During his presentation, he touched upon the idea that students/kids younger than most of our classes median age (let's say 30) are digital natives. As digital natives, they are immersed in technology, they are used to flexible software, they are used to control and the ability to customize their technology. His point that made me realize that corporate America will change from what it was when I first began my career due to the fluency of these kids as they mature into the workforce. I've been trained in a static computing environment (in terms of software) and I'm used to it, so the thought that the software I use will change it's nature and the way I interact with it had not crossed my mind until he pointed it out.
When I consider this point in conjunction with some web applications and software that I know is being developed for the enterprise, or when I look at iGoogle, I can now see the value of this sort of dynamic interface within software. I do wonder though how this would impact productivity of workers, if the changes in productivity will be immediate or longer term.
Some other interesting tid-bits he discussed were:
- groupware (what is meant by this?)
- Twhirl
- Things like Facebook are interesting because it lessens the importance of a resume. The activities that you do (and the expression/documentation of them online) are more telling of who you are than what you stick on a resume. Everyone gets "Googled", so things are learned about you beyond what's in the resume.
- Howard Rheingold and Smartmobs - collaboration to cause social and political change
- Wikis provide transparency within an organization - quality of feedback can be evaluated by all and forces the quality of participation to increase.
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