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Connect - share - collaborate - create (part 1)

By Chris Abood - posted Monday, 20 April 2009


The next ten years will be the sharing and collaborating years. The way we work, play and interact is changing rapidly along lines of connecting to others, sharing ourselves, collaborating with others and creating together.

This is occurring due to what is known as Web 2.0 technologies. Just over two years ago, everyone had heard of Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Hardly anyone had heard of Barack Obama. It was Obama who tapped into the sharing and collaboration wave. While others were saying, “I can do this”, he was saying, “We can do this”.

In this article I will outline how in the areas of copyright, social interactions, education, media and jobs will change as a result of a move to a connecting, sharing, collaborating and creating world.

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My right to copy

Close to 700,000 songs are downloaded illegally every five minutes. How are music executives going to survive?

Within ten years time, copyright as it currently stands will be dead and buried if not already. Does the death of copyright also mean the death of music, writing and movies? Definitely not. On the contrary, I believe copyright hinders creativity. I believe that within the next ten years we will enter a new golden age of art. Copyright has no place in the sharing and collaborating world.

Currently, most copyright is not controlled by their originators. As such, an industry has risen which controls much of what we see and hear. It is assessed on commercial value, not on artistic merits.

You only have to witness the evolution and rise of the open source community in their ability to reach new boundaries in delivering great products, unencumbered by economic and commercial realities.

It has been argued that without copyright, artists (of all kinds) will not be able to make a living. Shakespeare, Mozart and Da Vinci all did quite well without copyright as do many in the open source community, as do contributors to On Line Opinion (OLO). There are currently more than 3,000 authors who have contributed to OLO using the Creative Commons Licence.

What will replace copyright? I believe mechanisms such as the Creative Commons Licence and the GNU General Public Licence, which is also known as copyleft licence, will. Originators works will be free to disseminate.

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People (often who have never met) will take what is there, add value, share and work together. People will combine various items together to form a new product. This is known as mashup. The mobile phone of today is a prime example of a mashup, where existing technologies: phone, camera, voice recorder, alarm and music player have been combined into one device. Mashup is all about adding value.

In ten years time, there will not be many music executives left.

Hear me, see me, meet me

Currently, one in eight couples in the US who married last year met online. If MySpace was a country with its 200 million registered users, it would be the fifth largest country in the world. Is Isaac Asimov’s story of how people are so used to interacting online that they cannot bear physical contact about to become reality?

The weekend before Easter, the extended Abood clan gathered for a family picnic. It had been some years since we had done this. It is easy today to lose track of friends and family as the months roll by and you get caught up in your day-to-day existence.

Most of my family and relatives now have a Facebook page. We are once again interacting with each other on an almost daily basis albeit online. This is what led to the picnic gathering.

Online social applications such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter have allowed us to reconnect with families and friends. I now know what they are up to.

Teenagers today will lookup their timeline on twitter, see what their friends are up to and decide if they want to join in. If they see two of their friends going to see a movie that they like, they will turn up to join them as well as others who have decided to join them as well.

In the next decade, online social applications will be used more and more as we seek to keep in contact with friends and families. It will also become more important in our ability to find and connect with like-minded people that we would never have had the opportunity to meet before. Whether these people share your passion for all things Doctor Who, have similar political beliefs or share a similar professional background, you will be connecting with more people than ever before.

Contrary to Isaac Asimov predictive story, we will be engaging with people more than ever.

There are those who have argued that today’s generation, who spend a lot of time interacting online, are not learning social graces. However, I believe in the next ten years we will return to the small village atmosphere. In the small village, everyone knew everyone and what they were up to. In small villages you have to behave or everyone will find out about your transgressions. Now, with the “here I am” and “this is what I am doing” nature of online social applications we need to be wary of what we say or do, for everyone will know everyone and what they are up to.

It was Obama who used this medium to great effect. He got his supporters talking to potential supporters. He was able to get his message out quickly and mobilise his supporters. He even mobilised teenagers of non-voting age. These teenagers would then go and talk to their grandparents about why they should vote for Obama. These non-voting age supporters will be of voting age in 2012.

So clear your calendars, you will be engaging much more.

School’s in for summer

Currently, there are as many honour students in India as there are students in the USA. Who will teach all the future generations of Indian children?

In 1952, India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru presented the first five-year plan: India has been producing five-year plans ever since. In the early 80s, the national plan focused on becoming an information and communication technology (ICT) powerhouse. They picked the outsourcing trend early and now run the ICT departments of many companies worldwide. The India nation has benefited greatly from these five-year plans.

Australia has no such long-term plans.

Australia’s educational institutions have a great reputation overseas. We currently educate many overseas students. However ,I don’t believe we are leveraging our educational abilities to the maximum benefit of our country. Education is becoming increasingly vital and will do so into the foreseeable future.

It is estimated that the amount of new technical information is doubling every two years. This means that a student starting a four-year technical course, much of what they learn in their first year will be obsolete by time they graduate.

Gone are the days of one job for life. Most children today will have multiple careers throughout their lifetime. The procedures and skills they are learning today will change and change and change.

This means that children today will be locked into continuous learning if they are not already.

Just as China produces the products to the world, India runs the world’s ICT departments and call centres, Australia should become the educator to the world. Currently we survive by digging things up and shipping it overseas: we need to look beyond this.

Australia currently has three educational systems, schooling for children where they gain general knowledge, Technical and Further Education (TAFE) colleges which are primarily concerned with teaching how to do things and the universities which are primarily concerned with teaching thinking and analysing.

In some respects, TAFE is ahead of the game. Their evolution of industry training packages, which identify the competencies to perform a job, are rolling out students who are highly equipped with the skills and knowledge to competently perform required tasks.

We currently teach what many overseas countries covet.

Australia currently has an ageing population of experienced industry personnel. We should be tapping into their skills and knowledge, training them to be teachers. We should be looking to building overseas student-only education facilities. If we become the educators to the world, this would mean an influx of overseas students. They will have money to spend and Australian businesses will benefit.

In ten years time, education will become very important to one’s future.

In part two I will discuss how the media and jobs will change in the next ten years as a result of a move to a connecting, sharing, collaborating and creating world.

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Facts stated in this article come from the research of Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod, and Jeff Bronman shown in the video “Did you know?”. Sharing and collaborating concepts by Ralph Demuth, Director of Technical Sales, Services and Support, IBM Asia Pacific.



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About the Author

Chris Abood is a teacher and computer programmer. He has taught at TAFE and private RTOs, and has worked as a computer programmer mainly in banking and finance. He is concerned with the effects and use of technology within society. These opinions are his own.

Other articles by this Author

All articles by Chris Abood

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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