The shift in users and everything else : a ili2007 follow-up

The presentation of Stephen Abram at the ILI2007 is still in my mind. Although I knew a lot of stuff he mentioned, it triggered me again to focus even harder on studies about the new generations that are already amongst us (as student or staff) or soon will be.
What stuck to me, was the fact that research showed that even the brain patterns of this Millenials show significant differences to others. Abram also cites the research of Richard T. Sweeney about Millenials.
Sweeneys powerpoint and article are really good stuff to read. The mere knowledge that these various learning styles co-exist in our classrooms and the information about their differences should trigger educators and librarians in developing new ways of offering information.

What else is changing and where is it going?

• everything is getting smaller. your pockets in 2020 will be filled with an unimaginable amount of information available via gadgets that get smaller and smaller
• the focus will be on the context, rather then on the content
• user behaviour is changing because the network (the context) stimulates to create their own content easier ánd because communication & interaction is mixed into it.
• Google's policy is focused on Search, Ads and Apps, making everything web-based.
• Format agnosticity will become more and more commonly expected
• federated discovery technologies will evolve
• all will be available wireless on every portable gadget you can imagine
• social and virtual environments (like Second Life) will keep on growing
• mergers and alliances in this information sector will increase

I will stop here. You really need to see the rest of his presentation for yourself if you want to know what libraries should do to keep up, or how to use this "magic sauce"of web2.0 for the benefit of your users .... in their learning, work or even personal environment.

Tags: ili2007, abram, SirsiDynix, web2.0, millenials, sweeney