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)

I’ve been doing some thinking about human communication. It did not dawn on me until this past holiday weekend (Thanksgiving) that human communication permeates all aspects of our lives. I mentioned in a paper I wrote a while back that the key to communication is listening. I believe this to be true; however listening goes beyond hearing spoken words. Earlier this week when I was with family I noticed one other thing about human communication that I previously did not think about, and that is that it changes as we grow, but begins at birth, and can take very simple forms.

I was watching two of my one year old cousins play on the floor during the thanksgiving break and watched as one picked up a toy of another. All the baby did whose toy was taken was give a look to the other baby. There was no noise, there was no crying, or attempt to take the toy back, yet the baby who took the toy turned and started to crawl away (with the toy in hand) as fast as she could. The look that was given communicated that she was mad and she wanted the toy back. It was an example of human communication at a very basic and most primitive level.

This may seem simple to most, but it showed me something very important in human communication and that is even babies communicate effectively, so we as adults should be able to as well, yet many times we don’t. Could it be that at times we make the communication process more difficult then it has to be? Nothing more than a look in a baby’s eye was enough to strike fear in the other baby that she may lose the toy and she tried her best to take off so she could keep it in her possession.

My point in this simple story is just to say that communication begins when we are young, as we grow we refine it and change how we do it. So even when you think that you or another individual cannot communicate effectively; when you think there has been a communication breakdown, remember that sometimes a simple look is enough to convey a very clear message. I think many times we over complicate the process. I think that many times simple direct communication is the most effective form. I think we can learn a lot about communication when we sit and just observe the world around us and watch how people (of all ages) communicate.

Posted by cbroberts at 09:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In order to talk about Web 2.0 it must first be defined. Defining this concept turns out to be much harder than it may first appear, so the goal of this blog is to bring into focus what this term means and help us understand the concept a little better. The best definition that I could find came from the man credited with coining the term (Tim O’Reilly) and he defines it in this way: “Web 2.0 doesn't have a hard boundary, but rather, a gravitational core. You can visualize Web 2.0 as a set of principles and practices that tie together a veritable solar system of sites that demonstrate some or all of these principles, at a varying distance from that core.” (1) We see from this example that there is no clear defining set of guidelines to define Web 2.0, but instead, it is made up of a set of core competencies. These core competencies where defined by Tim O’Reilly, so now let us look at some of these core competencies in order to gain a clearer idea of what Web 2.0 is.

There are several competencies that were mentioned, but I want to focus on three of them. The first is that it must provide a service. Some good examples of websites that provide a service would be Mapquest, Yahoo Maps, and Maps.com. These sites provide us with directions (which is a service), so they share that core component of a Web 2.0 application. The second core competency that Mr. O’Reilly speaks of is that these sites must possess an “architecture of participation”. We see this clearly exemplified in sites such as Myspace and Facebook. These sites allow the user to add music, photos, and unique backgrounds to their own personal web page. These sites allow for users to communicate with other members of the site. These sites encourage participation from the users.

The third and final competency I want to talk about is the ability of these sites to harness a “collective intelligence.” A good example of this competency would be Wikipedia. This site utilizes the intelligence of all users to benefit everyone else. In other words, the collective intelligence of all is greater than the collective intelligence of one.

The reason I wanted to talk about these competencies is because there is no good definition of what Web 2.0 is, and it is hard to describe, but Mr. O’Reilly developed this concept, so what better way to understand it then to get into the mind of the man who fathered the term. I know that there is still some cloudiness as to what Web 2.0 is, but my hope is that this short blog helped to bring at least a little clarity to the issue.

1) http://www.oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html

Posted by cbroberts at 08:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)