>>so you believe we are in a "new economy" unlike any other in history?<<
Well, yes and no. Let's do the no part first. There have been two other similar transitions in human history that have had a similar impact to that of the information-driven "new economy": (1) the agricultural revolution, which began with the invention of the plow, and; (2) the industrial revolution, which began in the mid-1700s with the invention of the steam engine and arguably continued well into this century.
Now here's the yes part. Though the information revolution will have an impact of similar magnitude on human life as the agricultural and industrial revolutions, it will have different effects. The reason it is difficult to see how profound these changes are going to be is because we are so near to the beginning of the process. Imagine asking a farm laborer in merry old England in, say 1770, his opinion of James Watt's invention. His response would likely be, "say what, that piece of shit, all it's good for is making really bad smells, as far as I can tell. What? Revolutionize the world? Put me out of a job? Move me into a dark, satanic mill, working to the clock and not to the rhythm of the sun and the seasons? No f*^&ing way, man!"
And that's about the point at which we are in the information revolution. Right now, the computer is revolutionizing the way we manufacture and distribute stuff, which is just the beginning. You've never had a real job as far as I can tell, so you have no perspective on this. I spent a lot of time implementing new economy techniques at GE: process mapping, inventory and channel planning, lean production, continuous flow manufacturing, kaizen, SMED, etc., etc. This stuff is the real thing. I could bore you with a hundred truly amazing stories of uncounted millions of dollars of real productivity improvements through simple changes in ideas and information processes.
It's not just the computers, by the way, there has been a revolution in thought that has been enabled by computers. Did you know, for example, that in Bentonville, Arkansas, at the end of each day the folks at Wal-Mart know exactly how many of every single stock keeping unit have been sold at every single store, at every single cash register in their entire system, enabling them to operate a 24-hour inventory planning and replenishment cycle that was so, so much shorter than their competitors. And that was five years ago, for all I know, they have real time systems now. Why do you think Wal-Mart has crushed their competitors? Why do you think that their stuff costs less than everybody else's stuff? How do they manage to grow every year? I could go on, but I won't.
What's the bottom line? Many good companies, like GE and Wal-Mart, will prosper. Many more companies will die. The debate over services vs. manufacturing will gradually be seen to be a canard. In 80 years or less, only 5% of the US population will work in traditional "manufacturing." The rest of us will be engaged in all kinds of fun and funky stuff, half of which we can't imagine right now. We'll have the treasures of the cosmos at our immediate disposal through an all-encompassing photon web that will be with us at every waking moment. Those of us who bought Qualcomm in 2002 and held it for 20 years will be very big dogs. |
