[gu-new] (03/22/07) John Eger's new essay on Power Shift for flattening societal structure

Thu Mar 22 15:59:28 EST 2007

<<March 22, 2007>>
Archived distributions can be retrieved at;
<http://tinyurl.com/35zedj>
This archive includes a html version of this list distribution and its
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John M. Eger
Van Deerlin Chair of Communication and Public Policy
Executive Director, International Center for Communications
College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts
San Diego State University
5500 Campanile Drive, PFSA 160
San Diego, CA 92182-4522
619-594-6933
619-594-6910
Fax: 619-594-4488
jeger at mail.sdsu.edu
http://www.smartcommunities.org/
http://www.smartcommunities.org/guidebook.html
http://www.iicom.org/intermedia/july2001/eger.htm -- His paper on Smart
Communities in InterMedia.

Dear E-Colleagues:

(1) ATTACHMENT I below is a msg I received from John recently.

> Dear John:
> Many thanks.

(2) Pls retrieve his previous essays at;

> (12/16/06) Interesting article on creativity by Thomas Friedman
> http://tinyurl.com/2ehuw5

(3) As said in John¹s recent essay and my contentions on Innovation vs
Confucianism mentioned in the above previous list distribution, the
pyramid-style or command-control style, social structure of the old
industrial age is now start crumbling down, thanks to the proliferation of
Internet  -- see <Crumbling Feudalistic Hierarchy copy.pdf>
<http://tinyurl.com/3252yn> and  <PrivatevsPublicService-Acopy.gif>
<http://tinyurl.com/2u8s22>;

(4) You may then be interested in reading the article appeared in
BUSINESSWEEK -- ATTACHMENT II

As it says, money and high-tech alone are not enough to have democratic
society.

In other words, we have a lot of things to do for changing the world for
betterment of humankind ‹ particularly with high quality content through
broadband Internet.

Best, Tak

ATTACHMENT I 

http://tinyurl.com/34vup7

San Diego Business Journal

¹06 Year That Power Shifted From the State to the Individual

By  - 3/19/2007
San Diego Business Journal Staff

BY JOHN M. EGER

Time magazine¹s Person of the Year was you!

A piece of reflective Mylar acted as a mirror on the cover of last
December¹s issue, allowing each of us ‹ subscriber or curious newsstand
observer ‹ a chance to see oneself on the cover.

As Time would have it, ostensibly, the cover gave each of us a chance to
think about our newfound, empowered role in world affairs and as Time¹s
editor Rick Stengel put it, thus ³changing the nature of the information
age² and ³engage(ing) citizens of a new digital democracy.²

It may well be that Time is right; that 2006 clearly marked the year that
power has shifted from nation states and national and international
political leaders, to each of us ‹ to individuals and individual communities
‹ as never before. 

Clearly the Internet, with Web sites like YouTube and MySpace, or search
engines like Google, has given us more access to more information than ever
before. 

Like Minded

Young people post their profiles and reach out to new communities of like
minded young people (and some weirdos, too, we are finding); some of us have
used Finder.com to renew old friendships; and more of us are blogging daily
to affect U.S. political campaigns like George Allen¹s Virginia race for the
Senate (remember Macaca) or to stop global warming.

In the long run, it may be argued that people are going online and
influencing decisions about everything from art and politics to commerce.

This, in turn, is changing the way marketers and political strategists think
about their product or their candidate, reflecting more of the interests and
needs and concerns of the body politic.

We are being heard, Time says, and a new form of online governance is taking
shape.

Maybe. But maybe not.

In the short run, as Dan Yankelovich, world-renowned research guru and
pollster points out, fewer and fewer people are going to the polls, mostly
because they don¹t think that voting is an effective way to express their
hopes and dreams. 

Sadly, as Yankelovich says, those that do vote aren¹t so sure their vote
counts. 

Thus, in the short run, more people are disheartened and disillusioned by
their elected officials and those running their schools and our global
corporations. Democracy seems like it¹s on a downward spiral.

Old Model Broken?

While the new Internet-based model is clearly having its impact, the old
democratic model, it can be argued, is broken.

