As we have detailed in a previous blog posting (Education, education, education …), Virtual Viewing is firmly committed to playing a role in the education of tomorrow’s workforce, recognising the importance not just of producing a future workforce with the skills and attitudes to best serve business and the economy, but of ensuring that students receive the best and most relevant education that they can so. It was in this capacity that Stewart Bailey, Virtual Viewing’s MD (view an online profile and video interview), recently addressed an audience of BSc Business Enterprise students at the University of Buckingham.

Three obvious questionsHis talk delivered a core message for anyone with ambitions to their own business – be prepared, you’re in for the long haul – and the mixture of levity and seriousness with which the message was delivered was captured in the title: “Boy, they never told me it’d be this hard!”

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From the outset, the world wide web was designed to be a medium for collaboration and interaction: indeed, one of the main triggers for its initial development was to allow scientists to share their information and research with each other online.  This line of thinking has been traced back to a historically significant essay, As We May Think, written in 1945 by Dr Vannevar Bush, the US Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (a copy of this essay is still available online). Having directed the American scientific community to support the wartime effort, he was concerned with the peacetime application of technology to more constructive means: his ideas included a (hypothetical) model for a ‘collective memory machine’. The video clip below shows an animation – itself made in 1995 – that shows how his machine, the ‘memex’, might have looked and worked: it’s hardly as coolly iconic as an iPad, but modern technology has still barely scratched the surface of some of the ideas his essay contained.

We usually accept that widespread take-up and adoption of different technologies can be unpredictable (we’re still using fax machines, for example, but the idea of micro-payments has been explored for at least 20 years with little sign of mass take-up), but the speed – or lack of it – with which we adopt them can still be surprising. Sci-fi writer William Gibson once memorably observed that “The future is already here – it is just unevenly distributed”, and a look at the invention dates of many everyday items does prove his point (sms messages, 1992; digital camera, 1975; GPS, 1978; credit card, 1950; mobile phone, 1947; microwave oven, 1946; robots, 1921; radio, 1895; battery, 1800).

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As a company that has always been committed not just to supporting the local community but to investing in the education and development of the next generation, we were delighted to be recognised in the 2010 Milton Keynes Investors in Education Awards, awarded by Countec EBP, the city’s Education Business Partnership.

At the recent presentation ceremony, Stewart Bailey was awarded “Winner of the Work Experience Assembly Presenter of the Year 2010″. This is the second successive year that our work with the local business education community has been recognised: in 2009, Stewart received a “Business Ambassador: Highly Commended Commitment Award”.

As a company that’s always been proud to play an active part in the community life of Milton Keynes – a city that has, in its turn, played a key role in our development – we have been sponsoring Marshall MK Lions, the city’s basketball league team, since 2003.

Like us, the Lions play an active part in the life of the city, sharing our concern for education and the development of future generations through their MK Juniors team and programme. The club has also established a network of Lions clubs that cater for adults and young children who want to play basketball beyond school level. This outreach programme includes both local leagues and tournaments, to give young players experience of competitive playing alongside developing their sports skills.

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