The Information Society and HumanityThe Worldwide University & College Student Essay Contest Erkki Salo IH0476 - erkkisalo@laudatum.com - Finland 1997
Abstract INFORMATION society is information intensive society, where information becomes the most important commodity and essence of wealth-creation. This study overviews the technology based changes in the structure of society than we are facing. Special attention is given to economy, since the basis of economy lies in societal means and functions of a particular society. Parts of the study are written in the present tense to point out the ongoing tendencies that are thought to continue. This work is divided into three major chapters. The division is somewhat arbitrary and certainly overlapping, but gives some rhytm to the work. FIRST CHAPTER is dealing with individual level changes. Families and lifestyles are in the midst of change. Households get smaller and singles abound. Relationships are becoming temporary. At the same time, women are becoming more and more independent and better educated. Naisbitt sees the coming decade as a decade of women stepping into leadership. Human knowledge doubles in every few years. The information overload has already created a disease called Information Fatigue Syndrome. To maintain sanity, people need to select few bits of information and form opinions on these and not be too thorough. Work is transforming into less location-dependent, thanks to telecommunication technology. A major trend prevails towards Freelancer Society, where half of people would be self-employed. On the other hand leisure becomes less of a luxury and thus the entertainment sector is growing. SECOND CHAPTER looks at the organizational level changes. Multinational corporations are undermining the power of national states and could become 'corporate states', as the world grows borderless. Private enterprise can flourish as well if niches are searched and utilized. Organizations are in transition to participate in networks and to reformulate themselves to be better suited for innovation. Networks themselves are direct result of the rapidity of change. The society itself is fragmenting into thousands of small subcultures that can relate to each other even somewhat adversely. THE FINAL CHAPTER concentrates on the society-wide level changes. Continental powershift is changing Pacific Rim to be the economic center of the world. This area is well equipped for the challanges of the Information Society. Developing nations on the other hand seem to have little light on their horizon. Telecommunication is creating a global village where information of many types can reach it's despination in notime. This doesn't do away travelling or migration. Religious revival is seen as a major trend partly caused by the societal change, but even there we are going to see more variance as cultural spectrum itself gets a few more tints. In information society change is everywhere. Technological change is the primus motor of other changes. Information technology affects ecology in a positive way, creating more efficiency and less traffic. Digital networks can offer some advances for the political life as well. IT can help designing and participatory political systems. Social policy faces many hard questions for pondering, since the information society if bound to be quite an elitistic or meritocratic one as well. Education could partly take place from the shelter of home due to advances in communication technology. Perhaps the most affected sector of society is the media and many media formats are converging. The media becomes interactive, while at the same time choice multiplies. Two other business sector greatly touched by the advent of information society are banking and wholesale distribution. In production the trend is toward greater masses, mass-customization and pricing low. The electronic commerce poses many threats to the consumers, since so much data is out there concerning us.This study ends with a description of information intensive products and virtual architecture.
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Virtual infrastructure: Putting information infrastructure on the technology curve, 1996, Computer Networks and ISDN Systems 28 pp.1769-1790 Strangelove, Michael How to Advertise on the Internet, p 208, Strangelove Internet Enterprises, Ontario, Canada, ISSN 1201-0758, October 1994 Hoffman, Donna L. Marketing in Hypermedia Computer-Mediated Environments: Conceptual Foundations Novak, Thomas P. July 11, 1995, [http://www2000.ogsm.vanderbilt.edu/] Toffler, Alvin Powershift - Knowledge, Wealth, and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century, Bantam Books, New York, 1990 Kendree, Jack M. II Honest, Truthful Agents Sought - Studies Delve into World Real Estate - A reprint from Tierra Grande, the Real Estate Center Journal - Global Research, Summer 1994, Publication 1033 Heinonen, Arto Pankit uuden edessä, KTM Yrityspalvelu 2/1996, Helsinki, Finnish Trade and Industrial Ministry, p.24-25 Toffler, Alvin&Heidi War and Anti-war - survival at the dawn if the 21st century, 1993, Boston, Little, Brown and Company, p 89 Verity, John W. Coaxing Meaning out of Raw Data - Sotware can now find patterns never seen before, 1997 Feb 3, pp.55-57 Business Week - International Edition, McGraw-Hill ISSN 0007-7135, New York Chandler, Susan Data is power. Just ask Fingerhut It's able to offer credit cards to a lower-income market,1996 Jun 3 pp.68 Business Week - International Edition, McGraw-Hill ISSN 0007-7135, New York Gross, N. ; Coy, P. ; Port, Otis The technology paradox - How companies can thrive as prices dive, 1995 Mar 6, pp.36-44 Business Week - International Edition, McGraw-Hill ISSN 0007-7135, New York Aley, James Give it away and get rich! - Plus other secrets of the software economy, 1996 Jun 10, Fortune Toffler, Alvin Powershift. New York, Bantam Books, p.20, 1990 Drambo, Leif Infotopia - Visioner och vägval I informationssamhället, Statskontoret, Stockholm,1986 Dent, Harry, Jr Jobshock: Four new principles transforming our work and business. New York:,St.Martin's Press 1995 Gross, Neil ; Coy, Peter ; Port, O. The technology paradox - How companies can thrive as prices dive, 1995 Mar 6, pp.36-44 Business Week - International Edition, McGraw-Hill ISSN 0007-7135, New York Dent, Harry, Jr Jobshock: Four new principles transforming our work and business. New York:,St.Martin's Press 1995 Graham, Taylor (ed.) Information Technology and Information Use - towards a unified view of information and information technology, Taylor Graham, London, 1986, p.24 McGee, James V ; Prusak, L. Managing Information Strategically. