Technology Lifecycles

In this hour-long podcast we feature the closing keynote address from the EDUCAUSE 2008 Midwest Regional Conference. The speech was delivered by Brad Wheeler, Vice President for IT, CIO, and Professor at Indiana University and is entitled, "Leading Ahead of the Curves". A PowerPoint Presentation is also available.

Three curves—technical possibility, social desirability, and economic feasibility over time—describe the forces that shape college and university IT challenges. The consumerization of technology, insourcing and outsourcing, edge or leveraged services on campus, and multi-institutional community source are timely opportunities for IT leaders who can wisely discern these curves.

Just saw this intersting article on Wired about a cardiovascular specialist who creates podcasts for his elderly patients. Interesting way to deliver information to audience not normally targeted for new media. Big element of his plan is that in the waiting room he has replaced some of his magazines with a couple of ipods and docking stations so that patients can listen to health ed talk whiile they are waiting.Wired Magazine Article: Podcast From the Heart

I guess it's not brand new, since I see about 6,000 hits for it on Google, but this New York Times headline showed me a term I'd never noticed before:

Picture Tube TV's Try a Slimmer Strategy
Thursday, January 20, 2005
The New York Times

Standard picture-tube TV's, the kind that the vast majority of Americans still buy, have long been video non grata at the Consumer Electronics Show. Seen as yesterday's technology, they have been relegated to the back room of the show, the industry's biggest gadget festival, where flat-panel liquid-crystal-display and plasma sets take center stage.

"Picture-tube TV" is probably the world's newest retronym. A retronym is a multi-word phrase you need to invent when an old word gets run over by new technologies or products. For example, when electric guitars came along, we had to invent the phrase "acoustic guitar". Plain old "guitar" no longer said it all. Other examples:

• Rotary (or dial) telephone
• Full-service gas station
• Classic Coke
• Plain text
• Manual tupewriter

We've been talking about the new kinds of TV's for quite some time, and so there are nearly 7 million Google hits for "LCD TV" and 375,000 for "flat-panel TV"."TV" all by itself gets 342 million hits. With those numbers for comparison, it's clear that "Picture-tube TV" really is a new arrival. By the time you look, the 6,000 might be up to 7,000.

Remember, you saw it here first.

Steve

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