What is involved in putting new technology to work?
She waited patiently for the train, a small girl, slight of build with an enormous stack of books almost as heavy as she, the books she needed that day at University. I felt sorry for her. That was 20 years ago. Today technology makes it possible for that heavy load to be reduced to one tablet. However to apply the technology requires changes in business models (University lecturers supplement their incomes by writing books that become requisite texts), in intellectual property rights, in methods to deal with plagiarism (which is so much easier with digital texts), etc. These problems are being overcome and Universities today are a far cry from those of 20 years ago. But when we consider the impact of technology change we must also take these cultural and organisational adjustments into account and tracking trends in cultural change is as important as tracking changes in technology change. For example, a friend who runs a large accountancy firm declared, over ten years ago, that when computers were able to respond to voice commands, he would immediately change all the computers in his office. He didn’t type himself and so voice command control would, he believed, be a benefit. However, his most efficient and dedicated staff that were responsible for data input were a group of women, around 35 – 50 years of age, all of whom were experienced keyboard operators. I queried how willing – and able – they would be to change their method of operating. His company has yet to use voice activation. (And given the problems raised by Geoff Hudson, referenced in the last post, other issues will need resolution before it does.)
So our question today concerns trends in cultural change.
What trends have you observed? How are they affecting technology and our demand for infrastructure?
Media links welcome.
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