Technology and Leadership


I stumbled across the blog of David Jakes (Strength of Weak Ties) today, and found the following entry to be a great read. Warning: it is a little long, but I think the themes that he mentions are very valuable, not just in his workspace of education, but also in the professional world as well. I like David's approach to learning (RSS feeds, 'meatspace' publications, collaboration), and I love this quote from him: "Successful technology coordinators are leaders, and leaders understand that leadership is about relationships. Having relationships with people that understand you, and support you, are required to be truly successful, but this only comes with honoring and understanding them first."

I think that there is so much truth in that, especially in a world where we like to substitute technology for personal relationships. Technology should be about augmenting those relationships, and helping others - tools such as del.icio.us are a great example of this - helping others while also getting your own needs met. In a world full of 'Web 2.0' and 'social networking' sites, I believe it is important to utilize the 'crowdsourcing', or 'hive mind' for the betterment of all. Ok, I know that's a bit idealistic, but keeping toward an ideal, even if never achieved, can steer us in the right direction.

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