Matt Mullenweg: Lets not get overwhelmed

Matt Mullenweg, who at 19 years old founded WordPress, gave an inspiring presentation on our need to find better ways to absorb the informati0n thrown at us on our travels through the world wide web.

Firmly believing social media, as we know it, is dead – Mullenweg uses a wonderful analogy to illustrate his point. He shares a story of Solomon Shereshevskii, a Russian journalist who became famous for not taking notes during a speech yet afterwards could recall the speech word for word. As wonderful as that may seem, Shereshevskii suffered profusely from various issues.  His condition often produced unnecessary and distracting images or feelings. He had trouble memorizing things which weren’t literal in meaning, and had trouble remembering faces, which he saw as “very changeable”.

Mullenweg relates this to blogs, social media and information on the web in its current state.  Better ways of digesting information are needed, different ways of taking in information and absorbing everything currently thrown at us.

As an open source advocate, Mullenweg shares his hope for a future where open source won’t just be application specific but data too. He ends with a passionate plea for everyone to try and spend at least a few hours of their working week involved in open source projects. Whilst we may not immediately recoup the benefits, generations ahead of us may.