See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/235301525

The future of knowledge work: predictions for 2020

Article  in  On the Horizon · August 2010

DOI: 10.1108/10748121011072663

CITATIONS READS

5 233

3 authors, including:

Jennifer Watts‐Englert Patricia Wall

Paychex Palo Alto Research Center
42 PUBLICATIONS   490 CITATIONS    20 PUBLICATIONS   155 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Careers View project

The Future of Work View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Jennifer Watts‐Englert on 04 November 2015.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

The future of knowledge work:
predictions for 2020
Jennifer Watts Perotti, Patricia Wall and Gabriele McLaughlin
Jennifer Watts Perotti is
Senior Cognitive Engineer
and Patricia Wall is
Manager, Work Practice
and Technology, both in the
Work Practice and
Technologies Team, Xerox
Innovation Group, Webster,
New York, New York, USA.
Gabriele McLaughlin is
Senior Research Fellow at
the Institute of Knowledge
and Innovation, George
Washington University,
Washington, DC, USA.
q 2010 XEROX
CORPORATION. All rights
reserved.
DOI 10.1108/10748121011072663
Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to describe findings from a study of current leading edge knowledge
workers and to discuss the challenges and issues that knowledge workers may face in 2020, as the
world of work shifts into a knowledge economy.
Design/methodology/approach – This is a discussion paper inspired by findings from an
ethnographic study of knowledge workers who worked remotely or on the go, using leading edge
technology like smart phones.
Findings – Today’s knowledge workers have a need for better information integration across devices
and sources. They struggle to maintain ubiquitous access to electrical power and the internet, and they
find it difficult to integrate multiple formats of incoming information into their digital landscape. It is
expected that the problems of information integration and infrastructure access will be solved by 2020.
However, the paper predicts that knowledge workers of the future will face the daunting task of making
sense of vast amounts of incoming information, once they have ubiquitous, integrated access. The
paper discusses several solutions and approaches that will help with this daunting task: making
information spaces visible, context-aware systems, and user awareness and control. Additionally, it
describes three tensions, which provides a backdrop for discussing opportunities for technology
innovations in support of future knowledge workers. These tensions are: information does not equal
knowledge; knowledge is global, mobile and difficult to contain behind the firewall; and increasing
knowledge-intensity is not reflected in today’s educational outcomes. The paper concludes with a
discussion of the kinds of tools and processes that will support the success of knowledge workers in
2020.
Originality/value – The paper is grounded in observations of today’s leading edge knowledge workers.
Based on study findings, it predicts challenges that future knowledge workers will face and propose
processes and solutions that can help knowledge workers to successfully overcome these challenges.
Keywords Knowledge management, Employees, Information exchange, Knowledge management,
Education, Innovation
Paper type Conceptual paper
Introduction
Many people predict that knowledge work will be a significant contributor to the future global
economy. (i.e.: Drucker, 1959; Davenport, 2005). For example, Drucker (2001), who coined
the term ‘‘knowledge worker,’’ says:
The Next Society will be a knowledge society. Knowledge will be its key resource, and knowledge
workers will be the dominant group in its work force.
One trend that will facilitate the rise of the knowledge economy will be increasing ubiquitous
access to information. People all over the world will be able to access the information they
need anytime, anywhere (Leake, 2008; Hoomen, 2005). This trend is already beginning with
the escalation of smartphone shipments, and the millions of applications available for them
(Anderson, 2009). To complement this trend, knowledge workers are becoming more mobile
VOL. 18 NO. 3 2010, pp. 213-221, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1074-8121 j ON THE HORIZON j PAGE 213
 and distributed. Even today, millions of knowledge workers work in coffee shops,
restaurants, cars, airports, and parks, in addition to their homes (World at Work, 2007).
In 2008 and 2009 the Xerox Future of Work team conducted ethnographic studies of leading
edge remote and mobile workers to understand how the latest technologies were used by
knowledge workers, and how those technologies might affect workers of the future. Study
findings revealed a continuing set of needs, requirements, and challenges for workers of the
future, despite technological advances.
This paper summarizes key findings from our study of leading edge knowledge workers, and
uses the findings to inspire a discussion of the issues and challenges that future knowledge
workers may face.

