INTERVIEW:
Question 1
What are the most interesting recent developments on the Electronic Commerce front and
what do they tell us about the future development of EC?
Answer
First of all, I think that the area of business electronic commerce is one of the most
interesting areas right now. In recent years there has been a lot of concern, interest
certainly in the media, in business to consumers, selling over the websites and so on. But
I think in the last year or two there has been growing interest particularly by companies
that are serious about taking advantage of the new Internet technology in business to
business electronic commerce, and I think that it will transform how businesses use the
Internet to operate more efficiently to transform their processes or how they currently do
business. So I think business to business, particularly in working with suppliers, working
with customers, and so on, is an area of growing interest, certainly in the United States.
I think that will spread internationally. There are plenty of examples of companies doing
very interesting things: companies like General Electric, GIS, various divisions of
General Electric, high technology companies in Silicon Valley are on the leading edge in
this area, but certainly there are plenty of other companies that are doing interesting
things on the Electronic Commerce front.
Question 2
What are, in your experience, some of the key areas of change - on the technology, social
and policy side - that could have a major impact on how EC evolves?
Answer
I think on the consumer front obviously there are lots of issues more on the social scene
that will have a major impact. Consumers have to get on the Internet, they have to be
comfortable with using the Internet, so there are a number of developments that could
significantly impact electronic commerce. On the business side, I think there are more
technology issues, there are not so many social issues that are as relevant as on the
business to consumer side. In the business to consumer, right now, for instance, the
bandwidth, the speed of access to the Internet, is clearly insufficient. Furthermore, many
groups are under-represented on the Internet, although that is starting to change. I see
tremendous potential for retired people - who are now starting to use the Internet for
electronic commerce, to communicate with family members, children, grandchildren and so on
- starting to become comfortable with doing other things on the Internet, and doing
transactions. Consumer behavior is constantly changing, as a function of a variety of
social trends, and I think that all of these are going to reinforce the growth of
electronic commerce, both on the business to consumer side and on the business to business
side.
Question 3
Do you think that the EC evolution might have a effect on the so-called original nature of
the Internet? For instance, may it bring about a complete commercialization of the Net,
thus modifying its democratic, egalitarian perspectives?
Answer
Well, I don't think one is replacing or displacing the other; I think the Internet will
play a huge role in all spheres, and the example I just gave of the elderly coming on the
Net for communication purposes, is a social function, a very positive development for the
elderly who are isolated, who love to communicate and have the time to do it. I think that
academics and others can continue using the Net, so I don't think that more commercial
transactions taking place will displace other uses of the Internet. However, I can see a
hypothetical situation where commercial purposes use a lot of bandwidth, with video and so
on, slowing down the rest of the traffic to a crawl on the Internet, that's certainly a
possibility.
Question 4
What do you mean by learning-on-demand?
Answer
Learning-on-demand is a relatively new term: another term that could also be used to
explain this is Just-in-time Learning. The basic principle here is that we feel that the
traditional model of learning is basically obsolete, where you learn way ahead of when you
need the learning, of when you need the information and knowledge to solve problems.
Currently, because of business needs and personal needs, we do not have the time to do
that. If you learn something today that you will use six months from now, by the time that
comes you have forgotten most of it. So, learning-on-demand means that you acquire
knowledge and learning when you need it in the context of doing a certain task, and most
of the time in a work context. So we are not talking about replacing education: you need a
basic level of education, but learning-on-demand is particularly useful for task-oriented
learning.
Question 5
Why do you think this learning paradigm will gain growing acceptance and where will we see
it emerging? Will it be mainly a US phenomenon or do you see it as being accepted
elsewhere, particularly in Europe?
Answer
I think we are just at the take-off point of learning-on-demand; already there are early
adopters, leading practitioners, leading companies like Sun Microsystems, or a number of
others have already started moving in this direction, using the technology capabilities
they have, using networks to move in this direction, particularly using their intranets
and Internet networks that exist, repackaging content that can be delivered over the
Internet or intranets to people. We feel that in the next two to five years this will
accelerate greatly. There is a very rapid change, a tremendous need, particularly by the
business sector, to improve and make learning more efficient, and this will spread beyond
the United States. I am from Norway, and I know that in Scandinavia there are very
interesting developments taking place in this arena. I know that at the European Union
level, there is a lot of work being done on looking at multimedia for learning and
training. Singapore joined a research program at SRI, because they are interested in this
in the Asian context, so it's worldwide.
