Let's not let new technology change our profession or our industry...
"This newscast from KRON in San Francisco in 1981 has been making the rounds recently. It's labeled 'primitive Internet report,' but what it presents is actually one example of the many pre-Internet efforts that the newspaper industry made to try to plan for an online future - and stake out its own turf in that forthcoming world. ...
In the video, you can hear [Dave] Cole say, of the 'Electronic Examiner' he was demonstrating, 'We're not in it to make money.' At the end, the announcer points out that an entire edition of the paper takes two hours to download, at a $5/hour cost - making this 'telepaper' little competition for the paper edition. 'For the moment at least,' the reporter declares, over the image of a sidewalk news vendor hawking the afternoon edition, 'this fellow isn't worried about being out of a job.'
Though the piece does say that 'Engineers now predict the day will come when we get all our newspapers and magazines by home computer,' its underlying message is - Don't worry. This crazy computer stuff isn't going to change anything much for now. And indeed it took 10 years for any sort of online service to become even remotely popular. Almost 30 years later, newspapers are still in business; some are even still sold by guys on sidewalks. It has taken this long for the technology to transform the newspaper biz in a big way. ...
But even as the downloads sped up and the connect-time costs dropped, the industry held onto that approach, instead of coming to grips with the fundamentally different dynamics of a new communications medium. What had made sense in the early days over time became a crippling set of blinders. The spirit of experimentation that the Examiner set out with in 1981 dried up, replaced by an industry-wide allergy to fundamental change.
'Let's use the new technology,' editors and executives would say, 'but let's not let the technology change our profession or our industry.' They largely succeeded in resisting change. Now it's catching up with them."
(Scott Rosenberg, 29 January 2009)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
BBC Academy TV Fast Train: the future of TV
"Predictions are problematic... but that didn't stop our expert panel of programme makers, technologists and digital strategists from peering into the future and speculating wildly about the shape of things to come. How will Technology influence TV in one, three and five years time? How will audiences be sharing, engaging with and reacting to TV content across news, sport and drama? How will broadcasters be measuring success, and what revenue streams will be funding TV in one, three and five years?"
(BBC Academy, 2012)
1). "TVFT: the future of TV", (32.00MB - Audio). This is a recording of a masterclass from the BBC Academy's TV Fast Train event held on 16 May 2012. Maggie Philbin hosts this masterclass about the the shape of things to come. She is joined by Peter Barron, head of PR at Google, Nick Newman, digital strategist and consultant and former head of BBC Journalism Products within the Future Media department, Daniel Danker general manager of programmes on demand and Peter Cassidy, director at FremantleMedia UK Interactive.
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Aleks Krotoski's The Digital Human
"Aleks Krotoski asks not just what technology can do for us but also what is it doing to us and the world we're creating? Each week she takes us on a journey to where people are living their digital lives to explore how technology touches everything we do both on and offline.
Taking broad themes of modern living as a starting point she charts the experiences of homo digitas; both the remarkable and the mundane, to understand how we are changing just as quickly as the advances in our technology.
What does the deluge of images from digital photography mean for our memory when every second is being recorded, edited and posted online for posterity? Are the identities we create in social media no more than exercises in personal branding, to be managed and protected like any other product? And as traditional churches struggle to leverage technology to spread their faith do the behaviours we all display online have more in common with religion than rationality?
The time for wonder at the digital world is over, we live with it in every day. The question really is who are we now because of it?"
(BBC Radio 4)
Fig.1 "Mack on a summer morning", 30 March 2011 [http://www.mydogearedpages.com/2011/03/photographic-memories.html].
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Peggy Orenstein on our gender performance culture
"Peggy Orenstein ('Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture') and Kaveri Subrahmanyam ('Digital Youth: The Role of Media in Development') had a conversation about girl culture and digital media for Googlers in Santa Monica on February 9, 2011. They were joined by Adriana Manago, who works with Kaveri at the Children's Digital Media Center (UCLA/CSULA)."
(About @Google Talks, 9 February 2011)
Fig.1 Kaveri Subrahmanyam talks to Peggy Orenstein about "Cinderella Ate My Daughter", About @Google Talks [18:24]
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Dyson: new ways of doing the familiar
"New ideas are the lifeblood of Dyson. Every year, we invest half our profits back into harnessing them at our research and development laboratory in Wiltshire. There are 350 engineers and scientists based there. Thinking, testing, breaking, questioning.
They're a varied bunch, too. Many are design engineers developing new ideas and technology. Then there are specialists who test and improve different aspects of each machine, from the way they sound to what they pick up. Some will have years of experience. Others are fresh out of universities like the Royal College of Art, Brunel or Loughborough."
(Dyson Limited, UK)
Fig.1 Sean Poulter (15th September 2011). "Sci-fi: The bladeless fan heater quickly warms an entire room without any visible moving parts" [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2037565/Get-hot-Dyson-unveils-new-heater-warms-room-using-jet-engine-technology.html], Associated Newspapers Ltd.
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
