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Preprints & Reprints The Global Grid Of Chaos For millennia we have lived in a world dominated by atoms, where natural physical boundaries have defined the limits of human expedition and development. The majority of our understanding, knowledge and experience has been gained in this bounded, slow moving, and dominantly random environment. Our society, commercial and governmental frameworks have evolved slowly to meet the limited needs of this world, and nothing much changed for hundreds of years. Our world is now dominated by bits, with a global grid of on-line information. Experience and commerce have no form, few constraints, and virtually no limits. It is a world devoid of control, something new, naturally chaotic, and very fast to react and change. It is hard to imagine any aspect of our lives that is not now dominated by bits traversing global networks. Everything we eat, drink, wear, consume, is organised and delivered by IT at a rate most people cannot conceive. This technology is allowing the creation of a Global Information Economy which will ultimately see an Information Society. And it will arrive in that order, and not the other way around. For those nations seeking to get the framework of society in order first, before creating the wealth generating mechanisms, there will follow catastrophe. The reason? No one knows, or can even imagine how the Information Society will look, be configured or operate. It will evolve, and continue to evolve in the wake of the technology and an increasingly dominant bit economy. The raw elements of IT see our ability to transport, process and store bits doubling every 1 - 2 years, whilst the cost per bit plummets by a factor of 2 - 3 in the same time period. Nothing in our past history has progressed so fast, and nothing has prepared us for the resulting changes inflicted on all aspects of our lives. Every institution, organisation, group and individual has been, or will be, affected by these changes. Conversations between computers every day already eclipse ours over all time. We only number 6Bn whilst they are over 14Bn, and 10,000 transistors are manufactured for every man woman and child on the planet every day. Machines 1000 fold more powerful than those of today will be with us in 10 years, and 1,000,000 times in less than 20 years. At some point they will become intelligent and help us solve the really difficult and important problems that face our species. In the mean time, it will be quite a ride! Let us consider the main bastions of our society and the likely impact they will experience from this growing world of networked bits. Specifically; globally available education, training, health care, work and commerce, governance and the nation state. Nothing will escape the attention of the change mechanisms brought about by our growing dependence on, and demand for, more IT. For sure, opting out is not viable, there is no hiding place, no escape. To prosper we have to embrace change in a new and faster way. Education has always been a vital ingredient of any civilisation, and it remains so today. But the established 'Sage on The Stage' and book dominated paradigm is grossly inefficient, and insufficient, to meet the needs of an IT dominated world. Would you employ someone who could not read and write - I think not. Would you employ someone who was IT illiterate - well, only in a low margin business of the past. The major wealth creating businesses are generally high margin, highly automated, and controlled by IT. What should we be doing in education? It would be a great mistake to turn the clock back to concentrate on the 3Rs and classics alone. It is necessary to embrace the power of IT to enhance the process of education across the board. There are no longer any educated people anywhere. Lawyers no nothing about medicine, medics no nothing about technology, and a technologist may know a little about optical fibre, radio, computing or software. The true polymath is no more, and yet we all have to become more eclectic and holistic to survive the world of work that will see more change in the next 20 years than in the previous 200. Multi-media holds out a partial solution with the simulation and modeling of the complex rendered in graphical formats that we can assimilate faster than lines of mathematics, script, or static pictures. To watch nuclear fusion, the dissection of a human wrist, or experience five different interpretations of some classic play is distinctly more edifying than static characters on paper. Of course some things cannot be catered for by multi-media, but that proportion is a fast diminishing minority. Do you suppose a resurrected Newton or Byron would reach out for a quill pen? I think not - they would go with the technology of the day - a PC. Students at school, college and university should not expect these institutions to provide all the computers all of the time. Increasingly it will fall to the individual to provide their own. Governments do not feed and cloth us, nor should they get involved with providing everyone with a PC - it is a hopeless task. Many students already have more computing power at home than is available at their place of education. Given an assignment their search routine is CD, Web, Book. The reason? IT is fast efficient