In this paper, we employ a modified Henri's model that makes use of the rate of expert participation, patterns of interaction well as the depth of processing. The analysis of the comments on "the future of IT profession will narrow down to three types of jobs" (Consultants, Project Managers and Developers) was started from the very first comment that appeared on July 22, 2011 to the one that appeared on 13th September, 2011.A total of 298 comments were analyzed.
Results and discussion
Rate of expert participation
Most experts were indicated to participate in the discussion a maximum of 3 times. This is not inclusive of the moderator. The experts who participated more than once were the once who were clarifying their claims of either an earlier on stated agreement or disagreement with the blog topic. This indicated that the rate of participation on an online interaction depends on the rate of interaction/engagement.
Pattern of electronic participation
The variable of electronic participation presented very interesting results. The first one is that the general IT expert bloggers dominated the discussion and the moderator, who also happens to be the creator of the blog entry, just came in once in a while to clarify a few points. This therefore indicated that the Techrepublic.com blog entries are community-centered. The creator can be seen as purposefully seeking to find out the opinion of the other experts in IT on what the future of the IT profession is. He does not refute their disagreement with his point-of-view. The expert community is therefore in the end responsible for its own learning as well as response to the argument. The role of both the starter as well as wrapper in this case is to foster the expert-community responsibility for the discussion. In effectively forcing the IT experts (managers) in assuming roles of change drivers, they would therefore effectively embrace the necessary changes that might take place in the IT arena.
Depth of processing
The dept of processing in the discussion was rather deep as a consequence of the level...
All sectors of industry should therefore employ experts as well as expert systems in the prediction of future trends in order to ensure that all operations continue smoothly in the future of all industries.
Works cited
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Hinner, John. The future of IT will be reduced to three kinds of jobs 22 July. 2011. Web 11 Sept. 2011
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