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1993 Meyer, Marc H. ; Zack, M.. The Design and Development of Information Products, 1996 Spring, Sloan Management Review, p. 43-59 McGee, James V ; Prusak, L. Managing Information Strategically. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1993 Dhebar, Anirudh Information Technology and Product Policy: 'Smart' Products, 1996, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 34, No 5, pp.477-485, MCB University Press Sager, I; Hof, Robert;Judge, P The race is on to simplify . Pulling the unwired masses into the Information Age means gadgets must be as esay to use as the telephone, 1996 Jun 24, pp.42-45, Business Week - International Edition, McGraw-Hill, New York Mitchell, William J. City of Bits : Space, Place, and the Infobahn, MIT Press 1995 Borsuk, Mark Real estate tax policy for the information age, 1995 Winter, Real Estate Review
Society can be defined either from a collectivistic point of view or from individualistic standing. Marx said, "Society does not consist of individuals but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand." [1] German philosopher Friedrich Schlegel[2] and Margaret Thatcher[3] are among the individualists, who define society merely as a collection of individuals or family units. No matter what type of view of the society one professes - the concept of society helps to understand people, their relationships, actions and abiding rules between them. Information Society Information society is information intensive society. Thompson & Kaul[4] has proposed a model for product information-intensity. All products have a varying level of information-intensity. Some fall short of meaningful intensity and some are mainly information. All societies likewise have some level of information-intensity build into themselves. In Agrarian society (tofflerian First Wave) information has been the commodity of education, governmental control and record-keeping. Industrial society enhanced scientific, business and industrial use of information. But in information society information becomes the most important commodity and therefore the ability to transform data into instrument of money-making is the essence of wealth-creation. Basis For This Study Salvaggio point out that information society studies have focused generally on communication technology research, impacts on organizations and potential social changes resulting from communication technology.[5] The societal effects of communication technology stem first from the individual exposure to the media or lack of exposure. Second, from the heterogenous reception of the media; third, the interactive quality of new information technology versus passive quality of older mass-communication media. Fourth, new media research emphasizes communication system analysis as opposed to content analysis, the focus of mass media research. [6] One of the first major findings of sociology was the law of supply and demand. This is the basic rule of another science - namely economics. The form of society is derived from it's technological means and then societal means are the basis of it's economy. Therefore economic viewpoint is the red line in this work. these preceding views are combined with other illustrative patterns of any society to form a view of how information technology affect society on three basic different levels: the individual, the organizational and the society-wide level. Let us now look at Information Society and Humanity. 1. THE INDIVIDUAL LEVEL Family Alternative family forms and differentiated lifestyles have been a tendency a long time. In the Scandinavian countries over 90 % of young people live in premarital relationships. Mixed sexual identities are causing new family types to flourish. Toffler even predicted in his Future Shock[7] "rental" wives and families or other exotica like that for travelling executives. From statistical viewpoint it is easy to indicate the fall of marriage as a lasting arrangement. Over 50% of marriages already are short lived. Thus Toffler proposes a marriage career instead of The Only One-thinking. Hopefully this is solely a cynical remark. Anyhow marriage has the stigma of disposability, whether it is an outcome of the hectic city spirited reluctancy to wait, or other hedonistic and individualistic causes. People have gotten accustomed to disposability and speed as well as need of change in material matters and relationships. "Try it before you die!"
This has lead and is increasingly leading to abundance of single households. For instance in the city of Helsinki, Finland these account to 43% of all households. People need smaller units of everything from vacuum cleaners to smaller housing units. Appliances for singles abound. Dating lines and other meeting services are at the midst of their renaissance and loneliness has become a plague. The other major demographical tendency in postindustrial societies is aging. People grow older than before thanks to advances in medical care, nutrition and health education.
