Here we just closed a three-day conference called Beijing Forum at Peking (Beijing) University and heard the news on the research conference in Moscow, 23-25 May 2007.
The Beijing Forum had a theme called "creative industries" which was very much related to the concept of "active and creative" users. And personally I trust that the everyday use of mobile phones has demonstrated some very interesting aspects in regard to the creative thing in the Mainland China. It is interesting because, based upon my own observation, the SMS users sent to each other in a huge volume contains a large proportion of political content. The nature of those of SMS often very ironic. They make the users laugh and think. (To do a rough comparison, sometimes I think that some of the SMS is as good as [if not better] than the comedy shows that feature political matters on American TV). Some of the phrases have been adopted in people's daily conversations. Of course, the SMS is sent to each other through and within social networks. But probably the communication is not merely among best friends. Moreover, those SMS might not be written entirely by professional SMS writers. It seems that some of the grass roots users are also the creative ones. There is more to it. The internet firms (websites) that are related to SMS business have made a decent profit from the SMS thing. What I am trying to say is that the Moscow conference might be a very interesting gathering judging from its themes. Boxu Yang Peking University ----- Original Message ----- From: "Frank Thomas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, October 27, 2006 9:31 PM Subject: [mobile-society] CfP COST 298: THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UNEXPECTED. The user and the future of information and communication technologies. Moscow 23 - 25 May 2007 I think this meeting can be very interesting for researchers who work about the mobile aspects of the Information Society. We are also looking for addresses of researchers that work in East Europe. There are special tariffs for these countries. So, if you know about researchers from Eastern Europe that might be interested please let me know at [EMAIL PROTECTED] . - Apologies for eventual cross postings - The European network COST 298 Participation in the Broadband Society invites you to actively participate in our research conference in Moscow, 23-25 May 2007. The main objective of the conference is to create new knowledge about users’ creativity and facilitate their empowerment in a broadband information society. This knowledge requires an examination of the factors that can both constrain and enhance users’ abilities to shape and use ICTs. From our perspective, the ‘broadband society’ refers to a possible, but not inevitable, substantial transformation of our experience of telecommunications based on these technologies allowing information and communication technologies to be used everywhere, all the time and by everybody. Given the widespread aspirations of Governments and companies to achieve this goal, the extent to which any such transformation has occurred needs, of course, to be evaluated in a balanced manner. Broadband technologies have resulted mainly from technological and institutional imperatives. To what extent have potential users managed to find ways in which such technologies can be useful, worthwhile and attractive? We certainly know from previous research this can require those users to be creative in terms of fitting ICTs into their activities or using them to find solutions to the everyday problems that they already encounter. But how much is being demanded of those users, what considerations have a bearing upon whether these technologies actually find a place in their lives and what new issues, of indeed problems, can these ICTs themselves create, especially if they really are ‘disruptive technologies’? Ultimately, we also need to acknowledge that users may well decide that their existing solutions suffice, in which case these new technological options may find only a modest place in their lives. Indeed, they may even be resisted or ignored. Whatever strategies users employ for assessing and dealing with such innovations, we need to learn more about these social processes, including strategies for dealing with the up and coming generation of new information and communication products and services. Only by so doing can we hope to empower them further in their relationships to technology and through this hope to increase the quality of their lives. In this conference, the organisers - COST Action 298 <http://coference.cost298.org> - invite technology and product developers, designers, social scientists, policy makers, community representatives and others who are interested in the conference topics, to join our attempt to develop this discussion on a common, shared and transdisciplinary ground. We ask participants to 1) strive to present their topic from a human-centric point of view as opposed to a technology-, product- or business-centric one, and to 2) present their topic in a language that attempts to transcend disciplinary boundaries, a language that non-experts can also understand, and to 3) not only report on their work, but also to engage in the conference debate which aims to develop ways to understand the interests of people and society, to evaluate developments against such an evolving understanding, and to chart interesting and desirable future directions. The emphasis of this event will be on networking and promoting a dialogue with colleagues from around Europe and the rest of the world. We look forward to seeing you in Moscow for a conference designed to be exciting, thought-provoking and challenging. *Dates:* *Deadline for submission: 10 January 2007* Notification of acceptance : 28 February 2007 For further details please visit http://conference.cost298.org/ Cheers F. Thomas -- .................................................................... Dr. Frank Thomas FTR Internet Research 321, bd de la Boissière 93110 Rosny-sous-Bois France <A HREF="CALLTO://Frank_Thomas"><IMG> --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "mobile-society" group. 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