Exeter Speaks: the Next 700 Years The Future of Sharing Ideas Nigel Portwood Chief Executive, Oxford University Press Fellow, Exeter College
The Future of Sharing Ideas Four themes • Big events disrupt the patterns and behaviour associated with knowledge sharing • Language and the dominance of certain languages play a critical role • The medium of communication is as important as the idea itself. • Idea generation and sharing depend on models that lead to sustainability Nigel Portwood, April 2014 2
Gutenberg Press Nigel Portwood, April 2014 3
OUP Delegates Nigel Portwood, April 2014 4
The Definition of “Scorpion” • Johnson’s 18 th century dictionary: • “A reptile much resembling a small lobster, with a very venomous sting” • Murray/OED first edition: • “An arachnid of any genera (Scorpio, Buthus, Androctonus, etc.) forming the group Scorpionodae, having a pair of large nippers and a general resemblance to a miniature lobster; they inhabit tropical and warm temperate countries in both hemispheres. The intense pain caused by the sting of the scorpion (situated at the point of the tail) is proverbial.” Nigel Portwood, April 2014 5
Digitized Archives Nigel Portwood, April 2014 6
How Many People Speak English Today? • Official language in over 75 countries, with population of 2 billion • First language of 375 million people • Spoken as a foreign language by further 750 million people • Spoken to some level of competence by one in four of the world’s population Source: David Crystal/British Council Nigel Portwood, April 2014 7
Astrophysicists’ Conversational Clusters Nigel Portwood, April 2014 8 Source: research at Montreal University
A Barrage of Digital Information • 63,000 words of new information every day • 40 websites a day • Programmes switches 36 times an hour • We change tasks more than once every two minutes Source: Website ‘Informed’ Nigel Portwood, April 2014 9
“Ideas Worth Spreading”? Nigel Portwood, April 2014 10
The Future of Sharing Ideas The four themes and the future • Events: – What new technologies will emerge? – Cultural – eg. China, the ‘bottom billion’? • Language: – Real time translation? • Medium: – e.g. Impact of 140 characters? • Sustainability: – Impact of ‘open’? Nigel Portwood, April 2014 11
Thank you and questions Nigel Portwood Nigel Portwood, April 2014 12
Recommend
More recommend
