Tom Coates – Opening keynote: A New Network
Web Directions @media 2011, London, May 27th 10:45am.
Session description
The work we’re collectively doing—opening up gradually all of human information and media, making it recombinable, helping people create and share their work—is a huge unspoken, sexy, world-redefining mission.
It’s a mission that many of us have become blasé about, almost unaware of. It’s a project so large that it’s hard to get a grasp on. And the next few years are going to get even more interesting as the network pervades physical objects and environments, sensing and manifesting information in the real world.
It’s time to recognise the scale of the project we have in front of us, the breadth of the material we have to work with, and the possibilities of design within it. All of human knowledge, creativity—even the planet itself—is our canvas.
About Tom Coates
Tom Coates is a technologist and writer who focuses on new product development, the web of data, location services and social software . He’s worked for many of the web’s leading companies, including Time Out, the BBC—where he ran a small R&D team focused on future media—and Yahoo! where he was Head of Product for the Brickhouse incubator and developed the Fire Eagle location sharing service. Now independent, he lives in San Francisco and works as a freelance product designer and consultant.
Follow Tom on Twitter: @tomcoates
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