A friend commented to me the other day, "Aiden, you've been quiet on your blog recently".

Indeed. 'Tis because I often get hit by a bout of laziness when the technical stuff on my site does not work to my whims. Case in point: my site gets upgraded to a new version (and theme) thus rendering my content editor as functional as a molten wax crayon in a 1-year old's hand. What's the problem? Well, I know absolutely bugger-all about the platform my site finds itself on (I can barely understand my fellow homosapiens let alone this Drupal crap). And so, after much gnashing of teeth I called on the powers of Google and mustered a solution – hence this post. I am now back!

This has me wondering about Gardner's argument around the Five Minds for the Future (I promised to post another entry about the book anyway). He argues that the five most valuable minds needed by individuals going into the future are the Disciplined, Synthesising, Creating, Respectful and Ethical Minds. After tonight's digital gymnastics, I can't help but wonder if the Industrious Mind (my addition) should not have been up there in the Top Five?

As we begin to rely on more and more technology to live our lives and to do our jobs, how much of the knowledge needed to operate and improve these technologies lies in the hands of the technocrats? Is there not a base level of techie-know-how needed to survive and navigate these techie-laden waters? Or is it just plain industriousness that is needed to retain the locus of control? You see, all the information needed to customise and fix our technological platforms is out there – it has already been democratised. We just need a level of industriousness to move us out of our lazy, techie-dependant states towards action and solution.