Basic innovations form long cycles.
We are now in a phase where the major proactive force is information and communications technology, or ICT for short. Although it is not indicated here, the next phase can be characterised by environment-related innovations, as well as those relating to content creation. Discussion on the information society as well as the information society itself progresses in stages. During the first stage, the discussion was largely about hardware, hardware usage and related skills. Now we are entering the stage which highlights content and service.