The Future

"....It’s the open, programmable Web, and quite a change from monolithic, proprietary operating systems and programs of the past characterized by long development times and software release cycles."
When I read this phrase I felt quite nostalgic for the fun times I had writing and using those "programs of the past". I feel quite sad that I missed the opportunity to learn the new technologies once I became a Project Manager because now there is a disconnect between my skills and the knowledge required to contribute to this exciting new form of programming. I have always enjoyed developing and debugging program code much more than using it - perhaps part of my desire to always know how things work!

None of the suggested perspectives were available when I tried to link to them - I wish I could figure out why!

I love the principle that Beta is forever! That really shows that the world is changing so fast that nothing can stand still anymore because people are demanding constant change in order to keep up. I also liked the concept of the Long Tail effect which shows why websites can become so successful selling limited product but to huge markets.

Although I understood the concept of Web 2.0 I would never have thought of applying it to library service but it makes a lot of sense to me that the same concepts of collaboration and constant change should apply to lots of public services. The end result is the same - involving and communicating with your users in a very open way.