Reviewing the Past, Looking to the Future

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Dec 16

Earlier this week, Internet marketing guru Seth Godin released an 82-page book (PDF only) into the wild entitled What Matters Now. It's an anthology of short pieces by 52 thought leaders such as Chris Anderson, Editor in Chief of Wired, Fred Wilson, Managing Partner of Union Square Ventures, Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishing, Joichi Ito, CEO of Creative Commons, and David Weinberger, Senior Researcher, Harvard Berkman Center for Internet & Society. Other contributors represent the worlds of diplomacy, business, marketing, engineering, the arts, and computer programming. What makes the publication of interest is the way in which the contributions emphasize themes in the modern world - mobility, enrichment, social interaction, focus amid myriad distractions, creativity and more.

The Simplifier Lab has posted both the full publication as well as individual items in PDF.

On December 15th, Morgan Stanley released detailed research into just how significant The Mobile Internet will become in the next 12 months, concluding that the "rapid ramp of mobile internet usage will be a boon to consumers and some companies will likely win big while many will wonder what just happened." The research is presented at great length as Gary Price of Resource Shelf points out.

In understanding how we've changed in the past decade as well predicting what lies before us in the next few years, it would appear that the information community as a whole (libraries as well as content and technology providerss) will be well-served by reading both.