Is Your Head in the Clouds?
You probably realize that you are a special generation. You are the first generation to literally grow up with computers. You should not be inhibited as to what computers can (or should) do in our lives. The problem I am seeing with the digital world is that it is still fragmented by the ideas of single people or small groups of people. Wonderful programming is going on all around us from Google to Facebook, from eBay to LinkedIn but they are disjointed in the how they can interface, how they even inter-relate to each other in their communities of users.
My goal is to bring this generation together to probe these ideas, to think through the ramifications of how things can work together for the good of the community. This is what I mean by collective wisdom. Are we going to build the ultimate website that is going to solve world peace? I doubt it. But collectively I believe that we can begin to set the direction by which great things can be done. Let me describe just one example of this generational difference. People of an older generation, in their normal conversations, will say things like, “I think there is a tool for that, but I’m not sure what it is called.” If there is someone from your generation sitting there, they will Google the tool, tell you what it is called, what it’s origin is, where you can buy one and what it costs. And then click to order it. (It will be delivered to the door in 3 to 5 business days.)
Well, you get the point. The internet is an example of collective wisdom. However it is disjointed and has no focus. Presently it is not much more that a very large repository of information. How can all of this be tied together? What are the missing software pieces that will allow us to develop a new world of connectedness? What attitudinal changes will be taking place to be able to take advantage of this connectedness?
It is fun to dream of some fantasy alternate world but I tend to have my feet closer to the ground so I look at these ideas through the prism of human nature and try to deal with the realities of the world around us. Let’s meld the two together, together.
