Posted 9:22 AM by George Siemens
Gravity of Decentralization
Quote: "Designing business architectures (models & systems) is an increasing challenge. Centralized business architectures are a legacy of the industrial era. But the recent downturn has revealed new decentralized systems that promise to enable new business models and evolve the old. We are just beginning to explore the practice of decentralization and the new gravity it creates. "
Comment: I'm encountering the centralized/decentralized debate more and more often. Decentralization (the original tenet of the Internet) was largely with the development of server/client model, which has powered the Internet over the last 10 years. Recently, the financial, security, flexibility, scalability, benefits of decentralization are receiving attention...and many are finding it very attractive. Amusing in a way - it's been there all along, and now people are stumbling across it and labelling it the "next big thing".

Posted 9:07 AM by George Siemens
Ten taxonomy myths
Quote: "Taxonomies have recently emerged from the quiet backwaters of biology, book indexing, and library science into the corporate limelight. They are supposed to be the silver bullets that will help users find the needle in the intranet haystack, reduce "friction" in electronic commerce, facilitate scientific research, and promote global collaboration. But before this can happen, practitioners need to dispel the myths and confusion, created in part by the multi-disciplinary nature of the task and the hype surrounding content management technologies."

Posted 9:01 AM by George Siemens
Visionary Series via Emergic
Quote: "CNET News.com has assembled some of the best entrepreneurial and research minds in the technology industry to share their views on five rapidly evolving technology sectors: security, Web services, open source, personal technology and wireless communications."
Comment: Fascinating look at developing technonlogies. Big theme in the various predictions is "pushing" technology done into our daily lives - from smart cards, to smart buildings (sensing and responding to earthquakes), to embedded computing. The focus doesn't seem to be on technology for technologies sake (hey, one of the positive side effects of the dot com bubble burst!)...rather technology for improving quality of life.