You say you want a revolution....

I like to think that I have a unique perspective to this whole library field. I have an undergrad degree in business and currently I work in a corporate environment. I have found that while the majority of my classmates talk from a library workers perspective-I at times have difficulty relating. I had previously read this chapter in Brown for a Knowledge Mgmt class-- and honestly the content isn't any less relevant today than it was two years ago.

One of the quotes in the beginning of the book (most likely paid to help sell the book) was from someone named William H Davidow, an author of a variety of marketing books regarding corporations and technology:

...Brown and Duguid argue convincingly that the context in which information is embedded is as important as the information itself. If information technology is to realize its promise, technologists must learn to take context into account.

I believe this quote supports Browns' argument that the information revolution is similar to the industrial revolution. Both are a

...period of time in which society learned how to process, sort, rearrange, recombine...in unprecedented fashion.

As librarians we are taught how to process/sort/rearrange/recombine as part of our knowledge set. Does this mean we have an advantage in the coming trends of web 2.0? I feel it is our nature to want to tag/categorize/identify information as we receive it and as Brown says "reduce knowledge into data." This is instinct for us...to break large information sets into smaller categories to make it easier to find/use later. This can only be an advantage if we are willing to embrace new technologies and have the ability within our environment/institutions to implement them.

Considering he wrote this initially in 2000 and updated portions in 2002...I wonder what he would have to say now with web 2.0 fulling engrossing corporations as well as library worlds?