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Investment and Internet - Dominica Opportunity
On October 11th 1998 it was celebrated that the world was now 10 years old. Actually, many economists say it began in 1989, with the fall of the Berlin Wall (and the start of the World Wide Web). Those students of economic history will know that the Industrial age started around 1492 when C.Columbus sailed and bumped into the beautiful Caribbean (and not the popular discovered misconception). Eras like the Agrarian Age and Industrial Age seem to go in 500 year increments where there are great shifts in humanity. And we now seem to be at the dawn of a new era “The internet” (The Information Age).
In the Agrarian Age, society was divided into two classes; the landowners and those that worked the land (the serfs). Your Status was fixed, you were born into it, and there was nothing you could do about it. In the Industrial Age it all changed, manufacturing generated wealth not agriculture, Business knowledge and factories spawned a class of wealthy persons. However, vast amounts of capital were still required to start businesses. In 1989 Globalization began and thus the Cold war ended.
In the Cold War there were two super powers, in the Information age its about decentralization as no one is in control. In the Cold War what counted was the might of your military and who had the bigger missile, in the information age the power of your PC and speed of your modem is what counts. In the Cold War tradition was the order, but in the Information Age innovation is the order of the day. During the Cold War the formula was E=MC², in the Information Age its mores law that counts, and Mores law states that the power of information processing doubles every 18 to 24 months. This prediction of Intel’s co-founder has turned out to be the de facto mantra of the information age.
In the industrial age the leading economists were Karl Mark and John Menard Caines. In the Information age the two economists who seem to have the lead thoughts are Joseph Schumpeter, Harvard Professor of economics (theory “the entrepreneur as the dynamic factor in fostering the business cycle”) and Andy Grove Chairman of Intel (quote “Only the Paranoid Survive”). Now what Mark and Caines tried to do is control the power of capitalism. But Schumpeter and Grove believed that this new unleashed capitalism will demise anyone who is still thinking old Industrial Age ideas.
Those barriers that kept one section of society wealthy and the other poor has been eroded steadily over the past 1000 years. In the Information Age literally anyone can become wealthy. The people who will succeed in this Age are those with new ideas and the self taught. The skills needed to succeed in the Information Age are not being learnt in schools and colleges (as in the Industrial Age). Children are teaching their parents computer skills (how many readers have been shown how to use email or chat by a school child?). And many of the entrepreneurs who start hi-tech Internet companies have never been to college or rather have dropped out. Right here in Dominica, some of the most successful businesses are not owned by persons with Masters in Business or Finance in fact its those holders of these credentials who work hard at making more money for the owners. Those individuals had ideas, patience and were willing to take risks, crucial ingredients for success in the information Age.
This article attempted to offer a glimpse into the matrix of business, and it is hoped that you were encouraged to examine your current beliefs and ideas. And hopefully coaxed into changing them into what is considered Information age beliefs and ideas about business, employment and money.
