Stephen Laster is the CIO of Harvard Business School (HBS) and a recognized expert in education technology. In 2006, Ed Tech magazine honored his work developing an e-learning program for his previous employer, Babson College. Laster worked for Babson for seven years. He served as its director of curriculum innovation and technology and as CTO of Babson Interactive, a for-profit venture that develops distance learning programs and business simulations for executives and graduate students. Prior to moving into education, Laster held IT management positions at Stride Rite, Art Technology Group, CrossComm, Advanced Business Technologies and Sapient.

In October 2006, Laster brought his e-learning and education technology expertise to HBS, where he's charged with determining which of the many rapidly emerging technology innovations will most help students and faculty teach, learn and collaborate at the business school and beyond. He spoke with Senior Online Editor Meridith Levinson about the promises and dangers of Web 2.0 technologies. What follows is an edited version of their phone conversation.

CIO: Harvard Business School is doing a lot of research on new organizational structures and collaboration. What role do you play in that research?

Laster: This is a really exciting time in education and in industry because of the impact of digital media and the Internet on collaboration. At Harvard Business School, we're looking at how these new technologies influence teaching and learning, and we're investigating the evolving business norms that are subsequently taking shape because we're developing tomorrow's leaders. We need to get them ready for industry, and they still need to understand appropriate ways of communicating. For instance, what news do you share via e-mail?

More tactically, HBS conducts research around the world, so we are actively enhancing the services IT offers to faculty and staff so that making global connections is easier for them. We're really charged with helping the people we serve on campus make sense of all this new technology while staying true to the goals of their work and without getting distracted.

What specific technologies are you most excited about?

I'm excited about the evolution of virtual communities and the technologies that support them. We've moved from the idea of a community as a discussion board to a suite of synchronous and asynchronous technologies woven together that gives you social presence and allows you to find trusted people and content. At HBS, we're trying to figure out how to bring together a Skype, a LinkedIn, some SharePoint sites, and get really good at integrating incomplete solutions in order to arrive at a very powerful notion of community.