Face to Face
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Contacting the boss
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It was an O-level Geography chestnut: "Do rivers divide or unite?"
and the same can be asked of information technology. Does IT draw
us together or drive us apart? Build bridges or dig ditches?
Promote or protect?
Getting straight through to those in authority is a challenge
that has always faced anyone who aspires to become a mover and a
shaker.
Back in the swinging sixties you could simply walk in and flash your
business card. Even in the chilliest days of the cold war it was
possible to have your picture taken on the steps of number 10
Downing Street (something I never got round to doing) or help a
Prime Minister by carrying his suitcase to a waiting taxi (something
I did once manage to do).
In later years, the leaders become protected by a screen of
intermediaries; during the 70's, the way through was by sending a
telex, which always seemed to reach its recipient without being
intercepted by a minion. The 80's brought fax ("If you want to get
straight to the Archdeacon, send him a fax!" someone once advised
me). In the 1990's we have e-mail, and it's surprising how many
chief executives actually handle their own messaging - maybe they
enjoy the novelty.
Somehow I don't think this new openness will last for ever. The Duke
of Edinburgh had his own Prestel mailbox - until it was hacked. BT
executives used to share in news threads on the internet - until
they discovered how cruel the world of netnews can be. The
gatekeepers are returning, to protect their lords and masters
from abuse, and to stop them saying too much.
Do you remember Miss Moneypenny? I suspect that James Bond used
to chat her up more for her inside information that for anything
else. I picture her with an alice-band headset, plugging in to
her PMBX (Private Manual Branch Exchange) in order to filter and
control all the office communications. A click on the line and
you would know she was listening in. E-mail short-circuits the
Miss Moneypennys of this world and takes away her value to anyone
wanting to tap into their secrets. It's no advantage to know the
Bishop's Chaplain or the Archdeacon's Secretary, if the boss now
manages his own mail and controls his own diary. Who will win in
the end - will there be genuinely open access right to the very
top? - or will a new generation of computer-literate minders move
in to make sure that we are all "on message"?
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Call Centres for all
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The AA has become so keen on centralised call centres that it's
shut up shop on your local high street. The banks and building
societies are tempted to follow. Bookstores and audio dealers may
be next, although not according to one Martin Lee of Waterstone's
Bookshop, who was quoted in "The Times" of 31 July 1997 as saying:
"Almost nobody believes that the Internet is ever going to account
for more than ten per cent of sales". I think that could turn out
to be one of the greatest understatements of all time, on a par
with the Postmaster General's dismissive attitude to Marconi.
The internet offers non-destructive browsing of every item in stock
- and it needn't actually be "in stock", as long as it's
obtainable and deliverable within a reasonable timescale.
"You've sniffed around this book several times in the past few
days - now it's make-up-your-mind time!" - that's what I imagine
the virtual salesperson will say, as the system goes on to offer
me a further five per cent discount, provided that I buy within
the next thirty minutes.
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Is Piggy in the Middle - or out of the game completely?
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Of course, we could go further, with the text downloaded directly
to my home printing facility, or the audio & video written
immediately to the medium in my domestic CD/DVD cutter or portable
MPEG player. There will be no more albums, just tracks; no more
anthologies, just html heads and bodies; no more publishers or
booksellers, just you and me both.
Then what will happen to all the high street shops put out of
business by the call centres put out of business by the internet
traders put out of business by people just doing their own thing?
I see them being used for advertising, sort of "walk-in"
hoardings, with the displays coming and going like the charity
shops on an end-of-lease let. One week they will all be focused
on the government's latest initiative to cut drink-driving, the
next it will be the launch of a new airline. These ad-shops will
major on all the things the internet cannot do, such as provide a
sensuous appeal through smell, taste and touch.
I should, of course, have written "all the things the internet
cannot do - yet!".