Feb 6 - Feb 9, 1998

Izumi Aizu, who works now in Malaysia, asked about Ira Magaziner's (Clinton advisor) paper on ecommerce and its relevance for LDCs. Thru conversations with people in that office at the White House, they do believe that the private sector often sees the benefits of the Net faster, and with more sophistication, than the government. Therefore, the private sector is a natural leader (a theme in our discussion so far) and a natural ally for global forces seeking to bring about key aspects of the information revolution. Where the private sector is present and strong, therefore, introducing ecommerce will be simpler. Where, in some poor countries, the private sector is weak or nearly absent, IT presents a bigger problem. Who will take the leadership?

Can NGOs press for parallel changes that will eventually benefit ecommerce directly and indirectly , as well as benefitting civil society?

Dear Marja, dear colleagues,

you established: >The amount of information, that's tremendous. The overflow of information can block everything, all reasonable work. Quite many people would prefer receiving less information. Condensed, better focused, tailored. And one difficulty is of course this information which cannot be coded, how to transfer experience, wisdom etc..<

I agree. We should discuss that. These facts imply that there are people who are able to deal with the information overflow, a group of information analysts. And this is the reason why the big growth of the Internet and IT is stucked although the industry says how easy the use is, it isn't!. For most of the people the technology is to complex and not connected to their needs. Additional to that in Germany we have the problem that technology in society was negative discussed in the 70's and 80's. But Electronic Commerce is dependent from the amount of people who want to buy products and services by Electronic Commerce. You cannot handle global Electronic Commerce with the group of information analysts. The success depends on amount of people who use Electronic Commerce.

LEADERSHIP: About what kind of LEADERSHIP we are talking about. Political, economical or sociological? Following the definition of the German sociologist Max Weber, Leadership is the capability, to force his own will against opposite interests. For Machiavelli, leadership and power is a central term in politics. What does this mean in the context of our discussion? Leadership also means to establish technical standards. The community which invents and establishes these is able to dominate the markets. An example from the past: France wanted to establish its SECAM standard in television. The other countries used the PAL standard. This restriction was a political decision. Today the Internet opens a democratic competition which is not under the influence of national decisions. The people itself decide which standard they want to use and this must be the task of politics to enable these open competition worldwide. Every nation who does not recognize these facts will stand apart. The requirement for success of Electronic Commerce is that the IT-Industry offers tools which are really easy to handle.

That Finland is the 'Telecom Laboratory of Europe - or even the Telecom lab of the world' confirms what I said before. And: Europe is not sleeping.

My colleagues and I have joined with others in various parts of the world to move forward the establishment of national networks of community based, locally owned and operated information, communication, and computer assistance centers. We have called the US organization, World InfoMart Foundation. It has been established under the not-for-profit provisions of the law, and its governance is by a civil society equal blend of representatives of commercial companies, non-government organizations, and although non-voting (because of regulations), government personnel.

Jim Johnson's questions have resulted in responses which have been stimulating and I find the discussion has moved to a number of different levels. However, to give you the framework of my thinking I will return to some of the early questions.

I believe we are in the early stages of a transforming revolution made possible by the convergence of a whole range of communication and information technologies (including the telephone and television) and their lessening costs. The transforming character of the impact of the information revolution is pervasive, effecting all societies and all sectors and is happening, as others have said, with a velocity which is increasing the gap among and within nations and their populations.

The technology is both catalyzing and modifying the roles of leadership, providing vision and its dissemination, and the ways we manage and influence the changes happening all around us. Leadership is less and less of a command nature, and more and more of consensus building and that is increasingly linked to a process of developing visions which are contributed to by many, and are dynamic.

It is appropriate therefore to pursue the recommendations of Hauber, Ritter and others and ask ourselves what would we like to see as the 'fruits' of this revolution, and of course, the flip side of that issue is to identify as did Rheingold and to an extent Hermes, what do we want to avoid.

The technology is changing governance. On one hand, we are witnessing the growth of significant internationalization of the rules impacting on all sorts of transactions, e.g., WTO and concomitantly, we are seeing devolution, decentralization, local resource allocation decision-making and the like. I suggest that these both contradictory and complementary trends will accelerate, and when we view either the post-industrialism of advanced technologes/states or the emergence of pre-information society developing countries we can see these two forces at work.

I suggest that as we move into and are moved by the information revolution, we consider as a major and primary task how we can help to lessen the gaps between and among the participants in the revolution. Our concern ought to be based not only on ethical traffic lights, but economic and social self-interest. The technologies are making everyone aware of the scope and impact of technology. A visit to a rural community in most any developing country will find a level of knowledge about communication and computer use which is quite astounding until you discover that the local social gathering place has a generator which is providing power to a television set reporting on the funeral of Princess Diana. If opportunity to benefit from the technology revolution is not constantly at hand and accessible, instability will result. On the other hand, prudent promotion and support for the uses of the technology to help further individual development and to make a difference in the economic and social life of the community, will create consumers, producers and possibly the next Einstein.

Our organization has emerged with a set of guiding principles as we begin to engage with others in the furtherance of our aim. Some of the salient principles may help in defining, if you wish to pursue this direction, what might be some of the goals of the revolution we are experiencing. We would welcome within the context of Nikkei's charge of developing a 'common understanding' of the Global Revolution your comments.

• The information/communication centers must be businesses, serving as local 'public utilities' and networked nationally and internationally. Their effective demand should be driven by consumers -- individuals, businesses, NGOs and government.
• The centers should contract to provide the electronic services, e.g., A Ministry of Education's program to help teachers enhance their curriculum development skills would be selected, monitored and evaluated by the Ministry and the local school system and delivered on computers through the center.
• It is critical to the optimum use of the center for the center to assist in the generation, aggregation and analysis of local information. And, it is important that national and regional information sources of information be strengthened and inquiries directed to them.