Digital competence, jobs and ANZSCO

Digital agency is the collective ability of a person to be “able to use technologies for self-identified purposes and to be able to modify, develop, and therefore control and manage their use” in their lives. This consists of three parts: the individual’s digital competence, their digital confidence, and their digital accountability (Hirvonen et al., 2021, p. 7). Digital competence is the range of digital skills each individual possesses, “the ability to safely and effectively navigate the digital world” (Passey, 2018, p. 428); digital confidence rates how independent each individual is in being able to surmount problems encountering new issues as they arise, or being able “to use skill and knowledge levels to navigate other digital domains in a ‘transferable’ manner” (p. 430); and digital accountability is defined as “digital responsibility for oneself and for others regarding one’s digital actions; knowledge of the digital world and its ethical issues; understanding concerns and ensuring security and privacy; and understanding the impact of our digital activities” (p. 430).

A study completed in February of 2023 showed that 92% of 2022’s jobs require digital skills (Bergson-Shilcock & Taylor, 2023), or digital competence (Ala-Mutka, 2011). It is estimated that a million New Zealanders currently in work are in need of digital training for the jobs they are currently doing (AlphaBeta, 2022). , In an attempt to discover the strategy of New Zealand employers to redress this, a survey of found four preferred strategies, in preferential order: hire digitally skilled staff (77%); train current staff (informally 76%; formally 70%); or automate the work (46%; Kantar Public, 2023). Further, rapidly-improving AI seems an increasingly attractive patch for labour shortfalls, likely to continue to put pressure on our workforce’s existing digital competence levels.

Almost all jobs today require digital competence: caregivers track patient data using tablets; teachers and teacher aides use apps, computers and cloud storage for teaching resources and administration; businesses track, order, and sell products and services using digital systems. Even the smallest rural garage uses computers to order parts, and to issue Warrants of Fitness, COFs, and registrations, while New Zealand has one of the highest levels of online government services in the world (where services are online only, known as ‘digital enforcement’, Andrade & Techatassanasoontorn, 2020) . Yet, surprisingly, the ANZSCO job detail sheets which we are still using as a framework to deliver services against do not specifically mention digital competence requirements, despite being repeatedly reported to the departments using these that they are excessively dated.

A paragraph on the ANZSCO site potentially explains why the sheets are silent on digital competence: “ANZSCO is largely based on the 2001 labour market. The Australian government recently announced new funding over 4 years for the ABS to undertake a comprehensive update of ANZSCO (for delivery by December 2024) and commence an ongoing maintenance program in 2025” (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2022) : the job detail sheets are dated because they are 20 years old... and have not been refreshed. 

The Tertiary Education Commission is in the process of redrawing some 400 'common' roles for use on the new Careers New Zealand website, Tahatū, to be launched in 2024. The website pulls live data from a number of differing sources to inform job seekers and career practitioners, including the two major job boards used in Aotearoa, TradeMe and Seek, and the job outlook work of MBIE. It will be interesting to see how this stacks up against the updated Australian ANZSCO data when it starts to come online in 2025.

Sam

References:

Ala-Mutka, K. (2011). Mapping digital competence: towards a conceptual understanding. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, Document number JRC67075 - 2011. ftp://ftp.jrc.es/users/publications/public/JRC67075_TN.pdf

AlphaBeta. (2022). Building digital skills for the changing workforce in Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) [report]. https://pages.awscloud.com/APAC-public-DL-AlphaBeta-Digital-Skills-Report-EN-2022-learn.html

Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2022). Review of the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations [ANZSCO]. https://consult.abs.gov.au/standards-and-classifications/review-of-anzsco/

Bergson-Shilcock, A., & Taylor, R. (2023). Closing the Digital Skills Divide: Literacy: The payoff for workers, business and the economy [report]. National Skills Coalition. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED626621.pdf

Hirvonen, H., Tammelin, M., Hänninen, R., & Wouters, E. J. M. (2021). Digital Transformations in Care for Older People: Critical perspectives. Routledge.

Kantar Public. (2023). 2023 NZ Future of Work Survey: Topline findings from a survey of large employers [report for MBIE]. https://www.mbie.govt.nz/dmsdocument/27300-the-future-of-jobs-survey-kantar-public

Passey, D, Shonfeld, M., Appleby, L., Judge, M., Saito, T. and Smith, A. (2018). Digital agency: Empowering equity in and through education. Technology, Knowledge & Learning, 23(3), 425–439. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10758-018-9384-x

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Can't log in to Hotel Wifi

Travelling. It can be fun, but if we are travelling for work, and can't get onto the hotel Wifi, travelling can suddenly turn into a 'grit the teeth' time. You know, when we go to log in, we find the Wifi, we connect, and our laptop opens a blank browser page so we can enter our log in details and accept the terms and conditions... and nothing else happens. We keep getting a blank page, and no connection. Our Wifi may say we are connected, but we are not. We refresh, we reconnect, we disconnect, we 'forget' the network... and nada.

I am not sure why, but I rarely have difficulty logging on to hotel Wifi using my phone: it is just my laptop that drives me mental. I have used the 'logout.gg' in the past to great effect (here), but this doesn't always work.

However, a helpful Reddit poster (Markhyo, answering Doorhingetedman, 2016) provided me with some advice, although the steps that get us to get the information have changed. Try the following:

• Find and 'Connect' to the Wifi network
• Click on the network Properties hyperlink. This will open the network settings pane.
• Scroll down to the 'Properties' section.
• Scroll down to the 'IPv4 Default Gateway'. The address will look something like this: 172.xxx.x.x (see image accompanying this post).
• Copy the IP number and enter it into the browser.

This should take us to the hotel's Wifi's terms and conditions page, so we can sign in.

