'The Guru' Questionnaire
Ewan McIntosh
National Adviser: Learning and Technology Futures, Learning and Teaching Scotland
What is your favourite gadget?
I love my Canon 350D Digital SLR camera - it takes good shots even when you're not a great photographer.
What is your favourite website for business use?
I've had more business through my blog platform than anything else: typepad.com
What is your favourite website for personal interest?
Flickr.com for seeing what friends and family are up to.
If you were marooned on a desert island and were only allowed one item of technology - what would it be and why?
I saw a solar powered MacBook Pro the other day - that'd do nicely.
If you were to time travel 10 years into the future - how will the internet have changed?
I'm not good enough to know what it'll look like. Maybe I'll have a mobile device that listens in to conversations and continuously throws up additional information about what I'm talking about, things I may want to know.
What do you think are the key developments that will shape the search landscape in the next 2 years?
Search within video contexts, not just its content but also the background music artists and so on.
What advice would you give to someone starting out as an information professional in 2008?
Take one element at a time and learn to see the connections between the tools that help us decipher the growing pot of stuff.
What do you see as the main challenges for information professionals in the future?
Maintaining a case for being the organisers of information when more people become more information literate as a matter of course.
If you had three wishes relating to the development of technology and the internet, what would they be?
That people would put their egos behind them when using the web.
That developers would think twice about the utility of their apps before cramming the web with gadgetry for the sake of it
That the web remains free, as in speech.
Biography and contact details on
http://www.ewanmcintosh.com/