Women's Roles Less families can afford one bread-winner situation. Increasing number of single parent families and singles continue to push more women on the job market. The term 'Glass ceiling' applying impossibility of a woman to reach top executive positions still applies - like there was an invisible ceiling to prevent raise. Only 2% of top executives are women, in public sector somewhat more. Scandinavian countries have enhanced women's ability to get to the top, by setting up public political positions quotas for women. Naisbitt sees women leadership as a major trend and many companies are hiring women for middle and top managerial positions. Information society does have a lot to do with technology - man's world. Women have to turn this into advantage and learn to combine technology and womanly comprehensive thinking and communication skills. In many Scandinavian countries women are already better aducated than men. Information Increases, Understanding Decreases The information overflow does affect people since human ability to comprehend and process information is very limited. Business-leaders and politicians are among the most information overloaded. The U.K firm Benchmark Research conducted a research on information overload concerning managers. 43 % of managers were found to suffer from the illness called Information Fatigue Syndrome.[8] Majority of information we receive needs to be rejected and overlooked to avoid overload. People tend to reject information opposing their own belief systems and thus the information overflow polarizes thinking. The more information, the less relative capacity to process it. The more valuable information rejected due to limited capacity the less we actually know about things. Work for a great part has become demanding and merely to keep up with events and innovations in laborers own line of work might barely be within the reach of an individual capacity. The outcome is that we may be able to form a view or an opinion, but it is formed more than likely on the basis of limited amount of information parallel to our beliefs. Work Telepresence or telecommuting via teletechnical means is becoming more and more an optional work practice. Alvin Toffler's Electronic Cottage is finally seeing a glimpse of daylight. For instance the State of California has a law requiring companies to find ways to capacitate work done at home[9], therefore reducing needs for commuting. Telecommuting does fit only certain types of work or study, but eventually we are seeing more of it taking place. In 1994, 9.1 million people regularly telecommuted from home.[10] Toffler coined the future consumer as prosumer - a mixture of consumer and producer.[11] From his electronic cottage the prosumer produces his output for the companies he works for. Most of shopping he can also perform from the comfort of home. TV-shopping and digital networks bring many stores directly on his screen. The trend towards home-based businesses continues. William Bridges predicts that by the year 2000, 50% of all U.S homes will have a home-based business.[12] Toffler accentuates family enterprises, but the idea of "You,Inc" is even more exhilarating. Outsourcing can lead to more and more of a Freelancer Society. Leisure and Entertainment The structural change of the society and automation comes with a promise of less work and more leisure. Growing free time means the shift of life sphere from work to hobbies, family, friends and self. Naisbitt sees in his megatrends many consequences of this. Renaissance in the arts is a direct response to increasing leisure. All entertainment-business has grown to its vigor due to increasing free time and partly because consuming business-hours or studies require equally stress-relieving entertainment. Service industries that 'produce experiences' like cruise-liner companies, are seeing glorious days ahead. Less flattering channels to express excess stress are abuse of drugs and other intoxicants.
2. THE ORGANIZATIONAL LEVEL
Corporations Role as Global Citizens Multinational corporations have been growing fast. This has taken place in several different ways: mergers, strategic alliances, horizontal or vertical integration and natural growth. One reason for standardization of business legislation all over the world is globalizing economy where (MNC)multinational corporation and even smaller companies are extending their reach to foreign countries. At the same time nation states are waning in their influence. Many corporations already have annual sales greater than the whole gross national income of a small country. Added to this is the ability of telecommunication to make much of work and study location-independent. The outcome might very well be that MNCs take some space, influence, power and functions of nation states. Individuals in different countries working under the same MNC - whether the Hyundai Corporation or The World Red Cross - could identify themselves more to be a member of this corporation than that of a certain country. The person might have to move to a different country under the same 'Corporate State' or work for a branch of company from one country to another via telecommunication. Greider[13] paints a dreadful picture of world ruled by self-interested multinational corporations and soulless investors, all vying to earn high returns by extending to more and more countries. This outcome, where capitalism converts into corporativism, is the result of free trade and borderless finance according to his reasoning. Whatever the scenario, it is clear that national borders become less meaningful and may eventually be little more than a memory. Private Enterprise Naisbitt points out that, "50 % of the U.S exports are created by companies with 19 or fewer employees; the same is true of Germany." [14] His book talks about the relative advantage the information society brings to small innovative units. Bigger ceases to be better in many lines of work. The ability to transform information into products of varying kinds, is the key to competitiveness in the future. Stine[15] introduced as early as 1962 the trader-consumer hypothesis. There the economic viability of a store is a function of range of demand and treshold value of the good or goods distributed from the market place. Economic viability is constituted when range is equal or greater than threshold. Therefore the larger the market the better off the marketplace or firm is. Many niche products need geographically a very large market to be profitable and here comes the global market to the rescue. Small can be big in niche products. Combining niche and innovation, small can take a dominant role and be reaping all that cream the favorable market-share has to offer.
New Organization For the New Decade Organizations need to comply with the requirements of innovation creation. Rigid organizations can still manage perfectly if the goal is not to be innovation leader on the market. But being leader is what pays.[16] Ad hoc organizations and project organizations become more of a dominant form and something called matanoiac organization according to Drambo.[17] This form of organization emphasizes understanding of complex social systems, human creativity and non-authoritarian vision-orientation. Other trends in administration are the laying off of mid-management caused partly by decentralization and putting power to workers at the floor level. When the organization gets lean it gets mean as well. Information technology allows direct communication between the top level and floor-level. No paper-cyclers are needed. Networks Fukuyama's interesting findings about trust tells that societies where trust is based on the family, family businesses flourish, where trust is on voluntary associations outside the family, corporations are dominant, and where trust is on the state, state companies thrive. Networks are the concrete explication of trust. They are formed on every level of society. Schools from various parts of the world are coming together and sharing information; governmental institutions share information to a greater degree, companies form alliances and get networked. Hong Kong, Singapore, Northern Italy and Denmark are all advanced societies where 80-95% of companies are part of networks. This is a direct consequence of the rapidity of change. It is not reasonable to contain proficiency of many diverse sectors within the company. Consequently to maintain competitiveness companies feel obligated to become networked. This can happen either by establishing a connection, interacting together or formulating a bond.[18] In the Organizational Level the quilt of subcultures are formed by these networks. Subcultures Society is a formation of individuals that are part of small groups and subcultures. These subcultures tend to get ever more manifold in numbers and falling more and more outside mainstream. Even the special vocabulary of groups develop so far from each other that it becomes an obstacle for understanding. Finding common ground between people gets harder.