On the world scale, a majority of Americans want something different in
Iraq. They want some solutions to global warming; they want alternatives in
our foreign policy.

America knows, too, they need something more than the no-child-left-behind
legislation; better partnerships between federal and state and local elected
officials and between those representing so-called blue states from red.

In the long run, our individual advocacy using the Internet may bear fruit.
In the short run, we need to organize ourselves and to be involved in the
public policy arena.

Our freedoms ‹ and our unique free enterprise system and our
constitutionally protected rights of speech assembly and religion ‹ are what
have given us the most robust information economy in the world.

California alone produces more books, movies, software, information or
knowledge products of all kinds than any other country in the world.

In this new global age, particularly the flattened world economy that (New
York Times columnist) Thomas Friedman talks about, we need to strengthen our
political and economic muscles as the line between the two blurs more than
we ever imagined.

John M. Eger, Van Deerlin chair of Com muni cations and Public Policy at San
Diego State University, is a member of the Envision San Diego partnership, a
media forum for discussing public policy issues affecting the region.

ATTACHMENT II 
BUSINESSWEEK/Technology March 15, 2007, 8:23AM EST text size:

New Technology, Old Habits
Despite world-class IT networks, Japanese and Korean workers are still
chained to their desks

by Moon Ihlwan and Kenji Hall

Masanori Goto was in for a culture shock when he returned to Japan after a
seven-year stint in New York. The 42-year-old public relations officer at
cellular giant NTT DoCoMo (DCM) logged many a late night at his Manhattan
apartment, using his company laptop to communicate with colleagues 14 time
zones away. Now back in Tokyo, Goto has a cell phone he can use to send
quick e-mails after hours, but he must hole up at the office late into the
night if he needs to do any serious work. The reason: His bosses haven't
outfitted him with a portable computer. "I didn't realize that our people in
Japan weren't using laptops," he says. "That was a surprise."

A few hundred miles to the west, in Seoul, Lee Seung Hwa also knows what
it's like to spend long hours chained to her desk. The 33-year-old recently
quit her job as an executive assistant at a carmaker because, among other
complaints, her company didn't let lower-level employees log on from outside
the office. "I could have done all the work from home, but managers thought
I was working hard only if I stayed late," says Lee.

These days, information technology could easily free the likes of Goto and
Lee. Korea and Japan are world leaders in broadband access, with connection
speeds that put the U.S. to shame. And their wireless networks are state of
the art, allowing supercharged Web surfing from mobile phones and other
handhelds, whether at a café, in the subway, or on the highway. But when it
comes to taking advantage of connectivity for business, Americans are way
ahead.

For a study in contrasts, consider the daily commute. American trains are
packed with business people furiously tapping their BlackBerrys or Treos,
squeezing a few extra minutes into their work days. In Tokyo or Seoul,
commuters stare intently at their cell phone screens, but they're usually
playing games, watching video clips, or sending Hello Kitty icons to
friends. And while advertising for U.S. cellular companies emphasizes how
data services can make users more productive at work, Asian carriers tend to
stress the fun factor.

Why? Corporate culture in the Far East remains deeply conservative, and most
businesses have been slow to mine the opportunities offered by newfangled
communications technologies. One big reason is the premium placed on face
time at the office. Junior employees are reluctant to leave work before the
boss does for fear of looking like slackers. Also, Confucianism places
greater stock on group effort and consensus-building than on individual
initiative. So members of a team all feel they must stick around if there is
a task to complete. "To reap full benefits from IT investment, companies
must change the way they do business," says Lee Inn Chan, vice-president at
SK Research Institute, a Seoul management think tank funded by cellular
carrier SK Telecom (SKM). "What's most needed in Korea and Japan is an
overhaul in business processes and practices."

