ABSTRACT
History reveals the power of certain technological innovations to transform the mental life of an era – the feelings, sensibilities, perceptions, expectations, assumptions, and, above all, possibilities that define a community. In the highly informated organization, the data base takes on a life of its own. As organizations like Cedar Bluff develop mechanisms that allow data to be automatically generated, captured, and stored, they begin to create their own image in the form of dynamic, detailed, real-time, integrated electronic texts. An informated organization is structured to promote the possibility of useful learning among all members and thus presupposes relations of equality. The informated organization is a learning institution, and one of its principal purposes is the expansion of knowledge – not knowledge for is own sake (as in academic pursuit), but knowledge that comes to reside at the core of what it means to be productive.
