This is a guest post from Bob Noble at www.blognoble.com
The first thought.
Whether you believe in evolution, or intelligent design, or creation by an uncreated god—think about this.
What was it like to have the first thought? When those synapses crackled for the first time, did somebody, whoever it was, think “me,” “there is a me,” “me cold,” “me hungry,” “me want self-actualization”? Obviously, that last thought came later, and even today doesn’t come that often. But I’ll wager that soon after beings started to think, the ones who developed a capacity to think better, did better.
And that’s all we’re trying to help you do with neemee™. Only instead of being in a jungle, or a garden, or wherever that first thought came, we’re helping you think where you live today—firmly planted in the information age on the brink of an evolutionary revolution some people are calling Web 3.0.
But that is getting ahead of things.
Right now we have Web 1.0 and, for some, Web 2.0. And we have our hands full. Google. Yahoo. Facebook. MySpace. YouTube. 3D. Virtual Reality. Everything is mutating like an out-of-control virus in a Petri dish. The culture is growing wild, and you have to make a choice. Run and hide? Or inoculate yourself by injecting some of that virus right into your veins?
It’s never good to run and hide from technology.
The Boomer Generation comprises about 85% of decision makers in the business population. They understand Web 1.0 as a search device that can direct them to just about anything they want. That is, if they know what they want. (Remember, “me hungry.”) The basic bookmarking tool based on algorithms works for them. It’s like a phone book, or a fancy way of finding anything in the “library” of knowledge. Yet most of the “run and hide” Boomers are overwhelmed by the data, can’t find any real meaning in it, don’t get the social networking thing, see it as a kid toy, and have no idea how to make money with it.
The NetGenners (internet generation) simply don’t know anything else. They’ve either grown up with the web or embraced it as the boat carrying them through a monstrous sea change to an unknown shore. These are the tech-savvy, and they see the web as a magical doorway in a whole new expanding world of delights that come to them wherever they are. (Quite a difference.) One of the most amazing things about this group is that they can be any age. They don’t fear the web, they drink it in, and they are being trained to think in a whole new way.
People are being rebrained.
In a recent Atlantic Monthly article entitled “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, author Nicholas Carr made some very startling observations about what he fears the web is doing to our minds.
He describes his personal experience this way, “Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think.”
He goes on to explain his concern with regard to how Google and other search engines program us or, more likely, reprogram us to trip “from link to link to link.” The mind-altering rewiring of our thought process is not confined to the vague feelings of Mr. Carr. He states in his article that “a recently published study of online research habits, conducted by scholars from University College London, suggests that we may well be in the midst of a sea change in the way we read and think.” What they found is that people skim or hop from site to site, many times intending to go back to something they like, but most of the time they just keep going. This flitting about is described by Mr. Carr as a real threat to the ability to concentrate. “Once I was a scuba diver in a sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.”
The genie is out.
When I read articles like this, I can’t help but chuckle. It reminds me of writings from the turn of the 19th century and the reports of how the industrial age was destroying life as they knew it. Well, we all know it did—and, at the same time, it also created a whole new life with a lifestyle never dreamed possible in the agrarian age.
You can’t stop progress no matter how seemingly frightful it may seem. You can only learn to use it or get left behind. In our case, we’ve decided to accept how people are being rebrained in the information age, and to make every effort to give them the training and the mind-tools they need to harness what others fear. The genie is not going back into the bottle.
Our new creative search engine—neemee™—is a power browser built for people to speed-surf, easily capture and tag thoughts, collaborate, and share. You can Jet Ski or scuba dive, skim or dive deep.
This new semantic approach steps into the future of how the new web thinkers will think. It’s technology with meaning—and the results transcend the raw input based on what participants think and say. The expansive ontology is a “human” structure of thought within collections within ideas—and those thoughts and ideas can be easily captured, tagged, and shared. The improved thinking capacity stems from the connecting thoughts of those who capture and share. Neemee opens up the web to exploration with heart, soul, and passion—something no cold-blooded algorithm can create.
Fun? Fancy? Or the power browser that individuals and businesses have long been waiting for?
Young people aren’t afraid of what the web might do to their thinking. It’s all they’ve ever known. And if there is something to help them think better, we’re learning they’ll accept it with open minds. Neemee is fun and fanciful, and that’s what makes it the perfect business tool. In capturing and collecting thoughts that can be applied to business, juxtaposing them with others, and mashing them up into new ideas, neemee elevates “thinking to the next power.” No organization dedicated to reaping the benefits of Web 3.0 should be without it.
Before you search, ask “What’s on your mind?”
You have to experience neemee to understand all of what I’m saying, and when you do, you’ll discover that we don’t even have a “search” box. We ask “What’s on your mind?” You think, you type it in, and you click. Instantly you enter a new and wonderful world of thoughts, collections, and mind-enriching stimulation. You contribute as well as harvest, and everything is contextual—not mathematical, but human—in thought streams that take you to the new way the web is evolving—open, collaborative, contextual, and full of life’s meaning. All with the simple but purposeful goal of elevating your “thinking to the next power.”
That’s it, from the edge of the world,
Bob
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