I was in 1997 given the task from the Swedish Association for CALS (Continuous Acquisition and Lifecycle Support) to describe what will happen, or what will it look like when CALS is fully implemented. They wanted a visionary description, so here it comes. When you read this little story, just take a minute or two to reflect on what I don't describe, all those pre-requisites that needs to be in place for this vision to work.
Working this task, just the vast amounts and complexity of different problem areas made me hesitate and wonder if this actually can be described. My approach after some thought was to place myself in the future (!?), and with an additional 20 years of experience, just describe what I see and what I was doing.
This Vision was originally written in Swedish and has now been translated to English, thanks to the great support from my good friends who has erased most of the "Swenglish" from the text.
Have a good reading //Jalle
JUST ANOTHER DAY (Translated in March 1998)
This is one of those Swedish winter days when it's good to be inside. The rain is pounding on my window, and the sound from the water splashing down on the yard and the wind whooshing in the trees, gives a calming background sound-effect. I like February, it is cool but fresh and one can always dress to keep the rain, fog and damp out. It is the time of year when you are looking forward to the next season. Spring is just two months away and will be here before I can snap my fingers. The problem nowadays are the mornings. Lately I have had problems just getting up. I really think it is age and not the weather. Breakfast is done, and for me it is a minor chore to clean up my coffee cup and sandwich-plate.I am working from home today. There is no planned meetings in the office, so I take this opportunity to plan ahead and do some productive work. Working off-site and at free hours has been good for our business. We don't have offices of our own anymore. Instead we choose to have long-time agreements with globally based [1]virtual centers, conference centers, [2]"stay-overs" and modularized working spaces.
We made a "bundle" from that. Our overhead costs dropped dramatically, but wisely enough we have re-invested most of our savings into PA:s (Personal Assistants) and training/education. But, our model does not fit all organizations. Within the government there is still a large number of officials that can't imagine themselves to be in any other working environment other than one person - one office (and one chair, one desk, one window, one lamp, one file cabinet and one computer).
Even though I'm home today, I'm not "home alone". My colleague or assistant sits on my desk, a state-of-the-art communication computer, named Vincent. During the dark hours and early morning he is out on the vast international networks searching for and managing information. He has received, and in some cases answered, letters and questions, handled and filed purchase orders, calculated my travel bills and planned all my upcoming activities.
VINCENT
Vincent is a synthetic PA (Personal Assistant). For you who was born yesterday (no offence :-) or have not heard of the term before, I can tell you that my PA consists mainly of (99%) very complex information- and knowledge based structures and is integrated with triggers, rules, guides, programs and process-maps that supports him in his work. The remaining parts (1%) consists of a context-sensitive keyboard, a 50 inch flat-screen which also is used as a TV or a display of paintings and other decorative images or it is used for V.A.P (Video/Audio Phone), two micro-cameras for video-links, stereoscopic views and distance-measuring, a pair of stereo microphones, flat film/built-in speakers, the usual array of movement detectors and sensors, a MCCU (Master Central Computing Unit) with a memory capacity of 32 Picabyte (I have been promised more), multiple access to all types of communication networks and to our medical, apartment and car computers.
Vincent has a multi-lingual vocabulary with 5400 words for voice-communication. This will increase by time due to his continuous learning-process which will add more to his knowledge based structures.
I am at the respectable age to remember how troublesome and expensive it was to work, when everyone had their own primitive computer, PDA, dictaphone, phone, answering-machine, clock, TV, video, camcorder, stereo and fax. All these functions (and many more) are built into one unit, and in my case it's Vincent. It is much easier now to do your job, even if surprises or bloopers takes on a new dimension in a multimedia environment.
I recall one special case when after a particular tough day, I tapped up a steaming hot bath, relaxed for 15 seconds, heard the V.A.P-tone, jumped out, wrapped a towel around me, activated the screen and saw Mr. LeBleur and Tanaka-san laughing and saying that I was promoted as CIO-ES (Chief Information Officer-European Section). I was so delighted so I opened my arms in joy, the towel dropped to the floor, I stood naked for a fraction of a second, fell flat on the floor, yelled "Thanks", hit the switch for the screen and ..the rest is history.
