Democratization::Technology-Induced

One of the amazing editors on my team recently sent me a loooong but engrossing email wherein various Microsofties weigh in on an equally long but engrossing essay by Marc Prensky. 

If you--like me--are irresistibly drawn to the Intersection of Social Drive and Computing Boulevard, you might find this essay worthwhile.

<Link Type=“PDF“>The Death of Command and Control? -- A Strategic news Service (SNS) Special Newsletter</Link>

Only have five seconds?  Here's the thesis:

“The unprecedented changes in technology we have seen in the last 30 years have led to new patterns of thinking, especially in young people the biggest users of that technology. The extent and magnitude of these changes is largely underappreciated. This has led to changes in the behavior of young people, many of which have been noticed individually, but which have been rarely, if ever, grasped in their totality. These changes are creating, and will continue to create, important changes in society. Although these changes will be many, the biggest and most revolutionary will be, it seems to me, in our concepts of leadership and in the way that our largest groups business, government and military are organized and controlled. While traditional leadership has been top-down and hierarchical, I think we will soon see much more bottom-up control of many things, even such traditional top-level prerogatives as setting strategy. Future leaders will be much more directly influenced by those whom they lead, in a true democratization of all organizations.”

In response to this essay, a reader writes, “We have to be careful, as always, of the Special Times Fallacy – that is, the belief that this moment in history is somehow unique and unprecedented. It is the business of journalists to constantly write Special Times stories like this one; you can’t have News without New J
Shifts in power from the center to the edge have happened many times, and technology has often played a role in the new egalitarianism: Gutenberg and the Reformation, pamphleteering and the French and American Revolutions, telegraphy and instant global news, etc. [to which I would add the Fax machine for its role in hastening the dissolution of the former Soviet Union].