Shift!: The Unfolding Internet – Hype, Hope and History

Discovery is a process that must unfold in time. Drawing on colourful vignettes from the scientific past to inform his vision of the technological and cultural future, Edward Burman uses the ′paradigm′ thinking explored by Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (over a million copies sold) to assess the Internet as a breakthrough like any other. Dismissing its attempted hijack by dot.com business as cynical and doomed to failure, he cuts through uncertainty to point out how far we have come – already we take instant connection for granted, and the Internet is embedded deep in our personal and working lives.
The problem, he explains, is that as we undergo a Shift! of this magnitude we are unable to see where we are going. Thus we persist with old terminology and models in the new paradigm. Companies continue to place ′tollbooths′ in a world designed to offer freedom of movement. People still see the Internet as the province of the young and gifted. There is not even general agreement as to what the Internet is really for. Shift! unravels the past and predicts a time close ahead when capability becomes usability, benefits outweigh costs, and the public embraces the Internet as wholly as the electric light, the telephone and the car.

Spis treści:
Acknowledgements.
Foreword by Richard Normann.
About the Author.
Preface.
Chapter 1: Thomas Kuhn and the Internet.
Chapter 2: The Pre–paradigmatic Internet.
Chapter 3: Crisis and its Response.
Chapter 4: From Appearance to Reality.
Chapter 5: Resolving the Revolution.
Chapter 6: The New Paradigm.
Bibliography.
Notes.
Index.

Nota biograficzna:
Edward Burman is a Senior Partner of Ambrosetti, a leading Italian consultancy with a client list including major banks, manufacturing companies and public institutions. He runs the firm’s e–Strategy practice and is a regular keynote speaker in both English and Italian. He sits on the boards of Ambrosetti Stern Stewart Italia, a wholly owned Ambrosetti company offering Stern Stewart services under licence in Italy, and Brainspark, a London–based venture capital company and business incubator. As a visiting lecturer he taught at the University of Kent from 1994 to 2000, and he is also a regular lecturer at Henley Management College. He is the author of eleven books on European historical and cultural issues.

Okładka tylna:
Discovery is a process that must unfold in time. Drawing on colourful vignettes from the scientific past to inform his vision of the technological and cultural future, Edward Burman uses the ′paradigm′ thinking explored by Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (over a million copies sold) to assess the Internet as a breakthrough like any other. Dismissing its attempted hijack by dot.com business as cynical and doomed to failure, he cuts through uncertainty to point out how far we have come – already we take instant connection for granted, and the Internet is embedded deep in our personal and working lives.
The problem, he explains, is that as we undergo a Shift! of this magnitude we are unable to see where we are going. Thus we persist with old terminology and models in the new paradigm. Companies continue to place ′tollbooths′ in a world designed to offer freedom of movement. People still see the Internet as the province of the young and gifted. There is not even general agreement as to what the Internet is really for. Shift! unravels the past and predicts a time close ahead when capability becomes usability, benefits outweigh costs, and the public embraces the Internet as wholly as the electric light, the telephone and the car.