Tom Friedman’s book will be one of the hot reads this fall.
Order yours today: Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution–and How It Can Renew America
Categories
Category: Globalization
Well the long wait is over. Microsoft Press Release has struck a deal with OLPC to offer XP on those little laptops. I’m not sure this is a good thing. Ask anyone who has Vista if they would like to downgrade back to XP (I did) and then you realize this is what will be introduced to millions of future Microsoft customers children around the world?
Lots of press here: Slashdot, NYTimes, CNET, Gizmodo,
I’m counting on the fact that behind the scenes Microsoft is helping fund OLPC. I’m not sure Sugar has what it takes to be the interface because OLPC clearly failed to market the story behind Sugar. And that’s a shame.
Tags: OLPC, sugar, Microsoft, XP, globalization, laptop, trends
There are interesting lessons in The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. Learn to look for trends, events and all the gems in life that seem hidden, out of place, under the table and around corners?
At 400 pages its no quick read but Taleb has presented his research by sharing stories and analysis about randomness in his own life. Taleb has suggested that technology and history is primarily driven by Black Swans.
There are many lessons for IT leaders when it comes to Black Swans. The BBC wrote an interesting article about how black swans in the area of information technology enterprise systems. One in six big IT projects go over-budget by an average of 200% Why? Once you see his point of view it will be much easier to notice black swans within your organization. His book’s takeaway? Unexpected and rare events and even novel ideas have a huge impact on the world.
A National Broadband Policy needs to be more than just a talking point. Schools in our country need to upgrade their internet bandwidth to 25 Megabytes per second. This is for every school — not just the K12 district who slices up the bandwidth based upon the total number of school buildings in the district. The technology and educational impact upon our schools: leaving them behind just when students from around the world are joining and benefiting from the broadband educational internet.
Playing catch-up
Today we find a majority of schools around the country in the educational slow lane. For some reason it does not matter if the school is remote or urban, many are connecting at just 5 Megabits/second. Its like teaching history with books that still recognize Russia as the old Soviet Union….oh how I miss Gorgachev.
Any college connecting at less than 10MB — shows a lack of understanding and vision for their students who enter higher education seeking not just a degree but an advantage to enter the global marketplace.
As WiscNet‘s Future Technologies Conference wrapped up late yesterday followed by a staff outing in Madison. Will be posting a lot of content regarding our keynote speakers and Internet2 over the next couple of days and grabbing my flickr feed for FTC 2008.
Here is the link for FTC 2007.