This time it looks real. One of the few advantages of being older is having a perspective on the advances in technology. I was a student in the 1960s when the first promises of artificial intelligence were made with great fanfare. But the excitement and hype died rather suddenly, in part from a paper titled …
It is not difficult to find the many ways technology extends our reach. The early defining vision for Bill Gates at Microsoft went under the banner: Information at Our Fingertips. This was the title of Gates’ speech at Comdex in January 1995, and you can watch his speech even now. Today this vision is partially …
My mother recently had her 100th birthday! While that is a remarkable achievement, it is not something I would normally post here. Except for this. Over the past number of months, during a period of her shaky health, I have been making daily visits to her assisted living home, and our conversations provide two important …
Is technology an aid to our thinking processes, or is it a distraction? My own conclusion is “yes.” By connecting us with information, we have the opportunity to make more informed decisions. By taking on the routine tasks such as adding numbers or performing complex calculations, we are freed to think about the implications of …
The breakneck pace of change coming from the digital revolution is incompatible with the slower pace of change for our institutions and for us as people. We have yet to develop good coping strategies for this challenge at multiple levels. Changing Business Model One important example of this is the dramatic fracture in the foundation …
Technology has rocked the business model for anyone delivering information content. Over the past three Conversations in Ethix we have examined what has happened in three such industries: the businesses of movies, television, and books. There is a similar case for newspapers and music. It is not just a question of reduced profits. The issue …
Business Model for Other Information-Rich Industries? Read More »
For Christmas, I received a Kindle Fire, a grown up e-reader with many of the features of an iPad. This was not on my list, though I have been following the technology for e-books since the early work with smart paper almost two decades ago. I have resisted the personal use of this technology for …
Suppose John had been working at the same business in the next town for 10 years, and it always seemed to take him about 25 minutes to drive to work. One day John met a new employee, and found out she lived in his neighborhood. The next morning as John pulled out of his driveway …
As the economic recovery continues, it seems that many of the indicators have improved, but the unemployment figures stay stubbornly high. Is the “jobless recovery” for real? It seems that this might be the case, with technology playing a significant role in the challenge. I don’t have a solid case to prove this, but will …
How might we, and our businesses, need to change to embrace the positives from technology without being overwhelmed by the downsides?
