Futurology panel sparks lively conference debate

The Online Information 2006 conference, which got off to a very business-oriented start this morning with a keynote speech by Thomas A Stewart, editor of The Harvard Business Review, got into its stride this afternoon with a lively audience-pleasing panel discussion on "Futurology: The Information Agenda in 2010".

Moderated by outgoing conference chairman Martin White, the panel was today's highlight of the Managing Enterprise Information track at the conference. And one of the first points to be made was that the 2010 timeframe in the session's title was a bit misleading.

"That's just a few years away, and that's just short-term planning for most people," said panellist Matt Locke, head of innovation at BBC New Media. "Some companies are looking much further afield, at 2050 and beyond, and looking for signals as to behaviours and trends that could affect organisations by then."

"It's a bit like predicting weather systems, and company 'game changers' are the people who are trying to build umbrellas to protect organisations from the possible storms ahead."

Locke said some events that will affect information professionals were predictable, though the majority are difficult to see in advance. "The year 2012 will be a huge challenge for media firms, as it will be the first truly digital Olympics. Analogue will be switched off, mobiles will have vastly different capabilities and broadband, with much more bandwidth, will reach around 80% of the population. We have been creating business narratives within the BBC to help us respond to that challenge."

Some trends are heading in uncomfortable directions. Clive Holtham, professor of information management at Cass Business School, pointed out that as information becomes more immediate and easily available, users are increasingly getting only part of the picture, and not the "complete perspective" that longer timeframes give.

Globalisation was another key theme. Adrian Dale, editor of the Journal of Information Science at Wiley, said the volume of papers submitted was increasing by 50% per annum, and 75% of the growth was coming from the Far East. "It's a dramatic shift and doesn't bode well for UK or Europe".

Locke said wider cultural changes trends should be watched. "Search is now a mode of behaviour for many and a part of our culture, where once it was the preserve of  information professionals." The BBC had picked up on this trend – 2 of its most successful shows recently were Who Do You Think You Are? and Balderdash and Piffle – both of which asked ordinary people to take part in search-based activities.

Dale said there has been a fundamental shift in "mental models of information". "Previously, people saw it as page-based, but now younger generations are imagining information in their minds in multi-dimensional inter-relational web-based models". That will have effects on how information is accessed and used.

This theme was taken up by audience members who said visualisation of information is likely to be a big area of development, as people learn to get more from information through such things as "ambient" technologies (which allow information to be absorbed and processed in less conscious ways, in much the same way as car drivers process many different sensory data inputs). "We are very much limited by eyes and mice for processing information through computers," noted Locke.

Holtham said he was concerned about the growing lack of awareness of library skills and the importance of archives among students; but Locke felt students were developing new skillsets in accessing information – the importance is developing their critical facilities, and ability to judge and assess information, and check validity by, for example, multi-sourcing.

The quality of this session bodes well for the conference this year – and there's two more days to go, with equally inviting sessions in all three tracks.