LIFT 08: Some observations
Last week I attended LIFT in Geneva, Switzerland. LIFT is a conference that explores the challenges and opportunities of technology in society. The conference discusses new technologies and their impact on society from a user’s point of view.
Here are some trends I observed:
Disclaimer: this is my personal view and interpretation of LIFT. Please feel free to add a comment or point out any errors.
Better Interfaces
There are companies such as Headshift looking to create new web tools that will help to manage information overload and personal productivity in large networks or organizations. They held a workshop at LIFT to hear ideas and opinions about hybrid web interfaces for email, RSS feeds, and concepts such as Getting Things Done.
I was in a parallel workshop called Forgetful Interfaces, discussing new ways to display the huge amounts of stored data we have accumulated. It was a very broad discussion and I went out of the workshop with more questions than answers. One proposal was to build interfaces like the human memory: data linked to recent events is available immediately, and as time flies, the data – i.e. the interface items related to the data – that you have not used over the past year fades away. For example, items in a to do list are important in the short term, but will tend to clutter search results one year from now without adding any added value.
These two workshops highlight the need for better web interfaces for knowledge workers. The amount of information from various data streams is due to increase, and the challenge is to build business process, as well as knowledge management tools that will increase efficiency and productivity. As Web 2.0 moves into the corporate world, I’m expecting the need for richer, adaptable interfaces to grow.
Scalability
One of the most common questions asked by the Venture Night panel on Wednesday evening was: What about scalability? If your web app is successful and draws millions of users, will the architecture be able to handle this? How are you addressing the performance issue?
Mobile computing
Francesco Cara of Nokia described the evolution of mobile communication ecosystems. We are currently in the third stage where new features and services are being introduced rapidly, new players such as Apple and Google moving into the market, the complexity is increasing, and more mobile applications are accessing the Internet directly.
Within this context, I couldn’t help but think of Canoo’s RIA for Mobiles project, that Christian wrote about in January 2008.
Further links on LIFT 08:
