Abstract * Foil Index for this file
Given by Marek Podgorny at CPS640 MultiMedia and WWW on Spring 97 Semester. Foils prepared 31 January97
Abstract * Foil Index for this file
| We will argue that the phenomenon of multimedia is symbiotic with and indigenous to the "information superhighway" |
| We will also argue that the future of the post-industrial society is critically dependent on the society's ability to build, maintain, and effectively utilize the information infrastructure. |
| As a result, the notion of multimedia is promoted from a relatively obscure technical term into one of the central issues of the contemporary society. |
| We will show how the developments in the global economy, government policies, social behavioral patterns, and information technology are intertwined and how they will define the societies' immediate future. |
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Abstract
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| Possible Scenarios for the Information Society of the Future |
| Marek Podgorny, NPAC, Syracuse University |
| Credit to: Technology Assessment Group, Andersen Consulting |
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| We will argue that the phenomenon of multimedia is symbiotic with and indigenous to the "information superhighway" |
| We will also argue that the future of the post-industrial society is critically dependent on the society's ability to build, maintain, and effectively utilize the information infrastructure. |
| As a result, the notion of multimedia is promoted from a relatively obscure technical term into one of the central issues of the contemporary society. |
| We will show how the developments in the global economy, government policies, social behavioral patterns, and information technology are intertwined and how they will define the societies' immediate future. |
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| Technological or social issue? |
Future of multimedia and of the global information infra- structure practically does not depend on the technological development.
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The forces that will either ignite the transition to the information society or quench the fire before it gains significant force are these of the global government policies and near term economical trends, as well as the ability of the global society to accept new ways of life in both the workplace and the community.
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| Are these two notions synonymous? |
| Yes, nearly so! |
| Internet exists for ~20 years. Basic networking technology was in stagnation for a decade. High-speed testbeds were driven by scientific applications, not by popular demand. |
| An average citizen's communication needs were adequately served by a phone and a postman. Businesses added a fax and FedEx. Electronic mail was available but only popular in limited circles. |
| Current web activities are running over the global infrastructure that was not significantly upgraded in recent years. |
| The only differentiating factor is the architecture of the World Wide Web and the web browser. |
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| The following discussion is based on a series of workshops and expert pools conducted by the Technology Assessment Group of the Andersen Consulting. |
| The social, political, and technological ramifications of the multimedia-based information infrastructure will be discussed in the form of four possible scenarios describing sociological snapshots of the USA economy in the year 2003. |
| It is assumed that in the global economy the developments in USA will be followed by rest of the Western world. The definition of "Western" remains open for discussion (it probably includes Far East but does not include anything south of Gibraltar). |
| We hope to demonstrate significance of the information revolution in a dramatic fashion! |
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| Scenario-based planning models the plausible futures that matter to a strategy and thus provides an excellent method of dealing with uncertainty. |
| The objective is not to predict the future of multimedia, but to provide a range of plausible stories about the environment in which that future may play out. The actual future will be a mixture of all scenarios in proportions dependent on geographical location. The scenarios define the corners of the game space. |
| One cannot eliminate all of the uncertainty that business may encounter, so through these scenarios we attempt to embrace it. |
| The scenarios presented later turn on the critical unknowns of the future of multimedia -- the factors that are both most important to multimedia's future shape and most uncertain. |
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| Scenarios explore the futures that we might face in seven-to-ten years, or just beyond the turn of the century. |
| Some of the scenarios may seem more obvious than others, but we believe all are entirely possible. |
The impression of the scenarios may be that they encompass much more than just multimedia. However:
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The scenarios of the future are driven by two major uncertainties:
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| It is believed that all other factors are secondary, although possible involvement of the government can impact dynamics of some scenarios. |
| It is recognized that the two major uncertainties cannot be reduced. |
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| Virtual World is a richly interactive future - a future in which business and consumer users don't so much choose as co-create the products and services they want. So important is multimedia in Virtual World that it begins to blur the boundaries between "business" and "consumer" environments, and contributes to a fundamental restructuring of industry. |
| In Bizworld, multimedia plays out differently in the consumer and business environments. In the consumer market, it is simply a tool to navigate through many choices. In the business market, applications are more robust and provide businesses a means of creating a more productive work environment. |
| Upstairs Downstairs is a future that plays out the polarization of wealth in the developed nations as well as a split of the population across the acceptance of technology lines. This results in a scenario of haves and have-nots. It combines features of Virtual World (haves) and Slow Boat (have-nots). |
| Slow Boat is a blocked scenario - a scenario in which the big news is no real news. Slow Boat is a world in which users accept limited choice as the primary value-added, and in which the economy stays slow. Multimedia is the revolution that never came. |
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| How the four scenarios depend on the two main uncertainty factors? |
Virtual World is a world driven by:
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BizWorld is a world driven by:
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Slow Boat is a world driven by:
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Upstairs/Downstairs is a world driven by:
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| Summary |
"Code it up, lock it up, ship it out" is now the standard for multimedia application delivery.
