PrecisionAg WORKS Video: Sid Siefken on Automatic Steering

Trimble’s Sid Siefken shares some thoughts on developments in automatic steering, and the benefits this technology is delivering.

Remarkable Technology Progress

We just completed our annual gathering of editors and artists here at our parent company, Meister Media Worldwide. We talked about a lot of developments in our business, but one trend that's affecting our businesses, as well as virtually every other market out there, is technology use.

Jim Sulecki, our e-media director, presented some pretty eye-opening statistics about the use technology by the public at large. For instance, adoption of HIGH SPEED internet in the U.S. has surpassed 50% We're really at the level of critical mass for companies to build more general kinds of Web-based businesses for the masses.

He also presented an interesting picture of Generation Y, the next group of American youth moving through high school and college and heading into the work force. These young men and women use the web more than watch television and don't read newspapers. In fact, they consider print to be a waste of resources -- they view it not just neutrally, but with hostility! You can imagine the impact this might have in the media world (in fact, it already has, as newspaper subscriptions in the U.S. have dropped every year since 1990) and the kinds of things we're focusing on in the future.

That progress of technology with the next generation underscores the need for all of us to understand and embrace technology in our industry. Graduates will naturally be attacted to organizations that use the technology they have mastered, and will be eager to help their place of employment make best use of it.

On the farm, kids coming home from college have been returning with "crazy ideas" about running the farm since the dawn of college agriculture programs. With the wider adoption of technology upon us, "crazy" may rapidly become "mainstream."

Good luck in your technology use endeavors, and have a nice weekend.

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