Guest column: Digital trends affect all of us

RRST AR.COMPosted Aug 14, 2010 @ 07 :08 PMLast update Aug 14, 2010 @ 07 :12 PM

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The 21st-century world is changing fast. In fact the pace of change is constantly accelerating. Businesses and governmentscan affect change or get affected by it. Our education sy stem must change if we want to prepare our children to be ready fora hy per-connected world. We need to stop teaching “factory workers” and begin training “knowledge sy nthesizers.”

As indiv iduals we need to understand how the new forms of human communications impact us and free us to access theknowledge we want, gain experiences we need and allow us to interact socially like never before possible.

Human progress is due to innovation and our ability to communicate, to exchange ideas, to build upon others’ successes.Changes in transportation over the last millennium resulted in higher speed and lower cost of communications. We’vemoved from walking caravans to wind-powered ships, to trains and automobiles. But it really accelerated with theintroduction of v irtual communication v ia wired telegraph and telephone, then terrestrial and satellite wireless links, tofiber-optics networks ... and the Internet. As communications technology improv es, innov ation happens faster, whichimprov es technology , which speeds innovation. We are currently experiencing unprecedented change in humancommunications and innov ation.

The economics of digitization have affected broadcast v ideo, movies, magazines, newspapers, phones and books. As contentbecomes digital, huge new opportunities are created and old business models collapse. Defenders of traditional businessmodels first deny it, then attack it, and then try to control it. Finally , if they are smart, they adapt and transform theirbusiness. They must offer convenient access to content for their customers, or they will fail. There will alway s be a place forphy sical books and paintings and live performances, but there will also be digitized, v irtual versions available to those whodo not have access to the phy sical version.

The advancement of Internet bandwidth and computational capability are creating an explosion in online serv ices to allowthe ondemand download of all digitized media and computational output. I have a son who just graduated from high school.From the time he went to preschool until today , dev ices are about 1 ,000 times more powerful. In his working lifetime theywill adv ance 1 ,000 x 1 ,000 x 1 ,000 times. That is 1 billion times. Imagine y our desktop or laptop being 1 billion times fasterwith 1 billion times the storage.

In the last 10 y ears, mobile serv ice subscriptions have increased almost tenfold worldwide, while telephone landlines havedropped. There are now 5 billion connected wireless dev ices and growing. Smartphones with Internet connectiv ity willsoon dominate the market. Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter report that users who access them v ia wirelessdevices post three to four times more often than those that use a traditional browser.

We will soon enter a world where most people will access most media from wireless hand-held devices instead of desktopsand laptops. We will be alway s on, alway s be connected, using ubiquitous serv ices and content, able to communicate withany one, any where, any time.

Are y ou ready ? Are y ou changing with the changing world?

Jeffrey Stewart is chief technology officer at Trekk Cross-Media, Rockford

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Just what I wanted to h ear. More people preoccu pied wh ile driving.Leave a Com ment:Before diving in to post a comment, be su re to read and fol l ow th e pool ru les.Logged in as: stew@trekk.com Logout

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