Are we up to date?

Doing the rounds of CeBIT today in Sydney's Darling Harbour - for a booming economy it still feels somewhat quiet.  Disheartened by the politicians this morning and their prattle - it is still clear to me that many (and they are of my era), simply don't fully comprehend the magnitude of change possible through technology and access - for another time in another blog!

From an aging worker's perspective I note that older technologies (telephony, data infrastructure, hardware) had a smattering of all ages manning the stands, however the key observation was around the newer web based offerings and applications that I noticed a distinct lack of grey hair - why?

I can say that having to learn new tricks now that I'm almost 52 is not easy.  I'm not sure if its an age thing or complexity issue related to the times we live in.  I can remember my reading list being far smaller when I first started in this game, yet now, I find myself reading prodigiously every day, and still feeling like I know nothing about new technologies, emerging trends, new companies etc.

I have to admit I don't always get why social media is SO big, but I certainly do understand numbers, and when you total up the market cap of social media companies today, its seriously big money, and there are plenty of people out there investing - and that's why I keep reading, learning, and trying to understand the opportunities around these trends.

So how are you keeping up?  Personally, I subscribe to a number of daily newsletters, some paid, most are free to keep me informed of my market interests, I read my daily newspapers as well as NY Post, and a number of start up related newsletters (which is my interest).  There is a plethora of paid educational courses out there, disturbingly, I understand from a very good friend at the Australian Graduate School of Management that Australian senior managers are amoung the lowest trained executives in the world, and many fail to keep their education up to date with refreshers etc.  I am meeting with this person early next month, and I look forward to posting about that discussion.

What's good? what's not so good when it comes to "keeping up", and are things that much different from when we first started our business careers, or is it because our brains are now addled owing to age :-)!!

Best
Dom