Emerging Technology Watch

An assortment of ideas about performing an "Emerging Technology Watch" (I categorize this as Technology Foresight).  Does your organization have such a process / team?

So when my group, the Emerging Technologies Team, sat down to examine the current and future technology landscape, we quickly came to the realization that while there are some wonderful new things that can be put into our plan, few of them are actually new technologies.  Most are modifications or improvements on existing technology.  All of this leads me to believe that technology, at least right now, is in an evolutionary phase, whereas only two or three years ago we were still in a revolutionary time period where new ideas were rocking the library boat on a regular basis.

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Our Emerging Tech team is also making a strong effort to push for the introduction of certain Web 2.0 technologies into our service offerings, such as formally encouraging the use of browser-based office applications such as Writely and BaseCamp.

LibraryCrunch - Evolutionary Technology and the Emerging Divide

Have you had the chance to dream at your library job? Have you had the chance to stop for a minute in the buzz buzz of your routine and think about the future? Are you encouraged to innovate?

If not, then I urge you to do so. And I urge library administrators to encourage dreaming on the job. Formalize it—call your innovation group “Dreamers,” or use the more-grounded moniker "Emerging Technology Committee". Give 'em a couple of hours a month to talk emerging trends, about trendspotting, and about creative thinking. Read some cool stuff like Business 2.0 and Wired and ask yourselves, "How might the technologies occuring outside of the library impact library services?"

Why? Because we have the potential to bring about the next big thing. We have the potential to be the leaders as we all move toward a seamless information and knowledge environment.

ALA TechSource - Michael Stephens - Are You Dreaming?

another nifty program offered through the Metropolitan Library System, which has offices in Burr Ridge and here in ALA-headquarter town, Chicago, IL.

“Are you Dreaming?" is about making room for dreaming—about imaginative ways the library can create and offer user-centered services to those in a community—and in it, he urges his fellow librarians to dream… at work, every month, and even formalize it! “Why?" he asks. “Because we have the potential to bring about the next big thing."

But that “buzz buzz of your routine" that Michael also refers to, a lot of the time, can be a stifling force in many of our overloaded realities, so even if you do get a chance to dream, will you get to see your dream come true?

Well, if you're an MLS member library, and if you take advantage of its new Zephyr Program, it's very possible you will. According to Kathryn Deiss, director of strategic learning and team leader of the Zephyr Innovation Incubator Program, if you can dream it, the creative thinkers at MLS can help it come true. And even if you can't dream it, they can help with that too.

... More information about Zephyr is available at www.mls.lib.il.us/cats.cfm?catid=175.

ALA TechSource - Teresa Koltzenburg - The Winds of Change

I think a wiki is a good collaborative space for the information gathering and discussion associated with a technology watch.  Via the blog of Adrian Sannier, Arizona State University Technology Officer, I find their University Technology Office Strategic Technology Plan 2005-2006 wiki.

Previously:
July 15, 2005  more on Technology Watch