One of the high points of my attendance at OpenTech 2009 on Saturday was the after-lunch talk by Bill Thompson, whom I would rate as one of the UK’s leading technology commentators. He writes and broadcasts frequently (such as on BBC World Service’s weekly technology show Digital Planet, which I also recommend highly), and is well worth following.
He took as his theme an updated take on the “Two Cultures Problem”, after CP Snow’s famous lecture of 50 years ago.
From the notes for OpenTech: “It’s fifty years since CP Snow’s famous lecture on the Two Cultures – science and literature. We seem to have a different divide these days, between ‘people like us’ and the rest. What might be done about this?”
Here’s the video I took of Bill’s talk – which is the short version of one he gave last month in Cambridge, for which a recording is currently unavailable.
Bill Thompson on “The Two Cultures Problem”: OpenTech 2009 from Richard Elen on Vimeo.
Read more of Bill’s work at http://www.andfinally.com/ - and you may also find his BBC News | Technology article, A nation of programmers? of interest.
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