George Brutchen

This is from the Conference Proceedings, Richaerd O. Hundly, Robert H. Anderson, Tora K Bikson, James S, Dewar, Jerrold Green, Martin Libicki, and C. Richard Neu, RAND, “The Global Course of the Information Revolution: Political, Economic, and Social Consequences,” Nov. 16-18, 1999, Washington, DC, National Defence Research Institute (2000).

The proceedings look the Information Revolution as having three dimensions: Political/Governmental, Business/Financial, and Social/Cultural.
The Political/Governmental dimension is seen as changing for two reasons relate to the information revolution. First, the traditional mechanisms of government like taxation, regulation, licensing, etc. are becoming increasingly problematic since information technology is allowing action beyond the reach of national governments to occur. Second, the distribution of power is shifting as new non-state actors are becoming empowered through the information revolution in business, social, and political realms at all levels, the sub-national, the trans-national, and even the supra-national. The question to be answered is: “How will the different governments around the world choose to deal with these issues and how will it affect the information revolution?”
The Business/Financial dimension is seen as being strongly impacted by the rise of e-commerce and by new business models driven by the information revolution. E-commerce is seen as having an effect because it is growing so rapidly and also because it is not only affecting business but also because it is affecting how governments do business and because these changes affect people both in good (e.g., greater access, lower costs) and bad ways (e.g., social exclusion). Relative to the new business models they appear characterized by the centrality or focus on the customer; real-time, real-world, and non-linear information driven business processes; a customer service orientation to developing everything, especially closely integrating business and technology; recognizing the global nature of business today; and finally, a willingness to redefine basic business functions beyond conventional paradigms. How this will happen is seen as varying from nation to nation.
The Social/Cultural dimension discussion fell into two camps. Some felt that for developing countries that the globalization of information could exacerbate societal differences and destabilize some governments. Others felt, and this was the more widely held view, that social and political turmoil would not really occur and if so only in a very few places.
The vision of the future of the Information Revolution was described as “The Great Information Revolution Attractor”. This is an analogy based on the “Great Attractor” description of the region 200 million light years away towards which all the galaxies near the Milky Way are being drawn towards. The attendees felt that this was apt description since the future of the Information Revolution is characterized by a number of interrelated features. These are: A rise in information work and information workers; new business models for both the internal and external functioning of the enterprise; a rise in e-commerce; challenges to the power and authority of governments; the creation of sub-national, trans-national, and supra-national groups, communities, organizations, and enterprises; an increasing porosity of borders (remember this was pre 9-11); and many new winners and many new losers; and finally, new fault lines between and within nations driven by information and cyber-privilege.

Posted by George Brutchen at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Benchmarking such a diffuse concept as Web 2.0 is not an easy task so the approach I took was to identify various webpages/websites that appeared to offer some kind of evaluation related or relevant to Web 2.0.

http://www.itpro.co.uk/news/110480/web-20-sites-failing-to-impress-users-study-says.html
This site says that Web 2.0 is failing to impress users based on a study/report from Hitwise that shows only a small fraction of people going to Web 2.0 sites take advantage of and use the information sharing or user-generated content features.

http://www.newfangled.com/delicious_as_web_2_benchmark
The article on this site uses delicious as an example of a Web 2.0 application whose features are representative of a number of Web 2.0 applications. The benchmarking here appears to be a comparison between browsers and Web 2.0 features. First, a browser’s favorites menu uses a hierarchical structure to assign sites to; whereas, delicious allows for users to assign personal tags to bookmarks. Second, delicious does something browsers do not it allows collaborative tagging such that a user can see how popular that bookmark is with other users. Third, delicious uses the tagging and collaborative tags to generate “tag clouds” and uses these to do ranking and categorization instead of the editorial or math based determinations used in browser applications.

http://www.bivingsreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/2007-magazine-study.pdf
This is a report on that indicates that magazine websites are behind newspaper websites in adopting and implementing Web 2.0 type content. There are a number of statistics comparing things like tagging and RSS feed usage.

http://www.nemertes.com/press_releases/enterprises_moving_toward_web_2_0
This site reports that a study by Nemertes Research indicates that enterprises are increasingly adopting Web 2.0 applications such as RSS feeds, blogs, and wikis.