Subcultures could get averse towards each other. This can be vividly seen on the Internet while browsing thru newsgroups. The computer network between two communicating individuals tends to generate a context where presenting poignant judgments about each others thinking is exaggerated. Many newsgroups overflow with hate mail. Lester C.Thurow warns in his book, 'The Future of Capitalism'[19] about the raise of intolerance and separatism.
3. THE SOCIETY-WIDE LEVEL
War of the Continents A war or a powergame has been waged between continents. The economic epicenter is shifting to the vast Pacific Rim area. The rise of China, Tigers and baby Tigers alongside with the prevailing prosperity of Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore are only few tidal waves of this powershift in leadership of manufacturing. On the other side of the ocean, the U.S West Coast still manages to hold its spurs as a center technological innovation. The information society calls for operational infrastructure of learning, education, innovation and research. The Pacific Rim countries are well-off for the next century concerning these requirements. Europe still has to subsist with enormous unemployment rates and social problems arising therefrom. Still it can arguably be said that globalism is undermining the importance of geographical location as the borders and walls come tumbling down. Naisbitt foresaw in Magatrends[20] that a change from national economy to a multinational regional and global economy was taking place. The Third-World The third-world issues won't see a rapid going away. In information society countries can be classified into information poor and information rich. Third-world countries don't generally have much solid scientific effort. Also education system, litarecy levels and lack of information infrastructure put them into another caste. Thereby it seems unlikely for them to find a fast way neither into the bliss of information society nor wealth thereupon. The only better prospect for developing nations is the fact that information processing is not among the most capital intensive. Still it is an enormous task to build up the basis for information society and that is certainly a far-reaching endeavor. Global Village The gradually diminishing borders of nation-states and the advent of telecommuting technologies make it easier for people to relocate in different parts of the world where climate is more favorable, living cheaper, better work available and where taxation, legislation or infrastructure are not a major hindrance to growth. The trend to relocate is certainly noteworthy among the elderly, among people who are considerably more or considerably less capacitated than the people in general in that country. Unemployed people want to find a new start elsewhere. On the other hand brain-drain of specialists weaken the poor economies, such as Russia, where people with top capabilities are not rewarded according to their abilities. Tax havens enjoy increase in popularity all the time. The new technology makes possible a truly international division of labor. Each part of the merchandise is produced where it is cheapest - within acceptable quality limits. In response to changing political or economic conditions, companies can relocate with relative ease to a more stable or a cheaper location.[21] These aspects are the headache of many disadvantaged countries. Migration of peoples is going to continue. This creates in every aspect a more heterogenous cultural texture everywhere adding to the already dispersing cultural tendencies. Religion Naisbitt sees the religious revival[22] as an self-evident phenomenon because of the magical influence of the New Millenium. Partly it is an answer to the irrationality, foundationlessness and fast paced life we live in and partly the search is genuinely interested towards questions we all have to face, questions that science and materialistic rationalism has not been able to answer. People search for foundations deeper than errant and changing human knowledge. Many theologians believe that cross-cultural syncretistic religion is claiming territory from the presently dominant religions. According to this view, buddhism, taoism, hinduism, christianity, islam and other religions would be converging into a smelting pot of open-minded religious beliefs, whether this phenomena is called New Age or not. Cultural Rendez-Vous Moslim countries are among the most alarmed about the Internet and the freedom of speech found there.[23] Many of these countries have already taken measures to censor the content. Eventually it more than like turns out to be an unachievable effort, since the expansion of information channels not just the Internet is taking place rapidly and with vitality. In all new media, the dominance of english as a language of global communication is enhanced. As with religious syncretism, other trends and cultural hits and hypes also reach far sides of the globe fast. Inside a particular country or within subcultures the trend is bringing people further apart, at the same time as whole global cultures get intermixed and are forming cross-cultural thinking with lended concepts. Technological Change Information Society is made possible by technology. To some extent technology and infrastructure determines the swiftness of movement towards Information Society. AI (Artificial Intelligence) and knowledge-base systems were the buzzword of techno gurus in the beginning of 1980s. The race to produce a 5th generation computer was supposed to be race to control the future. Since then the hubbub has disappeared and even the Japanese MITI called off the whole program to create a real thinking machine. Undoubtedly some advances have been made in this area, but it's relevance is not appreciated that high anymore. Older means of computing seem to do the job quite well. Information society requires major, though not astronomical investments on information technology to the core of infrastructure. And it all pays off. A recent study conducted by MIT found that corporate investment on information technology brought about improvement in product quality, product variety and customer service. The return-on-investment on information technology is likely to exceed 50%.[24]
Instead the high-end computing trend, now focus is on new inventions utilizing micro-level, the extreme minute scale to produce anything from micro drills to 'living' biocomputers.
