Open Bemoaning

I followed Boyd back through Scoble all the way to Gates (sorta)...
to hear the moaning and bemoaning of corporate software initiatives and the relative 'sexiness' of them... SHEEEEESH!!! Give us a break! Can't you guys hear the paradigm shifting? It is not corporate software or the individual as a group or even sexiness!

People have just begun to wake up to what their real computing needs are.

The personal computing revolution will not be televised, streamed, meme'd, podcast or blogged... the PC revolution will be live ... lead by little children carrying OLPCs. People are waking up to the fact that they do not need HUGE personal computers running BLOATED software.

People are realizing the Google's Documents & Spreadsheets are all they really need. Businesses large and small are beginning to understand that we are not headed for a paper-less environment. We are headed for a paper-paradigm-less environment. As long as applications and programs were/are designed to render a final product on paper we are stuck in the paper-paradigm.

There are two great examples of this paradigm shift. The first of course are web browsers. Their final 'product' is not designed to be rendered (printed) on paper. So web browsers and by association web sites do not have to conform to the paper-paradigm.

Lotus Notes in my opinion is another great example of the paper-paradigm-less computing environment. Very early on criticism was leveled at Lotus Notes that its e-mail interface was built on a poor word processor. I argued then as I do today that Lotus Notes was never designed to be printed on paper. I found that if I left my e-mail messages inside Lotus Notes they formated perfectly. It was only when I tried to print them on paper that the formating appeared to change. I attribute this concern about format change to a deep seated paper-paradigm expectation. As soon as I moved away from that expectation I was able to accept Lotus Notes formating as it is. As it should be - in its native digital form.

Now I realize that I have dragged you the long way around the barn to get to this point but... people are beginning to realize that they don't need paper-paradigm computing applications or platforms. I am confident that we will see a new PC revolution, albiet a very small form revolution, with the advent of the small-form laptops.

Coming up next: In my next post I will offer up the paper-paradigm-less challenge.