Talking about a digital revolution

MUMBAI: Can you imagine your shirt speaking to the washing machine saying, "I am feeling a bit stuffy, get ready for a wash." Some call it pervasive computing. Many stamp it out from conversations as the dotcom-era dreaming. For Don Tapscott, though, it represents the embers of the digital revolution.

Author, guru and a professor in Toronto University, Tapscott tried to fan these embers into a fire in the bellies of tech leaders and CIOs at the third day of Nasscom 2003. "Many sound like we are already at the end of the digital era. We are not. We are at the beginning of it," he said. "It’s like the first few swings of the bat in a game of cricket "

Tapscott is a definite digital believer. When he talked one could relate back to the days of Nicholas Negroponte’s "Being Digital" days. Alas, very few were in the mood to mull over such niceties in the face of a grim business condition. Anxiety about anything new is the flavor of the season. This was evident from the question (a lone one for short of time) at the end of the session, "CIOs look at web services with a lot of skepticism. How can we work to overcome such sentiments?"

The witty professor was not lost to the reality. His prescription was, "Customers collectively have sunk $ 9 trillion in technology between 1961 to 2002." Bulk of this came in the last half a decade. "They are now looking for returns. The skepticism is obvious." "It is estimated that tech spending for the next 10 years will grow to $11 trillion world over with India witnessing a 25-30 per cent growth rate.

His message to the Indian businesses was simple which is also emerging as the flavor of the season: "Focus on what you do the best and partner with the rest." Tapscott argued that in the new distributed network economy companies need to open up and be flexible to work in large ecosystems.

He also called upon businesses to be intensely aware of the changing demographics around the world. "The younger generation are better informed, have their own ideas, want a share in the wealth they help you create."

Companies which understands the requirements of this generation and fuel their imagination will be the future growth prospects. "When Lego found that young children had hacked the code of their Robot toys (Mindstorm range of toys) and put a site to exchange program and applications to make playing with them more fun. Logo did not sue them like the music companies. They encouraged them to build a community and take an active part in the development of Mindstorm."