After a wonderful trip in Italy, I am now back in New York. As I mentioned in my previous post, I was in Firenze, Italy for the past couple of weeks, enjoying great art, great wine and great food. Just some quick thoughts in no particular order…
- Europe and the United States are now moving forward on two different paths when it comes to technology and its uses. I’m still working on sorting some thoughts on this and will post more on the subject in the future.
- While we believe that the Internet is accelerating the speed of change, our fundamental assumptions of the impact of new communication tools may be wrong. This thought is due to the fact that I’ve now realized that the great shift of the renaissance happened over the course of only a couple of decade, a radical shift that was much quicker than I had previously thought. My trip, coupled with reading The Confusion by Neal Stephenson, which covers a similar stretch of time prior to the enlightment, leads me to thing that all great historical changes are made over a one to two decade period. If you consider the Internet just a natural evolution of the computer evolution, we are now looking at a movement that lasted about as long. Will the impact of computing be as radical as the changes made during the renaissance and the enlightenment? I don’t know for sure but do believe this to be true. Need more data to formulate a longer theory.
- When presented with two much data, your brain needs rest to process information. I started to suffer from a mild case of Stendhal’s Syndrome during my visit, which required a little brain rest.
All and all, though, I must say that this was a great vacation. I’m now tanned, rested, and ready to join the conversation again.