is IT really a solution to poverty?. [infosophy: socio-technological rendering of information]

——-

another good question from mentor….

IT cannot solve anything. People create poverty, not technologies, access to technologies and/or usage of technologies cannot as such change anything, though inarguably it can raise the standard of living, but that usually means only that a segment of the population has increased earning capacity, it may even mean that the poor are relatively more poor than they were before the technology acquisition. This is not to say technologies don't help, but it is to say that they are not a simple solution to a complex problem, and poverty is complex.

[Andrew sez No, That's Not Gibberish.

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch.... Aoccdrnig to
rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr
the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and
lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you
can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe. [David Harris' Science & Literature]

Scary thing is, it looks like that's right. Wow.

[A blog doesn't need a clever name]

——

well i can read it, that's for sure… strange how this faculty of mind works

Thing to worry about #132. Super Volcano – Not to worry thought, we know the right solution: tax cuts for upper income brackets and the distruction of the welfare state…. [Ascription is an anathema to any enthusiasm]

—–

this is the sort of massive natural disaster that i can't bring myself to worry about in a serious way…. if it happens, millions, perhaps over years billions die, and probably i'll be one of them, but you know so will most people i know, and probably most of the things they like, so it will be cultural devastation as much as anything, but with everything or nearly everything gone that i care about, what's left is just to live out life and do what you can when you can, etc. and if it happens, that's what you'll do, cause there's not much else to be done.

this is an interesting little site that lets you look at market demographics for zip codes, though some zip codes are not present in it. notably 17731, eagles mere, pa.

China's High-Tech Standards.

Ninad points to a WSJ article which discusses how China is wanting to set its own standards for Mobile-3G, digital TV and DVD technologies.

Ninad's analysis of the reasons:

(1) It places China at equal footing with some of the western nations (US, UK & Scandinavian) and Japan, in developing new technology rather than copying it by paying a higher licensing fee.
(2) It lowers the cost of indigenously made Chinese electronics for local consumption and increases the rate of mass market adoption since China controls the standard
(3) Potential revenue opportunity through licensing the standard outside China

Adds WSJ: “China's drive to create new standards in high technology is part of its broader desire to claim equal footing with the world's top economic powers…By creating homegrown technical standards, China is trying to increase the use of Chinese innovations world-wide. And it is using its own large domestic market to help speed up their adoption. By requiring these standards to be used on technical products in China, international companies that want access to that market are forced to make products that use them.”

[E M E R G I C . o r g]

more great info from emergic. china is one of the most interesting areas to study in technology adoption right now i think

IT and Productivity.

The Economist has two articles [1 2] on how American productivity has grown rapidly, and the role of technology.

A puzzle [in the American economy] is why productivity accelerated over the past three years at the same time as IT investment fell. After all, a host of studies have concluded that most of the revival in productivity growth is linked to the production or the use of computers and software.

One explanation is that the productivity gains from IT investment do not materialise on the day that a computer is bought. Work by Paul David, an economist at Oxford University, has shown that productivity growth did not accelerate until years after the introduction of electric power in the late 19th century. It took time for firms to figure out how to reorganise their factories around the use of electricity and to reap the full efficiency gains.

Something similar seems to be happening with IT. Investing in computers does not automatically boost productivity growth; firms need to reorganise their business practices as well. Just as the steam age gradually moved production from households to factories, and electricity eventually made possible the assembly line, so computers and the internet are triggering a sweeping reorganisation of business, from the online buying of inputs to the outsourcing of operations. Yet again, though, the benefits are arriving years after the money has been spent.

IT's impact is likely to continue for the foreseeable future:

Pundits who reckon that 3-4% productivity growth is sustainable for another 5-10 years are, in effect, making the bold claim that IT will have a far bigger economic impact than any previous technological revolution. During the prime years of the world's first industrial revolution÷the steam age in the 19th century÷labour productivity growth in Britain averaged barely 1% a year. At the peak of the electricity revolution, during the 1920s, America's productivity growth averaged 2.3%.

Yet there are still good reasons to believe that IT will have at least as big an economic impact as electricity, with average annual productivity growth of perhaps 2.5% over the coming years. One is that the cost of computers and communications has plummeted far more steeply than that of any previous technology, allowing it to be used more widely throughout the economy. Over the past three decades, the real price of computer-processing power has fallen by 35% a year; during 1890-1920, electricity prices fell by only 6% a year in real terms.

