I sat on the edge of my seat during a keynote address by Clay Shirky, NYU professor and author of Here Comes Everybody and Cognitive Surplus, at DrupalCon Chicago last week.

His talk centered largely on a theme from a quote by Mark Smith, Research Sociologist at Microsoft, who said that the history of civilization could be summed up in seven words: "More people pooling resources in new ways."

Shirky indicated that this trajectory continues. The future - especially online - will be one of people collaborating, aggregating information, and presenting it in innovative and useful ways.

Referencing the inventor of the first steamboat, Shirky illustrated how we sometimes approach web-based communication efforts and web interface/experience design.

John Fitch harnessed the new technology of steam to propel the now familiar paddle wheel late in the 18th Century. But Fitch's initial attempt at design followed what he knew of boating technology of the time. His first model (shown below) was propelled by steam-driven oars. With web and social media, we have a new technology that allows us to collaborate, aggregate and present in new ways. But we view the technology only from the perspective of previous (and bureaucracy-laden) communication approaches. Shirky said that proprietary content management systems developed in the 90s and still in use today look a lot like a steam engine with oars.

Shirky suggested that you can't just add to the old systems and upgrade, and that there are three new Cs that should be considered in the evolution of new CMS technologies:

• Community management system
• Convening management system
• Culture management system

Clay Shirky speaks at DrupalCon, a conference for open source web developers

John Fitch's early steamboat design used oars for propulsion (Library of Congress)