What happens when all information is free, freely available, to anyone, at anytime and from anywhere?
Wednesday: May 23, 2007 5:42 PM
With telecommunications, mobile devices, and ubiquitous networks, technology is making this a reality from San Francisco, CA to London, England. But, this is more than a technology advancement. Organization like Sun, Microsoft, IBM, Boeing, McDonalds, Wells Fargo and many others are publishing blogs that are exposing their business strategy to anyone that wants to read it. Wikipedia now boasts 2.4 million entries and the vast majority are annoyingly accurate. Considering that the average dictionary or encyclopedia only has 60,000 entries, Wikipedia extends knowledge far beyond where possible just a few years ago. Google, the search engine, is the first stop most of us go when we want to know something about someone or a product. They index over five billion information sources and handle over 91 million searches per day. Most of what you can read in books, magazine or from the research firms is freely available if you are willing to spend the time searching and evaluating. Seth Godin (1999) gives away one of his books, The Boot Strappers Bible while Tom Peters provides his presentation slides for every keynote he gives. A new Web 2.0 site, Slideshare.net, was developed so people can share presentations and slideshows. You can upload your PowerPoint, OpenOffice, Keynote or PDF presentations, tag them, embed them into your blog or website, browse others' presentations, and comment on individual slides. What's more, the transcripts of your presentation will be indexed by internet search engines and show up in search results. Today, we see that the information is not the container of value but the knowledge that goes along with it. These field experts understand this and have no issue giving you their complete play book. They understand, the devil is in the details and in the execution. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has made all or most of their course material freely available on the Internet. While a few of these are limited to chronological reading lists and discussion topics, a majority provide homework problems, exams and lecture notes. Some courses include interactive web demonstrations in Java or Metlab, complete textbooks written by MIT professors and streaming video lectures.
What happens when all information is free? Innovation and opportunity emerge, not just from new technology but from the application of the old. All information can be delivered with just a click of the mouse. It’s ironic that information replaced gold as the most valuable resource and now, it’s practically free
With telecommunications, mobile devices, and ubiquitous networks, technology is making this a reality from San Francisco, CA to London, England. But, this is more than a technology advancement. Organization like Sun, Microsoft, IBM, Boeing, McDonalds, Wells Fargo and many others are publishing blogs that are exposing their business strategy to anyone that wants to read it. Wikipedia now boasts 2.4 million entries and the vast majority are annoyingly accurate. Considering that the average dictionary or encyclopedia only has 60,000 entries, Wikipedia extends knowledge far beyond where possible just a few years ago. Google, the search engine, is the first stop most of us go when we want to know something about someone or a product. They index over five billion information sources and handle over 91 million searches per day. Most of what you can read in books, magazine or from the research firms is freely available if you are willing to spend the time searching and evaluating. Seth Godin (1999) gives away one of his books, The Boot Strappers Bible while Tom Peters provides his presentation slides for every keynote he gives. A new Web 2.0 site, Slideshare.net, was developed so people can share presentations and slideshows. You can upload your PowerPoint, OpenOffice, Keynote or PDF presentations, tag them, embed them into your blog or website, browse others' presentations, and comment on individual slides. What's more, the transcripts of your presentation will be indexed by internet search engines and show up in search results. Today, we see that the information is not the container of value but the knowledge that goes along with it. These field experts understand this and have no issue giving you their complete play book. They understand, the devil is in the details and in the execution. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has made all or most of their course material freely available on the Internet. While a few of these are limited to chronological reading lists and discussion topics, a majority provide homework problems, exams and lecture notes. Some courses include interactive web demonstrations in Java or Metlab, complete textbooks written by MIT professors and streaming video lectures.
What happens when all information is free? Innovation and opportunity emerge, not just from new technology but from the application of the old. All information can be delivered with just a click of the mouse. It’s ironic that information replaced gold as the most valuable resource and now, it’s practically free
