Catching up

I knew this was going to be a busy quarter and I see that I haven’t written much here at all. Partly this is due to facebook. I’ve been using facebook to keep up with friends and I think that has been scratching part of the itch that motivated me to blog. This blog is for a wider audience and I think it is important to try to reach beyond my existing contacts.

I started three new research projects this quarter and re-wrote part of my M.A. thesis as well. I’m a bit worried that I’ve got too much going on, but I’ll be making a big effort to extend/finish projects in the spring and summer. I’m also keeping an eye out for social technology research internships for the summer.

Projects:

1. I’m taking my first stab at analyzing survey data. It’s pretty interesting trying to figure out the different techniques and seeing relationships in the data. Fortunately I’m working with a group on this one so I’m sure we’ll make good progress and hopefully finish something next quarter.
2. For my class about news I’m looking at the crowd as editor on digg. I think this project has some promise & I intend to keep working on it definitely over the summer if not somewhat in the spring.
3. For my social networks class I’m looking at the idea of a social tag-based exploratory search system. This one is just a proposal, I don’t have any data for it as of yet. Hopefully I can extend the idea in the technology in organizations class I’m taking next quarter.