Optimizing Information Use through the Internet and Social Media

The astonishing pace of the digital revolution has meant that top-down messaging has become a thing of the past. Digital progress has enabled normal people to engage, communicate and assert their voice into their community, which increasingly is no longer separated by geographical boundaries. Blogs, forums and social networking sites provide a powerful arena for the democratization of people and opinions, in a new era of ‘digital democracy.’ Whilst over 1/3rd of the global population are now online, provisions must be made to include those who risk being ‘left behind’ in the age of digital empowerment. Even in developed economies,

There is a fundamental dilemma to consider when looking for solutions to this challenge: the internet and social media have grown as "bottom-up" technologies often used by people to bypass traditional social, cultural and establishment controls, yet the control of most of the information that has value to those people remains in the hands of businesses and governments. So, when considering how to "optimise" information use, one has to look at who wants to use that information, and who has that information. Typically the "user" is you and I – individual citizens going about their daily lives, requiring information owned

How can internet users be encouraged and trained to make use of social media to interact with others in a socially responsible manner, and how can their privacy and intellectual property rights be better protected in general? The internet and social media has emerged as an important tool for information sharing for individuals and institutions.  It has been used to mobilize masses, educate and inform. Internet and social media can also be effectively utilized to conflict management and in getting and sharing intelligence. Ushahidi is a case in point. Ushahidi is an IT platform that was created in Kenya in

In the next few years billions of objects will have sensors to detect, measure, and assess their status, all connected over public or private IP (Internet Protocol) networks. This world of interconnected objects will have its data regularly collected, analyzed and used to initiate action. It will provide a wealth of intelligence for planning, management, policy and decision-making. Important information is pushed out to machines, to individuals, and to organizations of every type, including governments, anywhere in the world. Then other machines or people on the network will be able to take action automatically. This is the ‘Internet of Things,’

Proposal: Utilizing the inherent structure of information as well as its content and context optimizes the management of digital resources with scalable functionality for knowledge discovery. Rationale: Intertwined elements of content, context and structure establish the meaning of any information resource. Content and context have been used for thousands of years to manage hardcopy resources through the architectures of libraries and archives, respectively. However, we now live in a digital world with distinct education, business, scientific, government and social information opportunities and challenges. The fundamental advantage of digital information is its structure can be utilized objectively, dynamically and automatically for

1. Promote organizational change to stimulate an efficient and beneficial application of internet and social media Online communities fundamentally change the nature and way in which people work together and in which companies do business. In order to make the best out of the new opportunities, organizations should be proactive and develop a comprehensive social media strategy. This implies having a plan for what to do with the information exchange, who is responsible for interactions, where the information gathered socially will be recorded and captured and how it will be used to benefit the main goals of the organization. When