[Air-l] tools for social networking at conferences

[Kris Markman]

Dear AoIR folk,
I'm part of a group of graduate students at the 
Univ. of Texas working on a consulting project 
for the organizers of the 2006 World Congress of 
Information Technology 
(http://www.wcit2006.org/). One of our projects 
is to come up with recommendations for 
technologies that can enhance the social 
networking of conference delegates during and 
after the conference. We're looking for ways that 
different devices and applications (and 
especially ones that make use of wireless & 
mobile technology) can help conference delegates 
track, find and manage contacts and extend 
face-to-face discussions during the conference, 
and help them continue networking after they've 
left.

I'm interested to know if any of you have ever 
attended or organized a conference (professional, 
academic, industry, or other) where technology 
was used in interesting/useful/innovated ways 
specifically to enhance social networking. I'd 
like to get an idea of what kinds of things have 
been done (successfully and unsuccessfully) in 
the past as we develop our plans for this project.

Please feel free to share your experiences and insights with me off list.

Thanks!
-Kris
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Kris M. Markman, M.A., Ph.D. Candidate
Dept. of  Communication Studies
The University of Texas at Austin
1 University Station Stop A1105
Austin, TX 78712-0115
Email: jho-kmm at mail.utexas.edu
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