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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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Melvin Kranzberg, co-founder of the Society for History of Technology and former professor in the School of History and Sociology at Georgia Institute of Technology, was featured in the Entrepreneur, February 7, article, “Technology Might Be Killing Us, But It Doesn’t Have to Be That Way.” The School of History and Sociology is part of the Georgia Tech Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.
Excerpt:
There is a difference between building a business that has purpose, and building a business to just make money. And while technology has made us all smarter, and just a click away from being connected to a person or information no matter where we are, something seems to be missing. Maybe it's what author Ross Baird has described in his takedown of Silicon Valley -- the focus on solving "my world problems" instead of real-world problems. Or maybe, more simply, it's rediscovering a sense of purpose… More than 30 years ago, Georgia Tech professor Melvin Kranzberg compiled a list of what he called the "Six Laws of Technology," which were intended to address potential social unrest related to the growing reach, even then, of technologies. His first law, that technology is not good or bad, but it is also not neutral, has become a measuring stick for tech policy in the era of Big Data, social media and always-on connectivity. That was in the 1980s, and since then technology has only become more pervasive.
For the full article, visit the Entrepreneur website.