If was ever any doubt in my mind (which there hasn't) about whether social media is able to build community back in the meat space world, it would have been dispelled today at the JHB Drupal Users Group first DrupalCamp. I've been around the block as far as communities go, and the comparison between the DrupalCamp of today, using social media platforms to get to the right people, vs. that of the Gauteng Linux Users Group (GLUG) 10 years back, has astounding return on investment.

Our very first camp drew a crowd of about 90 people coming in from mixed backgrounds, and skill levels, from expert brand consultants, who were just playing with Drupal for the first time, to die hard non-core-hacking PHP and Drupal pros, centered around a single cause: Enabling anybody to build better, stronger, more flexible dynamic website, whether behind the firewall, a simple brochureware site, or a massively complex data rich enterprise site.

Justin Spratt (@justinspratt) and IS Labs not only supplied the venue for the event, but also provided some crowd pleasing information in the form of what ISLabs does as far as entreprenerual support within the country, and the give back that IS puts together for us.

Charles Tanton (@foxtrotcharlie) presented an a great outline to the conceptual stuff behind Drupal, a fairly difficult mountain to climb, and did an exceptional job of it, being clear on how the Drupal framework works and what that looks like at the end of the day. Thanks to George Ziady from Springfisher for taking the beginners into a far more practical conversation of the framework, articulating and showing clearly a step by step guide on how to use the theoretical knowledge that Charles imparted, in a paint by numbers approach to setting up a Drupal based website.

After lolling around IS' braai area, munching on boerie rolls (with many to the vegetarians, there will be a salad option at the next one) and sipping beers (or in my case far too many Vitamin Waters), the jolly digital pranksters re-congregated inside to go a little deeper down the rabbit hole. One of Telamenta's developers Greg McKeen showcased the intranet project Open Atrium and the Drupal module Features,a module package management system that was met with, well, "OOh's and Aaah's" from some of even the more seasoned Drupalers, before Willem van Straaten, founder of eConsultant closed the day with his own personal rendition of the Lion King (I have reason to believe that a video of this may be available soon).

A special thank to the sponsors of this incredible first attempt to make the South African chapters of Drupal International as proud, if not prouder than our other contingents: Telamenta, ISLabs, Cerebra, Brandsh, eConsultant, and Springfisherand personal thanks to Charles Tanton for spearheading the Jozi Drupal Users Group and all other volunteers for making this event special to all that attended.

I do have pictures from the event, and I will be putting them up shortly. You guys did yourselves and our community proud.

Although still in it's infancy the buzzword Enterprise 2.0 brings with it a number of expectations; better communication channels, easier access to information and of course self organised managing of teams.

It has also brought with it many things that Enterprise 1.0 did not expect, and as such are still learning to deal with. The Enterprise 2.0 culture is that of finding the appropriate and trusted individuals within the system and is completely re-routing standard organizational hierarchies in order for the individuals within the larger system to achieve their personal outputs. Communication is quicker, more efficient and effective and as such managers are being taken to task, conversations about the good and the bad are happening both internally and externally to the organization and businesses, ill equipped to deal with these mirrors, are flustering to the often cold, always honest, feedback.

The massive upside of this infrastucture is that it opens a base from which companies can harness passionate, vocal and trusted individuals, in order to address their concerns, and shape the communities around those people and create champions for their message. There are some political theorists who are looking at management theory abstracting into political science, for many this is a natural, logical and rational approach. As an extension of that is looking where the trending topics that we are seeing take place within organizations evolving into the larger communities. So what might happen if governments learn from the behaviours of companies?

We could see services shaped around collaboration and community, where individuals are as accountable for their country as they are their companies and themselves.
Could it be possible to have a government as an emergence of collaboration, rather than a government that governs?

I recently joined Twitter (my username, as always: xsyn), a micro-blogging service which many of you probably know well by now.

The twittersphere interests me in a number of ways:

1. Different people use the medium in different ways (an instant messenger system, personal branding, geo-locating etc), it almost feels like each person has a primary use preference through which they output into their networks.

2. Locally (South Africa), the twittersphere is comprised of distinct groupings of individuals: 1. Geeks 2. Designers (which I've now labelled aesthetic geeks - in my mind) 3. Bloggers 4. Journalists

I'd like to make an important caveat here, there are individuals outside of these influences, however these are the predominant types.

3. From what I can ascertain from various social networks, who recurse into each other from various social technologies (mailing lists, Facebook etc.)

Again with exceptions, and with the sub-conscious thought banging at the back of my mind that these may simply be the contexts that my own reality tunnels have been adapted to, and as such it's quite likely that I may be seeing similar networks. I'm happy to leave this one open for discussion.

4. This is the point that got me writing this post: I have no idea how a) data travels in the twittersphere b) on what criteria people follow other people.

After a little editing I'm going to talk about b) first due to recent information (strangely enough from Twitter).

Specification -

Name: Guy Taylor
Birthdate: 24 October, 1979
Geo-Location: Nomadic, generally between Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa
Company Alliances: Cognasium, Telamenta and Cycan
Email: guy at cognasium dot com
Jabber: guy at jabber dot co dot za
Twitter:http://twitter.com/xsyn

Output -

I help find the functional elements in a company by listening to the people who work there. I provide a valuable feedback loop to their issues by understanding them and their complexities

I am a behavioural theorist, analyst and change agent. The crux of it is I'm a people person, I like to understand the patterns around how and why people interact the way they do, and establish how to optimize people for their own lives.

I'm a great believer in human systems as fractal networks, so as we shift our perspectives and frames to view interactions at different levels, we see the same behaviours playing out in culture, and as we shift meta to that sub-cultural behaviour playing out in larger frameworks.

My influences are eclectic, though some of my biggest influences are the following:

* Neuro-Semantics
* Neuro-Linguistic Programming
* Open Source Cultures and Technologies
* Sports Psychology
* Business Management Methodology