Observations from leading edge knowledge workers

Methods
We conducted two different ethnographic studies of a total of 43 mobile and remote workers.
Mobile workers worked on the go - outside of a static office for at least 50 percent of their
time, and remote workers worked from home. Both studies included in-context interviews
and observations. The first study had a broad focus – looking at the nature of remote and
mobile work. The second study focused exclusively on mobile workers who used
smartphones to support their work. The interviews from both studies were audio and video
recorded and then transcribed for analysis (Wall and Brun-Cottan, 1995).

Key findings
Participants in our study were closely tied to their smart phones, often using their phone as
the go-to device for the information they needed – even when they were working at home.
They used their phones to constantly monitor their work status through their e-mail. Despite
the fact that they were constantly tied to their smart phone, participants still encountered a
several difficulties, as outlined below.

Need for integration and filtering

The most frequent task that mobile participants conducted with their phone was checking
e-mail. Participants checked e-mail constantly during microbreaks – while walking down the
hall, during lulls in a conversation, or when stopped at red lights. This constant processing
helped participants manage the deluge of incoming messages, and also helped them keep
track of the status of their work. Participants said they checked e-mail to determine whether
anything had changed (like meeting schedules), whether new requests had come in, and
whether any ‘‘fires’’ or urgent issues had arisen with their work. One participant summarized
this process with this quote:
When I have a chance, between meetings I’ll [. . .] try and plunge through as much [e-mail] as I
can during the course of the day. And then usually I’m up way too late, you know, answering
e-mails.

The constant e-mail checking demonstrated by our participants reveals the need for
ubiquitous access to relevant information. Participants went to great lengths to keep a bird’s
eye view of the status of their work – sacrificing microbreaks to sift through incoming
messages to determine whether the status of their work had changed (see Plate 1). Currently
the tasking of keeping track of work status is a manual process that requires people to read
through countless bits of information, which arrive in no particular order. People must
manually integrate the bits of information to form a coherent picture that is relevant to them.
In the future, as the amount of information explodes, people will need help filtering,
prioritizing, and integrating information.
In addition to struggling with the integration of bits of information, participants also struggled
to integrate information across devices and locations. Most participants had multiple
devices to manage: at least two computers (for personal and work use), two or more phones
(including land lines, and work and personal cell phones), and sometimes several firewalls,

j j
PAGE 214 ON THE HORIZON VOL. 18 NO. 3 2010
Plate 1 E-mail during microbreaks

thumb drives, and other ancillary devices like scanners and printers (Watts-Perotti et al., in
press). Within this web of devices, participants struggled to ensure they had the right device
to access the right information at the right time. They found it difficult to make sure each
device was charged, and had the most up to date information. Participants often stored
redundant information cross multiple locations so they could access the information from
wherever they were working. Synchronizing this redundant information across devices and
locations (like calendars, task lists, contact lists, and document versions) was often a manual
task that required participants to remember which information needed updating, and to
manually transfer that information to the appropriate devices or locations. This finding is
similar to Grimes and Brush (2008), who also found that participants struggled to
synchronize and share information across multiple calendars.
Infrastructure constraints. The finding that participants were tied to their smart phones points
to participants’ strong desire to attain ubiquitous access to their e-mail and other information.
However, participants often struggled to maintain electrical power and internet access. They
carried duplicate cords, batteries, and hardware in travel bags (see Plate 2). Some kept
extra chargers at different locations either to charge the phone throughout the day, or to
serve as backup if they forgot to charge the phone the night before.
Several participants planned stops during their mobile day at known way stations like
familiar coffee shops or restaurants with reliable wi-fi. They used these waystations to
recharge batteries, make calls, and access the internet.

Plate 2 Duplicate cords

j j
VOL. 18 NO. 3 2010 ON THE HORIZON PAGE 215
 One participant even had two mobile phones – one for data access, and one for voice calls.
He bought the second voice-call phone so he would not waste his smartphone battery on
voice calls.
The following quotes illustrate participants’ frustration with their struggle to keep their
equipment charged:
The laptop died in the middle of a meeting [. . .] Thank God she had one power strip open. She
had three power strips fully loaded, because she had two computers in her office.
I have one extra battery, so I have two total. So, yeah, when I leave on Sunday, I’ll have the extra
battery in my bag [. . .] I think the battery thing is frustrating period. I think we all just sort of learn to
live with that.