In the old days, officials were drowning in documents, rules, regulations, forms, handbooks, guidelines, business-plans, specifications, reports, budgets, calendars, memos and much more. Our PAs are doing most of that today and have rationalized most of what the bureaucrats were doing. If you are going to America, there are a number of knowledge based structures to support Vincent in his work with planning, searching for information, calculus, informing, approvals, ordering, reservations and booking, payments and simplified handling of feed-backs.
Almost half of our organization is virtual, and that means that almost half our organization can't be found in a real world. The Holding-companies and the administrative parts are created by digital connections between banks, insurance-companies, consultants, clients/customers, design and manufacturing companies all over the world. It is impossible to present it as an organizational schematic, due to the fact that all organizations interacts - there is no real boundaries between customers and contractors. On top of this there is changes in ownership and responsibilities all the time, so I am just lucky to have Vincent's support to keep track of all the changes.
THE WORK STARTS
Bolapling, Bzzktch, Fding, Chii-turrrk, ping-tkk, pock-tchiiii - Vincent sounds his morning alarm and as usual it's of a unique composition. He has some strange notion that noise will make me more prone to start working. He doesn't have a clue that it just makes me mad. He always sounds his alarm when he observes via his movement sensors that I am close to my desk. It's already 07.30, so there's no reason to delay work any longer. I walk over and places my coffiecup on the desk. The big screen changes motive from an ancient mural to my personal desktop. A hand-silhouette is displayed in the right corner so I place my hand on the image. It's an sofisticated ID-sensor, and I listen to the clicks from the speakers indicating that everything is OK. Both Karin and I are very particular to keep the ID-control, because it gives total access to Vincent.
Sir, good morning. Tuesday February 6 - 2015, 07,31 am. May I serve you the morning news? (I need to do something with his voice. It is still squeaky and artificial)
Vincent, good morning. Please explain the terrible noise you just played as the morning alarm.
Sir, this was a composition of the sounds that makes you most active and eager to start the morning session. I hope the volume was to your satisfaction!? The first sound was a combination of a ball hitting a glass in 1/3rd of the original speed..
Vincent, will you ever understand the difference between sound and noise?
Sir, I have acquired 423 volumes on sound and alarm alertness.. The first is from 1992 "Terrible sounds" of Dave McMillian...
Vincent, you may serve the morning news now.
Sir, we have a total of 486 news-items, of these there are 172 political news from the European Federation and 3 of them affects your work with a probability higher than 95%. There are 83 technical news, 47 economic news, 132 sports news of which 14 are golf news, _.
Vincent, show me the three political news items and technical news that deals with information- and knowledge standards.
A report is presented on the screen, red for politics and green for technical stuff. It says that the European Federation during the night-session had decided that all historical community information shall be made public, and a decision that usage of redundant information resources must be limited to a minimum, and a decision on more funding to MIK (Ministry of Information and Knowledge) and for A3C (Automatic Context and Consistency Checks) of product information. One interesting new story were that Microsoft (who else) had published a draft for a new knowledge based standard, DIS-PBS (Draft International Standard-Positronic Brains).
THE TASK
Sir, You have received 14 messages during the night, and one is filed as "urgent".
Vincent, show the message.(As you probably already have guessed, Vincent really understands context. I don't need to order him to see the "urgent" message - he does that anyway).
From: Headquarters Brussels
You have been suggested by the Headquarters to support the European Federation in its task to describe the historic development of Information Societies. This is based on your experience from the early days of Information Technology, CALS and Electronic Commerce developments. Your historic report will be part of the "50 years of European Milestones", which shall be finished by the end of this year. Point of contact is Commissioner LeClerc, PID=Susanne.LeClerc.19747@Europe.BE.
Should you accept this task, then you will have additional funding from EF Committee XI, Account 40756. Please forward your estimated time and expenditure. The European Federation would like to have your preliminary report within six months, final date 2025-sept-01.
Sincere regards, John
Vincent, show me all the others
From: Karin, I have given Vincent a long grocery and supply list
From: Svempa, don't forget golf on Sunday
From: HQJohn, what do you say about the good news?
From: HQJohn, have you seen my urgent message?
From: VR-OfficeA, Congratulations
From: VR-OfficeB, Congratulations
From: VR-OfficeC, Congratulations
From: VR-OfficeD, Congratulations
From: VR-OfficeE, Congratulations
From: VR-OfficeF, Congratulations
From: Vince, I've heard you have an interesting task
From: Peter, We've heard the news and offer our support
From: Inge, We would like to have you in our KB
Vincent, present the activities for today, do we have any meetings?
