How technologies change our schools, companies and governments
Authors: Wim Veen
Venue: Proceedings of the International Workshop on Enterprises & Organizational Modeling and Simulation (2009)

When new technologies come to market they seem to improve the efficiency of existing structures, procedures and processes in the areas of application. Technologies never seem to overthrow paradigms and principles in the first place. However information and communication technologies have appeared to be a Trojan horse as soon as young children have grown up with them and invented new ways of learning, communicating and sharing. Homo Zappiens is the generation of people that is growing up with modern communication technologies shaping their views on the world around them. Through these technologies they are learning to develop new skills and exhibiting new behavior that may show us a way how future society will be organized and dealing with technology. The technology that is allowing this generation to demonstrate such differences from previous generations has three main trends responsible for this contribution which can be seen as cornerstones for changing cultures in educational organizations, such as universities of the 21st century. First, technology is linking everything; many devices are converging and functionality is being transferred from traditionally separate devices into combined single units. Secondly, technology is increasingly organized in a distributed, parallel network, relying on the contribution of many different parts to increase its usefulness and addition to our lives. Lastly, technology is becoming ever more open sourced; in the true sense of sharing many new and emerging technologies are being developed by the community instead of being patented and protected, subject to development in small teams behind closed doors. These trends in technology are not only driving society to mirror the same trends, but also have their impact in how universities are perceived as places of learning and development. The rise of the Homo Zappiens triggers an organizational change in higher education (Oblinger and Oblinger, 2005). As we perceive that we must change to a more networked view on organization of our learning, work and society, it is important to single out a few of the discerning aspects that will help us implement this new view on organization. Realizing that essentially every experience in our lives may be a source of learning, we can choose three of the most important aspects for redesigning our educational settings. Most importantly, we should depart from the setting of goals up front, because essentially these limit our experimentation that ultimately leads to increased competences. We should stimulate exaggerative, playful learning, realizing that all learning is essentially a continued refinement of more basic skills and understanding. We must also, rather than seeing learning as a means towards an end, encourage learning as a continuous process, stimulating increases in skill and competence with a decrease in structure and an increase in complexity, tailored to each individuals level of mastery. Businesses and other forms of establishing economic value will have to take into account that as the creation of value is becoming more networked and distributed, we should not cling to a linear structure for organizing work. Businesses should invest in their platforms for communication and sharing for their human assets, share with every employee the company's purpose and allow them to contribute as they see fit. Instead of trying to control their process and market, clinging to their current offering, businesses should come to rely more on innovation for sustained existence. For society as a whole and each individual trying to incorporate these changes into their lives, it will be important to realize that everything that makes one unique is a source of potential value to the network. With a networked view on organization, we may come to see similarities on different levels of scale in the world around us and this provides us with the opportunity of transferring lessons learned between levels and from one situation to another. As it is increasingly important to advertise individual abilities, we also see society shifting from guarding privacy to competing for attention. Actively participating in society, work and learning, by taking charge of your own knowledge and development is precisely what makes Homo Zappiens so interesting. Many of the concepts that we use to organize our lives, learning, work and society have become obsolete from Homo Zappiens' point of view. Technology has taken dominance over society as a means of providing organization to our lives. As we perceive that we must change to a more networked view on organization of our learning, work and society, it is important to single out a few of the discerning aspects that will help us implement this new view on organization.