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Businesses, unable to sell the interactive multimedia world to consumers, have seized upon the competitive advantages of multimedia being spurred on by falling hardware prices and increased productivity.
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| The Social Scene |
| The year is 2003. Despite of steady increases in public school funding over the last several years, a continued increase in alternative schooling and an alarming decrease in standard examination results have caused a crisis of faith in education. Concerned parents want their children to be more informed and ambitious. Concerned employers desperately need well-trained employees to sustain their competitiveness. These consumer and business demands contribute to a vigorous market for stand-alone CD-ROM multimedia educational products as well as LAN based multimedia applications. |
| A second impetus for widely available educational material comes from the growth in the immigrant population in the US during the latter 90's. The ambitious immigrants turn to both cable TV education programming and stand-alone CD-ROM encyclopedias and other titles to improve their language and business skills. |
| The public network is a broadcast medium with limited interactivity (the back channel = standard telephone lines.) Data security issues are a major factor. Individuals have resisted making available private data over the public network fearing theft, while businesses have restricted communications to public information only. Competitive information shared with business partners and suppliers is transmitted on private, secured networks. |
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| Political Environment |
| In developed nations around the world, governments made strategic "information highway" investments, led the formation of networking standards, and most importantly, set the rules for competitive play in the marketplace. |
| In the United States, the Modified Final Judgment (MFJ) was overhauled creating a level playing field for network providers allowing telephone companies and cable companies to compete fairly in all aspects of providing phone and television services. This prompted a wave of giga-mergers. The mergers in the United States expanded across the globe, leading to the worldwide infostructure being controlled by a small number of loosely regulated mega-companies. |
| However, the U.S. government was unable to deal successfully on other major issues. The Supreme Court rulings steadfastly refused to address the needs for simplified intellectual property, copyright legislation, and data security. The Court's rulings have, for the most part, been prompted by its concern that any simplification would introduce far too much industry bias into a system that appears to teeter in a kind of marketplace equilibrium. |
| U.S. government also refused to assume responsibility for assuring access to all individuals at a reasonable cost, as was done for telephone and electric service. All attempts at creating a type of Rural Multimedia Authority have failed. |
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| The Consumer Environment |
| Consumption now is a matter of choosing from among many options made available over the networks going into homes. Multimedia is not so much a medium in this world as simply a kind of product. It helps consumers manage many options, such as the thousands of channels transmitted into their homes, but is still very passive in nature. |
| Multimedia offerings can be categorized into 3 groups: |
The largest category of multimedia offerings is educational material on stand-alone CD-ROMs as well as on public networks.
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| The Consumer Environment (2) |
Multimedia offerings 2 - Entertainment:
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| The Consumer Environment (3) |
Multimedia offerings 2 - Entertainment (cont.)
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| The Consumer Environment (4) |
Multimedia offerings 3 - Retailing:
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| The Business Environment |
The business environment is traditional but densely consolidated industrial structure where large companies are favored.
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| The Business Environment (2) |
The growing economy has been stimulated by corporate investment in information technology as the service industry has finally cashed on the significant productivity gains.
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| The State of Computing |
Similar to the impact that word processing and spreadsheets on business organizations in the '80s, video communication and multimedia-enabled groupware have impacted the '90s.