Sam

• Reference: Doorhingetedman (2016). Can't connect to Hotel wifi - sign in page doesn't appear. https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/4i7bbd/cant_connect_to_hotel_wifi_sign_in_page_doesnt/

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TechRepublic's list of Excel tips

TechRepublic has great, clearly presented tips on using Excel. Lisa Hornung and Jewell Conner of TechRepublic have just posted a list with links to the underlying 'How To" articles, which contain the following list of great efficiency tools:

1. How to add a drop-down list to an Excel cell
2. How to average unique values in Excel the easy way
3. How to combine Excel's VLOOKUP() function with a combo box for enhanced searching
4. 3 quick and easy ways to summarize Excel data
5. How to use the new Excel Lookup function
6. How to evaluate the last rows in a changing data set in Excel
7. How to change an Excel conditional format on the fly
8. A quick way to delete blank rows in Excel
9. How to password protect an Excel workbook
10. Entering leading zeroes in Excel
11. Use Excel to calculate the hours worked for any shift
12. Copy an Excel sheet from one workbook to another
13. Use a custom format in Excel to display easier to read millions
14. How to transfer data from Word forms to an Excel worksheet
15. How to suppress 0 values in an Excel chart
16. How to find duplicates in Excel
17. Two ways to build dynamic charts in Excel
18. How to use named ranges to quickly navigate an Excel workbook
19. How to combine formulas with Excel's data validation and a Word Replace trick
20. How to use Excel's border options by creating a simple floor plan

Check out the list and the links here.


Sam

References:

• Hornung, L. & Conner, J. (24 January 2020). 20 Excel tips every user should master. Retrieved from https://www.techrepublic.com/article/excel-tips-every-user-should-master/
• TechRepublic (2020). Logo. Retrieved from https://media-exp1.licdn.com/dms/image/C561BAQGaiP6p-cYTMA/company-background_10000/0?e=2159024400&v=beta&t=gWrlTvbc1edvweg67B7tea_gxjTuIxmW0qpCbsm5QoU

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The IT myths we still believe

Reported by TechRepublic, a survey by HighSpeedInternet.com found that computer users in the USA hold onto some outdated ideas about technology, including that Apple computers and iPhones don't get viruses (false), that cameras with higher megapixels take better pictures (false), that leaving your phone on charge overnight will kill the battery (false), and that PCs need to be turned off each night (false). People also thought that X-ray scans at the airport could wipe their HDD data (also false). Funnily enough, while I knew that a powerful magnet could damage credit cards, and high intensity X-rays could fog film, I had never heard that X-rays could affect digital data (which, of course, it can't).

However, another myth which the survey by HighSpeedInternet.com found was that users believed older models of smartphones are throttled back when newer models were released. This finding intrigued me as it was reported as false, yet was found to be actual anti-competitive practices by the Italian judiciary in 2018, against Samsung and Apple (Gibbs, 24 October 2018). So 'the people' are actually right in this instance, and the surveyors are incorrect. Not all popular beliefs are incorrect, and the evidence was there to prove it in this case.

So: don't worry about leaving your phone on the charge pad. Leave your PC on at night if you are in the midst of doing something and aren't worried about the power consumption. Check the camera specs, lens quality and reviews rather rely on megapixels for image values, and if you are an Apple user, ensure you set up and regularly review your antivirus and malware systems.

And don't worry about airport X-ray machines.


Sam

References:

• Gibbs, S. (24 October 2018). Apple and Samsung fined for deliberately slowing down phones. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/oct/24/apple-samsung-fined-for-slowing-down-phones
• TechRepublic (11 January 2018). The 6 biggest tech myths Americans still believe. Retrieved from https://www.techrepublic.com/article/the-6-biggest-tech-myths-americans-still-believe/?ftag=TREe01923b&bhid=40778246

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Flexible extension screens

At the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in the USA, A4 flexible screens were featured by a company called Faytech (here). The touch-screen is aiming to be thin and lightweight, and is being touted by the company as "the paper of the future". The idea is that the extension screen will allow your phone to work like a keyboard and the display will be your screen.

While commercialisation in the way that I would envisage it is still not quite happening yet, it is between currently 4mm and 8mm thick, and weighs about 400g. Being so light, it will be immensely portable, and once it is really foldable, it will be so much more useful. I hope the technology will catch up with the functionality that consumers will be wanting quite quickly.

Watch what Faytech say about it at:


Some while ago - more than a decade ago and before WiFi - I read about this as an idea in Japan. The idea was that "the paper" would replace newspapers, and we would download our pages directly from the internet. Didn't happen, largely because newspapers went digital with the rise of smartphones. However, that doesn't stop this new technology possibly arising at the right time.

Netflix on an A4 screen would be much better than on a smartphone screen!


Sam

References:

• Faytech (11 January 2019). 12.5" Lapscreen Touch Monitor. Retrieved from https://www.faytech.com/catalogue/product/125-lapscreen-touch-monitor-ft125tmlsc/
• TechRepublic (9 January 2019). CES 2019: Will this ultra-thin portable monitor be the paper of the future? Retrieved from https://www.techrepublic.com/article/ces-2019-will-this-ultra-thin-portable-monitor-be-the-paper-of-the-future/?ftag=TRE684d531&bhid=40778246

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Powering up

How most of us power our homes and businesses is on the cusp of change.

When we first built our house, we put in photovoltaic cells on the roof to cover our generation requirements over the summer months, with the infrastructure to double the capacity later on, if we felt the need to.

However, batteries at that point were going to cost us another $15k, so we decided to go with a grid-tie system, where we sold our micro-generation into the grid, then drew back what we needed. Batteries at that time were also very, very heavy, and only lasted ten years. It seemed like a great idea.