Struggle to stay digital. Despite the fact that participants were tied to their smart phones,
they still struggled to stay digital. Participants were constantly receiving information in
multiple formats as they worked in mobile locations. Over the course of their day, they
collected incoming voice calls, business cards, receipts, and paper brochures. These
random bits of information were difficult to integrate into participants’ digital information
landscapes. Even if they had digital applications on their phone to help them track
information on the go, these apps were not always compatible with their computer, so
participants even struggled to integrate disparate sources of digital information.
Not only was it difficult to process incoming information, it was also difficult for participants to
take quick notes while working on the go. Participants tried different techniques – from
carrying post-it notes to leaving themselves voice-mails, but these techniques left them with
the same integration problems they had with incoming bits of information. The following
quote demonstrates the difficulty of taking and keeping track of notes while on the go:
Usually if I’m driving or something, I don’t have a pencil and paper. I’m not going to stop and write
it down. I just call myself and leave a note. And then when I get home, I write it down.

The future of knowledge work: predictions for 2020

Our observations of mobile workers in today’s workforce highlight some of the challenges to
knowledge work now and in the future. Many of the current challenges are being recognized
and addressed. The following sections will take a closer look at issues and tensions
regarding information management and knowledge work that will need to be resolved as we
transition to a sustainable knowledge economy in 2020.

Information management (aka overload) and the knowledge worker

Our study results show that today’s knowledge workers face an overwhelming amount of
information. Information is everywhere, comes in a variety of formats and media, is intertwined
in work and home life and provides unique challenges to the mobile workforce. Information is
the static, raw material that when applied and acted upon is transformed into knowledge, a
distinction discussed in more detail later in this paper. All indications are that the growth of
digital information, enabled by digital technology, will continue to grow at astronomical rates
(The Economist, 2010).

Overwhelmed by information
Along with the sheer proliferation of information content are the ever-increasing ways to
access, store and share it. The term ubiquitous access has been used to articulate the goal
that information is available anywhere, anytime delivered in a format that you desire. There is
evidence that we are on this path, with all kinds of traditional and electronic information
available locally, on the web and in the cloud via PC’s, printers, kiosks, portable drives and
the current ‘‘go to device’’, smart phones. In our own studies we observed mobile workers
coordinate their activities to ensure access to the internet and electrical power. Although
participants relied heavily on their mobile phones they also acquired paper documents and
needed access to their laptops, web sites, and file servers throughout their workdays.

j j
PAGE 216 ON THE HORIZON VOL. 18 NO. 3 2010
The channel for information flow is two-way. We are the recipients of information as well as
generators of information content in an ever growing array of formats, e.g., photos, videos,
audio, web content, electronic and paper documents, including the ever-vexing e-mail. We
observed many of the participants in our study using some combination of these formats
during their workday. (See the Information Overload Research Group web site, www.
iorgforum.org for resources on information overload, particularly e-mail and the impact of
interruptions on work.) The boundaries of this information expands with evolving use of
social media e.g., Facebook, Linked-In, blogs and micro blogs for personal and work life,
where interactions with others can be recorded as additional information sources.
The ease of sharing and storing information introduces an increase in redundancy of content
across applications, devices, and media with much of the information in varying stages of
completion. In our study, mobile workers faced difficulties integrating information across
multiple devices as well as across various applications. Different versions of the same
information can be found in different locations, including paper-based file cabinets, as well
as in different applications and media. As we head toward a future knowledge work
economy, knowledge workers will need systems that support integration of information
across different sources, whether the sources are devices or content.

Making sense and use of information

The ease of ready access to information does not address the problem of what to do with it
once you have it. To make information useful, today’s knowledge workers have to manually
filter the information, identify what parts of the information are relevant, create coherent views
of random bits of information, and eliminate any redundant, unneeded content. We observed
this as participants in our study constantly checked e-mail during the day in order to keep
track of the changing landscape of work demands.
Even after information access becomes truly ubiquitous across devices and formats, future
knowledge workers will face the non-trivial tasks of determining the quality of the information
and making use of it. To support these tasks in the future, technological solutions will need to
shift beyond search and aggregation (i.e., RSS feeds such as Google Reader and
FeedDemon), to support the evaluation and making sense or use of the information. Future
knowledge workers will need tools to facilitate the integration of information so they can use it
– for overviews, status, prioritizing, evaluating, decision making, and illustrating
relationships. They will need to access, view, consolidate and keep track of the integrated
information from wherever they are working, using the devices they are carrying with them.

