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Skeptical? Or bought and sold on the virtues of capitalism?
The
personal computer industry is the perfect arena for exploration of all
that is good. Every jump in technology is seen as a push to buy the next platform, when what you have, "works
just fine". We are always more wary of manipulation, than the
real history so far. Every round of improvement has found application, even
when the engineers them selves, don’t always know exactly how it will
impact. This year the Net proves it is an
entity of its own and is taking the creators for the ride. I t has
become more than a tool - it has its own independent momentum. So who
needs a 900 Mhz computer with 128 RAM? I want to be able to
voice talk to a team mate when neither of us know the others language
- on an art project
while both are looking at the same web site and I can see what my
companion is pointing at with his cursor - now - not in lag - and with
that voice recognition to language translation. Both
working on the exact same image and simultaneously able to improve the
product. The same with whatever we edit on that web page - to see it
right then - not 2 seconds later. Why is this crucial? Its
human communication. The more aware of the process of the communication, then
the more stilted. In the business arena - communication across great
distance is increasingly important along with the technology to allow a full
team, to work, as if they are right next to each other. That
ability can’t
be underrated. Can we even imagine how easy it would be to share our
daily lives with friends and family... I am trying to think of a
scenario. How about the fact, I didn’t show my brothers anything
about the web site I worked on for a year? In a
future too far away, even if it is next year, I could have shared the
same screens I am looking at now, and I could have said hello to the
Nephew by camera at the same time. The power to enhance every
attribute of each of our distinct
personalities. Each of us works or
plays in a vacuum that can’t be shared adequately - many people can’t
work on a project that takes years of work unless they have the
ability to share. The Net brings a closer, more open culture
with it. Its the Net’s nature. E-Commerce fills needs.
It is
bringing that reality into our living space. More needs fulfilled,
better, faster every day.
Do You Get It? How do we define the shake-up, in the entire
business world. Since this thread of thought becomes overrun with
culture - it helps to look at the last 15 years of cultural resistance
to the upheaval, just now starting to form. A little purposeful
culture shift began in the 80’s. It made so much sense, Ronald Reagan
wrote a federal mandate for the government to adopt
"Quality" business. There was some impact but
mostly it became, like in many private businesses, a hip thing to do
and an easy philosophy to parrot. It was predictably a victim to
culture. It asked the "team" to adopt more intimate ways of
dealing with each other, the product, and the "customer"
(oops - I didn’t capitalize that J). Today we are in the same process.
The organizations who actually realized Nirvana were more culturally
adept and ready to adopt new technologies such as the internet. But
not one of them will say the word "Quality". A
successful business person can discuss the exciting aspects of
business life and completely dance around the word. The rest who still
don’t get it are going through a second round of
bewilderment. But the same lesson will apply as in the last decade.
If
the management of any organization can’t be a team then they
certainly can’t team up with something as relational and
"unproven" as the Net. What they do have are models of
business not only having greater success but also reaching a second
level of excitement to go with the new dragons they conquer. "IT REALLY WORKS!!!!
After the archaic’s response of, "this
makes me sick", the old guard plunks down a second round of token money
to reeducating. The
roaring ‘00’s are coming because more are being swept up in the
excitement/euphoria and starting to get it. We will
detail the adventures of those who do get it from insider articles to come.
The way we do business is a source of culture. The customs
and courtesies dictating how we conduct daily business transactions
are rolled into who we are. Becoming our thought as much as
other influences such as the media we use and the art we
interpret. We daily monitor our cultures
health by observing how we are treated at McDonalds.
Even more Cultural. E-Commerce is clearly a force. New ways of
business are really just old ways being fully realized because the
impact is so much easier to gauge - so much faster to experience your experiment. Better motivation.
The most applicable trend of E-Commerce for this forum? Virtual
companies, and virtual teams, are the ideal - virtual in this context -
meaning they are geographically separated and communicating by modern
means. They have more challenges than the team working in the same
building but it is all cultural. Once a worker has experienced the
successful virtual team there is no going back. To counter the
naysayer - a team all working under one roof also has every chance in
the real world to fail. The innovative
companies have already slipped into this power with little fanfare.
