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Dine with Google – The Second in the Series of Kitchen Dinners
Wednesday 6th May 2009 saw the second in the series of The NextWomen Kitchen Table Dinners. In an intimate Notting Hill residence, the heads of sixteen influential women from the online world of business met over a Sicilian inspired feast of antipasti, chocolate infused chicken and Palermo pastries. The women – who included founders and investors – listened attentively as Gisel Hiscock gave anecdotal stories of her experiences in the corporate world and as Director of New Biz Development in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
A fast pace of conversation ensued as discussions grew from the ingress of technology into Israel and Palestine to the role that technology has to play in today’s society. It was interesting to hear views on the increasingly rapid adoption of technology by younger generations and in particular how it has changed the way in which young and old communicate. For those who have grown up in a world with instant messaging, mobile phones and free Skype-to-Skype calls it was agreed there was immense value in the transfer of their knowledge to the multiple generations of non-users. My 90 year old grandmother after all may well be confused by a ringing tone from her handbag, and yet to always be in contact with family would make everyone happy.
Gisel pointed out:
‘It’s not about mastering the zeroes and ones of binary; it is merely about understanding their capability.’
Concern was raised towards the possible outcome in the personalisation of the web. By subscribing to RSS feeds for example one attendee was anxious that people could potentially close themselves off to the rest of the web and new ideas by never investigating beyond the same parameters.
With the evening drawing to a close, the question was posed whether technology was dumbing down society by taking previously simple tasks away from it. To the contrary and thankfully so, it was believed that we were in fact potentially more intelligent. Although we have no control over what is committed to our long term memories – we can all remember reciting entire song lyrics whilst struggling to remember Flemings Right Hand Rule and when to apply it – by using technology to remember contact details and diary dates we were suddenly in possession of free brain space for other important information. Call it delegation if you like.
Perhaps the best concept of the evening, however, was from Margreet van der Pijl of the 1%club who entertained the idea that if an online encyclopedia could be generated solely from user content, then perhaps world poverty could be solved in the same manner. Only time can tell.
After another successful evening the third in the series will follow shortly. Watch this space for the next speaker and date.
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