Intelligent information integration

In the foreseeable future, technologies will continue to advance, enabling the continuous
flow of information to our technology, and fingertips at rates that exceed our ability to make
sensible use of all of it. Powerful search engines and information aggregators will help
harness the information for use by knowledge workers. A focus on the consumers of
information is key. Assuming the information is accessible, how do we help knowledge
workers keep their information content persistent, consistent, and useful over time and
across devices?
Making information spaces visible. There will be a need for continued development and
refinement of intelligent yet easy to use information integration tools that help knowledge
workers make sense of information spaces and content. These will aggregate, organize and
illustrate different views on the relationships among the information elements (bits and
pieces as well as complete elements) in collections. Any one of your access devices –
laptop, network, cloud, phone, drives – should be able to cross reference the content in the
others and provide suggested links or pointers to other potentially relevant information,
anywhere. This will go a long way in addressing the issues of disparate and disjointed
access faced by today’s knowledge workers.
Context-aware systems. The growing trend in context-aware applications that use location
(GPS) information and inferences about the user’s situation, e.g., tasks, activities and
schedule will continue to expand. Form early tools such as Magitti, a mobile tour guide

j j
VOL. 18 NO. 3 2010 ON THE HORIZON PAGE 217
 developed at the Palo Alto Research Center (Bellotti et al., 2008), to the current proliferation
of mobile device applications, using location as a basis for providing a variety of services
such as recommend local merchants, track your jogging route and provide driving
directions, context-aware systems continue to embed themselves in our application
landscape. (See Apple iTunes store (www.apple.com) for a variety of recent location-based
applications.)
In the future, context-aware tools will accommodate the user’s situation and preferences,
e.g., how they want to be contacted or receive notifications (voice, e-mail, instant message)
depending on their location., or where information should be stored based on its purpose
and immediacy. Intelligent software assistants will help knowledge workers keep track of
information related to work, tasks, and personal activities of interest and easily reprioritize or
reorient these based on emerging events. Visual representations of information spaces will
illustrate links between related information elements and enable easy navigation,
manipulation and use of information.
User-awareness and control. Context-aware systems rely on information provided by a
combination of other systems, external sensors and users themselves. A potential
by-product of digital participation is inadvertent leaking of information bits, which can risk
privacy or cause unintended consequences. Younger generations seem less restrained
when it comes to sharing personal information while older generations seem to be more
cautious. Alsop (2008), refers to the millennial generation (or NetGeneration) as lacking a
sense of privacy online as they share mundane and sensational aspects of their lives on
social networking sites without a sense of potential impact on their careers and personal
lives. Privacy once lost can never be regained. Currently personal information exists in
varying degrees, located in disparate locations across the web, with no coherent view for the
user into their personal content or how it is being used. In the future, people will need ways to
build coherent web identities, or at a minimum, a view of how their personal information is
being used. Knowledge workers will need easy to use views into what the systems are doing
with their personal information and what assumptions, inferences and actions are
propagated. More importantly, they will need ways to correct incorrect information and
maintain some sense of control over their personal information.

Mobilizing for the knowledge economy

As we discussed at the beginning of this paper, the twenty-first century economy is a
knowledge economy. It is driven by leveraged intellect and enabled and facilitated through
technology (Quinn, 1992). The technology requirements emerging from our research and
summarized in this paper must be considered in a broader context of environmental,
economic and societal developments.
This will allow for more nuanced discussions of knowledge work, future knowledge workers,
work force configuration needs and organizational demands for knowledge, skills and
abilities that can be augmented or amplified through technology to create sustainable
competitive advantage and personal, organizational and national leverage in the knowledge
economy.
This broader consideration reveals a number of important tensions or opposing directional
biases. This section describes three such tensions to stage additional opportunities for
technology innovations in support of future knowledge workers and knowledge work.
Tension 1: information does not equal knowledge. Getting the right information to the right
person at the right time and in the right format to support decisions or facilitate action has
long been the primary objective of information technology. The ability to do this faster, better,
cheaper, smarter, and with greater quality than the competition, is seen as the hallmark of
information delivery efficiency.
However, as we discussed earlier in this paper, information does not equal knowledge. Even
simple things like an airline reservation or a healthcare-option selection, for example, can
become overwhelming in a sea of available configurations and contingencies, and may
require careful analysis, understanding, insight and knowledge to lead to effective choices.

