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The Information Revolution's BROKEN PROMISES [Futurist, The](Futurist, The Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) When revolutionary euphoria sets in, we may be tempted to set aside our critical judgments and enroll ourselves in the dream. Only later, after experience, might we get a more sober perspective on what we were promised and what we got. Here are eight of the "grand promises" of the digital information technology revolution, with reality checks and revised visions of what lies ahead. Big revolutions usually start with big hopes, big dreams, big visions, and big promises. Of all the biggest revolutions in our history-from agri- culture and industrialization to the automobile and television-the Internet and all things digi- tal have raised heart rates and hormone levels more than perhaps any other. The "third wave," as futurist Alvin Toffler christened it, became a tidal wave with the arrival of the microchip and digital information technology. Those made possible the Internet and ubiquitous information-knowledge at a distance. Then, between 1990 and 1995, the commercial tidal wave of digital products and experiences rose expo- nentially. Today, about twenty years into the revolution, perhaps we need to waken from our infatuated trance with the electronic experience and see what the revolu- tion has done for, with, and to us. The rapid spread and acceptance of digital products, services, and experiences is nearly unparalleled in his- tory, with the possible exception of television. Our lives now revolve comfortably around instant communica- tion, with fingertip access to worlds of information, on- line shopping, and management of our personal affairs. In half a generation, the vast majority of the world's af- fluent people have become digital citizens. Looking back, however, it seems that some of the grandest fantasies promoted by the early self-nomi- nated philosophers of the digital age have not really caught fire, or have m is f i red , o r eve n b a c kfi re d . We didn't get some of what we were promised, and some of what we got we hadn't expected. Let's review eight of those grand promises and what really happened, and suggest new predictions for the future. GRAND PROMISE 1: The Internet Will Create a "New Economy" I n t he re d- hot Nin etie s, t ha t phrase became the defining mantra of the Internet priesthood. A wider, flatter, democratized marketplace would mean that every entrepreneur with a dream and a computer might strike it rich. Old-economy compa- nies would go the way of the dino- saur. It was "e-business or out of business." Sober Reality: More fortunes have been lost on the Internet than made. Probably 70% or more of the Inter- net content has been built out by un- paid volunteer labor. The vast online marketplace is now controlled by just a handful of large monopoly firms: Google, Amazon, Facebook, e Bay, Twi tter, Yahoo, YouTube , LinkedIn, Skype, and a few others. Add a dozen or so secondary play- ers, some rising and some declining, and you have about 80% of the on- line information structure concen- trated in the hands of a few mega- firms. That's a far greater degree of monopolization than has ever ex- isted in "real space." With mergers and acquisitions, plus occasional ex- tinctions, the "new economy" of the Internet is looking increasingly like the "old economy," only more so. It also became painfully evident to many business operators that the In- ternet was not the magical profit cre- ator they hoped it would be. In fact, it turned out to be a profit grinder . Price transparency, dynamic pricing, and hypercompetition, driven by price-comparison Web sites, put tre- mendous pressure on retail prices across the board. If the people run- ning airline companies, for example, held any hope of escaping from their dec a des-lo ng price w ars, th ose hopes are being dashed by a multi- tude of fare-shopping sites. U p da t ed P r ed i c t i on : Ent rep re- neurs with ideas and energy will still get their turns at bat, but the days of "garage to global" are mostly over. Small businesses will increasingly benefit from cheap and accessible cloud-based software services. The Internet business will become a boundaryless battlefield, as the sur- viving giants increasingly try to in- vade one another 's turf, offering the same products, and steadily com- moditizing the online experience. GRAND PROMISE 2 : The Internet Will Create a World Community The digital philosophers told us that the Internet will bring people to- ge th e r, red u c e e th n i c a n d t r i b a l strife, and foster understanding and cooperation among all peoples. Sober Reality: Not so much. The In t e rn et h as allo we d eve n more walls t o b e buil t around small er niche communities of "us versus them." Social media platforms seem to work well for family reunions, po- litical fund-raising, worshipping ce- lebrities, sparking uprisings, and the like, but they don't seem to be very useful in orchestrating systematic change. The term community has taken on a new and somewhat bizarre connota- tion in the digital age: It's any collec- tion of people who can contact one another electronically. The digital in- formation technology environment has given us relationships that are much more numerous and at the same time more shallow, socially and emotionally. As To c qu ev i l l e rem i nd ed