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Nicholas Carr sent shock waves through the tech sector with his last book, Does IT Matter. He’s back with a new book called The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google.
He draws a powerful analogy between the history of electricity and the future of computing. He argues that just as the turn of the last century brought a huge shift in electricity production, we’re on the verge of a sea change in the way we use computers. Electricity went from being something individual factories generated for their use, to a centralized utility powering whole cities. Now, computing is moving from something that happens on the hard drive of your computer, to something that happens remotely on server farms. Right now, maybe it’s just your Facebook profile and your Gmail account that live online, but in the future, all your information, and your software, may live online.
The Big Switch is about the massive changes this move to what’s called ‘cloud computing’ may have. For Carr, its effects go beyond the business of technology. Just as electrification changed North American life profoundly, the ‘big switch’ will change economics, culture, and society, raising questions about security, privacy and more.
I interviewed Nicholas Carr for our February 13th/16th show.
Click above to listen to the full interview, or download the mp3.
While listening to this interview I kept thinking about a recent lecture I heard from Eben Moglen, Director, Software Freedom Law Center http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail1897.html
The topic was the technology of memory. Not surprisingly many of the issues came down to who is controlling this technology, with the Free Software movement which we are part of being all about ensuring that it is citizens and not third parties which can exert this control.
I’m all for computing moving to a cloud, as long as we as independent citizens are in control of the software and not someone else. With virtualizaton technology this is becoming increasingly possible, but only for those who recognize just how much they are giving up of who they are as humans by allowing third parties to set the policy — err choose the software — that controls this cloud.
Note: If the connection between software and public policy is a new one, please see http://www.flora.ca/documents/code-is-law-speedgeek.html
What I find interesting about this is that it’s an example of the way most of us take the design of technology as a given, rather than something that’s embedded in culture, economics, etc. It’s in those moments of big transition, like the coming of the electrical grid or “the cloud” that we see it.
I ended up blogging about this:
http://blogs.itworldcanada.com/insights/2008/02/08/can-virtualization-help-with-bigger-problems-like-climate-change/
I have gone further over the years than saying that technology is embedded in culture, economics, etc. I have spoken about how I believe computer software needs to not be analyzed as part of “natural sciences”, but “social sciences”. The most critical issues around software can only be understood by thinking in terms of political science and law rather than in terms of physics.
This is extremely hard for many technical/science people to do: to admit that key issues relating to “their” technology require people with — gasp — social sciences degrees to deal with.
BTW: If you are ever in Ottawa on a Friday afternoon, please feel free to give me a call and drop in on one of our weekly gatherings. http://goslingcommunity.org . This is “Getting Open Source Logic INto Governments”, and is one of those interesting mixtures of people across public, private, educational and other sectors talking informally about where technology, politics, law and bureaucracies all come together.
About five years ago, I was actively speaking about Nicholas Carr’s views on IT as a utility such as electricity.
An organization’s effective management of their IT department will always depend on the ability to measure and produce meaningful reports on the return on investment that they are getting.
Most organizations can’t tell you what their own internal IT actually costs. They have a great deal of difficulty and frustration with this.
Many move to outsourcing because they get a clear bill every month showing how much IT costs. This makes planning for IT much easier.