Internet may create the isolated man

I attended a talk given by Cornell’s Entrepreneur of the Year, and IRL graduate, Jay Walker a few weeks ago.  One of the topics that remained with me after the talk was a social epidemic that may affect people in the future because of technological enhancements, especially in the area of the internet.  This social epidemic illustrates a world in which virtual reality technology with the use of the internet will create people who do not need to go outside their house to experience the “real world”, and thus, a whole new world of the “isolated man”.

In today’s world people can conduct daily life tasks without ever leaving their front door.  People can shop for clothes, buy groceries, talk to people, and a whole number of daily social activities all through the internet.

In the future, I can envision technology enhancements to the point that people can explore the whole world through the safe confines of one’s own home.  Through technologies in virtual realities and 3D holograms projections downloaded through the internet.

For example, a person just has to download a Louvre Museum package from the internet and through virtual reality technology, one’s own personal home can change into the Louvre Museum and anybody will be able to explore the world’s most rare exhibitions that were hitherto available half a world away.

Another example could be going to school, in which a person could take a course in an actual classroom setting through virtual technology with all the students and the teachers logged in together through the same internet platform.  This will be convenient in the sense that students and teachers will now not need to spend money and effort on traveling and go to school directly from one’s own living room.

Although these technological improvements may bring added convenience to everyday people, and perhaps help people who are paralyzed, sick in bed or or blind enjoy the benefit of seeing the world like everyone else, I can also foresee a social epidemic that could occur because of the use of virtual reality to “see the world”.

People that are naturally introverts who try to minimize social interactions with people may become more and more closed in to his or her own world.  If one can have social interactions in one’s own house, than one would not need to spend the time and energy to leave the house.  However, virtual reality can never replace actual reality.  If this type of virtual reality technology pervades society, it could create a world of lonely men and women who rely on the internet to reach out to the world, because they desire the safety and comfort of solitude.  Therefore, people will begin to interact less with other people and we may see the new world of the isolated man.

On the up side, we can always find ways to prevent this measure.  New types of therapy sessions can be created to prevent this syndrome of solitude.  The internet companies can have regulations on the amount of time a user can spend on internet virtual reality.  For example, even nowadays in China, the government has forced online gaming companies to enforce time caps on their online games to prevent players from spending more than a certain amount of time on an online game.  (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-11/10/content_7188303.htm)

The point I am trying to make is that future technological advancement can also create new social epidemics that do not exist now.  As technology becomes more advanced than so should social awareness programs; this will ensure that technology does not pervade the lives of people to the extent of shutting them off from the real world.

Housewives in the internet era

In the future, a number of married women, despite their higher education (bachelor or master degree), will still decide to dedicate their time for traditional housewife roles. We believe that these educated women will use their time at home, not only fulfill household responsibilities, but also to fulfill their hobbies and work from home with the aid of internet access.

Here, we will use the term cyber housewife (http://www.nyu.edu/classes/keefer/twenty/lee2.html) to refer to married women who stay at home and spend a substantial amount of time on the internet. With more exposure to the internet, especially the World Wide Web, we suggest three future trendy jobs for cyber housewives: mystery shopper, remote personal assistant, and web designer. With those jobs, housewives will be able to fill two additional roles (besides traditional roles): a source of income for the family and a contributor to internet innovation. We suggest these three jobs because all of them do not require formal work experience, supervision, or technical training. Nevertheless, they offer cyber housewives the benefits of flexible time, moderate income, and opportunities to pursue their own hobbies such as shopping, organizing, and designing.

Housewives usually spend a lot of their time shopping, both in physical stores and internet stores, therefore they have a lot of shopping experience. Moreover, with the education they have, they should be fluent in formal and semi-formal writing, observation, and analysis. With typical free time after household responsibilities amounting to at least 5 hours per day, they are able to subscribe to a mystery-shopper website (e.g., http://www.shopperscritique.com) and report their shopping experience. With the average current pay of $20 per hour (as quoted on shopperscritique.com) and five hours to do this job per day, a typical cyber housewife can contribute an income of at least $3,000 to her family’s monthly income.

Housewives who can keep their home  well-organized can absolutely keep others’ daily work well-organized, too. In fact, the second future trendy job for housewives on the internet, remote personal assistant, requires an ability to communicate successfully in both written and oral form, to meet a certain deadline, and to focus on details in order to best assist the customer. Although the requirement of the remote personal assistent seem to consume a lot of time and effort, the job  is suitable for cyber housewives since they are familiar with most internet communication tools such as email, instant messenger (with or without web camera), as well as some other non-internet based tools such as telephone and facsimile. This job also provides them the ability to use skills and knowledge gained from their higher education, such as business computing skills (Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, or Access), business writing skills (memo, formal and informal report, speech proofreading, initial email-responding), as well as some organizational skills (set and remind client of appointments, skim-read documents, etc.). With the modest average pay of $7-$10 per hour (as advertised on taskseveryday.com) and five to seven hours per day to do this job, this job can help a housewife to earn approximately $2,000 per month.

Internet access can empower individuals. Through the internet, many married women without formal training can acquire excellent knowledge and skills, among which is the knowledge of the World Wide Web, web design, and/ or graphical skills. For example, with repeated exposure to websites and graphics, most people find it easy to understand basic coding such as HTML, forum codes, and animation creation. Cyber housewives who have the patience, dedication, and willingness can teach themselves how to use Adobe Photoshop, Windows Movie Makers, or Microsoft Expression Web 2. Many cyber housewives enjoy creating web graphics for others to use on their own personal websites. It also gives the women opportunities to interact with other individuals via emails with or without monetary incentive, such as emails to request customized creations or how-to questions. A higher level of this web designing/ graphic designing job will be a network of individuals working as an organization to provide products and services to companies in need of outsourcing the website design.

Housewives spend the majority of their day either at home alone or caring for their children, yet need a feeling of usefulness and responsibility for their household financial health. They would be delighted to have a job and still manage to have time to take care of their family. Therefore, for those with personal computers and Internet access, the Internet would be the most convenient, affordable, and quickest method to achieve their needs. As mentioned in our previous entries (Team work on the internet, Virtual workplace- Let’s imagine), more than ever before, information technology is enabling housewives to advance their role in both family and society. Plus, with the rising popularity of such jobs, sooner or later, we will need to redefine the current term of unemployment ( so as to include working from home as self-employed) and restructure the labor force to best use available human resources.

WHO will future e-commerce affect? Investment Banks, Entrepreneurs and Investors in the IPO process

In terms of whom the internet might affect, I believe that we should not just look at individual people, but also organizations and companies. Unless you are living under a rock during the past few months, you will know that the financial services sector of the economy has taken quite a large hit, especially investment banks. Although this is due to the sub-prime loan crisis and the credit crunch, I also believe that one of the reasons that Investment Banks might be doing poorly now and also into the future is due to the internet and new channels of information.

Now the reason that entrepreneurs go to I-Banks for IPO services is that an I-Bank can provide marketing for an unknown firm.  In addition, an I-Bank can throw its reputation behind an unknown company.  For example, most company’s want to go to Goldman Sachs because they know that investors trust Goldman’s name and will want to invest in a company that Goldman backs.  In addition, I-Banks can be a major source of information for both the capital markets and the entrepreneur.

However, in the future I foresee a world in which both entrepreneurs and the capital market will be much less dependent on I-Banks and will utilize the internet for an IPO.  Although Dutch Auctions (internet IPO’s) are not too common right now, I see them becoming more popular in the future.

I believe future IPO’s will all take place on the internet.  Internet companies may be the future I-Banks.  For example, there could potentially be a new website called www.ipo.com in which companies that needs to raise money will register their companies information on this website and investors willing to invest money can also go on the website to scour for promising companies to invest money in.

Each separate company will be able to create a profile for their individual company on the internet with a business plan and all financial projections included.  The companies can utilize this kind of website to find out how much their company may be able to raise on the capital market, and also to determine share price and amount of shares.  The website can provide services of financial evaluation by employing a group of financial advisors or professional investors that can be contracted to look over information on company profiles and give entrepreneurs an informed evaluation of firm value, share price and share number.

This service should be charged but due to the variety of websites offering these kinds of services and the number of firms who are taking this online IPO option, these services should be far less than the kind of prices I-Banks will charge.  In addition, an entrepreneur could choose to pay for more money for a more qualified financial analyst or to pay more than one financial analyst to get an aggregate of valuations.

Another important source of information this kind of website can provide for firms looking to raise money is a survey of the market.  The website will let companies look at information of other companies in the same market that are also looking to go through an IPO or have already gone through an IPO.  By comparing their company to how other companies in a similar market perform on IPO’s, an entrepreneur will be able to gauge market demand and make a more informed decision about how to price their company.

These kinds of websites can also be a great help for investors.  For people with excess money looking to invest in companies with strong future potential, they can simply scour these IPO websites to look up companies in markets that they are interested in investing in and read up financial expert’s valuation of these companies.

I believe investors will also choose IPO websites over traditional I-Banks because IPO websites gives investors much more flexibility and time.  Investors will be able to see a number of companies that are preparing to be listed on the stock market and the date of their IPO.  Thus, they can plan accordingly and prepare their investment portfolio a long time before companies are actually listed.  This type of benefit can give investors an unprecedented advantage over the traditional I-Banking route.

However, the only one shortcoming of these websites is that they will not be able to provide the same type of reputation or feeling of security that traditional I-Banks may be able to provide.  Investors may need to be more savvy or cautious to only put money in reliable companies that will perform well in the future.

This type of internet IPO model will not only change the relationship between entrepreneurs and the capital market, it will revolutionize the way money from the capital markets reaches entrepreneurs.  With the internet, the entrepreneur and the capital market can gain access to unprecedented amount of information; thereby, lessening the power of the investment bank. Information is power, and with the internet, the I-bank’s monopoly on information is beginning to decrease.  And entrepreneurs and investors can leverage the internet to reach a new competitive advantage.