j j
PAGE 218 ON THE HORIZON VOL. 18 NO. 3 2010
This can be time-consuming and error-prone for uninitiated information consumers. In turn,
the emerging trend of micro-fragmented information consumption can distort critical
contextual parameters and also lead to sub-optimal actions and decisions.
Technology will continue to play an important role in balancing information delivery efficiency
with knowledge and innovation-enabling information effectiveness to meet the growing
demands for actionable and reliable intelligence.
Tension 2: knowledge is global, mobile and difficult to contain behind the firewall. In the
anytime, anywhere world knowledge can no longer be sequestered behind the corporate
firewall. Knowledge workers will increasingly bridge information and knowledge gaps
through personal networks and non-traditional collaborations to get things done. Bound to
an office, desk or increasingly free-roaming, as our research showed, the future knowledge
worker will create alliances, allegiances, loyalties, connections and relationships that reach
far beyond their current employment setting in an effort to ensure and secure their own future
relevance.
The adaptability and responsiveness of the enterprise will be proportional to the adaptability,
flexibility and sense-making ability of the people that support it. Technology will continue to
play a key role in calibrating the organizational need for idea protection and innovation
guards with the need to rapidly engage the best and brightest from around the globe to
develop the next big thing, solve critical problems and create shareholder value
(McLaughlin, 2010).
Tension 3: increasing knowledge-intensity is not reflected in today’s educational outcomes.
Smarter products, solutions and services require a smarter workforce. The weight of its
export containers reflects a nation’s effective leverage of ideas, knowledge and information
technology, where lighter generally means brighter.
Sustainable competitive advantage in a fast-paced, inter-connected, global economy
continues to drive the knowledge-intensity of business processes and interactions and will
require a steady, engagement-ready, knowledgeable workforce. The war for talent has
already been declared and is exacerbated by predicted generational shifts caused by baby
boomers (Malone, 2004; Holtshouse 2009a, b).
This demand for career-ready knowledge workers coincides with a US high-school drop-out
crisis that threatens the USA’s economic competitiveness and growth and has reinforced the
need for broader educational engagements and commitments to future proof economic
outlooks.
A special report by the National Science Foundation highlights the role technologies such as
cognitive tutors and interactive textbooks can play in reengaging US students around
science and math to improve their international performance ranking. Technologies such as
these will continue to migrate from the class room into the work setting to enable continuous
just-in-time learning for future knowledge workers irrespective of their work environment, job
status or academic history.

Conclusion
The industrial economy was focused on motion and movement of people to drive efficiency
and economic wellbeing of nations. The knowledge economy of the future will be focused on
the productivity of the mind or rather the motion and movement of brain cells to turn
experiences and information into knowledge; knowledge and experiences into ideas; and
ideas and experiences into products, solutions and services that make a sizable contribution
in real economic terms and create sustainable competitive advantage.
This evolution toward a knowledge economy constitutes a significant paradigm shift in many
respects. Future knowledge workers will need tools to help them integrate and access
information across devices, formats, and locations, to facilitate their increasingly mobile and
remote work styles. Technology will need to become smarter and more tailored to specific
users to help knowledge workers filter and integrate disparate information bits into usable

j j
VOL. 18 NO. 3 2010 ON THE HORIZON PAGE 219
 knowledge. As technology becomes more aware of, and adapted to specific users, they will
need visibility and control of the documented personal information that becomes a
by-product of evolving context-aware systems.
Not only will individual knowledge workers need to harness the proliferation of digital
personal information, but also corporations of the future will need new ways to harness the
ideas and innovation generated the by global, mobile knowledge workforce. Given the
increasing complexity involved in generating new, innovative ideas, the shift toward a
knowledge economy will also require different initiation processes from the ground up. Basic
education can no longer focus on rote replication of facts, but must lay the foundation for the
critical exploration of multiple intelligences as well as ideas, understanding, knowledge and
the lifelong desire to continue this process iteratively to drive personal, organizational and
institutional renewal.
Technology can be a distraction, a facilitator and a key enabler. We have traditionally
evaluated this technology contribution in terms of the vector of impact a new technology has
on our business processes and economic endeavors. In the future we may well have to
assess a new technology’s IQ in terms of its contributive power to enhance the productivity
of the mind.

