AoIR Conference Wrap Up, Or what we learned in Milwaukee

If you were following us on Twitter or Facebook, you learned that we spent the past few days at the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) Conference in Milwaukee. Theo will post his own reflection on the conference, as well as some of the great pics we took during our time in Milwaukee, but I thought I would start with my own conference wrap up.

The AoIR group is an interesting mix of people; there were people at the conference representing technology companies and government research groups, but most were academics in a variety of fields, including sociology, anthropology, communications, media studies, library and information science, etc., etc., etc. The thing that drew us all together was our interest in the ways people use the Internet. Theo and I were excited by the fact that most of the conference sessions focused on Web 2.0 technologies, which was helpful both for our own research and also for our involvement with the UTE contest. If you're interested in getting a taste of the different conference topics, check out this blog.

As a whole, most of the discussions at the conference focused on one large cultural shift, which is also the reason everyone attending the conference was there in the first place: Social media technologies have changed the ways that people relate to each other and to the world around them. Many sessions at the conference asked, what happens when we're always on? When we're always connected? How do our lives, our relationships, and our sense of self change? For Theo and I, this has meant spending a great deal of time and attention crafting a message and a story about ourselves that people are interested in and to spread that message to the most number of sites in order to gain the widest audience. When you're always on, you have to know how to craft a persona and how to be sincere at the same time.

We heard many stories this past week about how the world is changing. We heard about people spreading breaking news on blogs, children making their own videos to share on YouTube, and teenagers talking to celebrities on Twitter. We think the Ultimate Thailand Explorers competition pioneers travel through social media in much the same way. Instead of telling all of us why we should go to Thailand, the Tourism Authority of Thailand is allowing people like us to create our own experience to share with the world.

Theo and I plan to harness the power of social media to share our experiences in Chiang Mai. Because we're used to always being connected, we know how to represent our experiences in a way that will be true to our impressions and to the beauty and richness of the city. But we'll never forget the other important part of the social media equation: interactivity. We'll always let our readers and viewers take part in the experience with us, whether it is to help us decide which attractions to visit, to answer questions, or to spread the word about Thailand. We can't wait to go to Chiang Mai, and we're taking you with us.