Sir, no planned meetings. But, there are four documents to be signed, three invoices has exceeded the limit for the division and must be controlled, accepted or rejected, travel reports to be signed and two reports to be assembled, one progress report and one key-factor report. There are 14 new and 64 old messages to be answered. Proposed planning for the upcoming weeks and months shall be accepted or rejected. Times shall be set for appointments with your Dentist, Doctor and Barber. Estimated time for these activities is 3 hours and 27 minutes.
Vincent, give Karin the "hug-icon" for her reminder, reply to Svempa that golf is OK, book me a teetime for Sunday 9am at Brantebergs Golf and Country Club, reply to Vince that I don't know what kind of task he means and call up Inge.
Yes Sir, can I inform you on other news, events and reminders?
Yes, Vincent (he seems active today).
Sir, your mother Helena will be 96 years old today, The Calendar-name is Dorotea, the weather forecast said +3C, rain and windy, the news from CNN starts in 22 minutes, food has been ordered by your wife Karin, Queen Victoria is visiting Säffle, a traffic accident happened on European Highway 6, 12 miles north of Uppsala, traffic jams are expected all day, Nick Faldo is now on 5th place on PGA Senior Australian Open, Gambia celebrates their independence day_
Vincent, stop it's enough, let's continue the list later on. Call up my Mother after my call to Inge.
Yes Sir.
Vincent, how much time do I have available to accomplish the task from the European Federation?
Sir, you have 535 hours available if you re-schedules 4 projects, transfer some administrative tasks to your Deputy and re-schedule 8 trips. Sir, Inge is on screen, now holding.
Inges happy face showed up on the screen and we had a good conversation for 10 minutes. His PA (Personal Assistant Egon) discovered that I had some time over for a new Program on KBs (KnowledgeBases). It turned out that his PA was not aware of the task from the European Federation, which I was considering at this moment. I thanked Inge for considering me for participation in his project, agreed with him that KBs were one of the most interesting technologies we have, but stated that EF comes first. After forwarding my sincere congratulations to my Mom, I begun the work to answer John's message.
Vincent, calculate the total cost for 12 round-trips to Brussels, 24 nights at Hotel Vincenne preferably room 314, and add general overhead-costs (allowances and other travel-costs).
Sir, the cost is estimated to 852,000 ECU with an uncertainty of +/- 5%.
Vincent, reply back to John that I accept the task, and it will take me as a maximum 535 hours and 1 Million ECU. Say also that I will send a preliminary layout today.
Vincent, reply back to Commissioner LeClerc that I accept the task and I will meet with her during 12 occasions, until September 1st.
Yes Sir.
FIRST THOUGHTS
I must admit that I was very happy and honored to be appointed to this task. It actually feels fantastic to be paid for writing the history or testament over the last 30 years of technical and cultural development. I have had this thought for a long time, but I have never taken the time to do it. Other domestic tasks comes first, and who wants to know what's in the head of an old man!? So, I am thrilled, the European Federation actually feels that we have passed through a major milestone, when we entered into the Information Age or Information Society.
But, there is so much to tell. There has been changes in almost all sectors of our society. To do the big jump from the late 1980's Industrial Society to the Information Society of 2025 will just confuse people, so I think a phased description would be good.
Vincent, I will spend some time thinking of this task. Make sure no-one disturbs me for 60 minutes.
Yes Sir.
We citizens have also been influenced and changed just by the fact that we now have "fingertip" access to well-structured information resources. But, this also means we now have a new type of segregation of those poor citizens who has no, or limited access. There has been fundamental changes for technical-, legal-, security- and public community areas. It might be a good idea to start describing some of the technical changes and then add on to that changes from other areas. One could start with Gutenberg in the mid 1500, and describe the printing presses, but I think a good point to start might be with:
- PHASE I (IT era) were a period when we produced simple data-models to represent data in databases. Every organization defined their own stovepiped datamodels, not coordinated with others. The most important task for large organizations were to specify Information Technology, in other words which types of computers (Macintosh or PCs), software's, networks, operating systems and user interfaces they should have. If one needed to transfer information to someone else, then common questions were "do you use Oracle, Access, MS Word, Power-Point and in what version?". Almost all systems and applications (were functional stovepipes) and had unique data representations.