Ecological Change One direct implication of information society is ecological. Telecommuting diminishes traffic and working at home requires less office space to be heated and cared for. The ecology has been the Trend for some decades now in the Western Countries. The mataphor Spaceship Earth is gaining response in the public. Kirkpatrick says even more imposingly that ecology consciousness is the most significant phenomenon in the economy in the 1990's.[25] Now the ecological consequences of services are under closer scrutiny. As our understanding of the rules of nature increases the more biotechnology is seen as the answer to desperation for better crops under the pressure of dramatic population growth. Political Change Digital networks can be used to design participatory political systems, where each individual can have a say in town planning questions and many other political issues easily - online. Whether this kind of direct political system can function is to be seen, more than likely it is utopia despite the fact that Naisbitt & Aburdene and Masuda[26] among others think it is an obvious trend.[27] Representative political system guarantees at least some level of integrity in decision-making, which undoubtedly is not the case with direct democracy. The absurdly low respect politicians face today in western countries comes partly from the fact that people cannot comprehend the complexity of decisions and their multifaceted backgrounds and therefore can't relate to political decisions. More participation for common people is needed to regain some trust to the political system.
The EU has an answer to this. It has adopted the principle of subsidiarity. This rule originated by Pope Pius XII favors the decision-making to take place as close to the subordinates or the people as possible. Toffler uses the concept 'mosaic democracy'[28] to describe the same issue. Taken to the extreme this could lead to fragmentation - even new city states. Anyway according to an Internet study conducted by Rissa & Järvinen Oy in Finland[29], only 31% of people were opposed to teledemocracy, a form of direct democracy where some political decisions are solved by a referendum carried out by teletechnical means. Social Policy and Unemployment The cornerstone of information society is speed of change. Therefore people with less ability to adapt to new situations and weaker capacity to acquire new skills, will be in a disadvantageous position. Recently educated and innovative young people outperform experienced older folk in many cases, and the older may have hard time maintaining or finding a job. At the same time the faster pace of life wears out people sooner. For instance, a person can stand the stress of being a stock broker for 3 years at the maximum. Companies have been outsourcing their workforce for sometime keeping only that part of workforce close to their core competence. Part-time work and odd jobs have proliferated. Jeremy Rifkin states that in the early 1990's around 35% of the workforce was either temporarily employed or underemployed.[30]. He already sees a day when that reaches 50%. These facts describe the quality of stagnant unemployment in Europe, Africa and Latin-America.
Information society is truly a meritocratic state of society - success becomes more exclusively the function of intellectual abilities of an organization or an individual. Therefore the society is splitting into two halves. One half earning and working a lot, the other half earning little but having time galore. Thurow says, "A bipolar income distribution of rich and poor is replacing the wide expanse of the middle class." [31]Very few get richer and richer and many people can't enjoy the benefits of information revolution. This point is vigorously emphasized in the book 'the Winner-take-all Society'.[32] There only the very best are rewarded beyond reasonable limits and the rest stand aside of this elitistic manna. Greider[33] further warns about undoing the welfare state, he sees it the seed of fascism.
To ward of this scenario social policy should include sufficient measures to level out above-mentioned problems. Still national governments are facing huge national debts everywhere and the social sector seems among the first to be attacked. Still in many countries there are on-going efforts to stimulate people to act on their own and to build systems that with small financial impetus could create a lot of social output. Many futurologists like Peter Drucker[34] and Naisbitt see a trend of smaller government.
Education Telepresence offers new windows for diversified remote learning. For instance in BellSouth's Information Superhighway in North Carolina, a teacher in Charlotte conducts Japanese class with students in high schools nearly 200 miles away.[35] Famous professors can thus be available for much larger audiences. In information society education needs to focus on information processing skills, communication skills, personal traits and problem solving skills. Irving uses a different type of approach and stresses information-handling skills (gathering, organizing, communicating, using) and information skills (analyzing, locating, examining, interpreting).[36] Anyway school is out to learn a new trick or two. As professor Drucker puts it: emphasis needs to be transferred "from teaching to learning."[37] Media The technological progress is bringing about new media formats at a fast pace. Digitalizing these media formats and bringing them together into digital networks is the name of the game. Then information in many formats can be transmitted electronically from one medium to another. This kind of convergence-driven[38] infrastructure is well on its way. Faxes, telephones, videos, electronic newspapers, multimedia, interactive entertainment, TV-programs and Web-pages can all be channeled into homes via cable-modems or even satellites. Then information can be easily obtained. Unwanted types of news, programs, or entertainment are a snap to screen out - just according to individual preferences.