TIME, NOT TASK.

in these countries, if you're not in the office, your boss simply assumes
you're not working. It doesn't help that a lack of clear job definitions and
performance metrics makes it difficult for managers to assess the
productivity of employees working off site. "Performance reviews and
judgments are still largely time-oriented here, rather than task-oriented as
in the West," says Cho Bum Coo, a Seoul-based executive partner at business
consulting firm Accenture Ltd. (ACN)

Even tech companies in the region often refuse to untether workers from the
office. Camera-maker Canon Inc. (CAJ) for instance, dispensed with flextime
four years ago after employees said it interfered with communications, while
Samsung stresses that person-to-person contact is far more effective than
e-mail. In Japan, many companies say they are reluctant to send workers home
with their laptops for fear that proprietary information might go astray.
Canon publishes a 33-page code of conduct that includes a cautionary tale of
a worker who loses a notebook computer loaded with sensitive customer data
on his commute. At Korean companies SK Telecom, Samsung Electronics, and lg
Electronics, employees must obtain permission before they can carry their
laptops out of the office. Even then, they often are barred from full access
to files from work. And while just about everyone has a cell phone that can
display Web pages or send e-mails, getting into corporate networks is
complicated and unwieldy.

The result: Korean and Japanese white-collar workers clock long days at the
office, often toiling till midnight and coming in on weekends. "In my
dictionary there's no such thing as work/life balance as far as weekdays are
concerned," says a Samsung Electronics senior manager who declined to be
named. Tom Coyner, a consultant and author of Mastering Business in Korea: A
Practical Guide, says: "Even your wife would think you were not regarded as
an important player in the office if you came home at five or six."

These factors may be preventing Japan and Korea from wringing more
productivity out of their massive IT investments. Both countries place high
on lists of global innovators. For instance, Japan and Korea rank No. 2 and
No. 6, respectively, out of 30 nations in terms of spending on research and
development, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development. And the Geneva-based World Intellectual property Organization
says Japan was second and Korea fourth in international patent filings. But
when it comes to the productivity of IT users, both countries badly lag the
U.S., says Kazuyuki Motohashi, a University of Tokyo professor who is an
expert on technological innovation. "Companies in Japan and Korea haven't
made the structural changes to get the most out of new technologies," he
says.

Still, a new generation of managers rising through the ranks may speed the
transformation. These workers are tech-savvy and often more individualistic,
having come from smaller families. Already, some companies are tinkering
with changes to meet their needs. SK Telecom abolished titles for all
midlevel managers in the hopes that this would spur workers to take greater
initiative. Japan's NEC Corp. (NIPNY) is experimenting with telecommuting
for 2,000 of its 148,000 employees. And in Korea, CJ 39 Shopping, a cable-TV
shopping channel, is letting 10% of its call-center employees work from
home.

Foreign companies are doing their bit to shake things up. In Korea, ibm has
outfitted all of its 2,600 employees with laptops and actively encourages
them to work off site. The system, which was first introduced in 1995, has
allowed the company to cut back on office space and reap savings of $2.3
million a year. One beneficiary is Kim Yoon Hee. The procurement specialist
reports to the office only on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On other days, calls
to her office phone are automatically routed to her laptop, so she can work
from home. "It would have been difficult for me to remain employed had it
not been for the telecommuting system," says Kim, 35, who quit a job at a
big Korean company seven years ago because late nights at the office kept
her away from her infant daughter. "This certainly makes me more loyal to my
company."

Moon is BusinessWeek's Seoul bureau chief. Hall is BusinessWeek's technology
correspondent in Tokyo

****************************************************************************
***
* Takeshi Utsumi, Ph.D., P.E., Chairman, GLOSAS/USA
*
* (GLObal Systems Analysis and Simulation Association in the U.S.A.)
*
* Laureate of Lord Perry Award for Excellence in Distance Education
*
* Founder and V.P. for Technology and Coordination of
*
*   Global University System (GUS)
*
* 43-23 Colden Street, Flushing, NY 11355-5913, U.S.A.
*
* Tel: 718-939-0928; Email: utsumi at columbia.edu
*
* 
http://www.itu.int/wsis/goldenbook/search/display.asp?Quest=8032562&lang=en
*
* http://www.friends-partners.org/GLOSAS/
*
* Tax Exempt ID: 11-2999676
*
****************************************************************************
***

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