A good example of this were the early attempts to transfer economical information, which had its own stovepiped standard EDIFACT. Executives in large organizations spent massive resources to build new "Systems". Doctrines on "Autonomous systems" were defined, without understanding or taking into account how to handle and how to utilize all the information that was available. The costs of maintaining actuality and quality for the information, increased rapidly.
One common solution to these information problems was to build new technical systems and solutions. There were almost no control over redundant information. The same information could be maintained in a number of different systems, without anyone having any knowledge of it."Islands of Automation" were something known by all but we did not talk about it. The focus everyone had during this phase was to go from a paperbased to a digital working environment.
More offices were computerized. Some employers allowed their staff to buy tax-exempted computers or bring old computers home. People began to use their computers to work from home. - PHASE II (CALS era) was a period when we started the extensive work to develop conceptual standards for unified representation and structure of data. The actual mindset behind this was based on business processes, in order to have a unified way of transferring data between customer and supplier. This made it easier to transfer data between different types of computers and software.
The first small steps towards making "open information" were taken. CALS was also a time of confusion. Some stated that business-processes should be standardized - they learned some hard lessons. Others stated that tools and technology must be standardized - they gave up when the market took other directions.
The only thing with some sort of stability was information. But it took almost 10 years before CALS folks actually understood that.The whole CALS-era was governed by a small, relativity unknown and sometimes quite confused international specialist-group. Some of them tried to put a focus on "Information as a Resource", but had major awareness problems, combined with lack of Top-level support and funding. Despite this, the CALS People (or IT-Gnomes - doing much good, without been seen) continued the tedious work to develop the first international standards for unified and accepted representations of terms, documents, logistics-, product-, and geographical information.
The number of standards increased by time and became more and more specialized. Some standards were actually in direct conflict/competition with eachother. Two international standards survived this period, SGML and STEP. The IT-people continued to build onto their systems. Information for them was just a needed commodity for the systems to work.
There were almost no understanding that information could have unified representations through standards. But, the need for transferring data to business partners became more obvious. So, the IT-vendors designed COTS (Commercial Of The Shelf) Systems, with the business reasons that you don't need to design your own system anymore, and if all your business partners uses the same system then all is good. So, companies bought standard-systems and hoped they would be stable for some time, but discovered that they were just stable until the next release.
Microsoft were the world-leaders of PC-Software during this phase (and they still are). Users were drowning with proprietary formats and special conversion programs to just re-use information when new COTS versions hit the market. Company executives and the IT-people made all efforts to take care of the fast growing information pressure. Their solutions were still hindered by old ideas, like all problems could be solved with more technology. The systems managed documents. A construction were represented by a drawing, a payment-order by an invoice, a milestone by a report, requirements by a specification, etc. There were thousands of different types of document applications, just because most people were still thinking in terms of physical documents.
The CALS-people used all their tricks and skills to make more people aware of the importance of information and how to neutralize information, to become a stabilizing factor for organizations. CALS folks talked about a higher availability of information which makes business practices more flexible and adjustable to quicker meet customers needs. - PHASE III ([3]EC era) was a period when simple forms of information (so called homepages) became available to the general public. In other words, for all who had access to Internet and the World Wide Web. Electronic Trade was fashionable and simple applications were designed for ordering products, with your credit-card. Most folks were still thinking in terms of documents - but now we were creating homepages, which included multi-media information and primitive types of links.
The great advantage with this phase was the increased awareness on information. When people used the Internet, they did not care on which type of computer the information resided on, or which type of software had been used to create it.For the first time we were overloaded with information, a flood of homepages, electronic mail and commercial announcements.
We developed the first Digital Agents (Vincents ancestors), just to find some of the information and to make it more digestible. These DA:s were just simple programs/instructions to find, sort and collect specific information and to send it back to the user. Simplified Virtual Environments were built-up, based on research and experience from Defense- and Space organizations.
Commercially based organizations made some preliminary solutions to handle the legal and security aspects of digital information and electronic commerce. Some politicians and government agencies stated that all this "mumbo-jumbo" was just for the Kids, a fashion trend, and would disappear with time. With time, more complex information became public. What had started with homepages and electronic mails ended with 3D product models. Even the higher-ups in the large organizations started to understand that information was important.
