has a way of creeping into these systems so kindly provided to us free of charge so we can 'connect'. Many, if not all, the people I've interviewed who are heavily into bogging, social networking, Second Life, lifecasting etc. cite the 'community' as one of their main reasons for doing what they do. People are paying attention to them and they are paying attention to others. Relationships are formed in this way, though at best these are, I would argue, quasi-communities or partial communities. They are communities of mutually assured recognition. And, as such, they only go so far.