I want to state at the outset that I am not against technological
innovation. Furthermore, I do not fear change. I celebrate progress and
embrace the positive impact it brings to our lives. Similarly, I
anticipate a better quality of life in the years to come through an
acceleration of research and development. I make my living by helping
others use and invest in new inventions; therefore, I have an interest
in continued progress.
Nevertheless, I see something along
the horizon that gives me pause for thought. Since the Arab Spring and
Occupy Wall Street (OWS), we’ve heard a lot about the social
revolution. Facebook, Twitter and other social tools have had a
transformative effect on the political scene. My purpose is not to
assess the merits of these social movements, but they achieved what the
United States, with all its weapons, money and allies never dared
envision. Like it or not, they have also transformed our own politics.
Every politician now speaks TEA Party and OWS language fluently
regardless of their actual positions.
These developments
have not gone unnoticed in the business world. For example, major
software vendors are now discuss the merits of social media for
completing tasks. I’m not absolutely certain what they mean by that, but
it may be instructive to consider what they meant when they discussed
unified communication and collaboration (UCC) a few years ago. They
meant that businesses should support the way their knowledge workers
spread information. Consequently, if your employees used instant
messaging, you gave them an instant messenger. Instant messaging was old
hat long time ago, but I used it to illustrate my point.
Currently,
we use Facebook and Twitter with a variety of other tools to transmit
and receive information. Recently, I read an article by Andrew Keen, in
which he described 2012 as the year of Google’s possible demise.[1] He
attributed this development to Web 3.0, Facebook and the social
revolution. He also described the mash-up technologies we used in Web
2.0 (e.g., YouTube and Google Maps).
I’d like to deliver
my own speculation. If Web 3.0 has arrived, it won’t survive long. Web
4.0 and several subsequent versions will probably replace it well before
we reach the end of this decade. We’ll quickly move beyond anything we
have yet to imagine, and the pace of change will accelerate. The
greatest challenge I see ahead is our ability to cope with the growing
volume of change. Remember Future Shock?
I’ve
speculated elsewhere that even the earliest adopters will struggle to
keep up with these changes. I believe that’s true, but I don’t think we
have to feel overwhelmed or give up in despair. I’d like to repeat some
advice I’ve previously delivered: remain true to your passions, stay
loosely tied to technology and tightly couple your work with proven
theory, sound practices and a liberated imagination.
References
[1]Keen, Andrew (March 30, 2012). Opinion: Is the social web an asteroid
for the Google dinosaur? Retrieved on March 31, 2012 from
http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/30/opinion/keen-google-social-media/index.html?hpt=hp_c3.