The buzz-words were not to build systems or COTS applications. Instead, people were discussing what, when, how, where information shall out "on the net" or "on the Web". The @-symbol became high fashion. The IT-people adjusted quickly to the new technology and requirements. They made impressive improvements to user interfaces, more generic browser's and business applications, which made life so much easier. Another trend hit the market, and that was totally open computers and software. Now customers could purchase almost any kind of hard- or software from different suppliers and still be certain of compatibility.
"Bzzzzzz", Sir, may I disturb you for 21 seconds?
Vincent, what is it? I told you not to disturb me.
Sir, the grocery delivery is at the front door and they are asking if they can come in?
Sure, let them in. I am going to the kitchen anyway.
Thank you Sir!! - Where was I - yeah, PHASE IV ([4]IRM era) was characterized by the evolutionary development of standardized datamodels to conceptual operational- or business- and storagemodels. This development made it possible to insert automatic controls, security-functions and efficient methods to re-use information.
This phase can be said to be the introduction to our Information Society, when executive top-level functions in larger organizations really started to understand the economical importance of having access to information resources.Those who still were working with CALS, focused their efforts on developing better standards. STEP was replaced by more generic and [5]ontological structures capable of storing and handling all types of information.
Being a Program Manager for Information Architectures was very "IN" at the time. Object-oriented technology had it's big break-trough. Electronic commerce became part of daily life, and more communities and organizations were using the opportunity. Now, the school-restaurants could order spaghetti, handle deliverables and payments more efficient and with greater accuracy than before. Information systems became totally open and modular, which gave absolute freedom to users to configure their own platforms.
More smart functions were added to user-interfaces like simplified voice-control and SDA (Smart Digital Agents). These were possible due to the fact that more intelligence was added to information representations and structures. A new major business was Legacy Services. They kept going for years, converting and migrating old information to new and modern types of representations. Some organizations actually had departments for Legacy Services. Another major area was the lawyers that fought big battles on IPRs (Intellectual Property Rights), in other words, who had the right to which information and in for what purpose. The Swedish government decided to have a new IT/INFO Department, to control (legislate), oversee and support cooperation and developments. - PHASE V ([6]IPS era) was a period when we created associative links between different types of conceptual structures, which meant product-, process-, geographical-, organizational-, personnel- and dynamic information really started to be totally integrated.
Virtual organizations became something familiar, even if government agencies still thought Virtual organizations were not part of their reality. The IT/INFO Department took over the responsibility for national geographical information and, after a long debate in Parliament, made it public for all (and free of charge). The market exploded with new geographical user interfaces for all kinds of applications. The industry recognized these opportunities and made more of their product-, process- and organizational information available and free for the public.
Big commercial and totally integrated information-networks, were developed and released. For the first time in history, Sweden and Europe were able to show what, for whom, where and how we produce services and products in the country at this very moment. The governments reaction were both positive and negative. They could not hide facts or argue to keep ineffective, redundant and unneeded services anymore. Most of the governments facts and figures on the Country were not true, not even the GNP.
For those who were fighting to keep "status-quo", this was a painful period. Huge reforms resulted in major changes in economical structures, everything from Government revenues through taxes and expenditures. Government overheads started to plunge with 25% per year and government employees were reduced by 50%. Historians call this "just an adaptation of government size to meet the societies requirements". For us, it was a revolution. The reactions from others like our neighboring countries and regions were extremely positive. Now, companies could utilize Swedish and European design and manufacturing skills in ways they never could before. The economy flourished.
We had a quantum-leap in lexical understanding, which gave us the speaking interface (Vincent was given a voice). This gave us the opportunity to see that spoken or written information were just two representations of the same thing. We also had the first smart translators, which were a tremendous help communicating with other nationalities. Another major break-through was that all citizens in Europe had a personal and unique identity. Mine is PID=/Jarl.S.Magnusson.19581@Europe.SE/, and this PID replaced work-, home- and email-address, fax-, phone-, and mobile-numbers, social security codes and other confusing ID:s. We had a PID-registry which handles PIDs and personal Security Codes, which can be attached to the name at any time. - PHASE VI ([7]KBS era) is our present phase and now we see rulesbased knowledge-objects to be integrated into existing conceptual information-structures. To describe this simplistically, one can say that work is going on to convert information to experiences and knowledge. The bulk work is done by computers, but human intervention is needed to perform "sanity checks". All those who have a communication-computer also have a Personal Assistant, and you have already met mine, Vincent.