We signed up with the only electricity company in New Zealand who was paying for micro-generation at that time - Meridian - and we got a 'one for one' contract. What we generated, we got free back out of the grid. Our first couple of years were neutral, as our summer power generation was more than we needed, so also covered our supply charge.

Then the prices paid started to shift down. And down. After seven years, now we pay $0.28 per unit used, and receive only $0.08 per unit we generate. We reorganised our internal system so that during the day we use our own generation ourselves before feeding it into the grid - otherwise we would be giving Meridian $0.20 for every unit we generate. Despite this, our power bills now cost us between $70 to 80 per month.

So I am watching what is happening in the US with Tesla with great interest. The Tesla Powerwall only costs around $7k per battery. Better still, the technology has been vastly improved with the Powerwall 2, which has the added advantage of a built in inverter, and landed in New Zealand with New Zealand taxes paid. While the cost is one and half times the first version at $11k, it looks like this one battery will have enough capacity for our house to be permanently - and easily - off-grid.

Vector in New Zealand has the commercial licence for Tesla Powerwall. I'm keen.


Sam

References:

• Muoio, D. (5 December 2016). Tesla's rechargeable battery can power your home — here's how it works. Retrieved 30 January 2017 from http://www.businessinsider.com/how-teslas-powerwall-works-2016-12///?r=AU&IR=T/#teslas-powerwall-2-is-a-lithium-ion-battery-that-can-be-mounted-on-the-wall-or-floor-of-your-home-panasonic-makes-the-cells-for-the-powerwall-while-tesla-builds-the-battery-module-and-pack-1
• Hoare, K. (16 November 2016). Tesla Powerwall 2 - Beneficial For New Zealanders? Retrieved 3 June 2017 from https://www.mysolarquotes.co.nz/blog/battery-storage-for-solar/tesla-powerwall-2---beneficial-for-new-zealanders-
• Tesla (n.d.). Powerwall 2. Retrieved 30 January 2017 from https://www.tesla.com/powerwall/reserve

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Moving Digital Literacy to Digital Competence

We have literacy - our word competence - and numeracy - our numerical competence - as measures of our ability to function in today's society. In the last twenty five years, we have started to focus on digital literacy.

However, I have come to the conclusion that digital literacy is too narrow a focus, because use of computing power is now so much broader than simple 'literacy'. To quote The Castle, "But it's what you do with it, darl" (Sitch & Choate, 1997).

I was persuaded that what we currently call digital literacy we should come to call digital competence - mostly - by two pieces of work by Ala-Mutka (2011, 2008).

I particularly like Ala-Mutka's (2011, p. 47) diagram mapping how the various skills and knowledge combine to create digital competence (Figure 6 : Knowledge, skills and attitude items contributing to Digital Competence), which is shown above.

As you can see from the diagram, Ala-Mutka has clustered our abilities into three key sets: our instrumental (technical) skills and knowledge, our advanced skills, and our attitudes. The advanced skills contain a huge set of application skills, strategies and personal objectives, including learning, making connections between different skill sets, filtering and evaluating information and integration of technology.

But perhaps most importantly is our attitude towards technology use. Being able to accurately critique material ("alternative facts", anyone?!), openness to new technology, utility of technology and keeping both safe and ethical in use.

I find this approach both fascinating and useful. The diagram is necessarily complex because our relationship with technology is becoming hugely more complex and pervasive as time goes on.

So let's focus on digital competence.


Sam

References:

• Ala-Mutka, K. (2011). Mapping digital competence: towards a conceptual understanding. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, Document number JRC67075 - 2011. Retrieved 15 July 2016 from ftp://ftp.jrc.es/users/publications/public/JRC67075_TN.pdf
• Ala-Mutka, K., Punie, Y. & Redecker, C. (2008). Digital Competence for Lifelong Learning: Policy brief. JRC European Commission document JRC48708. Retrieved 6 July 2016 from http://ftp.jrc.es/EURdoc/JRC48708.TN.pdf
• Sitch, R. (Producer), & Choate, D. (Director). (1997). The Castle [Motion Picture]. Australia: Working Dog & Village Roadshow Films

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Driving: going the way of swords and spats

I read a great post on Medium recently about self-drive cars. It was a great post by Tony Aubé, pulling together a range of ideas in a very cogent way. He talked through the increase in electric cars; decrease in accident rates, traffic jams and traffic flows; obsolescence of traffic lights, traffic officers and fines; the environmental benefits of reduction in gas emissions; and the productivity increases of not being stuck in traffic each day.

I particularly liked Tony's ideas (1 November 2016) about work:

"work has always been about solving problems, but somewhere along the way we confused it for a way to keep ourselves busy. I believe this is fundamentally wrong. I believe in human potential, and I believe it is first by freeing ourselves from the menial, automatable jobs that we can ultimately break free and reach a higher level of self-actualization as a society."

Tony also included a map which showed the number of states in the US where driving is considered to be a 'middle class' profession. I don't think this is quite the same in New Zealand, but this new technology will disrupt people who currently drive for a living. Calling all drivers: the time to retrain is now, to be ready for your next career.

If drivers wait for the reversal of technology, they might find rocking horse excrement turns up before a reversal happens.

For me, this means we can free ourselves from the meaningless, and focus on creating meaning. And - perhaps - at last we can get what we were promised last century: more time for recreation.

As I have written elsewhere, the removal from the road of human driven vehicles is likely to be led by the insurance industry. Underwriters are already saying that AI premiums are around USD$300/year, whereas the human driver equivalent premium is above USD$1700. We just need to remember that underwriters don’t give a toss about the emotional argument: they focus on actual, statistical risk… and humans are considered to be more risky than the even the current level of AIs.

Local government will be relieved to take back car parks for green spaces, and to knock off funding endless roading projects. That will decrease our taxes and should leave us more able to fund extra leisure.

