WebII-The Global Brain and Sustainable Organizations

WebII, The Global Brain, and Sustainable Organizations

The next stage in technology will go way beyond shared health records and continual monitoring of physical status - after all, these are still linear data streams.  With the advent of practical nanotechnology, folks will be permanently linked in serial conversations and collaborations with each other over the web - in effect we'll all be part of the global brain.  Universities (if they survive) will transition into data collation points, where independent lines of linear data get merged and synthesized by meta-data domain experts  - truly "connecting the dots".  

One barrier to this next stage is the notion of a "broadband".  Using the brain as an analogy, the neural net is a web of short wireless links between brain cells that can survive a significant wound, because the cells(links) create a new path around the traumatized area. A broadly dispersed set of radio bandwidths - with repeaters, boosters, and signal scanners can be linked (voluntarily) to any person wherever they are at all times.  Data can be routed both to and from the targeted cell-person who is both a receiver and a transmitter. A company called Time Domain is emerging in this space with an embryonic hardware solution.... there will be many more.    

Because of the above, Tim O'Reilly is right when he says “The race is to own certain classes of core data.” www.oreilly.com.  The issue is whether Universities retain a sufficiency of domain experts and meta-domain experts to serve the public interest or whether these folks are bought by corporations to serve narrower interests.  The open source community is a potential bastion against corporate control of data.  The old agricultural extension services model translated and distributed what used to be best in class thinking and practice to that age's unit of production - the small farm.  The citizen is the current small farm.