Daily Archives: March 14, 2007

Assignment Zero

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Billed as An Experiment in Pro-Am Journalism

“One day stories with a thousand people on the masthead might become routine, and we’ll know how to do them. For now we just need hundreds, acting in the spirit of the enterprise, to help us take apart and put together a single, sprawling story. Assignment Zero is a starting point, a base line. Who knows where we will end up. But if reporting in the open style ever comes into its own–at our site or someone else’s–that might very well change journalism and expand what’s humanly possible with the instrument of a free press.”

So IT matters, then?

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From San Jose Mercury News

The use of information technology was “the major driver” of economic growth over the past decade, adding $2 trillion a year to the economy, according to a report by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

Fueled by “the phenomenal growth of computer power” since 2000, the use of IT has given new tools to businesses and improved productivity while controlling costs, said Rob Atkinson, a researcher and government adviser who heads the IT Foundation.

But the full impact of the “IT revolution” has not been recognized by government officials because of lingering skepticism from the dot-com boom the late 1990s and the bust that followed, he added. The 53-page report was an effort to catalog the IT industry’s impact.

Atkinson’s foundation is a think tank backed by such tech companies as Cisco Systems, IBM and eBay, and its goal is to push an “innovation agenda” in Washington. Atkinson said that doesn’t mean subsidies for specific industries but greater investment in research, use of the tax code to spur investment and “do no harm” policies that don’t hinder growth.

Hmmm… Full report is here. I bet Nick Carr has something to say about this. After all, he shot to fame with a sceptical book entitled Does IT Matter?. Just checked his blog [23:50 on 14.03.2007]. Nothing.

Tories discover Open Source

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The Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, has posted a shortened version of a speech to the RSA on IT and government. Excerpt:

I think that our willingness to change needs to match the scale of the technological revolution taking place all around us. Just as companies all over the world are changing the way that they do business, so too must we evolve.

In short, I believe that we need to recast the political settlement for the digital age. We need open source politics…

The Guardian version of the speech attracted 45 comments, the majority of which seemed to miss the point in one way or another. Of the 45, only about four were genuinely thoughtful or illuminating, and perhaps another four were trying to be helpful by adding links or references. It’s a sobering illustration of the problems with online ‘debate’.

In the Blogosphere, though, there was a good deal of intelligent discussion — for example from David Wilcox. There’s something interesting going on here, with the New Tories sidling up to the Google/Web 2.0 gang while New Labour clings to Microsoft and Sir Billg.