us, microcommunities have been form- ing and disso lving f or cen t u ries, pursuing a vast array of specialized interests. Online platforms are mak- ing it easier for them to find one an- other, but the notion that we're all becoming one big happy electronic family remains questionable. Some experts argue that embrac- ing these technologies is atomizing human experience rather than collec- tivizing it. Further, more and more psychologists and pediatricians are warning about the "Facebook syn- drome," in which young people are becoming so addictively attached to the unreal experience of online life that they fail to develop the skills of social intelligence, and even show s i gn s o f d epression . I nd ee d, t he American Academy of Pediatr ics now recommends that no child un- der the age of three have any signifi- cant exposure to screen-based infor- mation devices of any kind. Online gaming may be having the same effect. And the massive pre- occupation with the unreal lives and narcissistic behaviors of celebrity en- tertainers, on platforms like Twitter, can also distort major portions of a young person's reality structure. And, of course, factional antago- nism is almost a defining character- i st i c o f o n l i n e p o li ti c al a ct i vi t y. Futurist John Naisbitt posited the "global-tribal paradox": the more global we become in our awareness, the more tribal we tend to become in our behavior. Updated Prediction: Social media, t og ether with the vast and e ver- growing supply of cheap and acces- sible information, will become the "new TV." The traditional notion of a television set as an umbilical to the world of packaged news and enter- tainment will give way to the notion of a distributed media experience: it's everywhere, not just coming out of a box in your living room. The so-called electronic culture, or media culture, is no longer just a component of the culture of the af- fluent nations; it is the culture. It's a nonstop, 24/7, saturated entertain- ment environment. And we surely don't understand it, even though many people claim to. Many people may begin to experi- ence digital fatigue, turning more and more toward local subcultures of inti- mate personal contact. Some will be willing to pay to go to special places where they can't be connected. GRAND PROMISE 3: The Digital Age Will Make Us All Get Smarter We'll be forced to learn to think in whole new ways, and we'll have to learn to process information faster and more skillfully. The new, high- paying IT jobs will demand more of us, and we'll rise to the challenge. The mantra was "A high school di- ploma will no longer be enough to get a job in the new digital work- place." Sober Reality: Exactly the oppo- site happened. The technology wiz- ards went to work building software and redesigning work processes that would reduce the cognitive demands placed on workers. Virtually all corporate IT invest- ments have one purp ose: getting more and better results with less in- put of skilled labor and materials. By automating those parts of jobs and business processes that required hu- man information processing-ob- serving, remembering facts and fig- ures, calculating, estimating, making decisions, planning-they're system- atically dumbing down as many jobs as possible. As a result, more low-paying jobs a re b e c o m i n g a v a i l a b l e t o l o w - skilled or marginally employable workers. There are also fewer well- paying mid-skill jobs and more over- q u a l i f i e d p e o p l e c o m p e t i n g f o r lower-skill jobs, so there is a general downward pressure on wages. Ironically, many of the higher-pay- ing professional jobs in the corporate IT industry are being eliminated or deskilled by advances in enterprise software. IT budgets peaked and de- clined. With the dumbing of jobs and the dumbing of media products, dig- ital information technology didn't make us all smarter. In fact, it made it unnecessary for us to get smarter. Updated Prediction: Digital tech- nologies will amplify the "smar t g a p, " b u t p ro b a bl y w on ' t m a ke many people smarter. The gulf will likely grow between the "knows"- intellectually active people who are s e l f - edu ca ti ng - a n d t h e " k no w - nots"-mentally passive people who continue to prefer an experience of escape, entertainment, and amuse- ment. Public education systems will probably do little to change those di- visions. The "knows" will capitalize on digital products and experiences to achieve their life goals. Those of modest means can take advantage of cheap and accessible do-it-yourself educational resources, overcoming to some extent the barriers of eco- nomic privilege. GRAND PROMISE 4 : The Digital Generation Will Save Us Digital information technologies were e xpected to produce a new gene rat ion o f "t ec h-savv y" k id s, s ma r te r th a n t he i r pa ren ts , who wo uld run the w o r ld b ett er a nd sm arter than the g eneration that spawned them. Sober Reality: Today's kids aren't really tech-savvy; they're just but- ton-savvy. Very few of them know or care what's going on inside their smart- phones, laptops, video games, or tablet computers. Cell phones and a host of other digital products be- came wildly popular only after engi- neers f igu red out ho w to d e s ig n them so that even a monkey could u s e one . The ki ds a ren't any smarter-they're just fascinated con- sumers, hyperattentive to an experi- ence they