John Naisbitt & Patricia Aburdene - Information Society - 1982

In their book Megatrends (1982), Naisbitt and Aburdene reported that we were shifting from an Industrial Society to an Information Society. Altogether, they proposed ten Megatrends (changes), that would shape the information age:

Industrial Society to Information Society
Forced Technology to High Tech/High Touch
National Economy to World Economy
Short Term to Long Term
Centralization to Decentralization
Institutional Help to Self-Help
Representative Democracy to Participatory Democracy
Hierarchies to Networking
North to South
Either/Or to Multiple Option

In one of the trend listed above -- "from hierarchies to networking," an entirely different way of managing information and distributing power was predicted. Various networks would radically transform and increase public access to goods, services, data, on a global scale. This network became today's Internet. However, with this network came a major drawback...

We are drowning in information and starved for knowledge. - Megatrends

Later, Naisbitt would expound on this...

We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge. This level of information is clearly impossible to be handled by present means. Uncontrolled and unorganized information is no longer a resource in an information society, instead it becomes the enemy."

In their next book, Megatrends 2000 (1990), they came up with a new list:

The Blooming Global Economy of the 1990's
A Renaissance of the Arts
The Emergence of Free-Market Socialism
Global Lifestyles and Cultural Nationalism
The Privatization of the Welfare State
The Rise of the Pacific Rim
The Decade of Women in Leadership
The Age of Biology
The Religious Revival of the New Millennium
The Triumph of the Individual

Notes

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Created May 19, 2004
Updated May 28, 2008

A Big Dog, Little Dog and Knowledge Jump Production.
Contact: donclark@nwlink.com