Question 6
You refer in your work to the shifting of the "four tectonic plates" of the
learning arena. What do you mean by that and can you explain what kinds of changes we are
likely to see and when?
Answer
The tectonic plates are first of all the educational system, schools, where most of the
education and learning as we know it has taken place. I see dramatic changes there, and
I'll get back to that in a second. The second is at work, where companies have tremendous
resources, networks, and have a tremendous need to change the way their employees learn
and train. The third tectonic plate is on the road: more and more employees are not
sitting in their offices any more, they are traveling, they need to learn while they are
sitting waiting for a plane. And then we have in the home: increasingly networks will
provide accessibility for people at home to learn. Instead of accessing the Internet and
visiting sites just for the fun of it, people can access learning sites, download learning
content, and learning modules, and thereby improve their education and learning.
Question 7
What are some of the key technology underpinnings of this new learning paradigm and will
they provide sufficient capability and will people feel comfortable with the new
technology?
Answer
There are a number of technologies that can be used here, and many of them are either in
place or are being developed. There is tremendously rapid change on all technological
front as we know, we all live now in Internet time. We don't know what the Internet will
be like just a few months from now, but certainly there are lots of tools that are being
developed, a lot of very interesting software programs that will enable content to be
built into multimedia programs, and a lot of technologies being developed to make it
easier and cheaper to develop this content to be delivered over networks into
workstations, into small electronic devices that people will carry when they are traveling
and when they are on the road. So many elements will impact the delivery technology. The
multitude of technologies that will play a role here, and I am not saying that it will be
all technology based, all learning will happen through computers, certainly it is a
mixture of different modes that we will use, depending on the needs. I think that people
are getting more comfortable with this technology, certainly the next generation workers
who are now coming into the workplace are not used to sitting and listening to lecturers.
People get easily bored now with that, this is the Nintendo generation that is used to
multitasking, using computers, using a variety of media. And this is a worldwide
phenomenon.
Question 8
High quality learning experience assumes good instructional design and great content. Do
you see sufficient progress on these fronts to support your confidence about the arrival
of Learning on Demand?
Answer
That's a good question, and it is certainly something we are doing research on, but I
think that there is significant progress being made. I think that people who are
developing content have learned a number of things in recent years about how to use
multimedia. There are thousands of multimedia companies out there in the world, not just
in the United States. There are great multimedia developers in Canada, in Europe. We have
seen a lot of very poor content being developed, primarily targeted at entertainment. Now
many multimedia companies are recognizing the new markets in learning and training, and
they have learnt some useful lessons in targeting the entertainment markets which can now
be applied to the learning market. So I think there are some signs that things will
improve.
Question 9
Who are the early adopters of learning on-demand, and what do their experiences tell us
about future adoption by others, even outside the high-tech industry?
Answer
There are a number of companies that we have been in touch with and up to now many of them
have been in Silicon Valley. For obvious reasons, high technology companies that are
developing the technology for other markets also recognize how these technologies can be
used for their own internal needs, and that's why Sun Microsystems, Hewlett Packard, and
other high technology companies are on the leading edge. But there are many other
companies, General Electric is on the leading front of the deployment of many
technologies, including on this front using simulations. Lots of companies elsewhere are
recognizing that these technologies can now be deployed for learning and training, and are
now starting to implement networks and are creating technology. For instance, a number of
companies came together to form LearnShare, a consortium where non-competing companies in
different industries are creating content that they can share between them, so that each
company does not have to recreate the learning content that is required.
Question 10
Tell us a little bit more about the research program you are now starting to analyze these
issues and when you expect to be able to report new findings.
Answer
We are just now launching a research program at RSI International, formerly Stanford
Research Institute, located in Silicon Valley, where we feel we have some advantages since
we are located in this high technology area, and where we know that these things are
happening. We will be spending a number of years researching how we see these developments
taking place in the next few years, how the technologies are developing, who is deploying
this kind of system, what the best practices are, how we can learn from these companies
that are deploying them. It is not just tech companies, I know that a number of academic
institutions are looking very carefully at how they can use this new technology to reach
new audiences, to become more efficient in how they deliver their learning and education
though technology and, of course, particularly through the Internet. We are writing
reports continuously, and the first report on our research will come out probably in a
couple of months or so, and then we will have a series of reports coming out in the next
year or two. It is a very exciting area, and we look forward to working with a number of
institutions around the world, because we do not see this as a purely US phenomenon; this
is definitely a global development, and I plan to travel the world to find out what are
some of the most interesting developments, and most interesting deployments of these
technologies, and how do people benefit from it. It will change the world.
|
 |
