I saw this BBC story a few days ago and was immediately caught by the opening line:

More than 20 years ago a generation of schoolchildren sat down to complete a questionnaire they were told would predict their future.

There's a trick I thought. Human beings are really good at analysing the past and we occasionally try and learn from it, but prediction still tends to trip us up a lot.

Luckily for those kids 20 years ago technology was on hand to give them a shot at the correct career path:

The computer would then churn away and do all the matching operations between the pupil's answers and its database of potential jobs before producing its results on green and white lined dot-matrix computer paper.

This was back in the days when a computer could fill an entire building rather than your pocket and while it's easy to poke fun at some of the resulting matches (wig makers or lighthouse keepers*) I see a direct correlation between this pioneer of Deep Thought and what the Creative Choices initiative is set up to do. The major difference is that rather than rely on cutting edge (but largely untested) technology to advise us we're using technology to tap into the wealth of experience that can only come from other human beings.

New technology is now allowing very disparate people, both in terms of geography and outlook to find common ground and work together in new and exciting ways. I was asked to participate here as part of a new group of bloggers who have a) been doing this kind of thing for a while now and b) are all exponents of social media. We use platforms such as Twitter and Seesmic (more about those later) to keep in touch, meet new people and break down conventional barriers.

We're still learning which is great because I believe you can never stop. That in itself is part of the creative process. As for the choices that branch out in front of all of us... well they're too many to even attempt to categorise and push through a machine, but we can explore some of them.

Should be fun :)

*For the record I bet wig making and lighthouse keeping is awesome.

Photo credit: stumbling upon a pun by fotogail (CC license)