Hand in hand with this trend is the wider availability of satellite and cable networks and soon it is possible to choose between many hundreds of channels at the same time. This type of mass media profusion is very capital intensive and big broadcasters are likely to grow even bigger and more centralized. Which in turn levels out cultural differences. Tennenhouse et al. pinpoints the capital intensity as follows: "The convergence-driven infrastructure of information society would be based on large alliances of distributors (network providers) and suppliers (content providers). Each alliance will offer consumers the opportunity to purchase bundled information services." [39]
The era of mass-communication is reaching retirement. The interactive capability of new communication appliances create interlinked networks of multicasters[40]. Micheal Strangelove speaks about mass-participation, where each individual can be either receiver or sender or the message. With WWW we are already seeing customers becoming more and more an essential part of product design and development team. For instance Sun - the workstation company - uses their own customers to answer question posed by other Sun users - and Sun won't have to pay a penny of this free ride. 1994 Sun saved already $4 million[41] of labor and material costs utilizing the Internet and distributing even the company magazine SunFlash Monthly Digest via the Internet. Electronic word-of-mouth communication gets wings due the rapidity of information exchange via the networks. There are frequently newsgroup posting dating from 5 year ago, concerning individual companies blaming them of misconduct in business. Nobody knows for how long this electronic trace stays in the network and how many thousands of people see it. In networks people see often material concerning a company written by just anybody. To the consumer all this information might be valuable, but nobody can check the validity of it. Andy Warhol's '15-minute fame' gets a new meaning with networks where all can be their own information bureaus, how untruthful as they might be. Definitions of business are changing to include a large part of it's turf, even the customers in many ways. At the same time company looses some part of it's control and this requires truthful frankness in dealing with the publics. Feedback Interaction - the capability of instant feedback does mean that companies need to develop solid communication mechanisms to receive and transfer information from customers to people inside the company, and vice versa. The fast availability of feedback is essential especially for computer software companies - who use widely their customers as beta-testers of new products. This feedback creates new competitive edge and many costly errors can be avoided. At the same time products can be released faster and more cost effectively.
Media becomes a matter of selection and choices. Choice can be made between passive reception or active interaction. Media types are many and inside one medium the selection grows into cornucopia. Money and Banking Toffler in Powershift, "Of course, money, whether in the form of metal or paper is unlikely to vanish completely. But…electronic money will proliferate and drive out most alternatives, precisely because it combines exchange with real-time record-keeping, thus eliminating many of the costly inefficiencies that came with the traditional money system." [42] In the U.S there are 12000 banks and funding institution providing mortgages and other forms of home financing.[43] The Internet and other electronic transaction methods are bringing about a global financing forum, where finding the cheapest offer is easy. This will certainly mean dramatic shockwaves going thru the whole banking sector. A Swedish banker has said that in ten years time their bank is going to have only ten offices in whole of Stockholm down hundreds of percents from the present situation. Most people will pay their bills directly from home or work via computer networks. Says Juha-Matti Lampola, executive of Bank of America's business financing in Scandinavia: "Considering banks, we are going to see a lot of offices disappear and even big bank mergers. There are way too many banks in the world and there is not enough business for all of them. In it's present form, banking is a declining line of business."[44] Marketing Subcultures form small niche groups for marketers. Toffler points out, "As we´ve seen, a Third Wave economy challenges the old industrial system by breaking markets into smaller, more differentiated pieces. Niche markets appear, followed by niche products, niche financing, and niche players in the stock market. Niche advertising fills niche media like cable television." [45] The ever escalating quantity of data needs more and more processing to make it into meaningful information. A new field in data processing and analysis has recently been introduced, namely data mining and data warehousing techniques.[46] These are processes for gathering, collecting and combining data from different sources to form for example a database of optimal customers for direct marketing purposes. Now it is possible to analyze customer risks and customer profiles accurately and therefore reach more customers more profitably. Fingerhut, the second-largest consumer catalog marketer in the U.S, "has build a cutting-edge database that stores more than 500 pieces of information on each of more than 50 million active and potential customers. That allows Fingerhut Cos. to sort through its records and zero in on the best credit risks among America's low- and moderate-income households, its chosen niche…" [47] Pricing Dirt Low Technology has made it possible to outperform production prices of yesteryear. More can be done with less and this has meant either prices falling in certain items or getting more for the same price compared to last year. The solution lies according to Business Week in the following elements. Product value is highest when they're cheapest, teamwork gives results, mass-customization with IT, being the first in the market despite the cost, giving things away at first and being ready to make mistakes.[48] Information technology is central to these efforts. "With the production cost of hardware and software so low in comparison to the development cost, it actually can make sense to give stuff away in order to establish a market toehold and start a profitable long-term relationship."