• Thomas Erickson, an interaction designer and social scientist at IBM Research's Social Computing Group, wrote a guest piece at Forbes.com, looking ahead to ways social computing will impact the smart grid.
• Erickson writes that consumers need to better understand the grid, local intelligence will need to be tapped and crowdshifting will need to be monitored.
• Fundamentally, he hopes that social computing will lead to customers becoming providers and partners—not just consumers—in their relationships with utility companies, and that will require companies to rethink their own models.

From the article:

The smart grid’s effectiveness depends on consumer engagement and action, and the emerging field of social computing will be central to its success. Social computing has to do with systems that are, well, social, such as online communities and social networking sites. Whether people post status updates, upload photos or “friend” others, social interactions leave traces – data, judgments, connections. ...