Not everyone takes blogging seriously. The folks at the International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (ICWSM) certainly do. Now in its seventh year, ICWSM occupies that unique space where computer science and the social sciences, not to mention popular culture and academia, meet.
ICWSM-13 is bringing together technologists and social scientists as well as bloggers and social media types at the Kresge Auditorium on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) campus in Cambridge, MA (Boston) for four days to discuss the latest research into and about social media. Among the workshops and speakers making this an event more bloggers should pay attention to and probably consider attending include:
- David Lazer (Keynote Speaker) – A professor from Northwestern University (not the Muppets producer/actor with the same name) will be speaking about bridging the gap between computational and the social scientific approaches to data.
- Fernanda Viegas and Martin Wattenberg, both of Google’s visualization research group will address the means, methods and processes involved in visualizing the weather and climate of the social media universe. There will also be a half-day workshop on social media visualization on Thursday, July 11, 2013.
- The Social Computing for Workforce 2.0 workshop will not only explore the impact and opportunities of recent social media trends on the workforce but also look at new tools and methods for managing workforce issues in an increasingly social media environment.
In addition to these highlights, ICWSM-13 will also offer sessions on content and social structure; gender and social media; self-censorship and disinhibition; understanding Twitter and much more.
Preregistration for ICWSM-13 is highly encouraged and there are a variety of options to choose from depending on your interests and availability. The main conference will be held July 8-10, 2013. All workshops will be held on July 11, 2013. You do no have to register or attend both. Online registration is available.
