[Sigiii-l] Re: Global Information Village Plaza

[Charles Lam]

1° What in your opinion will be radically changed in your professional life
as a result of the globalization of the information society? - Why? - What
should you do in order to cope with the change? - What should the
information science & technology community do to help you cope with the
change? - What should the information science & technology community do to
help itself cope with the change?
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To cope with the change, I as a business management trainer-consultant,
should:

-continue to learn more about ICT to see how they can benefit business &
management, and vice versa; particularly important are areas such as
logistics, value-chain, marketing and strategic decisions, management of
change
-continue to bridge communications gaps between technologists and social
scientists which are unfortunately big today

To cope with the change, the information science & technology community
should do the following to incease the demand-pull force:

-try harder to offer user-friendly cost-effective ICT devices for end users
-knock down as many barriers as possible due to imcompatible technical
standards (net-net, terminal-net). International neutral bodies should be
empowered to make universal standard decisions; suppliers can still compete
based on other strengths e.g. pricing, features, styles, customer service
-bridge communictions gaps between different camps: software, hardware,
computers, telecom, broadcasting, content, Internet, etc.
-bridge communications gaps between academics and practitioners
-explain more clearly about HOW ICT can enhance an organisation's
productivity, profits, decisions, communications, culture, motivation, etc.
-explain more clearly about HOW ICT can enhance a country's productivity,
economy, culture, democracy, ethics, etc.
-use as much as possible the soft systems approach to manage hard systems
(otherwise the latter would be too hard and inhuman)

2° What in your opinion will be radically changed in your personal life as a
result of the globalization of the information society? - Why? - What should
you do in order to cope with the change? - What should the information
science & technology community do to help you cope with the change?
==============================================================

Most probable impacts on personal life:
-blurrer boundaries for my work life and home life
-for acquisition of information and knowledge, national boundaries will
become less relevant
-against my wish, ICT-based entertainment will increase, as traditional
entertainment will fall in supply (increase in cost)
-with reluctance, I will need to spend a bigger proportion of my time to
learn how to work through the use of ICT
-I will need to spend a smaller proportion of time for face-to-face
interactions and transportation in my work life

What I should do to cope...
-I will have to purposely find time to do traditional social interactions in
private life to compensate for the loss in work life
-so as not to be bored by ICT which will fill most parts of my life, I will
need to explore different ways to enjoy life, with or without the use of
such

The information science & technology community should do the following to
help me cope with the change...
-offer affordable, user-friendly, comfortable, entertaining systems
-speak less technical jargon to bridge communications gaps
-employ a bigger proportion of social scientists so that new technologies
and ways would be adopted by the general public more smoothly

-------- submitted by Dr. Charles Lam (DBA, MBA, CEng, MIEE) -----