I’ve finally got it. After a year and a half of process, I’ve finally reached the process of execution, which will be a long and challenging process — I’m all up for it. It came out of last week’s thesis meeting with my prof Keith Rushton and in particular from Brian’s challenge — a former student of Keith’s working in the industry, who sits in on our meetings. I’m not saying that he revealed anything specifically, but he did make a spark go off. He challenged me to a point where I began to question my presentation for the grad show. I instantly rethought everything for my approach.
Brian said, “Web2.0 is dead in a couple months.” As much as I can argue and articulate what Web2.0 really means and explain O’Reilley’s 7 principles to inform people on the definition of the term, I realized that he had a great point.
My thesis is not about Web2.0, and particularly, I do not want people to have any preconceived thoughts on what my thesis is about. Immediately people will think about the social community networks that already exist on the web before they comprehend the intelligence behind my research and purpose.
I told myself, “You do ‘not’ want to be be compared to anything that is out there, so don’t present yourself that way and don’t set yourself up for that.”
The thesis started off with my vision for the web being used positively to connect people. The more I researched into it, the more I bookmarked social web, and the more I read about Web2.0 tools, theories, essays, opinions and research in technology, the more knowledgeable I became on how to measure success.
For over a year, all I did was research the web and read about the web. I bookmarked dozens of websites, rewrote my statement dozens of times, and exposed my thoughts to dozens of people, vocally repeating my purpose. The idea evolved, the focus changed, the strategies fluctuated, the passion transformed and the true purpose revealed itself to me through ongoing projects, involvements, and reflective experiential research. I am using my thesis to provide a unique and thorough experience through interaction and sharing of knowledge using a model that I create as a framework to facilitate productivity and interconnectivity.