Germany is in the process of passing legislation to cease internal combustion engine production by 2030. Our future vehicles will likely be electric. As a result, we will have less noise, less pollution and improved - hopefully cheaper - public transport. Fewer traffic jams, and more efficient traffic flows are likely. We will eventually be able to convert our garages and driveways into something for recreation.

We will have to get used to the idea of not being defined by our cars. I certainly don't feel a need to be defined as a driver, or by my car (but perhaps that is a girl thing). I would much rather grab a pod to get to work, and to do some work in the taxi as I travel. While I suspect that New Zealanders in are less car-centric than Americans, we will still need to learn to let go.

But. Just as there were people who initially refused to give up their horses and carts for the internal combustion engine, trust will take time to build. I am sure self-drive will gain acceptance as the technology matures, and we iron out the bugs. There will no doubt be accidents and set-backs, but it seems to me that there are more positives than negatives.

I suspect that within a decade or two, human drivers will no longer be allowed on the roads. We will then need a new form of ID because young people will not have driver’s licences: there will no longer be a need to learn to drive.

Like learning to use a sword or to fasten spats, driving will be an obsolete skill set.

And I don't think it is a bad thing.

Sam

• Reference: Aubé, Tony (1 November 2016). The Unintended Ways Self-Driving Cars Will Change Our World. Retrieved 3 November 2016 from https://medium.com/swlh/the-unintended-ways-self-driving-cars-will-change-our-world-3b15d1db9026#.gy3hqeqxg

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The Adoption of Self-Drive Vehicles

(Harrow, 1 March 2016)

There was a great post by TechRepublic on the state of play with self-drive cars recently.

Reece (29 October 2016) reported that the US Department of Transportation "considers the AI powering Google's driverless cars (which have already logged hundreds of thousands of self-driven miles) officially a 'driver' — marking a ground-breaking moment in the history of transportation".

I suspect that insurers may be one of the forces which pushes self-drive cars on the road and human drivers off it. At present it appears that there is significantly lower accident rate with driverless cars. Insurance is all about paying for statistically supported risk... which is why young women drivers pay a lower premium than young men.

ASIRT (n.d.) provides global statistics of "1.3 million people die in road crashes each year, [being] on average 3,287 deaths a day. An additional 20-50 million are injured or disabled" annually.

There have been very few accidents with self-drive cars, and - I think - only one serious injury (death?) for over 10m collective miles of driving between Google, Tesla and nuTonomy.

Because of this, I suspect that insurance companies will start to increase human driver premiums until the cost makes insuring a human driver a luxury.

With a great deal of new car purchases being corporate sales, Companies too will want to lower their risk. As they replace fleets, they will go with a lesser cumulative cost of replacement. It may well be that self-drive will be that replacement - lower insurance premium, less possibility of time off and lower maintenance and fuel costs for vehicles, lower health insurance premiums for employees.

Last Christmas, the Tokoyo local body said in the Economist that this coming Christmas Eve, people would be able to dial up a driverless taxi to get them home. I am not sure how far down the road they have gone. However, in Singapore, they are currently trialling 12 self-drive taxis, with - as I understand it - a plan to expand to 24 units by Christmas as they see how they work out. With only one accident thus far (a minor bump at 4km/hr).

Many cities already have driverless trains; with many more exploring the idea of driverless busses. Human error and systems failures from human involvement are increasing AI accuracy and decision-making.

Public transport and taxis being self-drive, I suspect, may become the new 'normal' on-road option quite quickly, as the technology matures.

I hope that there are enough taxis for the demand, because - providing the price was reasonable - I would much rather be driven to work than to drive myself. I don't think I am that unusual in that.

Wishing I could do something productive, instead of having to commute, is going to push self-drive along. Who wouldn't want to save the hassle of owning a car, garaging it, insuring it, cleaning it, maintaining it and parking it; versus whistling up a pod and being delivered to our door at a reasonable cost?

Providing we can trust the AI.

And so far the stats look very good for self-drive.


Sam

References

• Anjum, Zafar (25 October 2016). Self-driving taxi roll-out in Singapore gathers intelligence. Retrieved 30 October 2016 from http://www.computerweekly.com/news/450401579/Worlds-first-self-driving-taxis-roll-out-in-Singapore
• ASIRT (n.d.). Annual Global Road Crash Statistics. Retrieved 30 October 2016 from https://asirt.org/initiatives/informing-road-users/road-safety-facts/road-crash-statistics
• Harrow, Robert (1 March 2016). How Self-Driving Cars Will Impact Your Auto Insurance. Retrieved 30 October 2016 from http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertharrow/2016/03/01/how-self-driving-cars-will-impact-your-auto-insurance/#61b69d096e1c
• Reese, Hope (29 October 2016). Our autonomous future: How driverless cars will be the first robots we learn to trust. USA: TechRepublic. Retrieved 30 October 2016 from http://www.techrepublic.com/article/our-autonomous-future-how-driverless-cars-will-be-the-first-robots-we-learn-to-trust/?ftag=TREe01923b&bhid=40778246

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Big Company Products equal Safety, not 'Love'

I was reading an article by Matt Asay for TechRepublic last week (18 September 2015). Matt proposed that people want to be locked in with software suppliers, because they want the entire solution provided for them by a successful company. He said "While companies sometimes complained about being locked into their vendors, there was also safety" (Asay, 18 September 2015). So if you are a 'safety man' (to quote Stickmen: Ward, 2001) you would go with the big software companies. IBM. Microsoft. Oracle.

Needless to say, there were many comments on Matt's post. Brainout said the issue is not "LOCK-in, but TRUST-in". Good point. Big firm products are not purchased because they lock the customer in, but because the customer trusts that the firm will deliver what they say they will, without problems. Safety, again.

