ABSTRACT
The world is seized with the idea that we are at the doorstep of a new society. While Einstein wrote of the implications of a nuclear age, our thoughts today are guided by the vision of a future enabled by the power of digital technology. Negroponte’s observation above notes the inevitability of this shift, as have many others. Larry Ellison of Oracle has noted that all forms of knowledge will ultimately reside on the Internet: ‘It’s collecting all the knowledge of mankind and making it available in digital fashion – reliably, securely and economically.’1 Howard Rheingold observed that the Internet is evolving into an ‘innovations commons and laboratory for collaboratively creating new technology’.2 Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams make the case for a whole new approach to business and economics stemming from the technological changes taking place in early twenty-first-century society.
