Myths and Misconceptions of Technology

In a recent post Chris Anderson, editor of Wired magazine and author of The Long Tail, discusses amateurism vs. professionalism. He maintains that amateurs are more passionate about what they do than professionals. According to Anderson they are merely driven by intrinsic motivation, else they stop doing what they just do. His key argument runs like that:

Amateurs self-select for the job. Professionals are selected. For most jobs, volunteers beat draftees.

I think this a rather short-sighted view. Indeed, most amateurs volunteer for what they do in the first place but they don’t do it always for mere enthusiasm. Most of the time they form part of a group of like-minded people so there is a kind of “social factor” involved. But these social incentives are not for granted and they aren’t delivered on a regular basis. Yet, when the enthusiasm is gone and the social rewards are missing many may still hang on, not because a nasty boss tells them to do so but because of the awareness of imminent “social punishment”.
On the other hand, dedicated professionals may suffer periods of fatigue but through the continuity of rewards and the consciousness of being selected for what they do over others with similar skills and ambitions they still manage to produce value.
Oh, and I’m not belittling the ones over the others, I just think not everything that is created as free self-exploit can be rated higher than paid exploit by others.

What exactly is Web 2.0? Is it the interactive Internet with user-generated content? Is it a never-ending source of priceless personal data promising so immense profits that it has become the battleground of the likes of Google, Microsoft and Rupert Murdoch? Is it the final undermining and democratization of the information monopolies? Is it the next giant bubble to burst?

We all know that Web 2.0 was just a random tag and lacks a proper definition and if it had a valid one any marketing hack would still promise you to deliver just the Web 2.0 you want even if it were far off the shot. And as Peter Fingar has pointed out there is a lot of similar and even more fatuous tagging going on. And while it is obvious that blogs and Wikis are fancy tools they do indeed create an information overload and have therefore little value for business.

But witty as Fingar’s remarks are, the offered solutions seem to be like jumping a bandwagon that has gained substantial momentum. What people really need is not ever more refined processes but more control over how they organize their work. They need no control from IT, they just need advice.

So Web 2.0 is surely not a remedy to all problems businesses face in organizing collaborative work and it is not the continuation of KM with proper tools. It is, however, a fascinating experiment and if someone can make money out of it, why not. But please leave the tagging to those specialized platforms.

peter fingar