cbroberts

I am writing this blog to the new crop of CICS students. My message is simple and clear. Get everything out of CICS you can. Before you know it your time here will be over. This is an opportunity for you to better yourself and to prepare yourself for what the future holds. One truth that seems simple, but one that is important, is that you will get out of CICS what you put into it.

I know that many of you have heard these things before, but take it from a fellow student. The experiences such as the Accenture Challenge and the group projects are experiences that will train you to become a professional (regardless of the field you choose). You will look back once your time here has ended and realize that these projects were true learning and growing experiences.

As many of you probably have figured out, I am graduating here in a few weeks. I want this blog to say two things, first of which I mentioned above, but second I want to say thank you to all the individuals (both students and professors) who worked so closely with me during the past year and half. Remember that we are the face of CICS, when we go out into the workforce practice the CICS values, especially the first and last: Integrity and Results. Produce results with integrity.

Posted by cbroberts at 06:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The idea of an information renaissance got me to thinking. In my earlier posting I focused on the history of this concept. I spoke of how the Information Renaissance began and what it had evolved into, but further thought led me to think about the future.

There is no doubt that the Internet has revolutionized the way we use information. We can communicate with an individual a half a world away. This is liberating, no longer do we have to use information in the manner of the past (through print, snail mail, and analog phones), we have left the dark ages of information transfer behind us and have moved into a new modern and more productive way of using information.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines Renaissance in the following way:

ren•ais•sance (rěn'ĭ-säns', -zäns', rěn'ĭ-säns', -zäns', rĭ-nā'səns) Pronunciation Key
n. The period of this revival, roughly the 14th through the 16th century, marking the transition from medieval to modern times. (1)

I want to focus on the last part of that definition. Transitioning from medieval to modern times, I feel that is what the information renaissance did for us. It transitioned us from the medieval (metaphorically speaking) way of using information to a modern, much more effective way. What the renaissance of information did was not just change how we can use information, but changed our mindset as to the value of information; technology has given us an avenue to utilize this information in many new and exciting ways. It is for this reason that the future of the digital world excites me. I believe it goes way beyond the Internet, as transmission speeds expand so does our imagination. This is the fuel behind the flame of innovation and this is the key to continuing the renaissance into the future.

1) http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/renaissance

Posted by cbroberts at 08:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It is my opinion that the information renaissance is a point in time during which we had our eyes opened to the importance of information and information flow. Just as in the 16th century when our eyes were opened to the importance of knowledge, so it was during the period of the information renaissance. I believe the roots of the information renaissance began as early as the fourteen hundreds. It was during this time that the printing press was created and this is what led to information being considered a transferable commodity.

Information has always been a valuable commodity, but until the “Information Renaissance” the value of transferring that knowledge to others was not known. This was because it was not feasible to transfer this information to the masses quickly and to do so in an affordable manner.

As mentioned, the beginning of the information renaissance began with men such as Guttenberg, when he invented the printing press. His printed bible (Gutenburg Bible) was one of the first examples of information revolutionizing the way people accessed information. The revolution began there but did not end there. The revolution spread across the world and is still expanding its reach today. One of the most obvious recent forms of the information revolution is that of the Internet. We have made information transfer easier and in doing so made it more valuable. Just like the renaissance period of the sixteen hundreds, we have liberated ourselves through the use of information. These two periods are very similar; one was based on cognitive knowledge, while the other was based on tangible information, but both changed the world.

Posted by cbroberts at 09:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)