Never mistake a clearer view for a short distance just because the technology looks like it's about to arrive in the very near future. Chances are there will be some surprises and in the long run even the most expected of futures tends to arrive late and in completely unexpected ways.

I can't imagine how you can find the discipline to be emotionally detached reporting on a revolution, the winds of which are blowing right down the hallways of the publication you work for. That's like an orthopedic surgeon trying to perform arthroscopic surgery on their own knee. It's possible, but it's hard to see through all the pain.

Never mistake a clear view for a short distance.

I'm actually an optimist about what lies ahead. Are wikis reliable? It depends on the specific business. Is Wikipedia reliable? You bet. Wikipedia is a researcher's dream.

I think companies over the last 10 years have done a very bad job of explaining to their employees what the intrinsic risks are. All I know is, if you wait until you let the employee go to deal with the issue of how do you communicate to the employee about being let go, it's too late to do anything.

The difference between our collective generation and your generation (differentiating the reporters from the students) is that we poured our souls out on paper that got easily yellowed and lost. The danger is that many of your friends (nodding at the students) are putting intimate ideas in cyberspace journals. So when today's 15-year-old is 40, some friend is going to drag out all of that idiotic stuff at their class reunion.

I don't think information overload is a function of the volume of information. It's a derivative of the volume of information plus the sense-making tools you have.