Group Blogging is now available in our AMI community Living Lab for experimentation and observation.
Every community member can create his own individual blog or a group blog which will be part of the Group Blogging Living Lab.
I've my own blog here:
http://www.cwe-projects.eu/bscw/bscw.cgi/715404

There is the CWE NewsBlog there:
http://www.cwe-projects.eu/bscw/bscw.cgi/226516?blogpage=1

The European Network of Living Labs was launched on the 20th of November 2006. The launch took place at the Dipoli Congress Centre in Espoo Finland in connection with a conference entitled "The European Network of Living Labs: A Step Towards a European Innovation System".
The European Network of Living Labs is an important step towards a new European innovation infrastructure. The Network includes, in its first phase, 20 Living Labs from 15 European countries. It also involves more than 100 active researchers and a representative group of innovative European companies. The Living Labs network concentrates on the development of new information society services, businesses, technologies and markets and places people at the very centre of product development and innovation.

Our communities’ website (www.ami-communities.eu) is now ready to become your Collaborative Web Environment for preparing with partners your new project initiatives for the 7th Framework Programme (FP7).

You are all kindly invited to create your own privately held shared workspaces, from your root folder, where to invite partners for contributing to new project initiatives. We also kindly recommend you to personalise your profile page, express your interest and potential project initiatives for the FP7 ICT work programme in simply using your own blog entries.

As ICE'2007 conference chair, I would like to invite you to submit an abstract to the Call-for-Papers: www.ice-conference.org

Main theme of the conference is: “Concurrent Innovation: An Emerging Paradigm for Collaboration & Competitiveness in the Extended Enterprise“

I also would like to encourage you to attend ICE'2007 and test the French "south" hospitality without to mention the traditional food and wine taste that are awaiting for you.

An expression of interest for Living Labs has been launched recently by the CORELABS and COMIST projects (see the home page).

My personal vision for the European Network of Living Labs in 2010 is the following:

Having a lot of networked local, regional and global (virtual or on-line) living labs all over the EU operating as integrated open co-creation labs or centres where all EU citizens could have a chance to express their creativity in contributing to societal, organisational and technological innovations according to their main motivations and interests.

Looking at what said Tim Berners-Lee on Web 2.0: "nobody even knows what it means". There is an interesting article relating this story at http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060901-7650.html
which has been written by Nate Anderson.

Let me quote what TBL said "When asked if it's fair to say that the difference between the two might be fairly described as "Web 1.0 is about connecting computers, while Web 2.0 is about connecting people," Berners-Lee replied, "Totally not. Web 1.0 was all about connecting people. It was an interactive space, and I think Web 2.0 is of course a piece of jargon, nobody even knows what it means. If Web 2.0 for you is blogs and wikis, then that is people to people. But that was what the Web was supposed to be all along. And in fact, you know, this 'Web 2.0,' it means using the standards which have been produced by all these people working on Web 1.0."

The term "middleware" has been widely used for many years while people are still using it with different meanings. Looking at Wikipedia, it is said:

"Middleware is computer software that connects software components or applications. It is used most often to support complex, distributed applications. It includes web servers, application servers, content management systems, and similar tools that support application development and delivery. Middleware is especially integral to modern information based on XML, SOAP, Web services, and service-oriented architecture."

Reading the Shanghai Daily, dated Wednesday 19 July 2006,beside the 37.4° C it is said that "China's economy surged 10.9 percent in the first half of this year".
"The National Bureau of Statistics reported yesterday that the nation's gross domestic product jumped to US$1.14 trillion between January and June."
Further to this Yan Zhen has written a very interesting article entitled "Innovation the Next Challange" where he is reporting that the top challenge for Chinese universities over the next 10 years is teaching students to be innovative and think critically as it has been said by University Presidents from both home and abroad at the University Presidents Forum weeklong session in Shanghai.

First of all, CWE acronym could be used with the meaning of "Collaborative Working Environments" but then it seems to be limited to the scope of workplace while the meaning of "Collaborative Web Environments" seems to me not limited to the workplace but rather broad enough to cover all the Knowledge Society scope which is directly related to the Lisbon objectives.

CWE as "Collaborative Web Environments" would allow EU citizens to really enter into the Knowledge Society if and only if every EU citizen can be provided with his own eSpace that would be built on "Collaborative Web Environments" principles and would provide networking services with other EU citizens and worldwide potential contacts.

Currently, many people are looking for a good definition of "Living Lab"......in the context of systemic innovation as it has been described by Bror Salmelin, head of unit, New Working Environments unit at the European Commission.
One may search on Google and will get back 111.000 "living lab" references with a huge spectrum of different definitions....like species program, environmental testbed, usability testbed, applied research....and so on.