Article: A gift or hard graft?

In this article Malcolm Gladwell looks at some people generally acknowledged as geniuses and investigates what lies behind their talents. In fact, he says, there are common threads in each of the examples – the willingness to put in a lot of hard work, the opportunies available to them (that they then take full advantage of) and the times in which they grew up or honed their craft. All are important, and all have to occur concurrently over a period of time – when they do, something special happens; people are able to really make their mark. It definitely gives you something to think about – the patterns show this is far from coincidence.

A while back Gladwell wrote another article (“In the Air”) in which he talked about there being times when important steps forward in thinking or technology can occur to a number of people at the same moment. The time has come for these ideas to make an impact. This is what ties in nicely with the genius piece.

The final link is an influential article from Bill Joy, one of the “geniuses” Gladwell discusses – just to give you more of an insight.

• The Guardian: A gift or hard graft?

• The New Yorker: In the Air

• Wikipedia: Bill Joy

• Wired: Why the future doesn’t need us

Article: Generation Expects

Last week I was talking about primary schooling with a local teacher and she said that the focus these days is to teach skills rather than simply learning facts or direct learning from textbooks. Technology was being used in classrooms but there are not specific computing classes. This sounds a bit strange at first but, after a little while thinking about it, it starts to make sense – education in the 21st century will not be the same as in the 20th century.

I also came across an article by Don Tapscott (author of Wikinomics) talking about “net-geners” (the young people in their twenties who have grown up digital), how they will expect to work when they enter the workforce, and how companies will have to adapt. This is to be the subject of his new book. It starts off by mentioning that it is this age group that helped Obama to the White House.

At the moment a number of people are looking at how Obama used the internet and technology to get support -and the “net-geners” are the ones who live this way. They are one of the main groups that actively supported him and actually went out and voted. It is interesting, and worth making the connection – the Tech Weekly show is good on this.

• The Guardian: Generation expects

• The Guardian Tech Weekly: How technology helped win it for Obama

President Obama

• President-Elect Barack Obama in Chicago:

Election Day

OK folks, time to make the right choice – for the US and the world… Another 12 hours or so and we will know the result. Let’s see Obama in the White House…