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This week Bill Gates noted that we need better modeling tools for software in order to solve some of the persistent and hardest problems facing the planet. I agree, but I would suggest to him that we not only need better tools. We also need better concepts and techniques for modeling. Some research on modeling human-machine systems by my friend Andrew has indicated that modeling techniques still lack meaningful representation in complex systems [1].

I have reviewed a number of papers this year analyzing Gantt charts and their capacity to improve project management. In each case, Gantt charts tend to get used as eye candy with no impact on improving project outcomes. The idea is to have a representation a group can use to jointly visualize complex data and understand it [2], but these current representations are still inadequate. So, simply making software that add digitizations of current concepts will not be enough. We need new concepts.

In 2009 at the inaugural DrupalCamp Atlanta that I helped organize, I presented this paper based on some research on the social media software space and how Drupal fits. Since as a business professor I have access to Gartner and Forrester as well as a variety of other marketing research resources, I used those.  I also surveyed former clients and students now using social media. Since I have been installing and using such softwares for 15 years, I have a history of working with SharePoint, Documentum, LotusNotes, WordPress, Joomla, MicroStrategy, Drupal, Moodle, E107, and several others.

For years, I have been teaching about the infusion of computing into sensory areas beyond sight and sound.  Today, we expect vibration mode on cell phones, and the iPhone has introduced the idea of gyroscopes and access to a rich array of sensors.  BUT, these are the tip of the iceberg.  They are the beginning of the public becoming comfortable with the idea that computing is going to interact with us through all of our senses.  One of the most interesting developments in this area is in the field of 3D printing.