4/28/2008

S)T in the News: Is Multitasking a Thing of the Past?

"Multitasking has long been a badge of honor for the digitally well-armed," writes Gloria Goodale in a recent Christian Science Monitor article, "Mastering the high-tech tools that help us." She goes on to suggest that there is a price to pay for spreading oneself too thin, and asked Social Technologies futurist Simeon Spearman to offer his thoughts on the topic.

"Both computers and humans really only process one thing at a time, Spearman said. The machines do this so quickly, in parallel process, that they appear to be multitasking. But they are able to process far more information than humans -- and are more capable with each jump in computer speed. When you see the demands we put on computers these days and how much they can process, you begin to understand just how much we're being hit by all the time."

Read the entire article.

12/14/2007

The Changing Workplace

Social Technologies' founder Tom Conger discussed the forces changing the global workplace at a recent leadership conference hosted by the Society for Human Resource Management. Reporter J.J. Smith outlined Tom’s ideas in an article entitled: Migration, New Wealth, Time Stress Impact Workplaces.

12/12/2007

Chipping People: RFID Implants and More

What is the probability of personal chip implants entering the mainstream consumer market? That was the question Social Technologies' Matthew Sollenberger worked to answer in a recent brief that soon became the topic of conversation on several websites and blog. "Chipping people would be simple, and could assist with child and elder safety, debit and credit payment, and personal medical records. However, consumer opinion is sharply divided on the merits of human microchip implants,” he said. Read more.

12/11/2007

Divided by Class

Social Technologies' Josh Calder spoke recently to Elisabeth Braw, a reporter for the Swedish newspaper Sydsvenskan, about poll results that revealed that more Americans feel their society is divided by class. "Increasingly, more are feeling they are on the losing end of that divide," Calder notes. "The American mentality is that everybody is middle class and you lift yourself up through hard work, so these results are striking ... The division into 'haves' and 'have-nots' is a psychological phenomenon, but sometimes the loss they are feeling is very real, by the standard of a modern society."

12/7/2007

Solar Cars

Denise Chiavetta, leader of Social Technologies' Technology Foresight program, talked to Daniel B. Wood of the Christian Science Monitor for his article "Could the Solar Bug Bring the Sun to the Car Market?" Chiavetta said she sees a growing potential for entrepreneurial ventures in solar mobility. "The interest in photovoltaic use in cars is making great headway in other countries such as Japan and Germany, but is still somewhat behind in the US, where consumers still want quite a bit of power and size and comfort."