References
Alsop, R. (2008), The Trophy Kids Grow Up: How the Millennial Generation Is Shaking up the Workplace,
Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco, CA.
Anderson, M. (2009), ‘‘Top ten predictions for 2009’’, Strategic News Services Podcast, available at:
www.tapsns.com/media.php
Bellotti, V., Begole, B., Chi, E.H., Ducheneaut, N., Fang, J., Isaacs, E., King, T., Newman, M.W. and
Partridge, K. (2008), ‘‘Activity-based serendipitous recommendations with the Magitti mobile leisure
guide’’, Proceedings of the 26th Annual SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems,
pp. 1157-66.
Davenport, T. (2005), ‘‘The importance of knowledge workers in a global economy’’, November 2, blog
entry, available at: Babsonknowledge.org
Drucker, P.F. (1959), The Landmarks of Tomorrow, Harper, New York, NY.

Drucker, P.F. (2001), ‘‘The next society’’, The Economist, November 1.

(The) Economist (2010), ‘‘Data, data everywhere’’, February 25.
Grimes, A. and Brush, A.J. (2008), ‘‘Life scheduling to support multiple social roles’’, Proceedings of CHI
2008, ACM, Florence, pp. 821-4.
Holtshouse, D.K. (2009a), ‘‘Knowledge management and the future of the knowledge worker’’,
dissertation, Faculty of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, George Washington University,
Washington, DC, May.
Holtshouse, D. (2009b), ‘‘The future of knowledge workers, parts 1 and 2’’, KMWorld, September,
available at: www.kmworld.com/Articles/News/News-Analysis/The-future-of-knowledge-workers-Part-1-
55779.aspx
Hoomen, R. (2005), ‘‘The future of futurecasting’’, blog posting on Convergence, November 27.
Leake, J. (2008), ‘‘Coming soon: superfast internet’’, The Sunday Times, April 6.
McLaughlin, G. (2010), ‘‘A theoretical model of knowledge-enabling strategies for professionals in
volatile business settings’’, dissertation, Faculty of the School of Engineering and Applied Science,
George Washington University, Washington, DC, May.
Malone, T.W. (2004), The Future of Work, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA.
Quinn, J.B. (1992), Intelligent Enterprise: A Knowledge and Service-based Paradigm for Industry,
The Free Press, New York, NY.
Wall, P. and Brun-Cottan, F. (1995), ‘‘Using video to re-present the user’’, Communications of the ACM,
Vol. 38 No. 5, pp. 61-70.

j j
PAGE 220 ON THE HORIZON VOL. 18 NO. 3 2010
 Watts-Perotti, J., Sprague, M.A., Swenton-Wall, P., McCorkindale, C., Purvis, L. and McLaughlin, G.
(in press), ‘‘Exploring documents and the future of work’’, in Szymanski, P. (Ed.), Making Work Visible:
Ethnographically Grounded Case Studies of Work Practice, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

World at Work (2007), Telework Trendlines for 2006, World at Work, based on data collected by the
Dieringer Research Group, February.

Further reading
Committee on Education and Labor (2009), ‘‘High school dropout crisis threatens US economic growth
and competitiveness, witnesses tell House panel’’, available at: http://edlabor.house.gov/newsroom/
2009/05/high-school-dropout-crisis-thr.shtml (accessed April 15, 2010).

Drucker, P.F. (1999), Management Challenges for the 21st Century, Butterworth-Heinemann, New York,
NY.

Friedman, T.L. (2000), The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization, Straus & Giroux,
New York, NY.

Information Overload Research Group (n.d.), available at: www.iorgforum.org/ (accessed April 16,
2010).

McGrath, D. (2009), ‘‘Smartphone shipments to grow 6-11%, iSuppli says’’, EE Times, available at: www.
eetimes.com/news/semi/showArticle.jhtml?articleID ¼ 215800530

National Science Foundation (n.d.), ‘‘Math wath’s the problem?’’, available at: www.nsf.gov/news/
special_reports/math/index.jsp (accessed April 15, 2010).

Tracy, J. (2010), ‘‘Coming of age with information overload’’, Huffington Post, April 4, available at: www.
huffingtonpost.com/james-tracy/coming-of-age-with-inform_b_524807.html

Corresponding author
Gabriele McLaughlin can be contacted at: gamcla@gwmail.gwu.edu

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.com

Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints

j j
VOL. 18 NO. 3 2010 ON THE HORIZON PAGE 221

View publication stats