and low cost. Books are expensive, unavailable and slow. They are also a dead medium, lacking any animation or interaction. The availability of educational material now extends well beyond the school, college and university. Education on CD and on-line is a reality and a threat to the established institutions. Students have a choice of material, and increasingly, institution and teacher. In a multi-media world there is a real pressure to return to the 'Guide at the Side', more of a partnership and mentoring regime. So who is going to win when universities have to compete for students distributed across the globe? In a world where technology degrees have a half life of less than 5 years, and demand is growing for education and training to the desk, home, hotel and place of work, it will be the institutions who move quickest that win. Like logarithm tables in the 1600s, once produced there is no point repeating the exercise. So when a good 'Master Class' on optimisation, self-organisation, economics, statistics, or whatever, is available on line or CD, there will be little room for a second. We might thus expect to see a very few really great teachers, and an awful lot more coaches. Further developments are already in evidence. Parents who opt to educate their children at home are on the increase, as are the number of companies opting to run their own virtual universities. IT will only serve to make this easier and more available across an increasing spectrum of interests. Health Care is in great difficulty everywhere. No nation can cope with the combination of increasing demand driven by the demographics of age, a growing customer expectation driven by technological advance, and exponentially rising costs. No amount of taxation money can correct these trends because the operational model is both old and wrong. Like it or not health care is driven by the economics of availability and doctors, nurses, pharmacists, specialists are in short supply. The only thing that appears to be universally available in abundance is administrators and managers. No other business could survive such a skill imbalance, except perhaps, government. Some antiquated systems can see the generation of upwards of 60 pieces of paper for just one visit to an outpatients department. At least 25% of all hospital records are lost at any one time, resulting in multiple X-rays, examinations, and expensive mistakes. The poor handwriting and errors made during the drug prescription process introduces more waste at the point of dispensing. Extra telephone calls and cross checks exceed 30% of the Pharmacists time. Nursing staff only spend 25% of their time with patients, whilst 25% is devoted to filling in forms, 25% looking for records, and 25% physically collecting and transporting information from one location to another. Operating theatres and specialist equipment costing millions are only in use from 08.00 to 17.00 on week days only. A radical change in the processes involved in patient care are long overdue. IT can cure a much of this by introducing unified electronic record systems, automatic scheduling of appointments and operations, cross checks on diagnosis, prescription and after care. There will also have to be a prioritisation on the basis of patient behaviour. Can any system afford to continually try to repair people who systematically try to kill themselves through tobacco, alcohol and drug abuse? I think not! In the future the maxim may well be; patient heal thyself. With insufficient resources each of us will have to become more responsible. Preventative medicine is far more effective than any curative process. So what can IT do in this arena? The next big advance will be the data mining of patient records. Here lies a wealth of information on the symptoms, diagnosis, treatment and outcome of millions of cases histories. Once in a database the possibilities are endless. No doctor can know everything, and getting to a specialist is an opportunity way beyond the average. PC based doctors already equal their human counterparts in some aspects of diagnosis. A marked feature of PC - Patient interaction is the level of honesty in response to detailed questions. This often surpasses the equivalent human - human session and can lead to greater accuracy of diagnosis and speed of treatment. Specialist Web Sites for almost every human ailment. These span the basic facts and figures on diagnosis, treatment and survival, through to support groups. Many supply drugs and medicines by post from far flung places on the planet where the laws and limitations on the use of medicines are markedly different to the UK. The advantages and risks to the individual user and the heath care system are obvious. In the UK we spend about £40Bn on our National Health Service, and an estimated £40Bn outside the system for alternative treatments and services. So far no one has dimensioned Internet based spending, but it is growing fast. Arranging an operation in the USA or Europe via this medium is now straightforward, and there are no waiting lists. All you need is a PC, Internet access, and money. The development of head mounted and hand held cameras for surgeons and doctors, remote sensory systems worn by patients coupled into the telecommunications networks have already demonstrated great potential. Specialists