19.7: Summary
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The development of technological infrastructure that supports community interactions has seen explosive growth with the emergence of high speed and wireless Internet access. As these tools continue to develop, and tools for integrating disparate information sources become increasingly sophisticated, digital communities have the opportunity to expand and grow. To enhance this growth, greater community involvement in the planning and design of community infrastructure can be used to evaluate the barriers associated with participation. Visual modelling tools are merely one tool that can support this ongoing process of community consultation and development.
Visual models such as the UML notation techniques can help to educate community participants on how information is managed. These tools can also provide important insight into community design initiatives; allowing productive discussions about issues such as privacy, security, intellectual property, and architectural design to occur.
For the greatest community value, it is important to understand how society is being altered by digital technology. Working to inform community discussions can aid participants in understanding digital community design alternatives. These discussions should strive to include real world economic and financial considerations; allowing individuals to invest greater amounts of time and energy into digital communities.
Once individuals begin to invest time and effort into community initiatives, information managers must work to facilitate contributions to community initiatives and develop sequenced candidate plans that support community priorities. The ability to plan and structure digital community development using modelling techniques will allow new ideas to emerge and encourage the coordination and integration of new technological initiatives continually over time.
“The first guiding value in hacker life is passion, that is, some intrinsically interesting pursuit that energizes the hacker and contains joy in its realization”. – Pekka Himanen, The Hacker Ethic, p. 139