A Word on Words; 2706; Richard Oliver

once again welcome toward own words were talking about the shape of things to come that's the name of the book this week were talking with rigidity alma ricardo welcome to world wurtzel thank you recovered grenade dr richard doug oliver who is a professor of percussive moe's minute at the owings grew up is greatly heavier talk about things to come and to talk about as a place to come and we always have to think about the shape things are in now and shape things have been in the most provocative the most challenging the most fascinating statement i've heard about the future a long time is when you make it really an option when you say information age is over our already have passed it is at a rare in a flash the country three thousand years old and that's really trusted to audit of information a

question fifty years for and now we both dark looking at the shape of things to come a large ounces leverage explain it well and if you look at the economy what drives an economy and it's it's often the technology brain age the technology of a better culture drove the dominant police systems an organization of that time industrial age same way they harnessed the technology that they used to to develop our culture and created these factories and it had a great centralizing force in you know in our lives it brought people off the farms and interests cities it created countries and nations if you will as a centralizing force and that all happened over a couple hundred year period i think that the high watermark of the last great event of the industrial age was when neil armstrong stepan the mood because that whole industrial era was about conquering space harnessing energy and conquering space and the

technology that drove the economy from that point on up to that point the economy was driven by industrial age technologies oil electricity basically from that point on we were driven by the semiconductor and the computer chip what became the chip that today dr so knowing computers but your toaster in your washing machine and and your current and controls most of our lives and and but that technology has become a commodity a very much a commodity and if you look at how our technology that drives an economy you'll find that it falls kind of a n s curve it starts as an interjection grows growth and then kind of reaches a plateau or becomes a commodity and eventually will kind of tail off a little bit at the top of that s curve well if you look around and say where are we with information technology my talk information technology and talk about everything it's written by the chirp the the tv stuff that we're dealing with the government can be a tv station to

because it has to equipment so expensive you look at computers you look at a telecommunications you look at all the digital sound and all those kinds of things that we've come to expect an ending just are cheap raw commodities my first the crp nearly a thousand bucks for a less well paid intern fifty years is not hijack know is as high tech their couple benchmarks one is that giant leap for mankind were our songs right up the other binge watching come fly and i hadn't thought of the mosaic explain that well it i think it by a socially there'd be the armstrong stepping on the moon serve was as i said this has high water mark in and if i understand what you mean by the mosaic perhaps you should silber more what you do well i mean good i mean there have been at that it was a discovery by

one individual its supporters into the information age in a very meaningful way and everything else sort of flows for break an end and to me if you mean by the mosaic what we what we currently have today by then very clearly that's been the result of the in industry which technologies are very centralizing one of the key technologies of energy was the i was the elevator it when we had the elevator we can have big tall skyscrapers and all sort of all the sudden organizations became very hierarchical so we got that today we have everything pushing out an information technology has created a mosaic has created a hierarchical structure odd that is very flat it's not much of a hierarchy of all you look at the great corporations today marcus often like they don't live in big tall elevator buildings able to storytelling and there's a mosaic of them around the world so you have you have a really great forces acting upon us as individuals and houses corporate beings corporate an organizational sense that create this kind of a life that we're living at a

couple of statistics your site that sort of make the case as well as a gift to be made and that one has to do with looking back to that point in time when ninety plus percent of the people is country were involved in farming official rate be about five points fish was a fish percent in manufacturing and about one percent and services and now you know semi vibes and services are some lawyers he's going to reverse and when we accept this century the number of people who actually are involved in farming actually being an ally say farming i mean people who were in working in the in the earth and actually growing things will be somewhere under two percent a population which is a dramatic change in a hundred years and and but then the other interesting thing is about the same number of people actually be in factories making things with her hands

know if you look at manufacturing company employment nearness see that well there's a lot more than two percent of people my former company northern telecom has fifty thousand employees about less than five percent of them actually are in a factory making things and so information age technologies have totally transformed the factory industrial age technologies and i what you're saying now is a new engine of the economy that's going to pull people into other directions and that's what i mean when i say the information age is that during the seventies eighties and nineties electronic company's software hardware et cetera were the largest employers in in this country and in fact in the western world they are what propelled us economically over the last fifteen twenty three years with that happen is a new technologies and a couple that employment and take us into the future excited when you know uses for controversy all that information age is over i sense that it doesn't mean the

