[LINK] Need more real IT skills and less disruptor hype

[Tom Worthington]

Greeting from the Reimagination Summit at the Star Casino in Sydney (to 
be followed by ACS Digital Disruptor Awards): 
http://reimagination.acs.org.au/program/

The event is about "digital disruption" a term I don't like, although 
admittedly much of IT innovation does disrupt old processes in bringing 
in new. Also the idea that new technologies spring up suddenly is 
nonsense: the technologies which are now changing the way people learn 
and work have been developed over decades. This is not to downplay the 
importance of new technological developments, but it is as hard to work 
out how to put the invention into practice as to think it up in the 
first place. I see this in mentoring university students who are 
producing start-up businesses (I am designing a m-learning innovation 
course to help with with).

One of the speakers commented that this was not the repeat of the 
DOT.COM bubble at the beginning of the century. I believe there is some 
risk of this. What we need is not boosterism extorting CEOs and Prime 
Ministers to go digital, but a careful examination of what would useful 
and testing it actually delivers on the promises. Fortunately Australia 
now has a Prime Minister* who has experience sorting tech claims from 
reality. Unfortunately many companies do not have this depth of 
experience in their board rooms.


* See note: 
http://blog.tomw.net.au/2015/11/reimagining-australia-in-sydney.html


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
The Higher Education Whisperer http://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
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Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science,
Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/