Posted by George Brutchen at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Since ICS 602 is a class involving human communication I thought that a brief discussion of The World Café http://www.theworldcafe.com/twc.htm would be appropriate. I ran across the World Café a few years ago when I was taking a seminar class in collaborative learning. In that class we discussed the importance of dialogue and how if you truly engage in it a deeper understanding of the subject of conversation can be obtained. In addition to visiting the website I would recommend looking at a copy of Juanita Brown’s (with David Issacs) book The World Café Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?WRD=The+World+Cafe&z=y
In this book Brown and Issacs provide details on how to have meaningful conversations and how they are important to developing dialogue. They talk about creating a culture of dialogue with conversations being a core process through which people can co-create business and social values. As a guide to having “conversations that matter” they cover seven principles that guide good conversations.
First, set the context. Second, create a hospitable space. Third, explore questions that matter. Fourth, encourage everyone’s contribution. Fifth, cross-pollinate and connect diverse perspectives. Sixth, listen together for deeper insights and perspectives. Finally, seventh, harvest and share collective discoveries.
As you read these seven principles I am sure that you can see that they have a lot in common with some of the principles espoused by Tom Peters in his book Thriving on Chaos.
If you are interested in conversations that matter I would highly recommend visiting the website and reading the book.

Posted by George Brutchen at 09:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Joel Barker http://www.joelbarker.com/ is a futurist and his particular niche is promoting the importance of understanding what paradigm shifts are and their importance to business. He has written several books but the one that got him noticed was Discovering the Future: the business of Paradigms http://www.amazon.com/Discovering-future-Joel-Arthur-Barker/dp/0932183018/ref=pd_sim_b_title_2.
In his book Barker relates that he first was exposed to the concept of paradigm shifts when he read Thomas Kuhn’s book The Structure of Scientific Revolution http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9780226458083&itm=2 In this book Kuhn details how paradigm shifts have rocked the scientific community. For example, Albert Einstein and his theory of relativity caused a monumental shift in physics. Barker extended this concept to the business world and described how paradigm shifts can turn an industry upside down.
In his book Barker relates a number of stories illustrating the effect of a paradigm shift. My favorite is the one about the Swiss watch companies and the digital watch. He notes that in 1967 the Swiss Watch Federation Research Center developed the world’s first digital watch. However, the Swiss watch makers had the paradigm that a watch was a mechanical device, i.e., to be a watch it had to have springs, gears, moving second, minute, and hour hands, etc. The end result was that this research was abandoned because it was not a “real” watch. However, they did put the research on display and when the Japanese companies like Seiko saw it their paradigm was “time keeping device” and they grabbed the digital watch concept and ran with it. The end result was that because of their inability to make a paradigm shift from a watch being a “mechanical device” to a “time keeping device” the Swiss watch industry almost collapsed because of the Japanese were able to make this paradigm shift.
Barker then goes on to discuss how it is important for a business to know what paradigms it has, to understand them, and, most importantly, be constantly on the lookout for technologies or innovations that can cause a paradigm shift. Why? Because if you miss it you can be out of business.
Overall, I would highly recommend getting a copy of Barker’s book and becoming more familiar with the concept of paradigm shifts.