information's no longer important just as gasoline electricity are vitally important to us today that information's not to be what propels the economy with snark and b what employees people in the future you also point out that some were giants lead a factory near a shrunken law says that richard and i think you were ibm gm sears is very examples of that ibm makes a bit of a comeback the other's rebels continued to drift downward in the case of syria ibm has let go somewhere in the neighborhood of two hundred and eighty thousand people since the mid eighties and you know the whole history before that is of course they hired almost unanimity thousand people while they're letting people go eighteen keasling people go sears in and others some continue to struggle kodak for instance is a company that continues to struggle with us and where is it worse the new employment twenty four hundred companies being formed in biomaterials in the us

and an and western europe twenty four hundred companies in the bay probably has a kicking of people work for well if i'm if the information is over you just said what age is almost less about material agents i said that the people out there that say what's in places single a problem on the ma bille material age and beyond that what is the etiquette it became an agent next year the girls this is a little bit difficult some people have called it a biotech and biotech is a little too constraining what i'm talking about here is that that the technology i talked about the computer chip in that in that in the real a force that that was in our economy through the last fifty years a long history of biology obviously a long history of work with natural materials in the material sciences and they have recently just accelerated the knowledge about biological living material and physical properties of the

natural materials that we deal with on a daily basis and they are combining to create a whole new set of products a whole new set economic strategies if you will for the world which were about to enter and i can give a couple examples of very quickly just the that the trees that we use to produce that would that we have in these pieces of furniture and every other thing that we use wood for is all based on the economics of it takes about seventy five to a hundred years to grow good sized tree that they can convert into lumber biotech scientists are trying to change the genetic makeup of that tree so that that tree can be harvested year will grow year it's not one you want your yard sale can be very elegantly look you know and as a as a as an ornamental tree but certainly as an industrial treats can produce all this would in any year when you change from a hundred years to year you really dramatically changed the whole nature of the wood industry and so i talk about

biomaterials and talking about building materials and also the the the material sciences that are engaged in understanding things like ceramics an end in the new materials which are are going to be available to us russell i'm already available to some in the next few years just in terms of the turtles one that the bright side is the dupont company is studying a paint and changing the atomic structure of paint that they put on your car so that the pain would change color if it's warm it would change to a lighter color so that it would reflect the heat and if it's cold it would change its color to a darker color so it will absorb the heat so you can use less energy and in heating and are cooling your car we're looking at materials for packages that the nature of the actual package if you will like a milk carton or something that's been shipped will change its atomic structure depending on the environment that finds it's you know okay you of fold

whole issue what was a shoe and into this into this story that you tell here and i've been a folded into this discussion with future talk about the impact of globalization and you write about people and i did not know until mono yeah so was on his stinson marshall close as we would discuss just before the show was a professor in canada who wrote a lot about this in fact he was really way ahead of his time because he described the impact of the internet in nineteen sixty three in his book in nineteen sixty three and he didn't call it the internet that you describe what we see we now see is the impact of the internet our way back then in nineteen sixty three and his argument was that information technology would become a serve a global infrastructure listener must remember this back in nineteen sixty three we hardly knew what computers were and sixty three and he was talking about that were computers that would not work the whole world which is in fact what we have and he said it would disintegrate

a lot of the social cultural structure that we have today and so i simply or great oh him a great debt i mean he really taught me how to look at the world and so i just decided to stop and i'll work it melissa aware of wales was sent a one stop and have a lawyer and what i saw was that the globalization that we've encountered entering information age around really made a psychologist at the industrial age you know we conquered the us base union in the information age we conquered time and i so what's the impact of those two things and celebs how it i get a view of what's going to happen in the future of globalization as a critical part of that started way back in the agrarian age when we were farmers and different side of a hill you start using technology and i start using technology and we can grow a little bit more than what we knew to eat her cells are for a family and we started a trade that was the first globalization happened along the nile river in the thousands of years ago and it has progressed into the point where we have now

