Here's a really neat essay by Eric Kidd, a 27-year-old programmer (link via Scripting News), who writes on how the future will look to him when he's 55 in 2031.  He discusses the Microsoft Future, the Open Source Future and the most interesting of all is his appeal to small software developers in the The Missing Future :

The small companies offer me no visions. They can't build platforms; they can't challenge Microsoft, and if they keep squabbling with each other, they can't even create simple standards. The press and the business world won't even look at their technology until after it has been co-opted by the big players.

If you want my support, and the support of others like me, propose a vision. Show me you can co-operate, show me you can build platforms, and show me you can drive back Microsoft without becoming the next Microsoft. Tell me a tale of 2031, and what I'll be doing when I'm 55.

You may have allies in the open source world (Richard Stallman will never like you, but Linus Torvalds may buy your software). You may have allies in the press. You may even have allies in big business. But if you want to be anything other than niche players, you're going to have to speak up. The world is listening.

A clear call for social software and collaborative platforms in their development.  The world sure is listening.

2:44:22 AM    comment []  trackback []

Nokia, having succeeded in foreseeing and riding the cell phone and camera market, intends to develop the mobile world still further. "Life" (not just telephone) "goes mobile" is the company president's slogan:

(via Dan Gilmor)

The company wants to keep leading in mobile voice and simple messaging, and then pull together a variety of goodies for mobile users of corporate data and consumer multimedia.
Consider photographs and videos, Ala-Pietila said, or getting key corporate data to people on the move. You first ask what functions are natural to extend to a mobile environment. Then you must figure out how to provide them on an end-to-end basis among various kinds of devices and communications services.

[Smart Mobs]

They seem to have the right idea !

2:15:58 AM    comment []  trackback []

An interesting post by Liz Lawley - Women's Voices. Neat set of comments there too.   Here's an excerpt :

Every time someone like Shelley, or me, posts about our frustrations with trying to participate in white-male-dominated technical contexts, a whole bunch of white males immediately point out to us that of course itís not about gender. Of course women are treated exactly the same as men in this brave new gender-blind internet world. And if they arenít, itís clearly their own fault. They arenít trying hard enough to get along, theyíre not ìteam players,î they donít ìplay well with others.î

Along those lines, I fully expect that 90% of the comments I get to this post will come from white men, most of whom will want to tell me just how hard they had it, how their dominant status never bought them anything, how women and men face the same challenges, the same problems, yada yada yada. Iím not accusing those men of lies or hypocrisy. I believe that many of them are genuinely committed to gender equality, and that they believe that theyíre ìgender blindî in their interactions with others. But like me taking my safe, suburban school for granted, theyíre taking their male-dominated work environments for granted.

Now i really cannot say much about 'white-male domination of the tech area in the West' - yet this post made me think.  Particularly because its a very basic gender issue she's touched upon - something that women in my country have had to deal with for centuries, and still face.  Still, things are changing, very very slowly, but changing they are.

I've been studying women in India for the last 15 years - In TA (Transactional Analysis) terms - here, women are seeking more Adult-Adult transactions with men.  When this happens, the manís response has been either from the Critical Parent mode - ëslam down on themí - or from the Child mode - you often see them reacting as children sulking and throwing tantrums.  And thereís conflict and chaos as a result of this crossed transaction.

Just a short example here.  A few years ago i was making a general presentation on 'The Changing Indian Woman' to a group of approx. 25 marketing managers (all in the room that day just happened to be men) across different industries.  I presented this diagram to them - the build up to it had many video clips, quotations and stories related by men and women met in the course of several research studies conducted, as well as depictions of such relationships so prevalent in advertising a few years ago - and i was almost lynched.  Finally i simply smiled at them, asked for a bit of order in the room and told them calmly that they had just demonstrated the exact same behaviour i was trying to describe - here i was in an Adult mode making a presentation - that these weren't my own biases but an analysis of  the 'evidence' shown to them earlier - and their reaction to it was like kids sulking and throwing tantrums !  It all went well after that, but thats another story. 

We are now beginning to see more and more, men who are not just accepting this change but also quite happy with it, and helping women along this path.   

Small steps, baby steps - chaotic and complex - yet a NEW WORLD is being born. And interestingly, ëtechí is accelerating this evolution and dissolution of gender stereotypes. By reducing the isolation they have felt for generations.  By introducing a new window that allows and helps them to interact with new thought processes and means of communication.  By helping them believe that they are no less or no more than anyone else. 

An observation from the growing Indian Blogosphere - many of the really good blogs (and apart from great content, these reflect a high degree of tech sophistication) are by Indian women - just citing a few here, here and here.

2:10:28 AM    comment []  trackback []