Posted by George Brutchen at 08:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wikipedia describes the European Renaissance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance as a cultural movement that approximately spanned the 14th through 17th centuries that had as its basis a revival in learning based on classical sources (e.g., Aristotle, Plato, etc.). Deborah Smith Johnson in her description http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/whc/1.2/johnston.html notes that the European Renaissance was important because it was not just a result of developments in Europe but a consequence of other events throughout Afro-Eurasia. Dr. Jay Gillette makes the same point in his weblog of July 16th, 2007 http://www.cicsworld.org/blogs/renaissance/archives/002339.html#more where he talks about John Mann’s hypothesis that the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire gave rise to the European Renaissance because this caused many classical scholars to leave and settle in Europe which resulted in European scholarship redeveloping a classical focus. One could contrast this with the Internet and how instead of having knowledge transfer by leaving as was the case in the European Renaissance in the case of the Information Renaissance the Internet is allowing the transfer of knowledge without leaving.
Another interesting point made by Dr. Johnson is that the renewed participation Europe in what would have been considered then the “global” economy of the time allowed generation of the kind of wealth necessary to support artistic and scientific pursuits through patronage and this was an important supporting factor. I would add that I believe that the global economy and the patronage were symbiotic in that the global economy provided money but that developments like improved maps and navigation resulting from the patronage allowed greater exploitation of the global resources of the time which increased the global economy and wealth. Relative to the Information Renaissance things are somewhat similar with the global economy driving the need for more and more information technologies and these allowing more and better ways to exploit resources and opportunities in today’s global economy to build wealth.
An interesting additional point made by Dr. Johnson, and one which also smacks of unintended consequences, is the speculation of Charles Van Doren that as a result of the bubonic plague there was a large surplus of clothing available because of the large number of dead. Consequently, when this clothing was used to make large amounts of rag paper and it happened to coincide with printing presses coming into wide use the result was a decrease in the cost of book production resulted in the rise of a literate middle class during this period. In a way one could compare this availability of cheaper books and their contribution to the European Renaissance to the availability of cheap personal computers contributing to the Information Renaissance.
Thus, based on the above, I think the use of the European Renaissance period to help us develop and understand what this concept of “Information Renaissance” is, is most definitely appropriate.

Posted by George Brutchen at 07:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In attempting to explain and understand different phenomena that we perceive or observe one method we employ is comparison, contrast, or comparison and contrast with a past phenomenon or phenomena. Applying this technique we seek to build a concept of the new phenomenon by considering examples of similarity and difference using one or more already experienced phenomenon as an anchor point.
In seeking to understand and develop a concept of what people term the “Information Revolution” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informational_Revolution or the “Information Renaissance” http://2005.cicsworld.org/blogs/renaissance/ this is one technique utilized.
Consider the Wikipedia Information Revolution webpage where the concept of “Information Revolution” is developed as an economic concept and then compared to other economically related concepts where “revolution” is used such as in “Agricultural Revolution” and “Industrial Revolution”.
Relative to Information Renaissance, Dr. Jay Gillette in his presentation titled “Creative Collaboration for the Information Renaissance: Weblogs Build Distributed Community” http://www.items.fr/IMG/pdf/GF_2007_Jay_Gillette.pdf
utilizes this approach where he provides what he considers to be the distinguishing characteristics of the European Renaissance and the Information Renaissance. For the European Renaissance he lists: Book Publishing Technology, Idealism, the Scientific Method, Naturalism and Secularism, Fragmentation and Nationalism, Exploration and Discovery, Humanism, Individualism, and Homo faber (man as maker). For the Information Renaissance he lists: Information and Communication Technologies; the Knowledge Society; Information Society; Globalism; Universal vs. Tribal; Exploration, Discovery and Travel; Search for Synthesis; Collaboration; Community; and Homo sapiens (human the knower).
Notice how by listing a European Renaissance characteristic like Homo faber (man as maker) and an Information Renaissance characteristic like Homo sapiens (human the knower) allows us to compare and contrast and develop our own concept of this aspect of the Information Renaissance.

