Mesh 2010 a reflection of future technologies
Posted by Nick Boccone on Thu, Jul 22, 2010 @ 04:36 PM
Some time has gone by since the annual Mesh Conference (2010) and the time has certainly given us pause to reflect on what we heard, saw and perceive to be the latest and greatest directions for the digital age.
There have been a number of videos posted online discussing where the future of the Internet lies. It’s too bad no one asked us, because if they had, we would have said that the future of the web is simply about one thing and one thing only…relevance. Since this is a topic we will cover more fully in our upcoming whitepaper, we won’t go into much detail here. Suffice it to say that as the amount of information available to us expands, the need for true relevance increases exponentially. The trick is… how do we achieve it?
When Chris Thorpe of The GuardianThe Guardian (UK) began to speak about the “mutualization” of journalism—that is, the utilization of news sources and witness accounts in addition to what traditional journalists would gather themselves—I couldn’t help but wonder why businesses wouldn’t take this model and use it to improve their organizations (their bottom line, service to their customers, process improvements, etc.). The opportunity to utilize various opinions (often contrary to our own) and use them to alter our perspective on the myriad of events that occur in our business on a day-to-day basis should be embraced. Entuit will definitely adopt this culture of openness and use it for the good of the community we serve.
The atmosphere at Mesh 2010 quickly turned from optimistic to somber when the discussions switched to one of the hottest topics of the year: our online safety, privacy and state of protection. Joseph Menn, author of Fatal System Error, described how crime syndicates are literally holding companies hostage through digital piracy, corporate espionage and digital theft of their information. These companies are often left with little choice but to pay the hefty ransoms to get out of their digital hostage situations. The criminals will not go away; in fact, they become more sophisticated and innovative every day. Our only response is to become more diligent and protect our organizations from harm and attack. We have to be more sophisticated and innovative than the dark side—but we must do this as a united front. Any chink in the armour will give the “bad guys” a way in.
Let’s be especially vigilant to protect our individual identities and, in particular, our innocent and often naïve children and take every precaution to lock our privacy as tightly as possible. No one is more conscientious about this fight than Dr. Ann Cavoukian, Information and Privacy Commissioner, who simply states that privacy should be a default for everything we have access to, especially in the digital fray. Makes perfect sense to us, Ann!