where it is very much part of everybody's life as we've seen here in the last couple weeks with the situation russian sulzberger threatening to impact or even american the american economy is and as we see no less than months the impact of a change in a nation right yes it's here it's here it's not now you also say that that is new age in campuses and on a visit to our areas and protect part of of the last rachel that as we move from the information age and embrace respect for i think the better but for better forget about our same of the rare occasion and the and the industrial age oh but it also forces us these changes you change any change for jesus to look at what's gone paid the result of what i think are

quite clearly you describe as the democratization of the economy that is taking place as result information age now as a result of that we have more choices today as customers and so it'll unlock in my head that there is going to be a market strategy in the future and suggest instead as i read it that there's going to be a customer focused you talk about a bob dylan i think said it best when he said the first ones now will later birth last ones no later be first and in what's happened is that it's everywhere information technology because in sochi because it's so available because it's so dramatically impact in every part of our lives that we now have we been empowered like we'd never been before and it doesn't matter whether we're talking about the voter or the consumer or the person

who forms countries or what have you they now have the power and they have the power like never before in the book i argue that ten square to me was that was that was the event that that said to me wholly here even these students can stand up to one of the one of the big tyrannical governments in the world and be successful i think they started change reaction and in china which will end and ultimately and democracy in china and i believe that very strongly and the whole world was with the now you know he won the berlin wall came down right now these things happen and it wasn't because we don't need union collapsed like it was because we had television and with all due respect to television it was because now we had fax machines we have the internet and we had interactive technologies where people could get together and create that power that they never had for televisions are one where we had television too well television crates awareness but it's the interactive technologies of the telephone and the internet and what have you that allow people to actually use that power

so you know what is this meaning of the same problem of customers of a sort of huge crime i thought the area are effectively the decline of the imperial ceo chief executive officer who lived on top of that are looked down on wreck all the others who were there and then and certainly a latticed at the information age and us relations or the early years of the information age there was a sort of shattering of the imperial structure which i think goes on on today and you couldn't live as a ceo in this environment if you had the acting ceo sergio years ago those days are gone and and like i said you know that the ceo that sat at the top of that skyscraper mean as that's come down so his power and unfit when you're up at that top then you

command you have to command from a central location and you have to command everybody else boy you when that skyscraper has fallen and we now have you know as microsoft and other companies have these old campus like billings more than those two stories you can see dramatically i think that that that the power the ceo has has come down as well and it and it's like that in markets it used to be the producers were the prettiest things were out were at the center of power in any market today consumers are at the center of power if you want to buy a car twenty years ago was that to me was a frightening proposition because i didn't have any information this the solace in the car dealership he's got all the information is all pricing knows everything about it now i can just get on the internet going on a bike tell they'll tell me though do all the ratings for me they'll tell me what the pricing as and when i walk into a car dealership which i don't need to doing work as i can buy over the internet you're going to get the very best price but all the sudden i'm in control i have all the information and it's happening with voters it's happening with the

consumers it's happening everywhere you're a ceo as i mention in the book or c that the centralizing power of industrial age has given way to the tv a democratizing power as you call it of the information age or have we're going to go from a hundred countries and twenty five countries of the insect or something like five hundred in the next twenty years were were already well over two hundred and twenty five countries and gone like crazy seems like there's one for leverage and everywhere in every dimension of our lives people are seizing power because they now have that power it's cheap it's available again to do is use it and that's what you do not what is the name you tell us in the book it coming a dramatic change and products and then and talk about what that's been him in one of the most puzzling things of life but this mass production right but it is gonna surrendered to customize an ad products that would mass produce a novel be

