The Integrative Stream

Tech or Transcendence?

Nicholas Carr has begun to make a nice career for himself callings spades spades and asking good questions about whether accepted orthodoxy in business and technology should be accepted quite so readily. He made a splash with a Harvard Business Review article a few years ago arguing that information technology doesn’t matter–isn’t a competitive advantage–for modern corporations since they all have access to the same resources. Lots of knee-jerk reaction to that. I don’t happen to agree with him, but mostly because I don’t think strategic thinking has evolved to the point where we can treat IT strategy the same way we think about, say, pricing strategy.

But I digress. His recent blog post,
The amorality of Web 2.0, takes a look at the filters through which we see the web., and asks why so many of people in the technology world don’t talk about the Internet in terms of an information utility, but in terms of spiritual self discovery. On a more earthly level, he also draws some attention to the fact that the “cult of the amateur” represented by WikiPedia, the Blogosphere, and carped on by various commentators might not be such a great thing after all.

Worth the read.