After listening to the talk by Sir Ken Robinson at the RSA, I explored the events section of their site and came across several others that grabbed my attention.
I just finished watching a very interesting (and entertaining) presentation from last March by Jonathan Zittrain, author of The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It.
I’m about half way through his book but I highly recommend both it and the video.
In both, Zittrain starts by discussing how the internet evolved from the closed, “walled garden” approach taken by early leaders like AOL and CompuServe.
That’s in contrast to the more open platform we have today, one that allows developers to offer a wide variety of products that can be further customized by the end user.
He worries, however, that there’s a backlash to the openness in progress, largely due to security concerns.
Zittrain’s big concern is that we are being pushed back towards an internet appliance approach to web applications. Systems that are closed but very stable and secure.
Anyway, I’m probably mangling his concepts so go watch the video and read the book.