Uncommon Sense

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Uncommon Sense



Capstone Publishing Limited | ISBN 1-84112-477-X | Author: Peter Cochrane | English | PDF (RAR Compressed) | 251 Pages | 5.09 MB

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This is a book that expresses the unique view of Peter Cochrane who has watched, and been intimately engaged in, the technology roll-out over the landscape of society for decades. As an observer and commentator he has a great deal to say about the good, the bad and the ugly of the ever-increasing waves of technology deployment. Peter is anything but shy. He is refreshingly frank and honest, surprisingly accessible, and so is this book. It is a no-holds-barred presentation that will entertain, explain and challenge the layperson and the expert. Basically, this is a collection of essays from Peter that strips away the hype and mystery surrounding ‘conventional wisdom’, and exposes the realities and truths in the sense of ‘the emperor’s new clothes’. He sees, reaches, and extracts the essence of an issue, and presents the results in a clear and passionate fashion. Peter forces the reader to see, think, and re-evaluate many long-held opinions in a fresh and logical fashion. Uncommon Sense is, in Peter’s words, ‘… a book about living, rather than just surviving in a world of more technology and more change that our species has experienced hitherto.’ He expresses his thoughts in dramatic terms, making ample use of graphics and images to drive home his point; in many ways, the book is defi ned by his use of graphics and symbology. His goal is to set straight the confused thinking that surrounds much of the technology to which the end user has been subject. Peter has little patience for poor presentation of ideas and bemoans the ineptitude of most scientifi c presentations. He elaborates on the weakness of many of today’s management approaches, as well as on the failure of many technologies themselves. He points out that it is often a lack of imagination that limits the impact and effect of the information technology revolution. He properly recognizes that wireless communications and access will be omnipresent, and addresses some of the impediments that have been thrown up that have slowed down the deployment of a full
wireless infrastructure. Peter further points out the non-intuitive behaviour of exponential growth and how it has fooled so many bright people who fail to recognize its impact. He addresses the enormous complexity that is part of the technological and societal revolution by illustrating the true meaning of exponential growth, chaotic action, and counterintuitive outcomes. One of Peter’s pet peeves and frustrations is technology that fails to deliver what was promised. He is also irritated by managers who don’t understand that they don’t understand, and politicians who take a disastrously focused (single or limited issue) view in order to survive rather than improve things. His dialogue and illustrations take us through the causes of technology failure and the unlikeliness of it truly recovering. For example he cites and comments on hospital records, broadband, 3G, eShopping, the local loop and last mile as continuing to present nasty and, as yet, unsolved problems of effective deployment and delivery.
Peter’s holistic views address issues that span the important and vital through to the apparently trivial – for example the availability of pornography on the net, the futility of personal fi ling systems on a PC, and control freak managers. From a more global point of view, Peter makes the case that if we are to make any progress in solving the world’s critical problems, we must apply our advanced computer modelling capability to quantify the interaction between the variables, and predict the impact of these variables on the outcomes. He argues that the problems and their interactions are far too complex for the unaided human intellect to cope with, and this applies to the various summits that continue to meet, discuss, and fail to bring light to these issues. Peter recognizes that the world we are moving to in this 21st century is one of embedded technology, intelligent agents, mobile access, and vast, fast networks. In this world, he sees a need for clarity and vision. It can be a magnifi cent place to
live in, but it will not be without addressing the serious issues of privacy, security, intellectual property challenges and ethical issues. In this book you will be entertained, amazed, concerned, challenged and invigorated by the bright future that technology is offering. It will take uncommon sense and fresh thinking to truly tame this future and make the most of it. Enjoy!



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