This week many of us watched a Google video of a bunch of guys skydiving while having a live video hang-out with each other using the famous google glasses. Wait a second …. what?! How cool is that? No … seriously … how cool is that!? If you didn’t watch it, here is a short version:
I’ve then felt the need to share, here in my blog, why I am in love with the web and technology in general. Le’ts start:
1 – Getting amazed almost constantly
One of the most exciting thing about being involved in any IT area, and nowadays especially on the web is that one is almost constantly discoverying something amazing. Las week I’ve “been” at LeWeb London 2012 well not in person but using YouTube and I’ve certainly watched many of the talks. I have to admit that I loved it and hope to be able to attend one of the following editions in Paris and/or London. If you do not know LeWeb: basically it is one of the main web events in Europe where the major web influencers gather – for more info about it please check out LeWeb.co.
2 – Constant evolution
Everyone knows that the IT and web is evolving amazingly fast. This makes it very “hard” for one to follow and requires us web persons to be constantly updating our knowledge.
Whether you work in UI/UX, mobile only or back-end there are constant updates and techniques coming up. When it comes to front-end you must now know about (ideally how to use) Sass & Compass, Less, HTML5, CSS3, Initializr and many more which will save you hundreds of hours of work ans speed your project develpment a lot.
Then you have all the digital marketing channels: SEO, SEM, SMO, E-mail marketing and many more.
Other trendy topics such as gamification which despite being quite recent and “new” are most certainly exciting, powerful and awesome!
Basically, the amount of “work” required for you to keep updated is so big that it means that you will only be good at it if you really enjoy what you do.
3 – Start-ups
I have been extremely lucky to get to help a couple of start-ups such as:
- JumpSeller which is allowing small business owners to address all the world
- SilicoLife which optimizes and accelerates the R&D efforts by shortening the time to market of new biotechnology-based products
- UniPlaces which is currently changing the face of the university accommodation worldwide
4 – Easy access to information is changing the world
I am a TED fan for a quite a few years already and love to watch a good talk while having lunch, per example. They are a great source of information about the most various areas and I always get the feeling that I’m getting access to something “brand new” and therefore end up getting some sort of inspiration or motivation from watching the talks. Since the beginning of this year I’ve also gotten more involved helping to spread the word by participating in the translation process of amazing TED Talks so that non-english speaking persons can get the message!
I’ve also gotten involved with Kiva creating a local team, organizing an event (the second one is coming soon) and managed to get over 30 persons to lend some money. I like the idea behind Kiva and, as far a I know, they seem to be doing a good job helping small local entrepreneurs all over the world - visit kiva and make a difference now.
There are obviously many more projects which are contributing, here are some more:
- khanacademy.org – for everyone
- codecademy.com – for developers
- Coursera Courses (Princeton, Stanford, Berkeley)
- Youtube videos from top universityes – Stanford University
and the list could go on for pages and pages.
5 – My own projects
Some of my projects have definitelly been more “successfull” than others but it depends on how one defines success. I’ve recently read a quote that states: “Succes is knowing that because of you the world is a little better” by Michael Sneyd – and for me is a perfectly valid definition!
If you are curious and want to check them out please check my CV page: MiguelPinho.com/cv
6 – The future is bright
There are plenty of opportunities for one to explore in this new “webalized” world! I believe that in a few years everything will be connected and those who will embrace technology first will have a goood head start over the competition. If you think about it there are so many things that will change:
- “computers” will be everywhere and (almost literally) everything will be interconnected
- cars will drive themselves – to start, maybe not everywhere but in many situations and locations such as highways
- augmented reallity will put a virtual layer over everything with Google and their glasses, Blippar app or anything else
- families will continue to get fisically separated yet sometime more connected than ever using technology (web + robots) – watch this talk: Cynthia Breazeal: The rise of personal robots
- etc, etc…
Finally …. I strongly believe that, when it comes to technology, these are amazing times! I am pretty excited about the years ahead and feel very lucky to be living “now”!
If you have any comments or questions please leave a comment or just contat me miguelpinho.com/contact-me!
Related Posts :
Thank you for reading this article. Please feel free to leave a comment or contact me.
Thank you for reading this article. Please feel free to leave a comment or contact me.| Share |