love. Most adults could learn everything a "tech-savvy" teen knows about media products in a few hours. There's little evidence that today's hig h-s c hoo l g r ad s a re b eco m in g smarter, better informed, or more so- cially aware than any previous gen- eration, regardless of the unctuous a nd ad miri ng att ent ion g iven t o them by some social observers. A 2006 Roper Poll for National Geo- graphic found that 63% of young American adults (age 18-24) could not find Iraq on a map, and half said it was unimportant to know how to find other countries on a map. In comparison, 60% said having com- puter skills was vital to success in to- day's world. American universities continue to fill as much as half of their quotas in science and engineering majors with foreign students. Millions of kids s pe n d b ill i o n s of h o ur s pl a y i n g "massive online games," with many becoming masterful players. Yet, al- m ost no e v i de nc e h a s b een pre- sented to support the claim that this addictive experience makes them smarter than non-gamers or more competent in any otherwise useful way. Updated Predi ction: The bell curve of individual achievement will continue to depend on individuals, on their formative environments, and, to a much smaller extent, on dig ital i nfor m a t ion technolog ies, which will amplify rather than di- minish the differences between kids. Giving laptops to poor kids won't change the culture that creates built- in advantages for some kids over others. Pu blic s ch o o l s, pa r ticu l arly in A m eri ca , will probably c o ntinue their dogged pursuit of mediocrity, leaving most kids to find an educa- tion in their own ways. Globally, those in the "have" nations will cer- tainly benefit more from technolo- gies than those in the "have-not" na- tions, where it is much less available, and where social and economic cir- cumstances amplify t he d igital divide. As to whether today's young dig- ital natives will grow up to be better (or worse) leaders than their par- ents, we have little evidence to go on. GRAND PROMISE 5: Digital Technologies Will Narrow the Wealth Gap The hope was that access to the digital world would give everyone a shot at the good life. Free and abun- dant information, including educa- tion, would raise the poor out of their imprisoning circumstances and create more jobs, better educated workers, and a fairer distribution of wealth . A " digita l mid dle c l a s s" would thrive as never before. More than ever before, a good education would be one's ticket to the party. Sober Reality: Paradoxically, digi- tal technologies appear to have done more to widen the wealth gap than any other phenomenon-social, po- litical, or economic. This is perhaps one of the biggest surprises of the digital society. Maybe we should have seen it coming, but most of us didn't. The massive corporate investment in ERM (enterprise resource man- agement) systems has driven up pro- ductivity and profits at record rates. As corporations make more money with cheaper labor, the profits are flowing increasingly into the pockets of the executives who run the firms and the shareholders whose interests they serve. Real wages have stag- nated for nearly two decades-start- i n g w i t h t h e 1 9 9 5 I n te rne t "b ig bang"-while company profits, ex- ecutive salaries, and investor returns skyrocketed. Bloomberg Media re- ports that the ratio of Fortune 500 CEO salaries to worker salaries shot up from 20 to 1 in 1950 to about 200 to 1 currently. Updated Prediction: The wealth gap will almost certainly continue to widen for some time, until its conse- quences become acute, including stagnant wages, loss of middle-class jobs, and scarce jobs for young edu- cated people. At that stage, populist movements will put intense pressure on governments at all levels to adopt economic policies and tax mecha- nisms that rearrange the playing field. Activist groups, including ethnic advocacy groups, labor groups, and social reformist groups, may cause civil disorder, and may even go to the point of organized violence to promote the reforms they seek. Corporate accountability and so- cial responsibility will become politi- cal watchwords, and legislators will be caught in powerful crosswinds, pitting the interests of their corpo- rate benefactors against the interests of their most vocal constituents. GRAND PROMISE 6 : The Internet Will Spread Democracy A new age would dawn, in which oppressed peoples have a powerful voice, and dictators can no longer rule by fear. S o b e r R e a l i t y : " S wa rm a d v o- cacy"-the use of social media to get citizens out in t o the streets-has helped to bring dictators down in some cases, but has proven mostly useless in setting up democratic al- ternatives. The overcaffeinated rhetoric of the Arab Spring, for example, pushed the wishful proposition that democ- racy would naturally arise in such toxic environments as Egypt, Libya, and Syria once the cruel dictators were kicked out. A brief review of history would have reminded us that violent turnovers in developing countries usually involve one band of thugs replacing another. Mobs can only destroy things; they cannot as- semble something new. Most Americans and their govern- ments have long cherished the quix- otic ideal of "xerox democracy," a naïve belief that the unique Ameri- can democratic system and thinking process could be copied to any trou- bled society, if only the people