Don Tapscott draws a crowd in return to Orillia

Orillia Packet & Times -

Don Tapscott might have been able to predict several trends in new media that have come to fruition over the past two decades, particularly with the digital economy, but he might not have been able to predict the warm welcome he received from his home town Tuesday night.

Tapscott, a graduate of Park Street Collegiate Institute, spoke in front of a capacity crowd at the Orillia Opera House as he commemorates the 20th anniversary of his groundbreaking book, The Digital Economy.

His lecture lasted about an hour and was followed by a question-and-answer session in the Gordon Lightfoot Auditorium, before moving downstairs to the Green Room for a book signing. He spoke to his mostly baby-boomer audience about four significant drivers for change during their lifetime — more specifically, during the past two decades.

His talk focused on the four main areas he believes have made the change possible, including advances in technology, the baby boom’s “echo” (and their children) and social and economic revolutions. He lauded those advances while noting the dark sides they possess, such as the proliferation of terrorist groups online and spiralling youth unemployment.

He espoused not only the importance of those changes, but also the need to embrace them, both to those who were at the lecture Tuesday and to members of Orillia city council and city staff in a session Tuesday afternoon.

“He spoke about the new digital economy, open government, changing the way we think,” Mayor Steve Clarke said following the lecture. “He truly has a phenomenal wealth of knowledge and seems to have the ability to predict the direction we’re going in.”

One of Tapscott’s examples during the talk was how, in a digital economy, corporations might be less important than they have been in a century. Quite simply, he said, the cost for peers to collaborate with each other is no longer prohibitive.

That idea stuck with Clarke, as well, from the afternoon session. If a similar model could be used in the public sector, the savings could be passed on to the ratepayers.

“(Tapscott) gave the example of a carbon-emission app that someone created. Citizens in wherever this jurisdiction was used this app to get data on a regular basis throughout the day,” the mayor recalled. “All of a sudden, that particular jurisdiction or government had that data. They didn’t have to go out and mine for it or pay for it. So, there may be opportunities where we can engage citizens to get their feedback or get them to collect data for us.”

Bringing Tapscott to Orillia for the evening was the idea of councillors Tim Lauer and Jeff Clark.

“The stated initiative by both of them was that we wanted to make this a healthier community; we want to mitigate some of the social issues,” Clarke said. “Some of the information Don gave us will hopefully do two things: give us some tools that we can think of using and give us some drive to go on and get some of this done.”

One of the social issues facing the city is a need for shelter space. Tapscott’s lecture was a fundraiser for Lighthouse Christian Ministries’ Building Hope campaign, which aims to create a new shelter. Glenn Wagner, of Lighthouse, gave a brief presentation before Tapscott spoke, outlining what the campaign hopes to accomplish.

Wagner’s message was one of community building and creating hope among its residents.

More than $3,500 in donations were collected before and after the show.