OVER TO CANTERBURY (cameraphone image at left) to get my "Person of the Year Award" from Time magazine. The award is very straightforward--you buy the current issue of Time magazine and you discover the award on the cover. You don't actually have to go anywhere beyond your local newsagent. You've probably heard that Time has declared "You" too as Person of the Year, due entirely to Web 2.0--we can thank IT@Cork for being so proactive and setting up a tsunami of support for anyone using tech in Ireland to win this coveted award. There's a nice Flash movie that commends you on your achievements so you should go to Time.com and see yourself win the award. That's the Web 2.0 effect Time's editors are counting on getting. But there's more!
As my blundering with Web 2.0 widgets has demonstated, nothing harnesses the stupidity of crowds as well as Web 2.0, "a massive social experiment" in the mind of Professor McAfee.
Where is all this heading? Hopefully, down the path of Enterprise 2.0, a place that effectively leverages Web 2.0 tools and philosophies within organizations. [Note to self: get mail to forward properly from Exchange.]
I don't have much confidence in many Irish companies embracing the power of lateral, searchable, taggable collaboration across their companies--much less across industry sectors. Instead, I see the human dimension bogging down progress at the point of command, control and communications. In the minds of most senior managers, if the system doesn't enhance their ability to squeeze and see, it's not a major step forward.
I need tools that connect me to more places and connections that work faster than last year. I wish those two metrics (e.g., (1) connections and (2) speed) were enforced as the acid test of value-for-money.
I'm not very confident of that prospect but I do feel good winning Time Magazine's Person of the Year Award. You should too.
Lev Grossman -- "You--Yes, You, Are Time Magazine's Person of the Year" and by the way, Time named Hitler as Person of the Year one year before he invaded Poland.
Andrew McAfee -- "The Person of the Year at Work"