Posted by George Brutchen at 06:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As I reflect on the Information Renaissance and how it has affected my interaction with others I think about how business meetings have changed over my 30+ year career.
When I began my career a meeting was a face-to-face, person-to-person, physically present experience. You met in a conference room around a table or at your desk or work area depending on the size of the group but people were physically there. For routine meetings you normally would know what information to bring; however, for non-routine meetings, for example, where you were discussing a field failure problem, you may not know what kind of information was needed until the meeting was underway. I can remember both routine and non-routine meetings being adjourned because people had to go back and telephone people or dig through paper files to obtain the information needed for the meeting to reconvene and continue. As for recording what was discussed during the meeting and what needed to be communicated from the meeting this was almost always done by assigning someone to take handwritten notes from which the typed meeting minutes would be generated, usually by a secretary, copies made, and physically distributed to the meeting participants by hand or by mail.
Later on in the mid-1980’s and early 1990’s some of these interruptions were avoided since you could hold a meeting and have remote people participate by conference call. But it was not unusual to have a meeting cut short because people could not call into the meeting or because key pieces of information needed to be obtained or because the remote people had not gotten the hard copies of a presentation or information packet. The minute taking was made easier during this time since word processors, while cumbersome at times, had become more widely available.
Beginning in the late 1990’s company intranets became available and with email that could do document attachments and meeting resources like Microsoft NetMeeting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_NetMeeting much of the information availability problems were greatly lessened. It was also around this time when presentations at meetings tended to standardize on Microsoft PowerPoint http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint/FX100487761033.aspx and a lot of the data presentation used Microsoft Excel http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/FX100487621033.aspx for tables and graphs. Of course, meeting notes are taken using Microsoft Word http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/FX100487981033.aspx, although others use Excel, and are quickly distributed using email. The only drawback with NetMeeting, at least in the company I work for, was that you could only use if your were able to connect to the company intranet which met that if you had people outside the company that needed to be involved you still had some of the old issues of making sure they had copies of the information or they could only listen and not see what was being shown.
Today when outside parties need to be involved we use Microsoft’s LiveMeeting service http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/livemeeting/default.aspx and this allows everyone to see the presentation and share information over the Internet. All that is needed is for people to have Internet access and email so you can send them the meeting invitation with the connection link.
Finally, I need to point out that software programs like PowerPoint, Excel, Word, NetMeeting, and LiveMeeting when combined with conference calling and the Internet provide us with powerful tools to make meetings more effective and efficient and I would go so far as to actually call them “Renaissance tools”. However, I also think that it is important to recognize that having face to face meetings is still important from time to time especially when person-to-person social interactions are one of the reasons to get together or you are working to build good team interpersonal connections. Also, I have to say that it is very important for individuals to have well developed meeting skills in order to effectively use these “Renaissance tools” because these are tools and if you do not know how to use them properly then they will not be effective.
In conclusion, I would say that while these “Renaissance tools” have resulted in more meetings for me I have found these meetings to be much more effective and efficient than many of the ones I had during the early part of my career. Consequently, if you would ask me to go back to the way things used to be my answer is, “Definitely Not!!!!”

Posted by George Brutchen at 10:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In contemplating the Information Renaissance I thought I would look back over the past three decades and consider how the telephone aspects of human communication have changed for me and what the impacts of these changes have been.

Starting with the telephone, as a child I can remember when I called my grandmother it was a party line http://www.privateline.com/mt_telecomhistory/c_party_line_history/ where the people could tell which home it was for by the length of the ring sound. Of course you had to be careful what you said since you never knew who might be listening in. At this time I also remember the phone numbers only being 4 digits and if you needed to make a long distance call you had to go through a human operator. In fact, I remember being in Colorado in 1971 and trying to call home and the operator telling me I was not giving her enough numbers because she needed an area code and a local exchange number to go with the 4 digits and I did not know what she was talking about. Back then we only seemed to make a few local calls and a long distance call once in a while. Also, as a kid when you were out playing or running around it was understood that you were to check in or be at home at a certain time.
When I began my professional career the answering machine was the secretary and the message was a slip of paper with a name and number to call. Needless to say, but sometimes it might be days before you and the other person were able to finally talk to each other directly. Later on, as technology progressed, we got answering machines, then voice mail, and then pagers.
Today I have a Palm Treo 700p combination cell phone and PDA http://www.palm.com/us/products/smartphones/treo700p/ along with my own personal conference call number. My wife and kids have their own cell phones. My wife, my kids, my co-workers, suppliers, customers all can easily get in touch with me. I host conference calls in the morning and the evening with coworkers from China, India, Europe, Mexico, and the US. So today, if anything, I am too connected at times.
As for the future, I have to wonder what it will be like when I watch my daughter setting at the computer instant messaging, emailing, talking on the house phone, and texting on her cell phone, all it appears at the same time!

Posted by George Brutchen at 12:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)