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Person of the Year: You.Dave » 17 years 43 weeks ago
Every year since 1927, Time Magazine has dedicated an issue to profiling the man, woman, couple, group, idea, place, or machine that “for better or worse, has most influenced events in the preceding year.” In 1982 (the year I was born coincidentally) the computer graced the special cover. From that profile: Now, thanks to the transistor and the silicon chip, the computer has been reduced so dramatically in both bulk and price that it is accessible to millions. In 1982 a cascade of computers beeped and blipped their way into the American office, the American school, the American home. The “information revolution” that futurists have long predicted has arrived, bringing with it the promise of dramatic changes in the way people live and work, perhaps even in the way they think. America will never be the same.
It’s a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It’s about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people’s network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It’s about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes. With their choice, Time has recognized that we’re at the beginnings of a sea change in how we interact with our world and how our world interacts with us, a move away from “top down” to “bottom up”. For me, it’s an obvious choice — I see the immense (and historically unprecedented) potential of information technology, and how it can empower us by giving us more insight, more reach, and more power to effectuate change, together. Globalization, in my opinion, is the greatest event of our time, and the information revolution is fueling it. I wish Time had devoted more space to the real story — how many of us are reaching further than ever before, working together as never before. |
Here is an article from MSNBC that addresses the more subtle issues of the “you” (or me, me, me!) generation that Time’s Person of the Year edition brought to pop-consciousness last week.
Me, ‘Person of the Year’? No thanks
For some reason I just don’t feel as empowered as you think I feel
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16371425/
Dov, some of your comments overlap her conclusion.