Knowledge Tools of the Future

It's a truism that we live in a knowledge economy. For the last decade, being competitive in the knowledge economy has required developing systems to manage information-- information like consumer data, logistics, organizational practices. But the tools of the next decade will be very different. The growing accessibility of knowledge management systems have greatly reduced the competitive advantage that companies can draw from adopting them: KM is business as usual.

Time on After Shock

From Time:

[S]tarting at 10:02 a.m. on Thursday, you can play a sprawling, multiplayer collaboration game called After Shock to see what happens on the other side.

Wall Street Journal on ShakeOut

The Wall Street Journal has an article on After Shock.

The Institute for the Future, a think tank in Palo Alto, designed an alternative-reality computer game in which participants wend their way through a quake-stricken Los Angeles. A sample scenario: "It's three weeks after the quake, you don't have power, your credit cards are useless, and you're paying $10 for a Diet Coke," says Jason Tester, who helped design the game.

Ophelia Chong on After Shock

Los Angeles-based writer and designer Ophelia Chong (one of a handful of people who've made me think more positively about Southern California) writes about After Shock in her 404 City blog.

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Maldives insures itself against global warming

The Guardian reports that the Maldives is seeking insurance against rising sea levels:

The Maldives will begin to divert a portion of the country's billion-dollar annual tourist revenue into buying a new homeland - as an insurance policy against climate change that threatens to turn the 300,000 islanders into environmental refugees, the country's first democratically elected president has told the Guardian.

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Timo Hannay on Web 2.0 and science

At a recent conference on Science in the 21st Century, I was lucky to hear Nature.com's publishing director Timo Hannay talk about Web 2.0 and the future of science. He recently gave a talk at the British Library with the provocative title "Scientific Researchers and Web 2.0: Social Not Working?" The whole piece is worth reading-- it's a good overview of Web 2.0 tools and their uses in science right now-- but he concludes on a somewhat pessimistic note:

I'm optimistic about the potential of the web to greatly improve the productivity – and joy – of doing science. I also think it can help to break down barriers between disciplines, and between science and the rest of society. That's why I've devoted my recent professional life to the pursuit of turning this into a reality.

But I'm less optimistic about the inevitability of this potential being fully realised, at least in anything less than a generational timescale. For every scientist who sees it as self-evident that they should be using these tools, or promoting open information-sharing, there are dozens who just don't see the point. For every publisher or librarian who 'gets it' there are many who don't – at least not fully and not yet.

Changing behaviours and expectations is difficult at the of best times – it is too easy to overlook the hundreds of companies that fail for every one, like Facebook or Google, that changes the landscape. In a conservative establishment like science, it's harder still. In some ways science – as an continual, collaborative, global endeavour – is the ultimate wiki. But this analogy misleads people into assuming that adoption of new tools and approaches by scientists is a foregone conclusion. It's not.

Using your hands

Gregg Zachary in last week's New York Times wrote a terrific little piece on "a little-noticed movement in the world of professional design and engineering: a renewed appreciation for manual labor, or innovating with the aid of human hands." I talk about it at some length on my End of Cyberspace blog.

Energy grid limitation on the growth of alternative energy

The New York Times recently had an article on how the U.S. electric grid is turning out to hinder the development of wind power:

When the builders of the Maple Ridge Wind farm spent $320 million to put nearly 200 wind turbines in upstate New York, the idea was to get paid for producing electricity. But at times, regional electric lines have been so congested that Maple Ridge has been forced to shut down even with a brisk wind blowing.

That is a symptom of a broad national problem. Expansive dreams about renewable energy, like Al Gore’s hope of replacing all fossil fuels in a decade, are bumping up against the reality of a power grid that cannot handle the new demands.

The dirty secret of clean energy is that while generating it is getting easier, moving it to market is not.

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Social philanthropy or feel-good outsourcing?

The New York Times has a piece on Serebra Connect, a freelance computer work marketplace with a social philanthropy twist:

Chinese universities now top the NSF list of institutions sending students to American graduate schools

For decades, American graduate schools have attracted students from all over the world. Over time, of course, the origins of international graduate students has shifted. For years, the NSF Survey of Earned Doctorates has been following where Ph.D. recipients received their undergraduate degrees, and each year it publishes a list showing what universities and colleges graduate the largest number of students going on to get Ph.D.s in the U.S.

The latest survey shows that in 2006, two Chinese universities contributed more Ph.D. students to American graduate programs. This is notable because until now, American universities have dominated (but not monopolized) the top five slots.