there would just wake up and see its obvi- ous value. A long series of failed nation-building campaigns-most recently Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghani- st a n- have appare ntl y taught us nothing. A much more alarming impact of the pervasive use of digital technolo- gies is the relentless destruction of one of the key pillars of democracy. In less than a decade, Americans completely and willingly surren- dered one of the most cherished of all constitutional rights-the right to p r i v a cy. The y e nt h u s i a s t i c a l ly handed over their personal data and their personal lives to ever-present corporations like Google and Face- book, and-inadvertently-to gov- ernment agencies like NSA, CIA, FBI, and many local police agencies. We f in d o urselves i n a su rreal world of pervasive-even invasive- surveillance and persuasion, where corporations and government agen- cies know more about us and our ac- tivities than we do. Our cell phones can now track us and report our lo- c a t i o n s e ve r yw h e re we g o. O u r credit-card purchases provide a mo- saic of meaning about who we are, what we believe, and what we want. Our online activity profiles us as never before. Corporations justify this unlimited surveillance in the name of our own commercial conve- nience, so they can offer us more of what we want. Government agencies justify it in the name of proactive law enforcement and the conduct of the perpetual war on terror. The irony of this massive surren- der of privacy is that we've volun- tarily and enthusiastically provided commercial corporations with the kinds of data they'd have had to s p end b illi o ns o f dol l a r s coll ec t- ing-all for free. Consider the so- bering proposition that a company l i k e F a c e b o o k , f or exa m p le , ha s used "free" online experiences to herd together a target population of a billion people, each one identified a n d ca t al o g u ed i n d e ta il . T he s e "useful idiots" can be commercially exploited in countless ways, all the while being kept happy by the fun of participating in an addictive so- cial media experience. What is the real cost of "free?" Lately, George Orwell's dystopian 1984 scenario se ems l ess far-fetched than it al- ways has. Updated Prediction: Social media will probably be more instrumental in populist uprisings, particularly in less-stable developing countries. It will increasingly highlight human rights abuses and may lead to the downfall of a number of oppressive governments. It will do little, how- e ver, to constru ct democ ratic re- placements for the fallen regimes; that will continue to depend on the rise of leaders with rare capacities. Some regimes may opt to democ- ratize slightly, to pacify resistance; others may apply brutal counter- measures. Chinese leaders will probably con- tinue to resist democratization of the Internet, but at an ever-increasing cost to the fabric of Chinese society. They will be increasingly forced to- ward a middle-road policy, hoping that rising prosperity will siphon off some of the populist anger that seeks expression in the online subculture. The personal privacy issue, partic- ularly in America, is probably al- ready a dead horse. Although gov- ernment and corporate spying into the personal lives of citizens has sparked outrage and legislative at- tempts to push back, it's difficult to imagine a significant retreat from the "all-seeing eye." Surveillance-as newly defined-is just too lucrative a business, both for the big Internet companies and for governments at many levels. GRAND PROMISE 7: The Internet Will Make Us Better Informed The promise was that the Internet will create a better-informed public, wi t h a c c e s s t o v a s t l y i m p r o v e d sources of news. Alternative sources and channels for delivering news would bypass the traditional gate- keep ers a t t he TV net works and large newspapers. Superior informa- tion products, offered by a host of online outlets, would force them to lift their game, and the general pub- l i c wo u ld l ea rn m ore a nd th i n k more. Sober Reality: The "news" that we have increased access to has be- come dumber than ever, for some very good commercial reasons. T he n ews b u si ne ss-inclu din g print, broadcast, cable, Web portals, and blogs-has become a live-or-die fight for viewer attention. A vast number of enterprises now use sto- ries as "clickbait" to draw people to paid advertising (e.g., "Surprising Things Your Pet Is Thinking," "Five Things Successful People Do in the Evening," or "Should a Teacher Have Gotten Fired Over This Facebook Pic- ture?"). The only variable that counts now is " ey eb a l ls" - how m a ny people view the ad message before, while, or after viewing the story. Search engine optimization (SEO) has become the shibboleth of the webos- phere. Virtually all providers of electronic news and entertainment have been driven to the most degenerate prac- tices for attention-grabbing: violence, conflict, vulgarity, voyeurism, and gratuitous use of sexuality. Entertain- ers are forced to make their personal lives ever more bizarre and provoca- tive as they fight for precious seconds of media time or mentions on social media platforms such as Twitter. Probably the one defining feature of news now is the loss of subtlety, and with it the sense of innocence and wonder. The major news sites now continu- ously tally pag e views for eve ry article, on