Klwilcoxon said that people go with what is easy. If we trust there will be no hu-hu, we buy from you. Safety.

I too disagreed with Matt's article. Particularly with his view of 'feeling the love' with proprietary, locked in software.

Why? The market fights exclusivity (Seguin et al, 2005). There may still be dominant giants out there, but the very fact those leviathans exist ensures the creation of innovative, creative minnows who then push those leviathans to new standards.

Think Linux. Bitcoin. Ubuntu. CiviCRM. Koha. Text2Speech. Drupal. Apache. Moodle. VLC. Gimp. OpenOffice. Calibre. Audacity. Gnu... to name a fraction of the busy, busy people out there donating their time and skull-sweat to writing and smoothing software for the LOVE of it.

For me, 'feeling the love' is a factor of the open-source side of the market, not of the big boys.

And yes, the industry standard is still MS Windows (95% of the market) and MS Office. And, yes, businesses still want a trouble-free life, so that is generally why they stay with the tried and true. They know what it does, and what it doesn't do: and they know it fits with everything else.

But in my experience, as soon as the open-source cost:benefit ratio starts to swing the other way, enough to notice, businesses will jump.

I am on the board of an organisation which: has binned their proprietary website and gone open-source; runs a CiviCRM database; uses Google for all their storage requirements; and Hangouts for their comms. Those changes have saved them thousands of dollars a year, and the solutions are no more buggy than the MS Windows/Office ones were. Hmm. In fact, I should suggest that we run an internal comparison of helpdesk time. I suspect that the open source options are LESS buggy.

So no: I personally don't feel the love of proprietary software. I like to see just how much cost I can strip out. Going open-source leaves me with the ability to pay a softie to then create some add-on code for my business, so I can get exactly what I want.

And return some new functionality to the shared resources.


Sam

References:

• Asay, Matt (18 September 2015). Lock-in is what people love, not open source. USA: TechRepublic. Retrieved 19 September 2015 from http://www.techrepublic.com/article/lock-in-is-what-people-love-not-open-source/?tag=nl.e019&s_cid=e019&ttag=e019&ftag=TREd47db54
• Seguin, Benoit; Lyberger, Mark; O’Reilly, Norm & McCarthy, Larry (2005). Internationalising ambush marketing: A comparative study. International Journal of Sports Marketing & Sponsorship, July 2005, Volume 6, issue 4 (pp. 216-230)
• Ward, Nick (2001). Stickmen. Retrieved 23 March 2015 from http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/stickmen-2001

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Want to bet? Pascal versus Kirk

I have been reading "Who Owns the Future", a book on technological change by Jaron Lanier.

In it, Jaron proposes a secular take on Pascal's wager, that technology will create a future which is better than our past. Jason calls this Kirk's wager.

Jaron explores the advances which technology has brought about for the human race thus far, and our feelings around technology, unmasking some of our irrational ideas on the way, such as that of technology makes our lives somehow 'inauthentic'.

As Jaron says, our lives as we evolved were often hard, brutal and short. Many, many of us died for the human race to have reached our present point: and those who have gone before us died in childbirth, illness, starvation, accident, genetic disorder, madness, wars and natural disasters. Without pain killers, without anaesthetic.

We have consistently adopted new technology: from shelter, to clothing, to farming. Those changes have moved from simple technology to growing and inter-dependent complexity. Each new wave of change then changes our 'rules': and that this change is normal. We get seduced by our own stories of a rose-tinted past, where we dream that lives were somehow bucolic, and were not hard, brutal and short.

Jaron points out that trying to go backward is an unlikely solution: but that humankind's pattern is to instead create new and inventive solutions to problems as they arise (or as we create them!). He thinks it is what we do. It is part of being human.

This is a very interesting book, and I firmly recommend it.

Sam

• Reference: Lanier, Jaron (2013). Who Owns the Future. USA: Simon & Schuster

For those of you unfamiliar with Pascal's original idea, it was that we should all believe in God, because if God exists, it is obviously the right thing to do: and if not, there is little harm in our belief.

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Technology and Magic

Arthur C. Clarke's had three laws, and the third of them, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", is a purler (1973, p. 36).

I like its intent. While I can understand some of the aspects ot technology - ie, you plug it in, follow the instructions and it should do what it says on the tin - once we get beyond that, into that great, esoteric vastness of quantum mechanics, I am lost. All is hazy beyond my tech event horizon.

So tech is at 'that' point for me; where it is rapidly descending into magic. It either works (technology) or is an incomprehensible piece of plastic (evil, sadistic, black magic)!

However, I love tech. I find it so cool that I can have 1/4 of my library - 700 books - on my Kindle. My iPod nano is tiny yet contains 300 albums and 25 talking books. My laptop weighs a mere 1200g. I have a three terabyte harddrive that contains loads of my favourite movies and TV series, synched with a sound system and a projector to watch films, just like I was at the movies (but with loo stops and better coffee and wine).

You might get the feeling that I like to read. Oh yeah.

If I am ever without a book, I will read the toilet paper wrapping or cereal packets. Intently. I need words in a row. In times of desperation, I have even been known to read real estate listings and women's magazines (you know, the ghastly ones that speculate about airbrushed 'celebrities', and have diets and clothes for brooms alongside rich, indulgent recipes).

When I travel, gone are the days when I need to take a quarter of my luggage allowance in books. Now I can 'go lite' with everything on little devices.

My entertainment supplies are on the web. I have bought books, music and films online since the 1990s. While originally I purchased hard copies, now I download. Why limit yourself to a 'thing' when you can have searchable, pausable, drag and dropable electrons in a row?

All this is WONDERFUL. Except when tech fails. Then, we get back into magic territory, where my technomancer fixes it for me (Martindale, 1990).