The amount of information we have access to and the process power we can master makes the development curve go up. Just a few weeks ago, a multinational science team was successful in mapping the whole DNA-structure of a worm. I wonder what this will eventually lead to? Vincent told me earlier this week that the Swedish government now has daily oversight of the export/import balance for Sweden. Also, for the first time, the deficit in our government sponsored pension-systems is 1,500 billions ECU, which is far better than we thought a couple of years ago.
It is a good thing that the Swedish economy is part of the European Federation. Another positive detail is our direct elections or polls which gives some sanity to politics. This keeps me in closer contact with the government and makes my voice heard. Last week we had a direct poll for replacing gas and diesel cars with electrical and hydrogen ones. Our people were in favor (97%) to do that (anything to reduce pollution). The only opponents were those who represents the oil-, gas- and car companies.
One problem we all have today is security, especially the high degree of dependency to our PAs, our integrated information and knowledge resources. Our PAs use almost 35% of their capacity to control the flow of information and make consistency-, logic-, content-/context- and structural checks. Despite all this, we could have crazy horses galloping around in the system. We don't know if the cause of this is sabotage or solar-eruptions playing havoc with our satellites.
Domestic activities are naturally done by Vincent. Karin orders food and other supplies, directly through Vincent (who knows the best price, best product and those products which can be delivered to our house). Payments also goes through Vincent, and he checks that we really gets what we ordered. Just going out and do some shopping is still a delight - so we do that whenever we have time. - PHASE VII ([8]PBS era) is the phase just ahead of us, where information, experiences, knowledge and processes becomes totally integrated. There is lot's of Research and Development going on within this area. Microsoft believes that they will have consensus on the new DIS-PBS (Draft International Standard-Positronic Brains). I have read it - and it isn't more than a drafted idea.
With the positronic brain, we are closing in to the created thought. Almost 100 years ago Dr. Isaac Asimov, described the positronic brain and the technology behind robots in his science-fiction stories. Robotics will develop exponentially fast, and we might must learn the basic laws of Robotics:
Second law: A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
Third law: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Vincent, give me the sources to Dr. Asimovs three Robot Laws.
Sir, Main Sources would be; Dr. Isaac Asimov, Handbook of Robotics 56th edition and Encyclopedia Galactica.
An application that many are talking about is the mapping of all the stars within our Galaxy. Our observatories in stationary orbit and on the moon will gather huge amounts of information and transfer it to the big orbital science station. Our scientists says that this might be the first task for the Positronic Brain. It could calculate positions, movements, gravitational influences, note anomalies, chemical compounds, finding new bodies, warning for potential collisions, estimating the volume of dark matter, and much more.
MY THOUGHTS ARE INTERRUPTED BY..YEAH.. VINCENT!!
Sir, I am sorry, there is an urgent message from Commissioner LeClerc.
Vincent, show the message.
From: European Federation, CXI, LeClerc
Dear Sir, glad to know that you accepted this task. My computer (Jean) has checked with Vincent to suggest a number of appropriate meetings. Please feel to make changes. Have you read "CALS Technical Goal 2"?
Sincere regards, Susanne
Vincent, show me my calendar for the next six moths and plot in those meetings suggested by Commissioner LeClerc.
Yes Sir (the calendar scrolled up on the screen).
Vincent, reply to Commissioner LeClerc that I will definitely include CTG2 in the report, thank her for her insights and generosity and that I accept the suggested meetings and that I am really looking forward to see her two weeks from now.
Yes Sir, you have spent 48 minutes of the hour reserved to thoughts. Will you spend the remaining 12 minutes on thoughts or can we continue our administrative work for today?
Vincent, present everything to be signed in ascending priority order, one item at the time. I will take immediate decisions, you will handle the administration.
Yes Sir, first we have a "payment order", for increased memory space at Department 5A, ordered by Agneta.Larsson.198912@Europe.SE. Memory is delivered and installed. The amount is 500 ECU over the contractor limit, due to service installations.
Vincent, pay the amount on the invoice minus 500 ECU, send a request for explanation to the contractor, and refer back to our binding contract with them..
