First Up Against The Wall? LO10634

Joe Katzman (joe@embanet.com)
Mon, 21 Oct 1996 20:48:31 -0400 (EDT)

I've noticed a fair bit of discussion lately concerning downsizing, and
its effects on learning and creativity. As we begin to see a grand
convergence of the computing, communications, consumer electronics, and
content provider (the "C4") industries, the topic of downsizing will not
be going away. Indeed, disintermediation (i.e. "cutting out the middle
man[agers]," travel agents, etc.) will accelerate, and a managerial
culture fixated on downsizing its way to health will find its views given
added impetus and support.

Is this scenario really inevitable? And how do our mental models affect
the way we think about these issues? I've been giving these questions a
lot of thought lately, and have written them up in article form. I know
the list isn't thrilled about 20K postings, so I'll just refer interested
parties to my web site instead, where you can read the article and use its
live web-links to dig deeper if you wish:

"First Up Against the Wall?"
http://www.pathcom.com/~kat/Articles/inrevo.html

The bottom line? Disintermediation isn't fundamentally flawed, but it is
limited in ways that many of its proponents don't see. The real
convergence isn't the C4 industries, but away from a mechanical view of
the world and toward a neo-biological understanding informed by
chaos/complexity theory and enabled by technology. Looking at the question
of disintermediation through THAT mental lens instead will yield a set of
very different, and sometimes surprising, conclusions.

I would welcome any comments, criticisms, or other thoughts about this
article. Indeed, I would encourage you to make your opinions public by
Cc:ing this thread so that the whole list may benefit from your insights.

I look forward to hearing from you.

----------------------------------------------------
Joe Katzman, MBA joe@embanet.com
"The more you know, the more you can imagine."
http://www.pathcom.com/~kat/

-- 


joe@embanet.com (Joe Katzman)
 


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