My Generation

May 02, 2009

Posted by: Richard Steel

On Thursday evening I attended a BCS “Thought Leadership Dinner Debate”, on "IT Futures: the death of the IT Profession, as we know it?" - at the Royal Society, in Carlton Terrace.

I argued “yes”; IT is a one generation thing that starts and ends with my own generation. How conceited is that?! IT is an artificial construct mixing a science and an art – engineering and information management – it’s really two professions. We talked about the tremendous rate of change, and made analogies with other professions, such as farming and medicine, which have all been driven by technology – but we don’t have a Faming Technology profession?

In my sector – government – the emphasis is on information, but in manufacturing, say, it’s on engineering.

Not everyone agreed with me but, if they had, I may have argued something else!

Friday was a catch-up day, working at home.

Janet de Rochfort brought my attention to a piece of work being undertaken by the “Parliamentary Office of Science & Technology” on Technology for the Olympics, of which I was unaware. Many thanks, Janet. I’ve got in-touch with the Leading Adviser, and we’re arranging to meet.

I finished at 4.30, planted a tree that was delivered in the week, cut the grass, and had a beer in the evening sunshine; a nice way to start the holiday weekend.

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