(ibid.) This scenario calls for long production lines, despite mass-customization and only the biggest can have the best reward in this game. A Fortune article[49] highlighted this in the context of software stressing the policy of giving away as a good way to get publicity and leverage. The users then get accustomed to the software. Later on people won't change programs that they have gotten used to and the company can charge big time. Another challenge altogether is the fact that computer networks give access to virtually unlimited amount price information and companies to choose from. Comparing prices is getting easier and following this is global price-consciousness about products. Will this mean an endless drive toward bigger size? Logistics Logistics has been in a tumult for 3 decades. First came the supermarkets, then the hypermarkets or shopping-centers. Small grocery shops were made obsolete and at the same time direct-selling started to evolve into stature. Franchising became popular, mail order grew and network marketing started to capture some corner of the trade. Cutting costs has been vital for survival. This has meant vertical integration and smaller amount of middlemen. One of the most fundamental promises of electronic networks is the fact that there is no room for many levels of middlemen anymore. Many a time the producer can sell directly from its factory to consumers, who make the purchases electronically. Lot of people are going to get unemployed, but at the same time prices are going to fall and more money for other goods is left. Power, Privacy and Crime Toffler states, "The control of knowledge is the crux of tomorrow's worldwide struggle for power in every human institution. He who controls access to knowledge has power." [50] An opposing view is presented by Stonier who argues that "no dictator can survive for any length of time in communicative society as the flows of information can no longer be controlled from the center."[51] Anyway it is, in information society, all individuals do not have the same access to information nor capacity to use it for their benefit. Organized crime does not shy away when the word power is uttered. Mafia groups look for keys to wealth. When information becomes the commodity of wealth creation we are likely to see organized crime interested in industrial espionage, data spying, alteration and stealing more than ever. Succeeding from that is the need for extreme caution and privacy concerning information about an individual. When more and more shopping is done electronically, the amount of electronic trace a person leaves can give pretty good insight of person's psycho-social self. Credit card purchases already give a lot of information about it's user. Combining information from many sources can draw an exact profile of an individual. Misuse of this information does mean an invasion of privacy. According to Schengen-agreement, all European governments have furnished Brussels with a huge amount of information about European citizens, information that people don't even have a right to check for all parts of the record. This became necessary when customs formalities were lifted off from the borders and Europol, the police force, needed more tools to grab possible intruders, drug dealers and other criminals. If this information is misused or gets into wrong hands it is easy to understand the consequences. Too much information in one place. Production Manufacturing takes place in an ever more automatic way. Drambo says that robots, computers and teletechnical equipment combined create something he calls productics - including automated factories that can be remotely controlled.[52] Information technology and automation can bring about new levels of customization. Jobshock, a book by Harry Dent, sees a trend he calls "the customized economy."[53] Even education is heading towards customized service. Roger N.Nagel from Lehigh University says:" Tomorrow's factories will sell customer gratification, not things."[54] Product-life cycles are getting shorter. 'Only this week' - product frenzies can arrive. This requires very flexible manufacturing, the ability to rapidly adjust to new types of product orders. Everything is JIT (Just-In-Time). Tremendously short lines of books can be printed or CAD/CAM and CNC-systems can mold any kinds of objects directly from computer model.
Despite the fancy systems, the role of production is in the decline. Less people work there and more people have their jobs in information processing(teaching, publishing, research, IT) and service industries. Dent predicts that information and service sectors combined eventually employs approximately over 87% of the U.S workforce.[55] Information and Economic Activity Raw data has to be transformed into meaningful information and that is the basis of knowledge, which in turn itself is power as Francis Bacon pointed out. Ljungberg puts it this way : "Nobody is interested in getting more information today, what we want is better information. This means information of a higher quality, or selected to fulfill the needs of the individual user."[56] McGee and Prusak[57] see three information strategies. All of which can be premises for economic activity. Information leverage is a strategy where information technology makes possible rearrangement of business processes and innovation. Second strategy brings forth information as a product, implications for this are easy to see. The third strategy is information as business. Excess capacity of own information systems can be utilized to create revenue.
The key elements of information products according to Meyer & Zack[58] are: the fast pace of market identification and exploitation, the incremental cost of creating new products is unusually low compared to physical products, information products in computer format can be easily decomposed to create new products of the kind, creating composite products is easy and finally one-time purchases seem to be the exception for information products. In the United States there are already 36000 information product suppliers. 90% of them have annual sales less than $1 million.(ibid.)
