Mark Greenfield

If a $500 per month Indian chartered accountant doesn’t steal your job, Turbotax will.

A book I highly recommend is A Whole New Mind by Dan Pink. The book talks about how we are moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age, and how abundance, Asia and automation are moving us towards this new age. The book has the following list of questions every organization and individual must ask:

1. Can someone overseas do it cheaper?
2. Can a computer do it better?
3. Is what I’m offering in demand in an age of abundance?

The good news is that for higher education web professionals, the answer to question #3 is yes. The web will continue to be critically important for colleges and universities. The bad news is that the answers to questions #1 and #2 is also yes. I suggest that if you don’t agree that someone overseas can do it cheaper that you read both The World is Flat and A Whole New Mind. For those of you how don’t believe a computer can do it better, check out Appligenics, a British company that has developed software that can write software. As Content Management Systems mature, I expect that knowing how to write valid XHTML and CSS will not be something that will guarantee employment.

Your thoughts?

When most people think of globalisation, they automatically think of manufacturing jobs. But Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat is not about manufacturing but about knowledge work, the kind of work web professionals do. I came across a good analogy in Dan Pink’s book A Whole New Mind. The story of John Henry is symbolic of the Industrial Age and how machines could perform manually labor better than humans.

I have a vivid memory of Garry Kazparov playing chess against an IBM supercomputer known as Deep Blue 10 years ago. The world of chess was stunned when Deep Blue defeated Kasparov. Last century machines proved they could replace human manual labor. This century new technologies are proving they can replace the human brain.

Many of my colleagues in higher education feel that the globalisation will not impact them or other knowledge workers. The more I read, the more I disagree. We will be impacted, and sooner than you think.

Your thoughts?

The first theme we will explore for the presentation at HighEdWebDev 2007 is how the world has been flattened. I will be making several posts over the next few days on this topic.

The first edition of Tom Friedman’s The World is Flat was published in 2005. The original summary of the book on Amazon stated:

In this brilliant new book, Friedman explains how the flattening of the world happened at the dawn of the twenty-first century; what it means to countries, companies, communities, and individuals; and how governments and societies can, and must, adapt. What Friedman means by “flat” is “connected”: the lowering of trade and political barriers and the exponential technical advances of the digital revolution have made it possible to do business, or almost anything else, instantaneously with billions of other people across the planet. Globalization 3.0, as he calls it, is driven not by major corporations but by individuals: desktop freelancers and innovative startups all over the world (but especially in India and China) who can compete–and win–not just for low-wage manufacturing and information labor but, increasingly, for the highest-end research and design work as well.

Friedman specifically mentioned how web programming would become a commodity and was a likely profession to get flattened.  What do you think. Will web programming become a commodity that is differentiated only by price? What is the impact on our profession?

More to follow.

I will again be presenting at the HighEdWebDev conference in Rochester which is scheduled for October 14 - 17, 2007. My presentation is will be on Tuesday morning at 8:15 a.m. and is called “Higher Ed Web Development Gets Flattened or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the New World Order”. Here is the abstract:

What happens when Web development becomes a commodity? Globalization 3.0, the arrival of the technically adept Millennial Generation, and the ongoing Communications Revolution will create a perfect storm that will forever change the college campus and the way we work. The services provided by Web professionals will be disaggregated, distributed, produced and reassembled with amazing efficiency. It may well be that many of our services will be outsourced in the relatively near future. This presentation will explore the forces of globalization and free agency and the changes in what we call work, how and why the higher education Web profession will get flattened, and provide guidance on how to not only survive, but thrive in this new paradigm.

This year my presentation will follow a much different format. For several years, I have been looking for a way to eliminate, or at least greatly reduce, my use of PowerPoint. I am from the camp that feels most PowerPoint presentations are poorly done, and that “interesting PowerPoint presentation” is indeed an oxymoron. Instead I want to utilize some of the principles of an unconference (See Understanding the Unconference). I’m looking for ways to leverage the “Wisdom of Crowds” to get the audience more involved. With this in mind, here is the tentative format for the presentation:

• Give participants an opportunity to see the ideas and themes prior to the conference and allow them to provide comments, suggestions and general feedback which will be incorporated into the final presentation. This will be done through a series of posts on this blog. I recommend using the blog’s RSS feed (markagreenfield.com/feed) to stay informed of updates.
• I will follow the 20/20 format of Pecha Kucha - 20 slides for 20 seconds each for a total time of 6:40 seconds. The remainder of the time will be for audience conversation and dialogue (For more information on Pecha Kucha, see del.icio.us/markgr/PechaKucha.
• I have create a channel on Jaiku that we will use before, during, and after the presentation to further the conversation. The URL is jaiku.com/channel/highedwebdev2007.

I would also encourage everyone to use the tag highedwebflat when posting to social sites such as del.icio.us and Flickr.

My goal is to follow the theme of the conference and provide an opportunity to collaborate, participate and innovate. While I am nervous about using a somewhat radical approach for this presentation and going outside of my comfort zone, I’m also excited about the possiblilities. I invite you to join me in this experiment in Presentation 2.0.

I will begin posting the ideas and themes to this site in the next few days, and I look forward to your feedback and participation.