a moment-to-moment ba- sis. Software algorithms dynamically render news pages with stories se- lected based on numbers of clicks and viewing times, not on interest, topicality, or journalistic value. Even Wikipedia, once touted as the most d e m o c r a t i c o f a l l i n f o r m a t i o n s o u rc es , is w i d el y s u s p e c t e d o f special-interest contamination, al- though it's still very useful. Updated Prediction: A new psy- chographic divide may emerge in the wealthy economies, with a cer- tain segment of the population con- sciously rejecting the pop-culture values of narcissism, hedonism, and immediacy. This self-identified co- hort will favor "subtle-culture" val- u e s such as res p e ct f or scientific thinking; ecological consciousness; humanitarian policies; appreciation for education, literacy, art, literature, and the humanities; social and politi- cal civility; and civilized discourse about the ideas that matter. Psychol og ist Abraham Maslow ide ntified a cop i ng s kill t hat he named "resistance to enculturation." This is the ability to see past the im- ages, icons, and artifacts of the pre- vailing culture and to make indepen- dent choices about values, issues, and preferred futures. As with other aspects of the mod- ern culture, individual differences- family environment, early education, and exposure to more sophisticated va l u e s yst e ms - wil l d ete r min e which individuals opt to stay with th e med ia-acculturated herd and which become part of a new counter- culture. In the decades to come, the term radical might describe someone who defies the majority culture and opts for a view of life that is both new and old. GRAND PROMISE 8 : Everyone Gets to Be a Publisher Be fore e-b ook s , blogs, and on- demand printing of books, aspiring writers had little choice but to hum- ble themselves before the editors of commercial publishing firms, hoping to get their knowledge products out into the marketplace. The Internet would now push the gatekeepers aside, democratize publishing, and allow everyone to have their say. Writers would be able to sell their creations directly to the public; pub- lishers would be unnecessary. Sober Reality: Yes, everyone gets to be a publisher. Print-on-demand (POD) book manufacturing made it possible to print books one copy at a time. No longer would the econom- ics of printing require large set-up costs and print runs of several thou- s a n d c op ie s . T he n f o l l o we d t h e e-book in various incarnations, and books could be published to hand- held readers at almost no cost. This is bringing hordes of wan- nabe authors into the publishing market, with no particular means of assuring the quality of the writing. Within a few years, the tide of home- made literary sludge has risen so high that any individual's book gets drowned. Big-name authors are mostly un- affected, except for seeing an addi- tional format for the publication of t heir wor ks. Ironic a lly, how e ver, most would-be authors are in almost the same place where they started: unable to reach a reading public. Now, instead of failing to get past agents and acquisition editors, it's the sheer volume of competing ma- terial that's keeping audiences from finding them. Bloggers-perhaps the biggest cat- egory of self-publishers-are becom- ing t he n e w H yde Park ora t ors. Some of them are brilliant, some l a m e, s o me e cce n t ric , a n d so me crazy. Even the vox populi is largely un filtered by ed itors: "Comment t ro lls"-people who hang o u t at news sites and attack news writers and one another-are the new to- mato throwers of the culture. Updated Prediction: Managing the "infosludge" will be one of the major challenges facing tomorrow's digital citizen. Educated and enlightened people will seek new ways to reduce the tide of information coming at them, not increase it. Smart browsers and filters may al- low sophisticated screening of the content offered by news sites, blogs, and commercial sources; the user will define the level of quality he or she seeks, and the filters will screen out articles and reader comments that don't meet the discursive stan- dards set by the user. Proactive users will use software tools to compile their own news re- ports and information summaries, rather than wading through compi- lations of stories selected only for their arousal value. News sources and writers will be user-scored and rated for the honesty, credibility, bal- ance, political neutrality, and jour- nalistic quality they present. Those developments will mean that aspiring publishers and self- publishing authors will have to im- prove the focus, relevance, and read- ability of their material. They will p ro b a b l y s e e m o r e d e m a n d f o r s maller, m o re n eat ly packaged books, with fewer War and Peace - s ca le me gabook s . The y wi l l also have to channel their products more skillfully, and be content to reach sm a ller a udiences wi th m ore fo- cused material. More people will be reading more stuff. Printed books will survive, and probably continue to sell fairly well. However, publ ishers-both large and small-will increasingly have to build multimedia combinations, ex- tending print formats with online material, downloadable extras, and interactive or streaming media. So What-and What's Next? Toffler gave us the term future shock, referring to the sense of anxiety that people are feeling with the pace of change, the