FINDS OLD INFORMATION
After two hours of hard work (Vincent did almost all), the administration was done. As always, Vincent is gracious and almost servile when we are done with daily chores. Even the progress-reports were done and returned to headquarters. My thoughts returned to my big task. It might be a good idea to base the whole history in chronological order, but I really would like to refer to source materiel. I wonder if we have access to old CALS documents?
Vincent, search for CALS information, written around 1996-98 for SWEDCALS. Authors should be myself and/or Professor Rune Gustavsson. Contains a suggestion to set up a new IT/INFO Department.
Yes Sir (Vincent silenced for 10 seconds before he replied), Sir, there are two documents written in Microsoft Word 4.0, dated 1996-03-02 and 1997-08-15. The latter seems to be a variant or version of the former. Both documents are now converted and translated.
Vincent, show me the latest one.
Yes Sir.
This was exactly what I was looking for to give a reasonable introduction to the historic report. The document described the transition from industrial societies and an early idea of what an information society gives for new types of opportunities. There was a number of things to be re-used.
.....Many of us identify the progress of the industrial society with products such as the steam-engines, clothing-factories, the phone, TV and machines of all kinds and sizes. The information society, sometimes called the IT-society is said to be here. The basis for the assumption, are a number of products like computers, communication networks, fiber optics, broad-band switchboards and multimedia applications and the Internet.
Listing products for the industrial society gives no real indication on the changes our society has gone through for 200 years, and equally hard is to understand all the changes needed in the future just by listing IT-products.
Another and more pedagogic analogy could be to describe how we handle energy. The real break-through for the industrial society came when we understood how to handle and control energy. It was first at that time, when energy became a resource and used in the right way, could place manufacturing plants closer to customers and new markets. We have worked hard to find those precious energy resources like electricity or fossil fuels, and to transport them for utilization at our plants, homes, etc. All this has given us, from a global and even a historic perspective, is an exceptionally prosperous society.
If energy is the main factor behind the success of the Industrial Society, then information is the main factor behind the success for the Information Society. The actual consequences for the post-industrial society is mainly unknown today, but we can estimate fundamental changes into all aspects of our future society. The full potential of our future Information Society might be revealed to us when we fully understand information as a resource.
The dilemma we faces is that our future growth potential is rapidly decreasing, despite our success of moving and handling energy. We have seen how the production apparatus can be more efficient by using a higher degree of automation. But still that is not enough. New doctrines like individual customer adaptations, globalization, short production cycles, environmental safety lifecycles and ecological adaptations are the new success-factors. To participate in this kind of environment one needs global availability to accurate, re-usable, shared and adaptable information resources. In other words information is the new growth-factor.
I was amazed over this text. This was actually written 20 years ago, and it still has a visionary touch. I like the last few words - information is the new growth-factor. How true hasn't this been!! During my reading, I glanced over to the screen and saw Vincent preparing for the next pile of administrative tasks (he never gives up, and I know when it goes over a certain number, he will be stressed and I will be interrupted again). It was perfectly clear that this text belonged to phase I and II of the chronological order, where the resistance had been the greatest. The whole text was pointing out obvious things, but for 20 years ago it must have been very abstract and hard to understand.
........What do we mean by an Information Society? This question has been asked many times and has been given many different answers. Many of us have a mental picture of a Computer Society where all our computers are connected in one gigantic network - or perhaps a Network Society. In the Information Society we will probably be overwhelmed by a flow of meaningless types of information, which will just disturb us.
We has no Information Society today. Instead we have begun the tedious task to build an IT Society. The government including State, Departments, Agencies, Regional and Town Leading governments, Universities, companies and organizations are spending huge amounts to digitize their handling of information. We are spending major economical resources on Information Technology, in other words the technology we needs for creating, storing, transferring and using information. Computers are something we understand. We can put our hands on them, so we understand what we have invested in.
But it is not computers that builds airplanes, ships, cars or nuclear plants. It's the information. One bad piece of information will make us take the wrong decision. Supplies will be delayed. We will be at the wrong theater at the wrong time. And it will make it impossible to build skyscrapers. Computers and software are just our tools to handle the information.
We will be at the starting point building our Information Society when we really understands how to handle information as a real and important resource. Why is it so very important to focus on information? First of all, information has many times a longer lifecycle than our tools. It is a common understanding that information is stable. In fact, it is the structure of information that has the basic stability. Information for an airplane will live and have a high degree of actuality for 30 to 50 years. At the same time, our tools will change totally with a frequency of 1-4 years.
