Chapter 3 - Doing Business Digitally

Abstract

This chapter discusses doing business digitally. Computer programmers write software applications that are doomed to be as obsolete as wire recordings or programs for an IBM XT. The infrastructures built by engineers are equally doomed. Whether a virtual world of digital bits or a physical world of concrete and steel, it is building a “Big Toy” of a civilization. People use that Big Toy while playing and build another on top of it. The fun of the game is to remember that it is a game, and winning is just another name for the willingness to play the game, to give it everything—all the energy, intelligence, and gusto—and to be used up when the game is over. Too much change can make one feel powerless. Security comes from predictability and the world today is anything but predictable. Technology isn't about technology but is about people. The initial effect of every new communications technology is greater distance between people. But over time, the technology itself enables people to work and live in closer communion.