Information products can be almost anything from consultation to multimedia, from computer software to research findings. According to McGee[59] information products have a value only when this information the rights to the information are owned exclusively. If information is 'owned' commonly it profits all 'owners'. For this cause many arrangements have been done to control and 'own' immaterial rights. Patents are a good example of economic power derived from information and knowledge. The importance of information as a center of immaterial rights and competitiveness is seen in the fact that major companies are hiring CIO's, Chief-Information-Officers to control and supervise these issues. Products Smart home and office appliances that communicate together[60], information ergonomic products[61], security products, media services and products, many kinds of self-actualization services and product lines experience growth in information society. There are more products available for a cheaper price. Country of origin usually doesn't matter. All countries produce relatively good quality products. The world is really one's oyster. Virtual Architecture Telepresence creates new social environments, "virtual cities" the infrastructure of future that can put people together from other parts of the world. These virtual cities 'live' 24 hours a day. There people can choose time for work, leisure, chatting with friends or browsing the news. There could be an online-virtual city for the marketing researchers, the widowed grandmothers, the ski-jumpers and so on. People with same types of ideas form groups where they can communicate together. These topical networks can assist many ways. Top surgeons have already helped operations taking place in some remote area of the Globe via teleconference systems. More business meetings can be arranged without having the need to travel and feel the jet-lag. Professor William Mitchell points out that historically buildings, streets, and public spaces have shaped the patterns of daily life. As there has been changes in the architecture of human habitat, there also has been a change of life patterns.[62] Virtual cities and telecommuting mean certainly a strong change of life. Some minor hints of this can be seen in real estate business. 1996 was the first year more hypermarkets were closed than opened in the U.S. Big corporation are reducing floor space. Hoteling is a new concept in real estate. There a worker is assigned certain hours of week in an office hotel and the rest of the work is to be done from home or road. "Pacific Bell's marketing literature claims 40% reduction in real estate costs for employees telecommuting two days per week along with a productivity increase of 10%." [63] Conclusion To sum up the key-elements of Information Society: it is mostly about the proliferation of information, change of information logistics, change of role of information, change of basis of economy, and finally the rapidity of change. Even the information society is crumbling to become post-information society, what ever that may be. Everything becomes temporary, even relationships. People know more about different cultures, share some global values, but in the end - are more cornered in their specific subcultures and have less all-round education than before. Nobody has seen the same films you have or read the same books - no common ground, except in your closed inner circle, the subculture. There are just so many ways to spend your leisure, it might become stressing to choose from the list of options. Much of this society is standing on the premise of omnipotently victorious and self-righteou technology resulting in staggering speed of change. To overcome this domination of technology, we need heart and solid values to maintain humanity in information society and put technology really to serve us, not vice versa. [1] Marx, Karl Grundrisse, "Notebook 2" (written 1857-58; first published 1939). The Grundrisse, The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations , 1993 [2] Schlegel, Friedrich The Athenaeum, aph.5 - Dialogue on Poetry and Literary Aphorisms, 1798, The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations , 1993 [3] Thatcher, Margaret Woman's Own (London, 31 Oct. 1987) , The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations , 1993 [4] Thompson, David;Aditva Kaul The Corporate Response to the World Wide Web - Towards a Hypermarketing Phenomenon, [http://www.studassoc.utas.edu.au/webmaster/WWWMarketing/], June 1995 [5] Bryant, Jennings ; Zillman, Dolf (eds.) Perspectives on Media Effects - Parameters for Information Society Reseach, 1986, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc, New Jersey [6] Bryant, Jennings ; Zillman, Dolf (eds.) Perspectives on Media Effects - Parameters for Information Society Reseach, 1986, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc, New Jersey, p. 327
[7] Toffler, Alvin Future Shock, 1970, Bantam Books, New York [8] CNN - Reuters Info overload can hurt! : Poll: info overload can hit efficiency, cause "Information Fatigue Syndrome", CNN, Oct 14,1996 http://cnnfn.com/digitaljam/wires/9610/14/info_overload_wg/ [9] Mononen, Jussi Töihin pitkin bittivirtaa - Yritykset sulautuvat osaksi tietoverkkoja, 1996 Mar, MikroPC [10] Borsuk, Mark Real estate tax policy for the information age, 1995 Winter, Real Estate Review [11] Toffler, Alvin The Third Wave, London, 1980, p.292 [12] Bridges, William JobShift - How to prosper in a workplace without jobs, 1994, Reading, MA, Addison-Wesley [13] Greider, William One World, Ready or Not, Simon & Schluster, 1996 [14] Naisbitt, John Global Paradox (1994), New York, Avon Books, p.6 [15] Stine, J.H Temporary aspects of tertiary production elements in Korea, in F.R.Pitts (ed.), Urban systems and economic development, University of Oregon, Schoolf of Business Administration, Eugene, Oregon, 1962 [16] Frank, Robert H. The Winner-take-all Society, Free Press, 1995 [17] Drambo, Leif Infotopia - Visioner och vägval I informationssamhället, Statskontoret, Stockholm,1986, p. 117 [18] Raatikainen - Ahopelto Verkostoituminen, 1994, Helsinki, p.30 [19] Thurow, Lester C. The Future of Capitalism - How Today's Economic Forces Shape Tomorrow's World, Morrow, 1996 [20] Naisbitt, John Megatrends (1982), New York, Warner Books, Inc. [21] Fuentes, A., Ehrenreich, B. Women in the Global Factory. Boston: South End Press, 1983 [22] Naisbitt, John;Aburdene, PatriciaMegatrends 2000 - Ten new Directions for the 1990's, William Morrow and Company, Inc, New York, 1990, p.290
[23] Ambah, Faiza S: An intruder in the kingdom - Saudi officials try to police taboo subjects on the Internet, 1995 Aug 21, pp.24-25 Business Week - International Edition, McGraw-Hill ISSN 0007-7135, New York [24] Farrell, Christopher Why the numbers miss the point, 1995 Jul 31, pp.53, Business Week - International Edition, McGraw-Hill ISSN 0007-7135 [25] Kirkpatrick Environmentalism: The New Crusade, Fortune, Vol.121, No.4, 1990 [26] Masuda, Yoneji The Information Society as post-industrial Society, Institute for the Information Society, Tokyo, 1980 [27] Naisbitt, John;Aburdene, PatriciaMegatrends 2000 - Ten new Directions for the 1990's, William Morrow and Company, Inc, New York, 1990 [28] Toffler, Alvin (1990) Powershift. New York, Bantam Books, p.250 [29] Rissa & Järvinen Oy Internet-käyttäjäselvitys 1997: Teledemokratia (http://www.pjoy.fi/tutkimus/kt97/teledemokratia.htm) |