Just over a year ago TFPL’s 17th ebic conference opened with a fascinating keynote by Paul Saffo, described by the Sunday Times as ‘the first destination of anyone looking for forecasts on how technology is likely to have an impact on society’.
Saffo highlighted the gradual impact of new technologies on society - using the examples of television and the Internet to demonstrate how complementary components can impact on the takeup and adoption of technology. He compared social computing with broadcasting and predicted that we are now moving from the service/consumer economy to the creator economy where the consumers are also the producers (e.g. bloggers, youtubers).
In an interview with the Sunday Times on 25 October Saffo set out his predictions for a future where the world is divided between the druids and the engineers, with the druids focusing on the environment (‘go more lightly on the land’) and the engineers looking to technology for solutions.
The technology that will shape our lives in the future is biotech and genetics, the fusion of biology and technology - and the impact of this on society could be immense. But the current next big thing is robotics - ‘Robots will soon appear in all areas of our lives and will take over things we now see as everyday tasks. Driving is a good example’.
This struck a chord with me - back in 2004 the 200 Club hosted an evening with Ian Pearson, a Futurologist with BT. He explored the trends, issues and challenges presented by new technologies and one of the themes he developed was the predicted impact of robotics. One of the implications was that where activities could be undertaken better/more quickly/more cheaply by a robot - for example surgery - they would be. The roles that would remain for humans would require soft skills - caring and empathising.
How will this impact the information world? We have already seen a major shift as a result of the Google-isation of research: DIY research is frequently the norm now in organisations which used to employ a large team of information professionals. The skills which are still in demand certainly include ‘soft skills’, for example one of the roles which is advertised on the TFPL website includes the following responsibilities: the promotion and ongoing development of knowledge sharing practices with an emphasis on business change management.
Many information and knowledge-related roles are now based around communities and change management - has your role also changed?
Melanie Goody
Director of Consultancy TFPL
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