John Milan (Read/WriteWeb) has an interesting post on how "Web 2.0's Future All Depends on IT's Future." While most of the article focuses on the role of CIOs in selecting the next generation of IT winners, he closes with a brief discussion of Doug Neal's (Leading Edge Forum) contention that corporations would do better to focus on an "educational" (rather than surveillance) model, where IT is used to enable the sharing of ideas. Think of it as a "wisdom of crowds" for the corporate world.
Which leads me to wonder (yet again) the degree to which IT serves such purposes in the social sciences. True, most of us at least rely heavily on email. But how well have we really learned to use IT to facilitate our research? How many of us have a technological aptitude on par with our (other) intellectual training? Are our skills better or worse than those of the students we are tasked with educating?
I'm currently designing a brief survey to try to assess this question, which I'll deploy it later this month. I'm quite interested in hearing the attitudes and experiences of others on these issues. Comments and suggestions (substantive or strategic) are heartily encouraged.
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