The transition into a new Age

It was a puzzle to me. I'd presented, what I'd considered to be a practical strategy for dealing with complexity to two quite different groups of intelligent people and I 'd failed to convince either of them. I'd explained my case as best as I could and the arguments hadn't got through. Where was I going wrong? Why were these ideas so hard to accept?

I was evident that they were wanting to build on knowledge they already had. They were prepared to accept new concepts but not if these conflicted with their current understandings. They were looking for clear and rational explanation in terms of what they already knew and were hostile to anything which didn't accord with their ideas of common sense.

Unfortunately, everything about dealing with the Internet, digital communications, e-business and e-commerce goes against all Industrial Age business reasoning. All education and previous experience in the conventional business world of the twentieth century doesn't necessarily apply in the emerging environment of high speed digital communication. Not only does this make it impossible to build upon previous knowledge, it becomes essential to have to unlearn much of this knowledge before going forward.

It then began to make sense as to why the young were making all the running and main progress on the Internet and the Web. They weren't handicapped with previous knowledge, experience and dogma applicable to previous times. They hadn't acquired the conflicting concepts that applied in the Industrial Age business world. They could go straight in and see the Internet for what it is: a new world that nobody knows very much about. It is just there, ready for exploration and experimentation.

Whereas Industrial Age business thinking wants to control and harness the power of digital communication to bring it in line with traditional and established practices, the young are looking at it with fresh new eyes and are seeing opportunities which will take them outside of and beyond the business practices of the twentieth century. To them, all the established ways are old fashioned and inefficient. They can see far better ways of doing business.

The question then becomes one of making a transition between the old and the new. How do you have to think about the Internet in order to escape from the established thinking and business practices of the Industrial Age? How do you get up to speed in the rapidly changing environment of Information Age so as to avoid being left behind, fretful, baffled and confused?

It was a puzzle that Sherlock Holmes might have revelled in: the intellectual transition into a new century, a new millennium, a new age: the Age of Information.