The Future of Information

Yesterday the UC Berkeley School of Information (iSchool) hosted a panel discussion and reception to celebrate the change of our name (we were formerly known as the School of Information Management and Systems (SIMS)).

The event started with Dean Saxenian commenting on the one and a half year process that concluded with the decision to join the 20+ other Schools of Information in the US. The panel discussion included (from left to right above): Geoff Nunberg (UC Berkeley, Stanford), Mimi Ito (USC), Brewster Kahle (Internet Archive) and Brad Horowitz (Yahoo!). Geoff Nunberg asked each panelist to present separately first and answer two questions:

• Over the coming decades, what's likely to be the most surprising or unanticipated change in social behavior, social life, etc. that technology will mediate?
• What's likely to be the most surprising or unanticipated holdover from the present?

We had so many attendees -- more than 130 -- that we had to have an overflow room with real-time video and audio being streamed into that room. The audio is available by clicking on the title of this post or here: Future of Information Panel (MP3 Audio).

Note: we're still working out the kinks with the audio set up; you'll notice that it's quite a bit more hi-fidelity than past recordings (thanks to a grant by the iSchool). Even then there was some interference that I couldn't eliminate from the massive amount of cellphones and other devices in the audience.