IT is also more pervasive than previous technologies: it can boost efficiency in almost everything that a firm does÷from design to accounting÷and in every sector of the economy. The gains from electricity were mainly concentrated in the manufacture and distribution of goods. This is the first technology that could significantly boost productivity in services.

So, IT does matter, but only if companies are willing to change the way they do business. “The most dramatic gains happen when companies use technology to understand better what they do in order to change how they do it, says Navi Radjou, an analyst at Forrester, a technology-research firm. The main issue slowing productivity gains down, he adds, is 'grandma syndrome'÷a reluctance to ditch tried and tested processes.”

This is what SMEs need to do – adopt technology and revamp the way they think and do their business. This is the next frontier for tech companies.

[E M E R G I C . o r g]

i'm not sure that this is driven by IT as much as it is driven by a culture of self-exploitation that has been spread through various memes… i suspect that as you see the generation of self-exploiters age more and more, this will drop off.

Governments and Open-Source.

The Economist writes:

Across the globe, governments are turning to open-source software which, unlike proprietary software, allows users to inspect, modify and freely redistribute its underlying programming instructions. Scores of national and state governments have drafted legislation calling for open-source software to be given preferential treatment in procurement. Brazil, for instance, is preparing to recommend that all its government agencies and state enterprises buy open source.

Other countries are funding open-source software initiatives outright. China has been working on a local version of Linux for years, on the grounds of national self-sufficiency, security and to avoid being too dependent on a single foreign supplier. Politicians in India have called on its vast army of programmers to develop open-source products for the same reasons. This month, Japan said it would collaborate with China and South Korea to develop open-source alternatives to Microsoft's software. Japan has already allocated ´1 billion ($9m) to the project.

Policymakers like open source for many reasons. In theory, the software's transparency increases security because ãbackdoorsä used by hackers can be exposed and programmers can root out bugs from the code. The software can also be tailored to the user's specific needs, and upgrades happen at a pace chosen by the user, not the vendor. The open-source model of openness and collaboration has produced some excellent software that is every bit the equal of commercial, closed-source products. And, of course, there is no risk of being locked in to a single vendor.

Economics is a big driver for governments to use and encourage open-source software. Governments cannot pirate software (purchase through tenders), and so their total cost of ownership can be quite high – especially in emerging markets.

In India, most state governments and the Central government have been incredibly slow to recognise the power and potential of open-source. India should have been leading the world in the use of open-source, but we aren't even following. Yes, the President has made some positive statements, but it hasn't gone much beyond that.

India can define a new architecture for computing for the rest of the world. This can create a much wider use of computers and also make its people and companies more efficient. A little push from the government can go a long way in shaping a domestic software products industry, which can, over the years, become as big as the services industry.

[E M E R G I C . o r g]

this ia another great bit of infor from emergic

24 Hour PLATO People. It does not get any more 'L33+ or 0LD SK00L than the PLATO system, the O.G. of social software. It looks like PLATO may get some of the recognition it deserves, from a book-in-progress called PLATO People:

The PLATO system, started way back in 1960, was developed as a technological solution to delivering individualized instruction … As the system grew and evolved, it became, pretty much by accident, the first major online community, in the current sense of the term. In the early 1970s, people lucky enough to be exposed to the system discovered it offered a radically new way of understanding what computers could be used for: computers weren't just about number-crunching (and delivering individualized instruction), they were about people connecting with people. For many PLATO people who came across PLATO in the 1970s, this was a mind-blowing concept.

Yep.

The Research Questions page is asking for help

Then, there's the personal and social aspects: I'm interested in learning about how people made friends (or enemies) via PLATO; about their experiences in PLATO notesfiles and P-Notes and TERM-talk; how PLATO affected their lives and careers; those kinds of things. Who out there (besides me!) met their spouse through PLATO?

with these questions and more. If you're interested in PLATO, watch this space, and if you used it or worked on it, get in touch with Brian Dear, the author. [Corante: Social Software]

——

there were only a few things more old school…. but yeah this is a great project. i've hear stee jones from uic talk about plato before, interesting system it is.