different because cus was the man's innovative right customers wanted things that the electronics business taught us is that everybody wants it smarter faster cheaper smaller and more elegant and they're applying that to every walk a life so to get smarter strategy versus more and more and more elegant and it's b it's you know we've become a cut across into it by computer a telephone you know so the obama began a cellular phones are now a little tiny things which can hide away in your pocket it's happening every part light and they're applying the standards everywhere and manufacturers to understand this are doing some great things to supply those things and one of the things i point of the book is riveting what we call an adaptive project a product that is has been mass produced at mass produced quantity at a price i can afford that made for me but it's also going to be a product that over time will adopt my needs for instance i'll just use the card and most are the car manufacturers are working on adaptive steering systems

adaptive the platforms and all parts of a car that will over time learn how i drive they'll learn how i dried and they'll start now changing the composition of the car at to to accommodate the way i drive if i'm a little heavy on the paddle they're going to get too close to a curve that kirsten the slowdown itself there to compensate for my weaknesses as a driver can be adapted to us so we're we've we've gotten ourselves accustomed to everything getting better everything getting cheaper smarter faster more elegant and that's going to transpire into her transform into every day virtually every product that you know today is going to be you know the john simpler products they are saying that the other in that sentence that through evolution information age is away changed but as the coach of a language when a mouse is no longer a massive drivers no longer a driver with little overwhelmed but you give me a couple of

things to think about what's the talk about and nobody will know but well nobody is a knowledge robot ok we've got robots and making things if we went down the street here too to look at a nissan or around when the other car manufactures a cluster around nashville here we'd see robots making all the products and that's why when i talked about how few people actually make things in the future because robots are making things well that's great i'm glad the robots making my car but what i like to do is have a robot that made my life easier and would help me understand how to invest their how to save better how to do all the natural things i do in a day better and we'll all have a personal low but this'll be a software agent that works for me that will only will take into account what i do when i'm normally do over time and we'll go into some of those things for me that their role drudgery rober injury and freed me up to do some of the things

that i really wanna do and it'll but alert for me over time and it will be created for me but as it gets used a male star learning my habits and my interests and what have you and it'll say to me for instance rick that you know that the tennessean here in town principle what one tenth of the stories that it you know that gets over the wires and one hand and they can print disturbed you might be interested in some go to their website and see the story that we didn't see in the printed paper today and he'll know because it'll go to negotiate with all those other computers of their final was gone and just tell me what i want is a chart and there they are in and the book deep in a book that deals with the chilly evolution of currency and begin with barber right and you take me through to something called the money the money what kind of money that helped tell us about the money you know money is serve a funny

concept it's not it's not real it got a real we had a cashew we had metal and paper but it's becoming more and more on electronic less and less real and in fact bankers talking and i talked him eddie money as it as if it was one thing in fact the bakers today talk about four five different types of electronic money and so what we're saying in that right now in fact ninety percent of the transactions in the us financial transactions take place without paper or metal they did they take place electronically the only things left for small bits of money are the fabled grocery store purchase unlike order to get smart card and that's mark hurd it's going to have those bits to take care of all those small purchases that we wanna make up all the vendors will have it and that will have a receptacle with the sentiment we've all the small change so present at all monies going electronic it's not that we're not to have any paper money any any i'm a physical money we're living in a world that is total

electronic and anything at our point out is hayden this doesn't mean that we're in the information age it means that were way past the information age when everything happens this way now we in this country the united states where the lone distinct superpower and i'm very use to have in iowa and we are clearly and bandleader year in the rare and eight industrial age in an information age are staying this leadership as we move into the volunteer lawyer well i think that the volatility of the information it was much more global it was not just a us phenomenon it was it was there was western europeans and typically japanese and other asians who made the information age what it was so i think the industrial age was largely western europe and the us information age was much more a function of more people around the world the coming by materials age

is gonna be a global phenomenon it's not in the us i can we succeed ah yes we can because i think what's been replaced by mud that really important part by materials but what will replace in my estimation of biomaterials age is something that i call the edgy payment age everything up to this point has been all economies have dealt with with physical things first time and space and no matter i think will conquer matter and by amateurs but then things will shift inside and will be more concerned about what's in her head than what's outside because we have a terrible towel