How Societies Embrace Information Technology

James W. Cortada has thirty-five years of experience with IBM in various sales, consulting, and managerial positions related to information technology and its use. In particular, he helped design and deploy processes related to employee skills development, including IBM's worldwide consultant skills certification process, sales processes, and specialized training seminars. An author of more than fifty books on the management and history of information technology, Cortada's work has been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, and Korean.

• Preface ix1 Introducing the Big Picture 1The presence of information technology 2Megatrends at work 7How societies use technology to shape their world 19Notes and references 242 How Computers Spread Around the World So Fast 27Definitions and issues 29Government-supported/private-sector-driven model 33National champion model 37Asian private-sector-driven model 39Planned economy: public policy model 42Industry-driven model 48Corporate diffusion model 51Application diffusion model 57Technology-standards diffusion model 59Patterns, practices, and implications 61Notes and references 653 How Governments Leverage Information Technologies to Improve Their National Economies 71A brief historical reminder 72Economic development in a connected world: the big picture 75How governments use it to encourage economic development 77What motivates governments to encourage their citizens and economies to use it? 91Emerging strategies for the most advanced nations compared to rapidly advancing nations 96The special role of labor 100Global recession, twenty-first century style 102Implications for public officials 106Implications for business leaders 112The way forward with policies and practices 116Notes and references 1224 How Managers and Officials Decide What Technology to Use 129The kinds of decisions made by managers 131Types of justification 135Managerial practices 138Some possible less effective practices 143Special role of industries 149Path forward 151Notes and references 1575 Adding Up the Results So Far: Do We Now Live in the Information Age? 163Why naming an age is a useful exercise and so hard to do 165What historians can teach us about the process 167The case against the information age 173Can we coexist on the frontiers of a new age? 175Lessons for management and a strategy for change 179Concluding thoughts 185Notes and references 1866 An Expanding Role for Scientists and Engineers 191The rise of the computer scientist 192Their role in modern society 197When scientists and tech folk take things into their own hands 201When technologists go green 204Their future world 212An old role made new 218Notes and references 2207 Looking Down the Road into the Twenty-First Century 223How to see the future of an industry 225Knowing how information technology is evolving 233A strategy for managers and public officials 240Special role of the computer science community 247The ultimate trend 252Notes and references 2548 Keeping Up: Bibliographic Essay 257The big picture 257How computers spread around the world 259Governments leveraging it for economic development 260Deciding what technology to use 261Living in the information age 263Role of technologists 264Into the twenty-first century 265Index 267

"The book also presents ideas for educators. For instance, to encourage IT people to be naturally proactive, courses should leverage the creation and production of IT projects with solving society's problems. With some effort, this can be done in computers and society courses, at both the general and professional education level. At the professional level, IT workers with such experience and training will more likely choose to work on problem areas. At the general level, people with such experience will act politically, to vocalize the expectation that the IT industry will create products that help society." (Computing Reviews, September 2010)