So what has this tech done to our society? Bricks and mortar bookshops will vanish, except as another entertainment venue - think cafe reading - or as a niche interest group. Books will only come in eFormats - truly searchable - and you won't get hard copies anymore unless you print your own. The same for music, I think - also unless you 3D print records (as is starting to happen) or you burn a CD. All knowledge will be accessible on the web - for a price. I think may start entering the realm of micropayments for things we want access to online, with free content as teasers (The Economist, 17 December 2013).

I love the idea of Google Glass. I know wearers are currently coined 'glassholes' (Whittaker, 3 January 2014), but reading what Zach Whittaker has to say, Google Glass makes current technology seamless. You can film, see, direct and access your life in a way that opens up many more opportunities and richness than we have seen in the past. Zach wrote that Google has algorithms which search and link all your content and, despite not programming a diary entry for a flight, "like magic it [Glass] appears with terminal information and live departure status. I walked around the terminal and, behold, [Glass directed me to] a place to grab a coffee and somewhere to buy a slice of cake". He continued "a week with Glass makes a smartphone feel somewhat archaic. The fact that this wearable technology sits within plain sight makes interfacing with it feel closer and more interactive. By that, the reality that your data is visual, it's always there, and it's available as and when you want it" (Whittaker, 30 December 2013)

Technologies will continue to converge at a dizzying rate, become more human and seamless and I will finally get my wished for combo device that I can tell to be the shape that I want for the use that I want... book shaped for reading that will turn off when I fall asleep and sticks to my fingers so I can't drop it, 3D surround for watching movies, and invisible and sound-proof for listening, talking, singing, dictating and creating.

Truly magic.

References:

• Clarke, Arthur C. (1973). Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination in Profiles of the Future: an Inquiry Into the Limits of the Possible (Revised Edition). USA: MacMillan (p. 36)
• Martindale, Steve (1990). Technomancy. Aboriginal Science Fiction, March/April 1990 volume 4, issue 2 (pp. 56-61)
• The Economist (17 December 2013). Friends and forecasters: Ten thoughts for the future. Retrieved 9 January 2014 from http://www.economist.com/blogs/theworldin2014/2013/12/friends-and-forecasters 
• Whittaker, Zack (3 January 2014). OK, Glass: How do I stop people calling me a 'Glasshole'? Retrieved 9 January 2014 from http://www.zdnet.com/ok-glass-how-do-i-stop-people-calling-me-a-glasshole-7000024659/
• Whittaker, Zack (30 December 2013). Google Glass: The most personal piece of tech you may never own. Retrieved 9 January 2014 from http://www.zdnet.com/google-glass-the-most-personal-piece-of-tech-you-may-never-own-7000024631/

Sam

read more "Technology and Magic "

Obsolescence and Technology

Once upon a time an ability to cut fire-sized pieces of burnable wood and stack it near the back yard privy was a necessary lifehack: each time someone went outside to make the hole shallower, they brought back some fuel to heat the family dinner.

Everything changes: cookers requiring anything other than an electricity connection are now a matter of choice (and an unusual choice, at that).

While we - according to Benjamin Franklin - can only be certain of death and taxes (1789), technological change should probably be a corollary to that: we can only be certain of death, taxes and new technology up-take.

I think when we humans are shown a better way to do something, we are great adopters. We are switching predators (Schaefer, 2007), selectively adopting and swapping tactics to make for easier prey. This applies equally to technology.

Why should we strive to do things when we can get things done more easily? Talk to any woman who has had to carry water: indoor plumbing was a no brainer. What I am surprised at is that we don't have warm water at the wave of a hand past a photoeye on all taps yet.

But that lag is interesting. We take on technology that is USEFUL. It takes quite a while to learn how to use new tech; and it has a high cost initially. So only a few try, then over time everyone gets on the band wagon. It is only when the extreme margins of the bell curve are in the market that we can consider something endemic. Think Facebook: now your grandmother is on FB, you know it is a normal part of our human environment.

What got me thinking about technology is an article on teaching tools predicted to be obsolete in a few years (Barseghian, 2011). Her obsolescence list included - amongst other things - desks, language labs, computers, homework, standardised testing, using Wikipedia in class, paperbacks, lockers, IT departments and paper.

I agree with the paper, lockers, paperbacks and pretty much nothing else. This is because many of the things mentioned are still useful to us. Most of the things that Tina Barseghian talked about are systems, not delivery mechanisms. In 20 years those systems won't look exactly like they do now, but they won't be unrecognisable, either:

• Desks. We will still need workstations to gather around, save 'our stuff' at, work on, draw on, display on and put our drinks on.
• Language labs are apparently translation tools. We will have more sophisticated language labs - and probably only an ap on our hand-held devices; but translation will still be a human need.
• Computers are here to stay - they are useful ways for us to organise our lives. Check out what Corning thinks we will be doing with computer power in the very near future. Think about Google Glass. I agree that keyboards are likely to go the way of the cathode ray tube, but we will still want computing.
• Homework will probably be around reading the set texts, and understanding the theory. What happens in classrooms - virtual or flesh - is more likely to be group discussion which informs our understanding and application of theory. However, lecturers may be anywhere in the world, and there may possibly be far fewer of us as a result of MOOCs causing massive education sector disruption.
• Testing could well become MORE important, not less: and there may be a global organisation which does all the testing to ensure that standards can be relied upon, probably driven by employer demand for consistency.
• Wikipedia still remains written by anyone, so I get my students to treat such entries as a 'library hub' and go back to the source citations. 
• Books will still be written, but we will have ebooks or talking books, no longer paperbacks or hardbacks.
• Lockers don't exist for us now, so I guess they have already gone.
• IT Departments are likely to become more embedded in other areas of the business, but IT will be an even more critical service as more and more of the organisation's backbone is required to be connected 24/7. Someone needs to organise, co-ordinate and strategise IT; hard to do it with a big picture focus if it is too fragmented. I suspect IT will remain a key area for a long while yet.
• Paper is gone. I print roughly three documents for my students: a course outline, an assessment outline and a calendar. For the first time this year, all my students had a laptop, tablet or phone to view course materials on. Students are still taking notes, but they are using OneNote or comments boxes instead of taking paper notes.

