atw: Re: Should we give the users what they want?

Thanks for the link Tony, I tried, unsuccessfully, to find the article
yesterday after it was mentioned by Geoffrey.

Quick thoughts:

- Dot points made us stupid before Google came along (thank you Bill, thank
you PowerPoint).

- The meaningless sound grab also preceded the web (we have that yeh olde
technology called television to thank for that).

- Yes, one is forced to continue skimming, forever skimming, for if one
stops skimming across the surface one sinks.

- No, language today does NOT serves the purpose of speed and social
interaction, other than in terms of largely recreational  activities.

- The business of running countries or organisations will never be about
speed or social interaction.  Let's run the social networking paradigm up
the flag pole to see how well it holds up for running a war, or working out
the country's budget, or building a skyscraper, or finding a cure for
cancer, or sending men to Mars.  Why have so many people been duped into
believing that vapid and fleeting virtual communications are something more
substantial and valuable than they are?

The whole generational thing is a crock too.

No, the boomers didn't have mobile phones or the Internet, blah, blah, when
they were growing up.  Maybe that's why the boomer generation invented these
things.  I always have a small snirtle at this notion that boomers don't or
can't use new technology. Utter rubbish. They invented it all for goodness
sake!   There's a tiny niche of Internet apps that the younger generation
flock to, such as MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, big whoop.  Why does the trite
drown out the other 99.9% that everyone is using?

Carolyn

On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 12:56 PM, Anthony Self
<ASelf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:

> Hi Austechies
>
> I've come in a bit late on this discussion (I've been away), but it seems
> that one of the things that prompted this lively interchange might have been
> my article "What if your readers can't read?" in the latest Southern
> Communicator. The topic is indeed very thought-provoking, and challenges a
> number of strongly-held ideas. (And it's not really about online vs paper!)
> The article is based on a presentation I made to the TCANZ Forum in Auckland
> last year.
>
> If you haven't read the article in Southern Communicator (or in the
> February STC Intercom magazine, where it was earlier published), you can
> find it online at
> http://www.hyperwrite.com/Articles/showarticle.aspx?id=84.
>
> I will be reprising the original presentation for the AODC Conference in
> Melbourne in March (details at www.aodc.com.au), and I hope this will
> generate some hearty discussion and introspection too.
>
> Tony Self
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-- 
Carolyn Hart

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