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Velocity of Change seen and adapted to OR Denial |
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Personal computers radio nuclear energy carpooling Internet photocopies voice mail elevators airplanes telephones automobiles teleconferencing fax machines microwaves television printing press cotton gin refrigerators lasers overnight delivery cameras steam engines telecommuting how has technology changed your life?
Tom Peters tells us that technology is "a wild card affecting every aspect of doing business." Technology, Peters points out, has revolutionized financing, manufacturing, design, distribution, and product definition. In our systemic world, technology’s effect is multiplied; it shapes the new work and the new work dictates our technological needs. If we freeze and examine any moment along a temporal progression, we see that technology is inextricably related to social conditions. Alvin Toffler considers this high rate of innovation in technology as an integral part of his Third Wave, a period he dates to mid-1950s. According to Toffler, the Third Wave represents the technical and social changes of post-industrial society. Organizations must identify and evaluate the role that technology plays in their short-term and long term rates of change as well as their ability to evaluate the market, deliver services, communicate internally and externally, and adopt innovate structures. What role does technology play in your organization’s present? In its future? |
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denial > recognizing & adapting to the velocity of change |
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Software to enable learning
Peter and Trudy Johnson-Lenz, Groupware and the Great Turning, COMMUNITY BUILDING: RENEWING SPIRIT & LEARNING IN BUSINESS (Kazimierz Gozdz, ed.), New Leaders Press (1995) at 243. Collaborative learning through group process enhanced by software. Surf the Internet for a look at what’s happening in this burgeoning industry. |
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Technology and Governing
Robert Wright, Hyper Democracy, TIME (Jan. 23, 1995) at 15. An exploration of the effects of a cyber democratic society on government decision-making. Alvin and Heidi Toffler, CREATING A NEW CIVILIZATION Robert H. Hayes and Ramchandran Jaikumar, Manufacturing’s Crisis: New Technologies, Obsolete Organizations, HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW (Sept./Oct. 1988) at 77. ABSTRACT: Vertical command and control structures don’t cultivate the cross-functional relations among experts necessary to cope with shorter product life cycles. And capital-budgeting procedures set unrealistic hurdle rates because they don’t take account of corporate learning or other "soft" benefits of advanced technology. The new manufacturing organization must learn to manage not only physical but intellectual assets - to develop the knowledge and skills that will permit the company to compete with process technology. Howard Gleckman, John Carey, Russell Mitchell, Tim Smart, Chris Roush and bureau reports, The Technology Payoff, BUSINESS WEEK (June 14, 1993)a at 57. Sweeping changes in management and organizational structure are redefining how work gets done. Once the work has been redefined, the new cheap, accessible technology increasingly available in today’s market fosters productivity gains necessary for a healthy economy. User friendly, accessible technology is the"key to the new industrial revolution". An optimistic article with a nationalistic tone, this piece contains interesting company profiles as well as intriguing figures that support the above thesis. Alvin Toffler, POWERSHIFT, Bantam Books (1989) at 204 . Advanced technologies require advanced work methods and organization. Walter Kiechel III, How We Will Work in the Year 2000, FORTUNE (May 17, 1993) at 38. A forward look at where the emerging trends in company size and structure, role of technology, and emphasis on learning will take us. Jerry Michalski, The Role of Technology, COMMUNITY BUILDING: RENEWING SPIRIT & LEARNING IN BUSINESS (Kazimierz Gozdz, ed.), New Leaders Press (1995) at 259. Dilworth, The DNA of the Learning Organization,in LEARNING ORGANIZATIONS: DEVELOPING CULTURES FOR TOMORROW’S WORKPLACES, (Sarita Chawla and John Renesch, eds.) (year) at 252. George Pór, The Quest for Collective Intelligence, COMMUNITY BUILDING: RENEWING SPIRIT & LEARNING IN BUSINESS (Kazimierz Gozdz, ed.), New Leaders Press (1995) at 243. Growing a community nervous system through technology. Chip Simons, Eyes on the Future, NEWSWEEK (May 31, 1993) at 39. Information and information technology is the new American frontier - how technological changes from the research labs is affecting the American commercial landscape. |