Link to original post: [drupal=1167]Digital and Technological Innovation[/drupal]
For somebody like me who has to travel for an hour on the train to get to and from University, it’s very annoying to say the least to be coming up the station stairs to see that your train home is about to leave and despite the mad dash you make to get to the other platform, it rolls away without you in it.
That’s the situation I’m in as I type this. I have an extra half hour to fill, so what better time then to make a blog entry. The main reason I’m making this blog entry is because the class I just came from requires us to write reflectively on each class we attend for it.
The Class itself is all about ‘Emerging Technology’, I’m an IT student you see, so it’s a staple subject to say the least. Today we looked at Digital Innovation, and I guess that’s to do with the initial process of trying to come up with new ideas and technologies in the first place. Let’s take my current situation for example. Here I am stranded at the train station for an extra half hour more than I wanted to. After my lecture for the day, I decided to head to the University Library to review some of the things we looked at during it, since I couldn’t connect to the Uni Wireless for some reason during the lecture. The first time I looked at the time, it was about 1:15pm and so I decided that I would probably be too late to get to the 1:30pm train, I decided to do a bit more work then leave at a more appropriate time to catch the next train at 2:00pm.
After toying with the QUT (Queensland University of Technology) ‘blackboard’ online learning interface, I realised that I wasn’t going to be able to access the blogging tool myself. Looking at the time, it was already 1:43pm. I booked it as quickly as I could, but, as you know I missed the train. Of course that’s mostly my fault for losing track of time, but what if I had some kind of technology that could remind me?
For example, what if I had a technology that could track my current location, and knew that I had to catch the train home. There’s no reason that some form of software could be developed to perhaps use google maps to calculate the average time taken to walk from my location to the train station, then remind me at ‘x’ minutes before the train that it’s going to take ‘x’ minutes to get there and that I should leave right now.
That’s merely an example that occurred to me as I walked towards the train station. Digital Innovation is an ongoing phenomenon aimed at the development of technologies that make even the most everyday of actions instantaneous from anywhere, anytime. More to the point, technology is evolving to support humans with everyday work and life. Always are people coming up with new ways to integrate our daily tasks, our jobs, our recreation, our chores and our lives with technology.
Our relationship with computers is much closer than previously perceived. No longer do we have this situation where people are unsure of, or simply do not wish to use computers, as though they’re only important to a handful of people in our society. Now any person can shop and pay bills online, stay connected with ‘Web 2.0’ software like Facebook and many more things that only ten or fifteen years ago we would have never done.
As technology and the internet become more and more integrated with our lives however, our dependence on it grows just as much. It will continue growing to a point where productivity and the operation of even the individual could not possibly continue without it. Whether this is a positive or negative outcome remains to be seen. Where only a decade ago we were all afraid of putting any kind of personal information out there, we’re now using Facebook to display information, recollections and images of our very lives and merely trusting in the fact that it’s relatively safe to do so just because everybody else does.
Regardless of positive and negative connotations, digital innovation will continue on because in both business and even our social lives we’re always looking that competitive edge. Without a website, a business is already disadvantaged, without a facebook, socially a person may be disadvantaged (to use an odd, but relevant example).
The next train is rolling in now, and across from me some kid is coming up the stairs, and realising that the train I’m about to step onto is the one he needs to be on, and he makes a dash to get up and around onto my platform. I say he would’ve made it with the right technology on his side.
For somebody like me who has to travel for an hour on the train to get to and from University, it’s very annoying to say the least to be coming up the station stairs to see that your train home is about to leave and despite the mad dash you make to get to the other platform, it rolls away without you in it.
That’s the situation I’m in as I type this. I have an extra half hour to fill, so what better time then to make a blog entry. The main reason I’m making this blog entry is because the class I just came from requires us to write reflectively on each class we attend for it.
The Class itself is all about ‘Emerging Technology’, I’m an IT student you see, so it’s a staple subject to say the least. Today we looked at Digital Innovation, and I guess that’s to do with the initial process of trying to come up with new ideas and technologies in the first place. Let’s take my current situation for example. Here I am stranded at the train station for an extra half hour more than I wanted to. After my lecture for the day, I decided to head to the University Library to review some of the things we looked at during it, since I couldn’t connect to the Uni Wireless for some reason during the lecture. The first time I looked at the time, it was about 1:15pm and so I decided that I would probably be too late to get to the 1:30pm train, I decided to do a bit more work then leave at a more appropriate time to catch the next train at 2:00pm.
After toying with the QUT (Queensland University of Technology) ‘blackboard’ online learning interface, I realised that I wasn’t going to be able to access the blogging tool myself. Looking at the time, it was already 1:43pm. I booked it as quickly as I could, but, as you know I missed the train. Of course that’s mostly my fault for losing track of time, but what if I had some kind of technology that could remind me?
For example, what if I had a technology that could track my current location, and knew that I had to catch the train home. There’s no reason that some form of software could be developed to perhaps use google maps to calculate the average time taken to walk from my location to the train station, then remind me at ‘x’ minutes before the train that it’s going to take ‘x’ minutes to get there and that I should leave right now.
That’s merely an example that occurred to me as I walked towards the train station. Digital Innovation is an ongoing phenomenon aimed at the development of technologies that make even the most everyday of actions instantaneous from anywhere, anytime. More to the point, technology is evolving to support humans with everyday work and life. Always are people coming up with new ways to integrate our daily tasks, our jobs, our recreation, our chores and our lives with technology.
Our relationship with computers is much closer than previously perceived. No longer do we have this situation where people are unsure of, or simply do not wish to use computers, as though they’re only important to a handful of people in our society. Now any person can shop and pay bills online, stay connected with ‘Web 2.0’ software like Facebook and many more things that only ten or fifteen years ago we would have never done.
As technology and the internet become more and more integrated with our lives however, our dependence on it grows just as much. It will continue growing to a point where productivity and the operation of even the individual could not possibly continue without it. Whether this is a positive or negative outcome remains to be seen. Where only a decade ago we were all afraid of putting any kind of personal information out there, we’re now using Facebook to display information, recollections and images of our very lives and merely trusting in the fact that it’s relatively safe to do so just because everybody else does.
Regardless of positive and negative connotations, digital innovation will continue on because in both business and even our social lives we’re always looking that competitive edge. Without a website, a business is already disadvantaged, without a facebook, socially a person may be disadvantaged (to use an odd, but relevant example).
The next train is rolling in now, and across from me some kid is coming up the stairs, and realising that the train I’m about to step onto is the one he needs to be on, and he makes a dash to get up and around onto my platform. I say he would’ve made it with the right technology on his side.
