Broadband in 77% of U.S. Households by 2012 and that might not be great news. So PC World is reporting on a Gartner study that says that upon reaching a high threshold of broadband penetration “ISPs will concentrate less on building out their networks to reach new customers and more on expanding what customers can do with their broadband Internet connections.” This appears to be good news for those of us in urban or suburban areas but less so for those in rural areas.
Mark points out that ISP’s will focus on existing areas. This is not such good news for West Virginia. I know a lot of people still stuck with dial-up. My parents for one. Interestingly, they are in a Verizon services area so maybe they will be within this group who would benefit from the ISP looking to improve those they currently serve.
I can’t tell you how frustrating it is not to be able to leverage current communication tools with my parents because Verizon just hasn’t got to them. What could be very simple tech support activities are way more complicated. This is why we need more options. It would really be great to see some additional ISP providers come up with alternative solutions. There is a demand for it, if some one could just build it.
The web is a buzz over Google Wave. The platform is an incredible communication tool that if realized will change the way we work, collaborate, and learn. The tool was created by the engineers that brought us Google maps. Take the time to check out the demonstration.
If you watched the video (I know it is long.) you realize immediately how this type of workflow can really improve the productivity of a virtual team. It solves one of the biggest problems on the web, which is long emails with multiple threads that contain a lot of critical information on various topics. Being able to parse that information out and understand the timeframe of the conversation is very time consuming. It also addresses integration of instant messaging and mobile phones into the conversation. Currently these sub-conversations typically get lost. Wave also is dealing with team-based live document editing, realtime photo sharing, and language translations. Impressive, to say the least.
But I immediately began to think about how Google Wave is a platform for social learning. As with any new technology there are a couple of ways to think about it. One is to consider how this might improve the traditional models of education. Think of a Wave as a tool that could support current collaborative learning models. It would also be fun to consider how Google Wave might be transformational in creating a new approach or social learning platform.
I think this will put us a lot closer to the concept Jay Cross talked about years ago called workflow learning. The concept as I remember Jay explaining back then was the learning opportunities would be embedded into the workflow process. No one would go to a class or even take an online course, that wasn’t embedded into the workflow or task of the knowledge worker. Waves really open up that possibility.
I know that I will be very interested to learn more about Google Waves in the near future.
