From Web 2.0 to Human 2.0

Web 2.0 might be hot today, by some people are already thinking further to the future. Tech futurist Ray Kurzweil in an article reprinted from the New Scientist in yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald fast forwards us to 2040 where he predicts Human 2.0 will emerge.

"we'll have both the hardware and software to recreate human intelligence by the end of the 2020s. We'll be able to improve these methods and harness the speed, memory and knowledge-sharing ability of machines... By the mid 2040s, the non-biological portion of our intelligence will be billions of times more capable than the biological portion."

Even if some of what he says comes true, the next 20-30 years are going to be very interesting...

PS Also check out his new book, Singularity.

Tags: Human 2.0, Ray Kurzweil

Can you trust Wikipedia?

For those of us that have been hanging around "content management" in one form or another it comes as no surprise that some people, like Nicholas Carr (The law of the wiki and Trouble in Wiki Land) might be questioning the quality of Wikipedia content. Afterall, producing quality content needs time and resources regardless of the technology used to produce and publish it.

The UK's Guardian newspaper even goes as far as getting some experts to review a few Wikipedia entries. Still, this misses the point a little - if these "experts" have found something wrong, the idea is that they should change it...

This may of course be where social software of the Wikipedia type falls down since it depends on participation, including the provision of time and resources. What do you think?

Tags: wikipedia

OpenOffice 2.0 launched (or so I'm told...)

I've been an OpenOffice user for at least 18 months, but I'm pleased to see that OpenOffice 2.0 has now been released. The beta releases have shown that its something worth waiting for, but if you're trying to download it right now from the OpenOffice site, you may you may need to wait a bit longer! I think it may be victim of its own success at the moment.

In the meantime you can read about it at various places online. New features includes better interoperability with MS Office, a new database module, advanced XML capabilities and native support for the OpenDocument format.

UPDATE 25 Oct 05: I can get to the site now!

Tags: openoffice

BlackBuried defined

Linked from Euan Semple's blog and originally posted here:

BlackBuried : adjective : The act of instantaneously and superficially reading the content of recently arrived email on a BlackBerry or other type of handheld email device while engaged in some other activity, and thereafter neglecting to go back to read the email more fully at a more conventient time, rendering the email thread otherwise lost.

ex "Yeah, I think I remember seeing that email, mate, but I think I may have I BlackBuried it, sorry!"

Tags: information overload, technology in the workplace

New tag cloud on the ChiefTech Blog

Inspired by Jack Vinson's efforts, I've added my own Tag Cloud to the blog using www.tagcloud.com. To view it you'll need to scroll down the left hand side of the page. If it works well I'll probably move it a little higher up the page but at the time of posting I'm still waiting for the tag cloud to start generating!

UPDATE 19 Oct 05: I've removed the Tag Cloud at the moment because its not working... stay tuned.

ANOTHER UPDATE 25 Oct 05: OK, as if by magic my Tag Cloud has started working. Scroll down to see it on the right hand side. Remember it will only show recent posts.

Tags: tag cloud

Web 2.0 - from commerce to people

I've been meaning to post something on Web 2.0 during the last week, but to be honest the topic is getting plenty of coverage out in the blogosphere and other media. Wired has a good summary of the recent Web 2.0 Conference in the US to get you started.

One thing that has been causing quite a bit of conversation is Tim O'Reilly's "Web2MemeMap" and online article, What Is Web 2.0.

Tags: Tim O'Reilly, web 2.0

Slides from knowledge sharing technologies - pitfalls and risks at UTS

Last night I tag teamed with Cris Townley to present a guest lecture to a UTS MBA class on managing knowledge. My presentation covered the pitfalls and risks associated with knowledge sharing technologies - the slides are available to download (PDF, 241KB).

BTW Because I try to avoid Death by PowerPoint don't expect to find everything I said and what the class discussed in these slides - I suggest you check out these case studies on Ernst & Young to supplement the slides. We also made good use of some cartoons to point out both the challenges and hype associated with KM technologies. I also highlighted how the typical data -> information -> knowledge paradigm is a flawed concept that can result in knowledge sharing technology failure.

Any questions? Add a comment!

Tags: knowledge management

Consumer tech seeping into corporate IT

This is something I've been talking about a lot this year (most recently in my last IDM article about mobile knowledge management) so its satisfying to see a big analyst firm like Gartner - as reported in Computerworld - now saying the same thing that I've long suspected - corporate IT needs to keep an eye on the consumer technology innovation.

According to Gartner there are five key reasons for keeping an eye on consumer technology:

• Consumer technology impacts employees;
• It can provide clear cost advantages over traditional corporate hardware and software;
• Potential employees will know all about it;
• Customers will already be using it; and
• If you try to stop your employees using consumer technology for work, it will backfire.
  

Tags: business and technology, social software

VoIP - Security Reality Check

Here is a bit of a wake up call from CIO magazine, who warn us that "CIOs ready to take the plunge with VoIP need to understand that data firewalls alone won't protect them." They recommend:

• Encypting VoIP traffic;
• Avoid soft-phones;
• Seperate voice and data traffic;
• Install a VoIP firewall; and
• (The one we often forget about) Ensure physical security.

Don't say you've not been warned!

Tags: voip

Two events this week...

There are two equally interesting events this week, one in Wollongong (NSW) and another in Sydney:

IT Governance with Graeme Philipson
ACS South Coast Chapter Meeting, Wednesday, 5th October, 2005
"IT Governance is an integral part of Corporate Governance, which is at the forefront of most organisations' minds nowadays. But too many people regard governance and compliance as a burden, and ignore the opportunities it offers. It Governance in particular can be used as a means to fulfil the ultimate aim of the IT function - to align IT with business strategies, and ultimate to greatly improve the performance of both the IT department and the organisation." Event and registration details can be found on the ACS website.

Getting People To Talk To Each Other and Knowledge Management Made Easy?
NSW KM Forum, Thursday 6th October, 2005
Featuring Marcus Gibson (Lend Lease Corporation) and Steven Layer (Weblogics) with Lauren Allen (HLA Envirosciences). Free to attend, but you need to RSVP.

Unfortunately due to other commitments I won't be able to attend (again!).

Tags: it governance, knowledge management