Harmony: Business, Technology, and the End of Paperwork
by By Penzias, Arno A.
Category: Business & Economics , General

Harmony establishes its author - a Nobel Prize winner and director of research at Bell Labs - as one of the great explainers of the digital revolution. In Dr. Arno Penzias's view, the explosive growth of technology in the past decade has transformed our lives nearly beyond recognition and brought us to the brink of a new era.Today, networked computers allow information to flow directly from source to user - bypassing a host of formerly busy human intermediaries in the process. Because much of present-day office work is more easily accomplished by electronics than people, the focus of work has shifted from colleagues to customers - thereby boosting externally focused tasks such as sales and consulting. The new technology supports a growing trend toward nomadic information workers, who are able to carry their office wherever the task of the moment takes them.What tasks lie ahead for our evolving workforce? While today's products and services are markedly better than past offerings, shortcomings abound: These new gizmos are often hard to use, incompatible with each other, and a burden on our natural environment.The solution to these problems lies in the huge task of harmonizing the outputs of our technology. We are entering the era of harmony, a system of marketplace value that will emphasize ease of use, true systems integration, and environmental renewal. This new competitive challenge will occupy the workers who seemed to be the first casualty of the information age.