can perform, participate, support and guide operations across the planet. They can conduct fetal scanning, x-ray, MRI, and other diagnostic processes remotely without leaving their home hospital. Patients with heart, breathing, kidney and other ailments can be remotely examined and advised by a paramedic. A doctor need only be brought in for the exceptional and dangerous cases. All of this is under test. Might the patients then choose a doctor in the USA where this is possible, and where money grants instant access? Again, the advantages and dangers are very clear. Work is a place to go to in the minds of most people. In reality it is an activity, and something increasing numbers of us do rather than go to. For the bit worker it has spread into the reaches of leisure and home life to become a continuum. The division between work and play can be hard to define. Location is no limiter, and neither is travel. The road warrior is increasingly the norm. Many have no permanent office, they just pitch camp wherever they happen to be and get on line. Of course there will always be people who go to work, the place, because that is where the plant, point of trade, transportation of things, or human gathering is. But even here IT is already dominant as it facilitates and controls processes and communication to realise great operational advantage. Think back to the typing pool and the letter. Business communication between several people would take weeks to achieve some outcome that is now realised in hours or days be Email and telephone. Think back to manufacturing and logistics organised by humans. Costly stock holdings, overcapacity, empty containers, late deliveries and shortages were the norm. With Artificial Intelligence control systems, Just In Time production and delivery processes, costs have been drastically reduced, quality improved and customer satisfaction enhanced to levels that were unthinkable just a decade ago. The next step in the evolution of work will be the multi-tasking nomad. People who have skills to sell in the electronic market are not confined to one employer or indeed singular employment. Very few companies are in business for 100 years, and only a few last for forty years. In an IT world this is likely to drop below 10 years. The work force in this arena will thus become increasingly nomadic, and will turn to multiple parallel employment and a share of the action for long term security. Already in the UK some young people are engaged by upwards of 20 employers a year on a contractual basis. This is especially so in the computer science, programming, system analyst and operational research areas. But there are many others, such as pharmacy, the media, investment banking and IT related consultancy. In the fastest moving sectors the average half-life of an individual job is falling into the lower single figures. In this world individuals only have their skill set to sell. They have to keep ahead, maintain a relevant education and training, whilst earning their keep at the same time. An interesting feature of this on-line job employment market is the resurgence of the barter economy. People can work for money, equipment, time and expertise of a fellow worker, and of course education and training. This creates new opportunities for self-support within like minded groups of people on a global scale. This is where people share knowledge and information because it is necessary to do so to survive, and it is counter to the past where the longevity of information allowed people to be controlists. Of course, one of this is restricted to any one country, it is invisible, and unfortunately for governments it completely by-passes the tax system. Commerce and Business has until very recently been dominated by slow communication and control processes, with steeply hierarchical management structures. These were most probably derived from early military command structures and have served us well in commerce and government throughout the industrialisation process. But they do not fit, and will not serve, the faster moving IT era. Here chaos is the natural order due to rapid communication, decision-making, and correlated human/machine activity instigated by mechanisms that would astonish the Victorians. Only two years ago it seemed every parent had to get their child a Cabbage Patch doll for Christmas, last year it was Buzz Light Year, and no one can guess what it will be this year. France winning the 1998 World Cup will see Adidas move into overtime to meet demand for it's products. A simple headline in the newspaper, a feature on the evening news, and thousands besiege every chemist shop in the land demanding a new contraceptive pill. When the London Stock Market had its electronic Big Bang in October 1986 it suffered an instant buy-sell synchrony that had to be repaired by introducing staggered delays and decision thresholds. Today over 10% of all trading is conducted by machines acting on the short-term chaos of the market. People cannot compete because it is far too fast. In such a world steep hierarchies of people, electronic networks and equipment do not work. Low and flat is the order, as discovered by mother nature over millions of years. Customers no longer want choice, they want what they want. They want the goods and services they define, on time, of good