increasing imperma- nence of their environments, and the loss of familiar social and psychologi- c al l and m a r k s . N o w, we w o u l d update his terminology to digital shock. Those whom I'd characterize as digital zealots, who can't or won't recognize a dark side to the revolu- tion, will probably view this discus- sion as unfairly critical, pessimistic, or ungrateful. Those who are con- cerned about long-term effects, such as the impact of social media on child development and maturity, might feel that their concerns are validated. The larger purpose for this discus- s ion, ho wev er, is to ad vocate an open-minded and balanced view of digital information technology. I be- lieve we can value and appreciate the many benefits it has brought, and will bring, while also under- standing its side effects, unantici- pated consequences, and potentially destructive impacts. Neither zealots nor Luddites can give us a balanced perspective. That will take thought- ful analysis and informed conversa- tions about its many implications. Business gurus used to advise us to learn skills and methods such as time management to make ourselves more productive. It's likely that the most important emergent skill for this new age will be attention manage- ment. What shall we pay attention to, and what shall we tune out? How do we reclaim the time and attention t hat's be in g wasted by f loods of e-mail, news pollution, and enter- tainment overload? The human impact of digital infor- mation technologies-both costs and benefits-is likely to become one of the dominant themes in social and p olitic al discourse over th e n ext decade. By the time we fully realize what the pervasive use of these tech- nologies has done to us, it will be too late to change their course. Either we'll be living with a default future, one that simply arrives one day at a time, or we'll have confronted the major issues and questions head-on and shaped the technological future we want. T he re' s an int erest i ng a na l o gy lurking withi n this discussion. A hundred or more years ago, manu- facturing corporations of all kinds freely disposed of their refuse and toxic waste into rivers and landfills, believing either consciously or un- consciously in the infinite capacity o f t he e nviro nme nt to ab s orb it . Now we're coming to the painful realization that the costs of those ex- ternalities must be shifted back to the corporations themselves. This has been a politically unpalatable necessity, but we are now on the way to the kind of grand correction that will be necessary to preserve a sustainable economy. Similarly, the digital revolution has come upon us so rapidly that few of us could foresee the impacts of unbridled corporate exuberance. Now we're beginning to realize that the "digital industry" is creating its own figurative "pollution." Govern- ment oversight in the United States, as well as in many other developed economies, has been relatively per- missive. Parallel to the "green" is- sues and ideologies, we will have to grapple with the concept of a sus- tainable information environment. Maybe we should christen it the "blue" issue, for want of some fa- vored color metaphor. Four crucial questions will con- front the digital citizens of the devel- oped countries for a long time to come. They are: 1. What rights and privileges do we grant to corporations to do busi- ness in this strange new world of in- formation? 2. What rights and privileges do we grant to governments and public agencies to monitor the lives and ac- tivities of ordinary citizens? 3. H o w c an w e fa cilita t e th e healthy development of normal so- cial and emotional intelligence in young people, in the presence of nonstop pandering by commercial purveyors of addictive media experi- ences? 4. How can we reverse the un- precedented shift of wealth from working-class people to mega-corpo- rations and their owners, and restore the rising middle class standard of living? Perhaps the biggest question, the one that arches over all the rest, is: How can we construct and manage a national and international discourse that can lead to answers? ? "Digital technologies will amplify the 'smart gap,' but probably won't make many people smarter." "Today's kids aren't really tech-savvy; they're just button-savvy. Very few of them know or care what's going on inside their smartphones, laptops, video games, or tablet computers." "We find ourselves in a surreal world of pervasive-even invasive-surveillance and persuasion, where corporations and government agencies know more about us and our activities than we do." "Yes, everyone gets to be a publisher. ... Now, instead of failing to get past agents and acquisition editors, it's the sheer volume of competing material that's keeping audiences from finding them." About the Author Karl Albrecht is an executive management consultant, business futurist, lecturer, and author of more than 20 books on professional achievement, organizational performance, and business strategy. He is listed among the top 100 thought leaders on leadership in America. The Mensa Society honored him with its lifetime award for contributions to the under- standing of human intelligence. Among his books are Social Intelligence: The New Sci- ence of Success (Wiley, 2005), and Practi- cal Intelligence: the Art and Science of Common Sense (Wiley, 2007). Web site www.KarlAlbrecht.com. (c) 2014 World Future Society |