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| Summary |
| Information is like electricity. In the home, office, car, airplane, almost everything electronic is plugged into the world of data, once named the "information superhighway." It is almost impossible to act without invoking the source. |
| Cars are guided along the road by it, as well as custom manufactured to your tastes by it. Children are shown the world by immersing themselves in it, and their parents are employed in creating it. Communities appear where people congregate to work, shop, discuss, and entertain themselves, all electronically and facilitated by interactive multimedia technology. |
| Interoperability and interactivity are so ubiquitous that the network appears seamless, and because of the profound changes it has led to in both the consumer and business worlds, imagining life before it is like imagining life before the telephone, only worse. |
| The power of the network allows small companies to provide the services that, in the early 90's, would have required a large organization. This is a world where the conglomerates of the 90's have dissolved to become the virtual companies of the new millennium. This is Virtual World.Ê |
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| The Social Scene |
| The virtual communities have become a common part of both our business and social lives. |
| The capabilities of the TV, PC and the telephone have merged into a single machine, the "Information Node", that provides a user-friendly interface to the outside world. This machine has become a standard part of the lifestyles of the new century; in 2003 90% of all homes have at least one. |
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| The Social Scene (2) |
| People have reacted positively to the benefits that the Information Node can provide. From telecommuting to home banking, surveys have shown that the new technology has indeed brought quality of life improvements. |
| Issues related to privacy are being handled to the public's satisfaction, and no major challenges to the legal precedent of the networked world have been experienced. Many people credit communication enabled via "the Net" for the smooth transition to this lifestyle. |
| The greatest continued social concern is the environment. Environmental action groups are pressing government to reduce the amount of forest land available for paper product harvest. Though some improvements in air quality around major cities have occurred, transportation/commuting restrictions continue to be imposed--which makes telecommuting an attractive option. |
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| The Political Environment |
In 1997, when it became clear that the U.S. was on the verge of creating a nationwide information system, the Congress of the United States through legislative action required the Federal Communications Committee (FCC) to oversee the final steps of the process.
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| The Consumer Environment |
In the new networked environment, interactive software has flourished.
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| The Consumer Environment (2) |
| The strong demand for good online education titles is linked to many individual's interest in expanding their skills for either personal enjoyment or to remain competitive in business. |
| The formal education programs of schools and universities are offering online education. |
| Studies have indicated that the rise in worldwide literacy is strongly correlated to the increase in the number of school-age subscribers to the Net. Many countries have made this a primary reason for accelerating the rollout of the Net to their populations as they realize that without it they may be creating a generation of citizens that will be disadvantaged when competing in the global economy. |
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| The Consumer Environment (3) |
| The ease of getting excellent multimedia educational material as well as VR entertainment over the Net at reasonable prices has resulted in a reduction of the CD-ROM market. |
| The delivery logic for mass programming has changed to meet society's demand for control. Where television programs were once broadcast they are now "published" and available thereafter for use on demand (for a small fee). The popular, long-running television shows are no longer transmitted at fixed times, but available for viewing on request. |
| Multimedia has become the interface for both business and consumers, between whom the boundary is blurring. Many people work at home, as the network has enabled excellent long distance multimedia communication between workers. This has led to a reduction in commute-time and an increase in leisure time, spent in mainly interfacing with the Information Node. |
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| The Business Environment |
The media marketing environment of the Seventies and Eighties is a dim memory
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| The Business Environment (2) |
The evolving Net has forever changed the structure of business.
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| The Business Environment (3) |
The standardization that occurred in the network infrastructure has been matched by business hardware and software vendors.
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The Net allows businesses real-time feedback from their customers. Customers are able to exercise their demand for control and become actively involved in the design and manufacture of their purchases.
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| The Business Environment (4) |
Shopping has survived as merchants have made their stores mini-theme parks.
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The Net has provided market research companies access (with the consumers consent) to the buying habits of large cross sections of consumers.
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| The Business Environment (5) |
| As the logic of "information content" delivery changed, and with the hopes of attracting mass audiences shattered, marketers realized that their traditional electronic advertising method was closing. |
| Now consumers select, and pay for, their interaction with the Information Node at home. This is not an environment in which the "uninvited persuader" works. |
Marketers, no longer able to use mass mailings (due to rising costs and environmental pressures), and screened out by "smart" Information Nodes, have turned to providing content as well as product information on the Net.
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| The State of Computing |
The development of the Net has utilized both wireline and wireless technologies. Telecommunication pricing models that have provided network access at a reasonable cost. Key technologies that have played a role include:
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| The State of Computing (2) |
By 1996, the Information Carriers had agreed on protocols and standards that would allow information to flow freely from one system to the next.
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| Looking back, the rapid growth of the Internet system in the early 90's provided an indicator of the immense popularity of the Net. |
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| The State of Computing (3) |
In 2003, the Net is effectively complete in the U.S.
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| Summary |
| This is a world on a slow boat. |
| At work, companies experiment with new video technologies but only where cost justified and for limited internal applications. This is a world of disappointment, caution and concern for the future. |
| The "killer" application which would have proved the benefits of a multimedia world failed to materialize. |
| As a result, phone service is cheap and ubiquitous and still the focal medium. The reality of the television channel explosion has come down to 124 channels, not 500 or 5000 as expected. On-line games are a big hit, as well as a number of shopping and entertainment experiences which are offered, but most are too expensive for the average person, who has suffered from a global downturn in average worker income. |
| This sums up the attitude now voiced about the much touted "data superhighway" which at one point promised to lift the world out of recession. The lack of a large, dominating force such a the U.S. Government to solidify standards and provide investment incentives doomed this massive undertaking. |
| "If the U.S. Government would have handled health care reform in a more responsible manner in the mid 90's, perhaps there would have been the money to help develop the data superhighway like the interstate highway system in the 1940's." |
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| The Socio-Political Scene |
The world economy has been struggling for several years.
