Introduction

The evolution of technology, if stripped from contemporary marketing hype and media coverage, is a silent, steadfast process which invokes the following question: Is society shaping technology or is technology shaping society? In Thinking beyond Technology: Creating New Value in Business, I intend to introduce the readers to the parallelism between the value proposition of new technologies such as the Internet and the birth of the Renaissance in medieval Europe. Examining technology’s effect on modern culture, one realizes that it presents striking similarities to the behaviours of society and business at the end of the Middle Ages. The reason for using examples from history is to provide insights into today’s challenges by placing them in a framework that allows us to compare them over a greater socio-technological context. As Rochlin put it: ‘History is possessed of an inherently inverse perspective: the closer in time an event is, the less able we are to perceive it clearly.’^[1]

It is within a historical context that the journey of this book begins by demonstrating that society’s relationship with technology is not a product of modernity, but an inherent part of human nature, as Rochlin noted:

Medieval Europe had been a domain of lord and serf, town and feud, with one great universal Church serving as a central, coherent force. Reformation Europe saw the emergence of nation-states possessed of pre-eminently national interest, state religions, and primarily mercantile economies based largely on technology.^[2]

Looking back at medieval history – even if just metaphorically – can thus help us to understand better the developments of the application of technology in the world of today. History provides clarifying lenses through which contemporary society can examine the roots of how value is created, and the synergistic role that technology has played in the development of modern business.

The reader is invited to consider a series of possible conclusive states that can be drawn from the actions of today’s corporate behaviour. Using medieval history as a backdrop for thinking, I collected contemporary ideas on how individuals and corporations are using technology in the development of new value propositions with customers. This book provides a series of lessons learned and alternate ways of thinking for individuals to participate actively in the digital world and corporations to conduct business. I compiled my observations from client engagements, individuals and other anecdotal sources ranging from simple technology start-up firms to large corporations. Additionally, the text explores the composition of digital communities and their members seeking to trade, communicate and interact with individuals having similar interests.

In Chapter 1, the invention of technology and its relationship with society’s ability to adopt it into the mainstream of everyday life is explored as a foundation to discuss how technology affects society and what factors influence technological innovation. Innovation is undergoing an evolution from technological improvements originating as a continuous process found in the medieval guild system to an individualistic endeavour by inventors of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This chapter explores the question: Is technological innovation the product of an elite group of thinkers, or is it the result of a compound process of many people labouring to fulfil the dreams of previous generations?

The central theme of Chapter 2 is the application of technology as a mechanism for improving productivity. Because of its implementation, technology often reinforces the inefficiencies inherent in business bureaucracies. When technology is applied to business, the traditional objective has been to increase productivity, decrease specific operating costs or improve access to markets and customers. However, in many cases the implementation of technology has led to the reinforcement of existing bureaucracies or the establishment of new ones by creating a need for stringent rules to be followed. This chapter examines the questions: Do technologies bring order to an unordered business? Are different technologies needed as organizations mature and grow?

The third chapter reveals the effects of technology on the mediation of business transactions. Additionally, it investigates how technology is redefining the social contract between employer and employee, government and taxpayer, and how social cultures sometimes conflict with business values. The role of intermediaries from the time of the Medici in medieval Europe to the dot-coms of the 1990s has not changed, adding value in the facilitation of commerce as a simple timeless formula. The transactions of commerce are enhanced by technology, which plays a pivotal role in reducing costs and increasing the performance of the markets, companies and the transactions themselves. This chapter asks the question: What is the relationship between technology and disintermediation and the role of technology in influencing consumer buying, business transactions and government regulation?

Chapter 4 seeks to develop an understanding of the relationship between technology and customers, markets and products by analysing the behaviour of social adoption. The iconography of the Middle Ages and its eventual path to today’s advertising demonstrates the intrinsic nature of technology as a vehicle for product awareness and an instrument to formulate customer demand. This chapter probes the side effect of the Internet’s influence on products, brands and demographics and puts forward the questions: Is the Internet merely the next generation of technologies that enable communication and facilitate transaction? Can social responses and consumer behaviour be anticipated globally?

The final chapter is dedicated to thinking beyond the boundaries of traditional technology design by investigating how connective technologies are changing the way in which an organization functions, how products are designed and how commerce is transacted. This chapter asks the question: Is the role of the Internet simply to allow the global coordination of decentralized and complex activities?

The closing chapter presents perspectives on what lies ahead from a variety of sources. These views are not intended to predict specific instances of what is to become of technology in the coming decades; rather, the intention is to provide a lens with which to view scenarios of the future state of the relationship between technology, business and society. The historical information provided in previous chapters, coupled with our prognosis, provide the reader with elements from which to think about the issues facing today’s business, the use of technology and the greater context of value generation.

This book does not pretend to be a scholarly work on history or a definitive guide to developing business strategy; it does, however, expose the reader to a broad range of issues, using examples and case studies that are not necessarily considered but are vital when constructing corporate strategies.

^[1]G. Rochlin, Scientific Technology and Social Change (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1974) p. 68.

^[2]Ibid., p. 148.