I’m going to be Honest Abe here…
Most of this article went over my head. I did, however, pick up a few ideas. First, one of Englebart’s main points was how technology works for us. While it can solve complex math equations faster than us, it does not have free will (hopefully) and we tell our technology what to do. And, we need it to work for us, and we need to constantly update our ideas of what technology can do.
One example I thought of while reading this was Google Wave. If you don’t know what Wave is, hopefully you will eventually. Google Wave is their new approach to e-mail where e-mail is a constant interaction between people. I took a bit getting used to playing with it, because this is how it works:
First, you get a Wave account (last I checked it was still invitation-only) and if you have a Gmail it will tell you which of your Gmail contacts already have a Wave. Then, when you “Wave at” someone, they get a notification. Basically, you can both be looking at the message on different screens, and the box is interactive. So, I can change what’s going on in the box and the other person (or group of people) see what I’m writing in real time. The main idea of Wave revolves around the fact that sometimes people get left out of messages or someone hits “reply” instead of “reply all” and people get all mixed up about what is the most up to date information. Google Wave fixes this problem. However, Google is still working out the kinks. Hopefully this will catch on eventually. It will take people a while to switch over to this new approach, but when it comes down to it, e-mail is outdated. Our communication methods need to catch up where we are in the world.
Something else that I got from this reading involves using the “latest and greatest” product. Englebart made a point that we cannot wait for technology to get better to achieve our goals. Instead, we must work with what we have to improve technology as well as get on with our lives. You can’t blame your failure on the failure of technology to meet your standards.