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| The Socio-Political Scene (2) |
The much-bewailed capital shortage has put several constraints on the flow of funds and has pushed the cost of capital up.
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| The Business and Consumer Environment |
The bad economy has weakened consumer demand.
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Most of the "promise" of new interactive or "multimedia" technologies has not been realized.
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| The Business and Consumer Environment (2) |
The "world of 500 channels" -- which seemed a certainty in the early 90's -- never materialized.
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Similarly, the promise of home shopping via technology has not been fulfilled.
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Successful firms have made multimedia a part of their arsenal.
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| The revolution simply never came. |
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| The State of Computing |
A lack of government and private resources available for financing large infrastructure projects has stalled the estimated $150 to $500 billion project of rewiring America to create the Information Superhighway.
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| Summary |
"I don't want to play at Sally's house, they don't have a telecomputer."
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| A Mix of Virtual World and Slow Boat |
Consumers seemed to be "nesting" in the early 90's; but by 2003, they have become positively dug in.
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As a product of intense income polarization and concentration of wealth in the United States, as well as the division of the population along technical competence boundaries, two "classes" have emerged -- the "haves," and the "have-nots."
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| A Mix of Virtual World and Slow Boat (2) |
Among the "haves", the utilization of multimedia technology is limited.
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Upstairs/Downstairs is a mix of Virtual World for the technically sophisticated "haves" and Slow Boat for the "have nots".
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| The Business Environment |
Through the late 90's, a number of firms have tried to establish or maintain markets with both the "haves" and the "have-nots."
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A major factor why certain "haves" elect not to participate in the multimedia market is related to the quality of interactive multimedia applications available.
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| The Consumer Environment |
| High-definition trials were held, but limited to cable (as open broadcast standards stalled). |
| High definition had already become a staple of video production, and had premiered (mid-90's) on video cassette and disk, so it found a small but ready audience of enthusiasts ("haves") with the hardware necessary to receive the enhanced signal. But wider adoption simply didn't materialize, as most consumers seemed unable (or unwilling) to afford the higher costs of sets. Indeed, by 1999, one tenth of American households (40% of the "haves") were equipped to experience "virtual reality" in their homes. |
| Still, the predicted demise of the videocassette rental market failed to materialize. For most "have-nots," the VCR (now priced at under $100) remains the "self-programmed" technology of choice. |
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| Each of the scenarios describes a plausible future, a "state" in which we could find ourselves just after the turn of the century |
| These are the futures against which we build our strategies. For the same reasons, we want to understand the paths we might travel to reach these futures. |
| The "real" future will contain elements of all of the scenarios, so the path to one scenario can involve some of the others. |
| During the 2nd TAG workshop the participants came to several important conclusions, illustrated in the following diagram. |
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Most experts believe that we are in currently on the path from Slow Boat to Upstairs, Downstairs.
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| As the economy gets better, we will tend to move from Slow Boat toward either BizWorld or Virtual World. |
To get to Virtual World, we will pass through Upstairs, Downstairs unless there is sufficient and benevolent government intervention allowing us to bypass Upstairs, Downstairs.
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Government intervention can push us to either Virtual World or Bizworld or keep us in Slow Boat.
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The move to Virtual World can be derailed by a lack of supply of engaging interactive applications and programming.
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| It seemed implausible that we could move from Virtual World to any of the other scenarios; if we get there, we stay -- or more likely, move to an altogether different set of futures. |
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| We can move from BizWorld to Virtual World (a move occasioned when interaction takes off on top of the bandwidth of BizWorld), but only through Upstairs, Downstairs unless benevolent government intervention allows a move directly to Virtual World. |
| The reverse is not likely to happen. We wouldn't move from Upstairs, Downstairs to BizWorld, unless the supply of good interactive applications was lacking (it is implausible that the Upstairs would change their minds and give up their interactivity and control). |
| We might however "backslide" from Upstairs/ Downstairs to Slow Boat -- the government might step in to normalize incomes and inadvertently slow the economy, pre-empting (or postponing) both BizWorld and Virtual World. |
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| ? |
| Where you believe you will find yourself 10 years from now? |