quality, and at a good price. Moreover they can get generally what they demand because there is now global competition and a global market. If you can get on line it is difficult to find anything you cannot buy electronically. Search, find, order, pay and have delivered to you're door by FedEx from the USA in few days. Everything from books, to wine, power tools, medicines and legal services are now available on-line. No middlemen; distributors, wholesalers and shops in the loop, and without their % the customised producer sells more at a higher price, and the customer pays less. Many people balk at passing their credit card over the net because of the security risk. But this is an emotional response invoked by an irrational and uninformed media. There is not a single recorded instance of anyone, anywhere, anytime, being defrauded by having their card number intercepted on the net. This is more than be said for garages, restaurants and other establishments where the get a signed copy of your card. Companies have traditionally established customer trust and loyalty through brand and country identification. But increasingly the public dominantly identify with brand as companies become multinational. There are obvious exceptions of course - Sony, Nike, Mercedes, Boeing and Rolls Royce all have very strong flag value. But each has become the integrator of components manufactured across the world. The economics of global production make it impossible to be a 'do-it-all' company. Everything that can be outsourced has to be outsourced to specialists who can do it cheaper and faster. But without IT this would not be possible or viable. Just-in-Time production and delivery is not an empty slogan, it is a necessity in an increasingly competitive world. People who buy expensively branded cars, washing machines, hi-fi, TV and PCs might be shocked to visit the assembly plant. Very often the components, if not the complete box for several brands come from a single production line, and the badge is often just an illusion. How come? If you are a component supplier to these giant assembly lines it is essential to address the world market and sell to as many as possible. And the world market may only support around 4 manufacturers of internal combustion engines, drive chains, turbines, RAM chips, etc. Just enough to ensure competition and efficiency. Many businesses do not approach purchase price, stock control, process optimisation, marketing, sales and support in a unified manner. But each is important to success. Moreover, these artificial divides are generally augmented by others damaging divisions of organisational self-interest. Steep hierarchies tend to create pseudo internal markets, where stove-pipe solutions inhibit, and often totally prevent competition between product lines and revenue streams within the company. This can be fatal. When IT is used effectively a company can realise a true internal market with trading at all levels in and out of its confines. This leads to lower costs, faster recovery times, and greater vitality and revenues. Governance should be about creating and sustaining environments in which individuals, groups and organisations, can succeed and prosper in the broadest sense. Unfortunately it seems more often to be about control and inhibiting success. How come? Well, most governments follow a 16th or 17th Century model that was fine for a pre-industrial age, but is now hopelessly inadequate. How can people out of touch with technology and modern business practice hope to govern or manage wisely? How can ten or more layers of people communicating by paper, and voting by filing through a door to be counted like sheep move fast enough for a world of bits? They cannot! It is fundamentally impossible to manage something you do not understand, especially when it is so grossly different to what has gone before. In defence of governments, it has to be said that they stand little chance in the face of a world that is moving so very fast. Democracy is a delicate organ that evolved over a long experiential period, and it would be very brave, or foolhardy, to try to change it drastically. However, it may just collapse under its own weight! Unfortunately, electronic democracy will not wait, it is here and accelerating. Perhaps the trick is to get both to coexist. But the opportunities for head on clashes are legion. What constitutes pornography is different in every country, as are the laws on encryption, databases, security, secrecy, and hacking. Given the lack, and probable impossibility of policing, government edicts and the law will increasingly be ignored and flouted. Taxable activities will go unseen and monies uncollected, goods will be move undetected. It is a new and grey market. Nation States have been with us for a long time, and will probably survive for an even longer time, provided the glue that binds them is not undone. IT looks likely to sustain virtual communities where business and exchange is undertaken invisibly and unchecked. Any large-scale attempt to interfere with, control or dismantle the Internet and Intranets would have dire consequences, for that is where global companies now work. The impact on the international economy of any such action would likely bring down entire economies. Somehow both systems will have to evolve to coexist. |