The "Quality" company already used to experimenting with
team communication gets it. Some didn’t and just learned to
experiment aimlessly, they will get a second chance - nothing works
better than proof. But those that got it were further motivated with
the new technology. New
understandings of symbiosis abound. Dazzling in abundance, choices,
ingenuity, ingenuity, ingenuity. Building a career? How will it show
your ability to work in virtual teams even if they are all in the same
room. Was that enough babble for you? Sorry that’s all that escapes
out of euphorias of conquest.
So what is e-commerce to us as browsers? The web is going total
entertainment source as fast as the speed allows. All will be
delivered: music, movies, TV, entertainment news, sports, news in your
areas of special interests...
The number one trend for the user? E-Commerce has spotted it and is
scrambling to make it happen - personalizing. A good synonym
for "interactivity".
Both really mean control of your own domain. Both are coming but usually it is so
insidious, immersive, intuitive that we have to look back in a few
years to compare and then realize, where we used to be, in the realm of
interactivity. Like the commercialism of old - we don’t realize its
personal influence.
What is the power of the commercialism of new? E-Commerce craziness on the stock market has finally exposed the
cultural fabric for all to see it as a social gauge, of confidence in
capitalism. A vote of confidence for all things that are future.
The
loudest collective scream in the human universe is: THE FUTURE IS
BRIGHT.
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The most socially conscious aspect in tomorrow’s Net will be
E-Commerce. How? E-Commerce is already the biggest aspect of the Net.
Just by sheer ratio it will become the focus of social consciousness
through competition if not real philanthropy. Art will be used to
manipulate your
interest in a company’s history, product, and the cause they
support.
You may find yourself in a virtual building, your bank, talking to
the employee and getting the sneaking suspicion your bank is on the
down swing of the periodic customer service cycle. So you say to your
computer "search for banks with the highest satisfaction ratings from
the 3 most popular rating sites" and a
connection to your favorite social cause. Suddenly you are in a new
adventure, walking through a building styled as an inside out Mayan
Pyramid. As you walk up to a second small suspended pyramid
about head height and size - it beckons by being the brightest object
in the room. When you step within a few paces it suddenly
balloons up to fill your total view. It must be the central interactive art piece.
An intelligent agent guide steps up and tells you to give the command
"rotate left or right" to manipulate the pyramid.
Instead you step through the door. You learn the Maya theme matches up with a region in S. America,
where the
company is heavily involved in the well-being of the citizens.
"You say "back to the lobby" and the virtual world
accurately makes the pyramid disappear, so you are standing in the
virtual bank again. An
avatar that is obviously not a thematically dressed employee is crossing behind the art
piece and you ask how long she has used the bank... How does
this become a new form of social engineering? When you choose to
talk to a real person (you can tell because the avatar has a short
line) versus an intelligent agent you can here the conversations
around you, but not the voices of the teller and the customer at the
desk. One lesson every virtual engineer looks out for is the behavior
of those behind the safe mask of the avatar. In the virtual
world you are more likely to find your self being tempted to say
something snide, about the transaction in front of you. No
eavesdroppers to spoil the business side.
Is this really the scenario of our future? E-Commerce is
chomping at the bit and will be ahead of the ability of the Net to
handle immersive virtual reality representations of themselves.
The ability of the Net, as it speeds up, will be
multi-media maxxed out at every jump. The Net is full of interactive examples, crippled by the present
speed of the Net. Meanwhile the software engineers are
specializing in pushing to each limit given to bring the flash, before the
speed.
The power of capitalism is in its final phase of global domination.
E-commerce with Art, WWW, and the
Interactive Industry will
dance on the millennium party many are already calling, the roaring ‘00s.
We will finish off that decade with a synthesis of the 4 winds to focus
and define the most phenomenal human event in history.
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