One of the reasons that I'm an optimist when it comes to the use of technology is that it supports our natural thought processes. It’s associative, intuitive and connects many of the random associations that come, say, in the middle of the day during an interminable business meeting. As Tom Evslin points out, our dreams are hyperlinked.
Tom Evslin is running a great series of thought pieces on
the “flattening of everything.” In his first entry,
he points out organizations “used to need hierarchies because [they] had only
primitive communication and information processing capability.”
In other words the hierarchy was necessary to move one idea to its logical conclusion in a product or service. Simplified:
one person directed a group, which managed its subsidiaries, which implemented
change. In large vertical organizations, each of those action points modified
the decision, adding or subtracting some value to/from the initial proposition. The
end product might or might not turn out as planned.
In his second “flattening” entry, Evslin posts that information retrieval is now so much easier. The Internet is where the computational churn of Moore’s Law meets the endpoints, people, of Metcalfe’s Law. An exponential explosion of knowledge occurs. What’s knowable can be known in just a few minutes.
And what then? The long tail becomes
a field of nearly endless opportunity. Esther Dyson hosts a meeting about the
viability of the on-demand air taxi services. The Apple iPod creates an entire
industry around individual tastes in music.
The obscure can make money because the right information flows to the right person at the right time. Hierarchies flatten out. Sometimes they come crashing down.
Then we are free to add value in the form of conceptualization and beauty and grace.
People really do think like that.
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