Last week I had the pleasure of having a conversation with University of Toronto student journalist Andrew Louis about the role of technology in uniting the student communities within universities. He put together a great article The Ties That Bind and interviewed various interesting people from the Toronto, student, technology and social media circles including Dan Hocking and Ryerson student Robert Fraser from NursingIdeas.ca.

Andrew talks about the role of technology in bringing together the community in his own university and his own experiences, which I have shared, in the isolation from the campus culture brought on by the commuter lifestyle faced by many Downtown students.

He puts forward the question of whether technology – in particular the social web can close the gaps and bring the university community together. In the larger picture, bring together the thought leaders in a city or any given community for that matter.

This has been something that has piqued my intrest for quite some time. I have become quite fascinated by the interplay between technology, social media, the social interaction of the people of our cities and the essence of communities or as Seth Godin refers to them, Tribes.

In my eyes the social web isn’t about a change in technology but rather, a significant enabler in how we communicate and interact as a community.

The social web maps out the social graphs of our cities, helping us map and identify the intelligent and motivated change agents within our communities.

For a motivated, ambitious or innovative mind, ideas are not relegated to our own heads, our classroom, our university, the boundaries of our cities or even by continental borders.

The Internet and technology has previously been seen merely as a way of sharing information however today we are seeing the web shift into a means of sharing ideas, thoughts, concepts, visions and in bringing together communities.

It is not just about having the ability to publish – but to convey and connect with people that share your vision without barriers to entry or geographical limitations. The social web allows us to identify the voices and thought leaders and develop tribes around these thought leaders.

The outcome is not just a platform to broadcast but a means to identify the voices in these communities. By connecting the isolated thought leaders we can build tribes of intelligent people to challenge the problems that we face, collaborate and innovate.

Personally I don’t use social media as a revenue generator or a marketing channel, instead I use it to facilitate connections, seek other intelligent thought leaders and to unite a community of people that push the envelope.

The real value of the social technology is not in its ability to connect online and socialise online, it is the in the ability to bring together isolated intelligent people, empower them and bring them into the conversation to make a real difference in the real world.

We can see the evolution in the charity, corporate, product development and even community government circles incited by technology.

Charities have changed the way they reach out to unite conscious individuals to address causes. Beth Kanter has made a career of integrating aspects of the social web into communications strategies to rally together people behind causes and has raised over $200,000 for Cambodian orphans through her blog.

Companies are changing the way they view internal knowledge resources and the synergy of intelligence within their organisations. Technology is being used to leverage interaction, collaboration and sharing of knowledge and expertise. Watch out for interesting products such as Brainpark and Rypple that are utilising technology to facilitate, leverage, reward and encourage the connection and interaction of intelligence and expertise within organisations. Making massive multinationals efficient and flat like a small business.

Web-enabled meetings of the stakeholders of government policy, the citizens, such as Change Camp seek to “re-imagine government and citizenship in the age of participation”. The ability to bring together change agents from the community and government policy makers to approach and tackle issues in the community in an open sourced collaborative platform is changing the way we approach citizenship. To combat indifference and inaction, the web can enable us to connect, utilise and mobilize the innovative and intelligent minds in our community.

The future and measure of this technology is not in the complexity or depth of the development of the technologies themselves but rather in the application and its ability to foster innovation and collaboration.

Whether we are using blogs, Twitter, Facebook or any emerging technology to share our message it is irrelevant. The core is the connection and the message.

To put it simply: the technology isn’t worth anything in my eyes if it doesn’t result in real impact to our society and doesn’t get people offline and making a real difference in our communities.

The positive sign is that the way we use the web and technology is changing. Technology is becoming a means, a tool and an empowering enabler of intelligent communities of thought leaders. Change agents are connecting and collaborating like we haven’t seen before – working together to make a impact.

The rules are the same, but the tools have changed. The world is flat.

I can’t wait to see what we can create, innovate and discover – together.

Photo credit, FotoRita