Imagine. You wake up one day, switch on your laptop and try to find something on the internet. Only to realize that the Google server is down, Wikipedia is not working. Just imagine what your reaction would be in such a scenario.
We are all so much addicted to the internet in general and Google, Wiki in particular that we simply cannot live without them. Who other than an MBA student can understand the importance of these? Google is the starting point of anything we do. Without google, our assignments can never start. What Sergey Brin and Larry Page started a little over a couple of decades ago, has become the life line for millions of people around the world today. Hardly would they have imagined anytime that it would be so successful. When they first came with the search engine and went to sell it, they were rejected. In a way, it came as a blessing in disguise. Even today, if they make google a paid site, even a nominal fee of say Rs 100 a year, I am sure that people would still be willing to enroll for it. Simply because, google has become like air and water. Just imagine the revenue potential that the founders of Google are sitting upon.
As I have said in one of my earlier posts, technology has made life so simple for people that it has become unimaginable to live without technology. This is a classic example for the same. What used to take probably weeks for an MBA student a decade ago, can be done in a matter of hours now. Just contrast the MBAs of the 1990s and the MBAs today. A presentation on any topic, would require them to slog for weeks, toiling for days and nights together, looking for information on the topic. Compare this with the amount of effort that’s required today. Type in a few key words and technology itself would direct you to hoards of information sites across the world. Thus being in your hostel room, you could get all the information that you needed and probably even much more in a matter of a few clicks.
Consider the case of an assignment I had to submit last Monday. Last Sunday, when I got to know the topic, I just clicked on Google and typed the key words which appeared in the topic of the assignment. Its highly unlike of me, because I usually complete my assignments and other submissions whatever it is, well in advance and do not keep anything till the last moment. But this was a one off occasion because probably I had something more important, that I had to keep this aside. But since I was so sure that I would get the required material even at the last moment, I trusted the internet and kept it pending till the eleventh hour.
Within seconds came a list of search results and in a matter of a few minutes, I found exactly what I wanted. What was more fulfilling is that I got everything I wanted from s single source. So it was only a matter of time before I restructured it along the required lines and published it as a part of my assignment. Sometimes, even presentations on common topics are readily available on the internet.
So coming to the point that I was making a couple of posts back, has technology really helped us? In this context, it definitely has. There is no denying that Google and Wikipedia have changed the life of millions of students across the world. But consider the flip side of it. The art of reading books and gaining knowledge and information is slowly vanishing. The general knowledge level of students is slowly falling down. They hardly read newspapers these days, even if they do it’s most likely to be an e-paper. Arrival of PDFs and e-books have definitely contributed to the environment, but look at the other side. People don’t even read books these days. Everything is on the computer and people spend hours on the computer now. The skill of reading and information searching has slowly moved from books to the internet. And with Google coming in, the information is available in a matter of seconds.
With presentations and materials readily available, you don’t apply anything to analyse it. More often than not, it is simply ‘Ctrl C’ed and ‘Ctrl V’ed. Those who are a little aware and careful, take slight efforts to change the fonts, layouts, graphics and animations. But does it serve the real purpose? Even when it comes to assignments, they are literally copied word to word, and submitted only by changing the formatting, the layout, the text and text size and importantly, the name and other details on the first page. So are you actually adding value to your work? Are you really learning something from the assignment or exercise which was given to you with some intention? I am not sure.
All I can say is that Google, Wikipedia and Internet have become inseparable parts of our lives and it’s indeed difficult to imagine even a single day pass without logging on to the internet even once. Google and Wikipedia have indeed revolutionized the way an MBA is done.
We are all so much addicted to the internet in general and Google, Wiki in particular that we simply cannot live without them. Who other than an MBA student can understand the importance of these? Google is the starting point of anything we do. Without google, our assignments can never start. What Sergey Brin and Larry Page started a little over a couple of decades ago, has become the life line for millions of people around the world today. Hardly would they have imagined anytime that it would be so successful. When they first came with the search engine and went to sell it, they were rejected. In a way, it came as a blessing in disguise. Even today, if they make google a paid site, even a nominal fee of say Rs 100 a year, I am sure that people would still be willing to enroll for it. Simply because, google has become like air and water. Just imagine the revenue potential that the founders of Google are sitting upon.
As I have said in one of my earlier posts, technology has made life so simple for people that it has become unimaginable to live without technology. This is a classic example for the same. What used to take probably weeks for an MBA student a decade ago, can be done in a matter of hours now. Just contrast the MBAs of the 1990s and the MBAs today. A presentation on any topic, would require them to slog for weeks, toiling for days and nights together, looking for information on the topic. Compare this with the amount of effort that’s required today. Type in a few key words and technology itself would direct you to hoards of information sites across the world. Thus being in your hostel room, you could get all the information that you needed and probably even much more in a matter of a few clicks.
Consider the case of an assignment I had to submit last Monday. Last Sunday, when I got to know the topic, I just clicked on Google and typed the key words which appeared in the topic of the assignment. Its highly unlike of me, because I usually complete my assignments and other submissions whatever it is, well in advance and do not keep anything till the last moment. But this was a one off occasion because probably I had something more important, that I had to keep this aside. But since I was so sure that I would get the required material even at the last moment, I trusted the internet and kept it pending till the eleventh hour.
Within seconds came a list of search results and in a matter of a few minutes, I found exactly what I wanted. What was more fulfilling is that I got everything I wanted from s single source. So it was only a matter of time before I restructured it along the required lines and published it as a part of my assignment. Sometimes, even presentations on common topics are readily available on the internet.
So coming to the point that I was making a couple of posts back, has technology really helped us? In this context, it definitely has. There is no denying that Google and Wikipedia have changed the life of millions of students across the world. But consider the flip side of it. The art of reading books and gaining knowledge and information is slowly vanishing. The general knowledge level of students is slowly falling down. They hardly read newspapers these days, even if they do it’s most likely to be an e-paper. Arrival of PDFs and e-books have definitely contributed to the environment, but look at the other side. People don’t even read books these days. Everything is on the computer and people spend hours on the computer now. The skill of reading and information searching has slowly moved from books to the internet. And with Google coming in, the information is available in a matter of seconds.
With presentations and materials readily available, you don’t apply anything to analyse it. More often than not, it is simply ‘Ctrl C’ed and ‘Ctrl V’ed. Those who are a little aware and careful, take slight efforts to change the fonts, layouts, graphics and animations. But does it serve the real purpose? Even when it comes to assignments, they are literally copied word to word, and submitted only by changing the formatting, the layout, the text and text size and importantly, the name and other details on the first page. So are you actually adding value to your work? Are you really learning something from the assignment or exercise which was given to you with some intention? I am not sure.
All I can say is that Google, Wikipedia and Internet have become inseparable parts of our lives and it’s indeed difficult to imagine even a single day pass without logging on to the internet even once. Google and Wikipedia have indeed revolutionized the way an MBA is done.
2 comments:
You talked about Google, Wikipedia and also that technology and information that you obtain from internet is indispensable. So, this goes to show that Information Technology(IT) has been undoubtedly one of the most important factors playing in all our lives, not just while doing MBA but even before and after. Although we may not be able to relate our day-to-day usage of technology to what's exactly going on in the IT industry but surely there are numerous indirect(or direct) connections between the two.
A good article that makes us realize the importance of technology in a very basic manner :)
Nice post! Google and Wikipedia have become the oxygen of our age. And everybody needs oxygen, not only MBAs:)
Enjoyed your writing.
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