I think education will remain recognisable for a while yet.

References:  

• Barseghian, Tina (2 March 2011). 21 Things That Will Be Obsolete by 2020. Retrieved 1 October 2013 from http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2011/03/21-things-that-will-be-obsolete-by-2020/#comment-19914 
• Corning Glass (2011). A Day Made of Glass. Retrieved 24 October 2013 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=6Cf7IL_eZ38
• Corning Glass (2012). A Day Made of Glass 2: Same Day. Expanded Corning Vision. Retrieved 24 October 2013 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_424843&feature=iv&src_vid=6Cf7IL_eZ38&v=jZkHpNnXLB0
• Franklin, Benjamin (1789). in a letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy "Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes". Published in The Works of Benjamin Franklin (1817). Retrieved 24 October 2013 from http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/death-and-taxes.html
• Google (2012). Google Glasses Project. Retrieved 24 October 2013 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSnB06um5r4
• Schaefer, Jake (2007). Environmental Biology (BSC 340): Week 6. Retrieved 24 October 2013 from http://ichthyology.usm.edu/courses/bsc340/week6.pdf

Sam 

Check out the update to Corning Glass' video clip: the "A Day Made of Glass 2: Unpacked" where Corning explain what their technology will be able to deliver in the near future, and what is deliverable right now at http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_152905&feature=iv&src_vid=jZkHpNnXLB0&v=X-GXO_urMow  

read more "Obsolescence and Technology"

Newsletter Issue 40, February 2002

Sam Young Newsletter

Issue 40, February 2002

Hi guys,

Check out Technology Trends below, where I take a quick look at how IT is impacting on us all. And if you happen to  Remember Project Oxygen? from December 1999 and a couple of follow ups in 2000, there is a bit of an update and a link to MIT's website. 

Multi-messenger Service: Trillian   TLAs for SMEs        Short & Hot Keys        Hot Linx

Don't forget, if you want to be taken off my mailing list, click here to send me a reply e-mail and I will remove your name.

Technology Trends

In 2000, nearly 110 million people in the US used a cellphone (39%), 113 million adults were wired for the net and US Baby Boomers bought more CDs than any other age group. While we don't take those measures in NZ, I would imagine that the same trends hold true in Godzone. 

This snapshot of Americans as technology consumers comes from their Census Bureau's "Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2001." You can check out the tables at the Census website http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/01statab/stat-ab01.html 

The stats show how rapidly technology is changing the American way of life;

• In 1982, vinyl albums ruled the music world, with sales of US$1.9 b. In 2000, CD sales were US$13.2 b, with vinyl struggling along at US$28 m
• Cellphone use in the States exploded between 1990 and 2000. In 1990 there were 5.3 million US mobile accounts. By 2000 there were 109.4 m (the rise is attributed to falling costs, as average monthly US cellphone bills have decreased from US$81 to US$45 over the past decade)
• Tel-co industry growth is demonstrated spectacularly by the rise in employees, from about 21,000 in 1990 to 185,000 in 2000
• The Internet arrived even faster. In 1998, 26% of Americans had Internet access at home. By 2000, that had jumped to 42%
• R&D Spend in the States, totalling US$265 b, moved from 53% Defence spending in 1960 down to 14% in 2000. In 2000, Space R&D spend, which peaked in the early 1960s at 21% is the same as 1960 at 3%. The remaining 83% in 2000 was spent by private industry, educators & non-military research institutions
• As of February 2000, the average person had worked 3 & 1/2 years for their current employer. Fewer than 1 worker in 10 had been with the same employer for 20 years or more

Here in New Zealand, our 2001 Census stats show;

• IT goods and services sales in 2000 was estimated at NZ$11,133 m; 6.9% higher than 1999 
• 42.8% of NZers have a PC at home (a conservative estimate), up from 32.9% in 1998... a major rise from 10% in 1988 (and hey, I was one of those!)
• 50% of us have access to the internet, with 28% of those accessing the internet more than once each day and 26% every two days or less
• 21.3% of us had a cellphone in 1998
• Interestingly, our Tel-co manufacturing employees have held fairly steady with 1990 stats and Tel-co service providers have reduced by 1/3 (due both to retrenching of staff through deregulation, and to not being a truly competitive manufacturing nation)
• 68% of NZ businesses are connected to the internet for email, with 33% having their own domain name (NB: may not have a website tho). Ozzies, by the same measures, have 57% of businesses using email with 27% holding domain names
• While PC buying trends are slowing, software purchasing trends are increasing (NB: the release of new hardware technology would probably reverse that trend temporarily).

While Cellphone growth trends are currently tapering down in NZ, the next technology round and the digital network upgrade will force many users to retool, so we may be looking at a mid-term Tel-co boom over the next two years.

We are becoming IT junkies, people, whether we like it or not! Luddites need not apply...

Remember Project Oxygen?

Do you remember in a couple of earlier articles I have mentioned MIT's collaborative Project Oxygen? 

To refresh your memory, MIT's famed Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) had a vision: to facilitate pervasive, human-centered computing. In 2000, LCS, together with MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, launched an ambitious effort to build that vision, called Project Oxygen. 

With 30 faculty members, Project Oxygen is researching technologies designed to replace the PC with ubiquitous—and often invisible—"computing machines". Funny, sounds like a PC to me! But no. They are looking at UNIVERSAL computers that can recognise anyone based on information on the network. Doesn't matter where you are, you can use any machine to access your data & info. Linked projects run the gamut from video recognition to nomadic networking to chip design. 

