For Immediate Release
January 19, 1999

FACING THE CONSEQUENCES: RESEARCH TEAM PUBLISHES BOOK ON EFFECTS OF THE INFORMATION REVOLUTION

The Industrial Revolution is being deposed. By the mid-21st century, the Information Revolution will have reshaped completely the way humans currently work, play, govern and even wage war. Only those willing to think — here and now — about such a future will have a chance to be prepared for it.

That's the premise behind a just-published book, The Information Revolution: Its Current and Future Consequences, written by an interdisciplinary research group from the Georgia Institute of Technology. The book, issued by Ablex Publishing of Greenwich, Conn., addresses information technology's potential impact on the workplace, academia, political affairs, "information societies" and management of the modern organization by the year 2020, said Dr. William Read, a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Public Policy.

The book evolved out of a series of activities organized at Georgia Tech by Read and Dr. Alan L. Porter, a professor of industrial and systems engineering, and public policy. A year of informal meetings led to a commitment from some 20 Tech faculty members to pursue research in their own fields on the impact of the information age. That research in turn led to the book.

"Looking ahead, even imperfectly, is better than putting one's head in the sand," Porter said. "We can pick up vectors of change and their implications, reducing uncertainty by identifying powerful forces. We can help depict alternative futures and say, 'Here's a reasonable range of possibilities.' We don't know where we'll actually end up, but we can do some planning."

The Information Revolution's focus on diverse fields affords a overview that is undeniably broad, yet the book offers a large number of specific observations and predictions.

Among some highlights:

• The present educational process can be likened to an ancient cottage-shop industry that is neither efficient, because costs are growing relative to income; nor effective, because it does not do a very good job of increasing learning. So writes Farrokh Mistree, a professor in Georgia Tech's School of Mechanical Engineering, adding that clearly college education is ripe for major technological change that will make education both more efficient and effective.

• The new suburban "edge cities" meet many people's needs and keep them away from the city centers, according to Micha Bandini, a professor in Georgia Tech's College of Architecture. A hallmark of the new type of city is the mall, which is privately owned and not always accessible to everyone. For many, it has already taken the place of truly public places, such as the traditional downtown area, the town square and the city park.

• Already the power of technology for free exchange of information has been seen in the breakup of the Soviet Union, writes Frederick B. Dyer, a principal research scientist emeritus with longtime involvement in computers and communications. Dyer believes that while there will be considerable pressure by many governments and commercial and social interests to "regain control," technology-aided information exchange will remain free.

• By 2010, scientific publication will be a fully electronic medium, predicts Scott Cunningham, who was with the Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex, while writing for the book, and is now with NCR. Journals will no longer be the major means of organizing scientific information; browsers will help scientific readers select new papers from across a variety of disciplines and sources.

• The first-hand workplace research of Peter Sassone, recently deceased associate professor of economics at Tech, has produced a number of intriguing findings, including an expensive tendency for staff professionals to teach themselves about computers and to perform their own computer support. Rather than pinch pennies, companies should aid efficiency by adding support people to their staffs, Sassone advises.

• International governmental organizations like the United Nations will continue to have difficulty gaining authority over nation states' decisions, as non-governmental organizations proliferate and become more influential because of information technology, writes Daniel Papp, a former Tech administrator who served as interim president of Southern Polytechnic State University and is now on the Georgia Tech faculty. Papp predicts sovereignty will be increasingly challenged because of the inability of states to control financial flows and information dispersal, and distribution of wealth will be increasingly skewed within and between states.

RESEARCH NEWS & PUBLICATIONS OFFICE
Georgia Institute of Technology
75 Fifth Street, N.W. Suite 100
Atlanta, Georgia 30308 USA

MEDIA RELATIONS CONTACTS:
John Toon (404-894-6986);
E-mail: john.toon@edi.gatech.edu; FAX: (404-894-4545)

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Dr. Alan L. Porter, Technology Policy and Assessment Center, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0205. (Telephone: 404/894-2330) E-mail: alan.porter@isye.gatech.edu.

PUBLISHER INFORMATION:
Ablex Publishing Corp., 55 Old Post Road No.2, Box 5297, Greenwich CT 06831-0504. (Telephone: 203/323-9606).
To request press review copies, please fax a request to 203/357-8446, attention Martin Smolar)

WRITER: Rick Robinson