ACM SIGSOFT, the ACM Special Interest Group on Software Engineering, publishes a newsletter six times a year. If you are interested in software engineering it is definitely an interesting publication. In the latest issue, they have a short note on Technology and culture change. The author argues that all great software affects the culture. I strongly agree with that. If we look at the accessibility community, that is also a valid point. Successful assistive technologies change the culture as is the case with other successful software.

On technology and cultural change

"A reasonable man adapts himself to his environment. An unreasonable man persists in attempting to adapt his environment to suit himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." George Bernard Shaw Maybe not. A good friend of mine writes software that analyzes loan portfolios for banks. He says that there are 2 kinds of bankers. Some bankers use analysis to better understand what is actually going on, and they adjust their actions accordingly. These “reasonable” bankers are still in business, today.

Full Paper: http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1507195.1507197
Full Proceedings: ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes, Volume 34, Issue 2, February 2009.

Labels: Culture, technology