To supply the dosh required, a consortium of private companies (including the Acer Group, Philips, Delta Electronics, Hewlett-Packard, NTT and Nokia) coughed up US$30 m and the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, $20 m. 

Some of the things that they are aiming for are truly brilliant;

• Move from specifying the precise IP address of devices to something more functional and intentional like "the nearest uncongested colour printer." 
• The H21 camera unit looks up, seeing a dark face with bright lights behind it. So the adaptive camera & software adapts to the brightness level so the user get orders of magnitude more brightness variation
• The team have made surprisingly fast progress in networking. "Migrate" is an architecture for vertical host mobility where the user can change network protocols from home to car to office, all without involving a third party. Using dynamic updates to the DNS to track host location, existing connections are retained using connection migration; enabling connections to negotiate a change in endpoint IP addresses
• Awesome voice recognition. The user can say, "call home," to ANY H21 unit in your office and it will (a) recognise the user and (b) turn itself into a cell phone and dial the right number and then (c) on completion promptly forget everything about me and return to its anonymous state
• No headsets. The equipment will use microphone arrays. In the Intelligent Room, they are combining arrays with personal tracking technology using video and looking at incorporating lip motion recognition. When an intelligent room gets crowded, the computer knows who to pay attention to through a combination of speech and vision; facial expressions, lip reading and steering the microphone array toward the person whose mouth is moving

There are some pretty serious privacy issues that the team have to come to grips with; 

• "Nomadicity"; people and devices are going to move around a lot, so  location-aware support must be provided. But we don't want to be tracked...  so there are a whole bunch of scalability and privacy issues to be resolved
• Anonymity; Devices must be able to maintain our anonymity after we have used them (not leave our info in the machine after we have made our call) otherwise we will all still have to carry a host of assorted gizmos with us as we do now
• Personalisation; we must be able to transform and customise those anonymous devices to suit our needs so our info can follow us around. 
• Security: the personalisation must be secure enough so as not to result in the invasion of our individual privacy

For a brief on the project itself, check out http://oxygen.lcs.mit.edu/index.html. 

Multi-messenger Service: Trillian

Have you used those instant messenger (IM) services? MSN? ICQ? And has it annoyed you that you have to have each programme running to be able to receive messages for those users of each programme whom you want to talk to?

Well, then along came Trillian. This is a single IM client that works for all IM systems. You get one window showing all your ICQ, MSN and AOL friends. 

One year ago Trillian wasn't very good, but it has been considerably improved; easier to install and configure, lots of display options, and optional 'skins' allowing you to reduce the amount of screen real-estate Trillian takes up. 

Once installed , you simply insert your login name and password for each of the IM systems you use (and relax. Trillian has been in business for years without misusing private information and they are likely to continue to operate without any security breaches). 

NOTE: Check the Display Name setting for each IM account before using Trillian. The only problem I have heard about during setup was a big one; the MSN password of the user was displayed as the user's chat name (dunno if a mistake or software bug), so verify all your chat names etc are correct before using the software for the first time. 

Check out Trillian at http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/index.html. Get the latest version direct from the makers since there are regular updates to keep up with changes by the IM makers; freeware download @ http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/download.html. Skins @ http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/skins.php?srt=&smx=20. 

TLAs for SMEs

Here are this newsletter's TLAs for you;

• COTS, commercial off-the-shelf. Used "as-is", easily installed and inter-operates with existing system components. Almost all mass-produced & (relatively) low cost OS, email & Office software fits in this category
• MOTS, Modified/modifiable off-the-shelf. Typically a COTS product whose source code can be/is modified by a commercial vendor to respond to specific customer requirements. Adapted for a specific purpose, it can be purchased and used immediately
• GOTS, Government off-the-shelf. Usually developed by the technical staff of the government agency for which it is created. Sometimes developed by an external entity, but with government funding and specs
• NOTS, Niche off-the-shelf. Vendor-developed software for a specialized and narrow market segment

Please feel free to email me with any TLAs that you want to get the bottom (meaning!) of.

Short & Hot Keys... and now tips

All the Function keys for you - this time it's all you can do with Alt/Ctrl & F4;

• Access "To quit Microsoft Access, close a dialog box, or close a property sheet or Close the active Help window" ALT & F4 
• Access "To open a combo box" F4 
• Access, Excel, PowerPoint, Word "Close the active window/document" CTRL & F4
• Excel, PowerPoint "Repeat the last action" F4
• PowerPoint, Word "Exit" ALT & F4 
• Publisher "Exit Publisher, or close Help or close the dialog box. For most dialog boxes, any changes you made are cancelled." ALT & F4 
• Outlook "Close the selected Outlook window; if this is the only open window, close Outlook." ALT & F4 
• Windows "Close the current window or quit a program " ALT & F4 
• Windows "Close the current window in (MDI) programs" CTRL & F4

Hot Linx

If you want to give yourself a fright at how fast the world's population is growing, check out http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/worldpop.html

You must check out the Hooked on Seafood Festival coming to Nelson on March 23. Check out the details at http://www.hookedonseafoodnz.com/ 

Checked out INL's website yet? Stuff's a goodie at http://www.stuff.co.nz/inl/index 

Still wanting to download mp3 music files? Then check out both AudioGalaxy @ http://www.audiogalaxy.com/ and AudioGnome @ http://www.audiognome.com/ 

Wanting to burn or copy music CDs that will play in your stereo? Then freeware is not for you. Purchase MP3 CD Maker for US$30 at http://www.zy2000.com/ . And it's worth it.

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                                Catch you again soon!! E-mail your suggestions to me here

read more "Newsletter Issue 40, February 2002"