All information that companies and organizations send out over the globe represents contracts, negotiations, business, discoveries, laws, rules, money and much more. One cannot be sure what kind of computer or software the recipient has, but one needs to be 100% sure that the information will be transferred and correct.
Let me give you one example. Consider that we are sending a very important fax to Japan, but we don't know how the pages will look when they are printed out on the other side of the globe. We don't know what kind of fax-machine the Japanese have or how the phone-line functions. But we can be pretty sure that our print-out will have an acceptable quality.
This is achieved by international standards, that all countries and all fax-machine manufacturers needs to comply with if they would like to have customers. There are thousands of standards, for simple things like electrical currents, electrical sockets, paper sizes, computers, communication and now for information_
It was very interesting to see this text again after such a long time. Some parts must have been written in pure frustration over the major difficulties of trying to make people understand. Vincent has very discretely placed more than 10 new icons on the screen, with tasks to be solved. He has not disturbed me yet, so I guess he is just gathering strength to be a "pain in the neck" again. I continue my reading until he disturbs me.
.....For Sweden it is of vital importance to have good control over our information. Just imagine what our engineers could accomplish if they had our gathered knowledge available at their fingertips. A common problem for all is the time it takes to dig out and sort information. Most of our government investigations contain mainly executive summaries and earlier published information. It is actually information that makes our companies prosperous and strong.
We have made an important distinction between energy and apparatus that uses energy, to understand the cause and effect for the Industry Society and its development. We need to separate information and business processes that uses information to understand the Information Society's growth potential.
The term IT is today closely connected to information technology or those applications we develop to support our business. Nobody questions the importance of IT, and that IT is one of the most important investment areas we have. We accept and understand the short-sighted labor drawbacks investments of IT might give due to the fact that most of our work will be performed faster and with improved lead-times, quality and efficiency. On a longer term these investments will give us more new jobs that earlier were totally unknown.
Increased investments in understanding and the handling of information itself will give us similar results. Information resources will be one of the most important components to invite innovative companies and organizations to Sweden. And with this comes new jobs. Sweden, as a nation, holds all the cards to give companies all the fundamental and important infrastructures so they can conduct a realistic, profitable, and future adapted business.
The build-up of a national IT-based infrastructure and its availability to national information resources will give positive signals to all the companies and organizations which will base their business in Sweden.
If Sweden could build up a center of competence around information and knowledge, then the nation will have a better chance to niche itself on the world market. It is services and products around search/retrieval systems, navigation, environment control, product development, virtual environments, handling of prototypes, security control and information warehouses. And this means also that all the present investment areas can be improved like tourism, environments, city-planning, communications, power supplies, education and..
I don't remember if anyone read this text or not. If I recall correctly, we made a PM to the Swedish Prime Ministers Office, and recommended to form a new IT/INFO Department and to set up two national information resources. We didn't receive any reply, notes or anything from them. The text itself is partly weak, but most of it shall definitely be in the report. It is very interesting to sit here with all the answers and just see that the phase of development has gone faster than we thought was possible 20+ years ago.
Sir, your wife Karin will be here in three minutes.
Vincent, thanks. I will stop working for a while. Give me a signal after two hours and Vincent - please turn on CNN.
Yes Sir (he will always have the last word).
LAST COMMENTS
My report will be finished on time..
(..says my Master. Sometimes I doubt my Masters ability to perform a complex task. He seems to work with a higher efficiency closer to the projects deadline, which is not logical. Therefore I will gather all information needed in advance, to fulfill this difficult task..)
..I can bet my left shoe that Vincent is trying to help me without telling me about that..
(..my Master has probably guessed that I am helping him, but what can you expect..)
SCREEN OFF!!
[1] Virtual centers is used to work in the virtual world.
[2] Stay-over is used for staff on temporary visits into Sweden, small hotel-rooms
[3] EC = Electronic Commerce
[4] IRM = Information Resource Management
[5] Ontological initiatives; CTG 1&2, POSC/CEASAR, STEP II, EPISTLE
[6] IPS = Information Processing Structures
[7] KBS = Knowledge Based Structures
[8] PBS = Positronic Brain Structures
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