Here Comes Everybody

"Here Comes Everybody", a book by Clay Shirky, is a book about advancements in technology. With accelerating velocity, our age's new technologies of social networking are evolving, and evolving us. We have begun crowdsourcing news and innovations. Technologies like cell phones and internet are constantly changing the world. With the internet, people now have the power to express their opinions and share their views to millions of people instantly. People are more connected today than during any other generation of human existence. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter have made this possible. People share ideas on a large scale today, in online communities. Our lifestyle has changed in so many ways with internet and smartphones that we cannot imagine going back to any previous era of technology. But as Voltaire once said, "With great power comes great responsibility" (no this was not a creation of Marvel comics). We now have to find the most awarding ways of utilizing the power of today's technologies. We should try to contribute back to the online communities like Wikipedia, from where we harness our information and knowledge. In other words, we need to try to become producers rather than just stay as consumers in this information age.

Technology and the Church

With the development of technology, people have harnessed its power in different aspects of their lives. Computers, cell phones, and the internet have changed the way we learn, think, and share our beliefs. The leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have felt the influence of technology in the lives of members of the Church. The church uses technology to manage member records, assets, and finance etc. We now have easier ways to search and find past talks from conferences given by Church leaders. Similarly, there are online versions of scriptures that aid us in researching topics efficiently when we ourselves are preparing to give talks. The Church has emphasized that although technology is not inherently good or evil, it can be used to further good or evil purposes. It is our job as members of the Church to use the technology to share the Gospel and fulfill Lord's purpose.

Open Source

Open source environment provides the competitive advantage over closed source environment. There are very few companies who do not use any type of open source software in their infrastructure. This revolutionary model of software development has been embraced by many of the largest companies in the software industry. Open source development is a better way of building software, one reason being that more people are involved in solving the problems. Although open source is a better way of developing software than close source, there are some guidelines for creating good open source softwares. "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" has listed about 19 guidelines for doing just that. One among them,"Good programmers know what to write. Great ones know what to rewrite (and reuse)" seems noteworthy.

Wasteful Patents

The problem of excessive patent protection is at present best illustrated by the software industry. Some patent protection provides an inventor with more insulation from competition than he needed to have. For example, Apple's design patent, titled, "Display screen or portion thereof with animated graphical user interface" gives Apple the exclusive rights to the page turn in an e-reader application. This, along with several other patents that Apple has acquired in the last few years, doesn't seem like a truly unique idea. Such patents only encourage patent trolls that seek excessively broad patents to pursue either a large tech company for a substantial payment or choose thousands of small tech companies as their prey, seeking smaller “license” payments. In any case, this kind of patents in software industry seem to hamper rather than encourage innovation. 

Digitizing Family History

Family history and genealogy records had been difficult to search, share, and verify before the advent of online family history tools. Recent burst of family history in information technology has made data-mining of genealogy easy and efficient. Many people have increased their efforts to build up their family tree with use of technology, especially the World Wide Web. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has inspired people to get involved in this divine purpose. Learning about our ancestors can bring perspective and understanding to our own life. FamilySearch.com is a website publicly available to enhance this divine cause. There are more resources added everyday in the internet to help build family trees and learn about our personal history. All of us should utilize these resources to explore our genealogy.