ABSTRACT
A gulf still exists between people and computers; between those who make the computers work: the technicians, the programmers, the systems analysts; and those whom the computers should serve: the managers, the clerks, the civil servants, and the public. People are therefore the essential ingredient in the making of management decisions: people who absorb information deriving from the formal reporting structures of the organization, from informal information gleaned by personal observation, from informed contacts with other people, from their own individual experience. Most of all the people's ideas have been generated by highly professional colleagues with whom the author has been working in developing and introducing an Integrated Management Information System into ICL, the largest manufacturer of computers in the world outside the United States. The understanding of what the computer can do and how it can be used to react to the dynamics of society must lie with society itself, not merely with its technicians.