Bridging the digital divide: access to internet services for the elderly

No matter how you think, the digital divide exists right here, right now in the United States. First, I want to mention that digital divide is commonly defined as “the gap between people with effective access to digital and information technology and those with very limited or no access at all.” Mostly, we think of digital divide when comparing groups with different geographic residencies (states, regional, countries), or different levels of household income. I think we should also think of the digital divide in another demographic category: age. According to the U.S. Consensus Bureau, as of 2006, 24.3% of the U.S. population is 55 or older. This age group is a great potential market for IT providers to offer the elderly with internet-based services, besides their traditional market of young customers who are technology-savvy. The elderly have solid retirement income, wealth of helpful knowledge such as traditions, history, and life experience, as “with age comes wisdom”, and the abundant time to learn and adapt to new things. Plus, like young people, they have tremendous needs to connect to others, i.e. friends and children, in this fast-paced and busy world. Moreover, in just about 20 or 30 years, we will reach the age of 55 or older, too.

The following is a YouTube video made by an old gentleman with the username MellowinPA. This video is a clear example of how the elderly can use the internet to express their own opinions about current issues.

We received similar comments when we talked about this story to some of our friends. Simply enough, we should admit the existing perception that mature adults are conservative when it comes to technology, as well as that they have no clues about how to use current technologies, such as the internet. In fact, young people have a tendency to think that the elderly only care about simpler things such as health, traveling, gardening, books, etc. Moreover, it is true that the elderly individuals have insufficient access to computers, internet connections, and, most importantly, computer instruction. For example, when you go to a nursing home, you will see that the most common form of entertainment for the elderly is television and books. We are certain that they are looking for more than that, and we, young people, are able and have the responsibility to introduce information technology (internet connection, hardware, software) to them.
My vision about the near future is that more beneficial and new internet-based services will be provided specifically for the elderly once three essential IT components (internet connection, hardware, software) and computer instruction are accessible to them. Three plausible candidates for internet-based services for the elderly are:
- Internet community for specific age groups: such as local/ national networking of people in the age of retirement, more use of Instant Messengers, or even online matchmaker.
- Social media: blogs (with topics such as local history, cultures, traveling experience, etc), YouTube.
- Instant data transferring to health providers to keep tracks of physical and mental health daily from distance, especially for the purpose of emergency and health records.
Those three internet-based products will be capable of fulfilling at least three basic needs of people: love, self-actualization, and physiological well-being. Furthermore, we are confident that more access to information technology will lead to digital determinism (as defined in our very first entry as social changes that occur due to technology). Here, we are proposing two changes: perception and human networking methods. In perception, our society should accept that the elderly will enjoy the use of internet, as long as they have access to it and have instruction. With new networking methods, we should expect that the elderly will soon use the internet as the tool to connect with people in their age, with their spouse, and with local medical providers. The technology I presented in our previous entry (Virtual workplace environment) regarding technology for workplace, may be used here, too, as a tool for the elderly to connect to the broad internet community and media providers. Ultimately, social shaping, as defined previously in our very first entry, will take place as the elderly make use of technology, especially the internet. This social shaping involves the redesign of technology to be more user-friendly and to offer more useful services to make the life of the elderly more enjoyable.

Team Work on the Internet

The new innovation in internet technology and internet applications has been able to change the way that group work is done. Let us describe how an internet application that facilitates group work by giving you an example of one.

Wiggio was a newly started web application co-founded by recently minted Cornell graduate Dana Lampert. He mentioned that the reason he started the company was mainly out of frustration: “”As seniors at Cornell, we started Wiggio out of our own frustrations with unnecessarily clogged inboxes, using five different websites for five different functions, and all the other hassles associated with working in groups. We were tired of sending eleven emails back and forth just to set a meeting time. We were tired of that guy who just never knows where and when to be there. We were tired of list-servs, contact lists, phone-chains and incompatibilities. We wanted everything to be in one place, and we wanted it simple. So we created Wiggio.”

Another popular application that groups can use, called Googledocs, allows users to collectively edit office documents such as spreadsheets, word documents and presentations.

Since Jade and I are involved in many different groups and organization on campus, these website applications has us enhanced ability to participate in group work. But what about the functionality of these group work applications gives it such value? One way to look at it is by seeing these websites essentially as network databases that all users can access and update. Before the frustration with group work was that every single function, whether it was setting up a meeting, creating a poll for group members, working on a group document was performed through different means. These web applications have the effect of enterprise information technology. They act like EIT’s because they are able to break down the “silos” of communication that used to exist among groups. Before, groups used to communicate via different means, or processes. What these web applications can do is to make all these communications occur in one space.

The only problem these technologies could cause is when many people are working on one thing at the same time. For example, if five people are typing up a word document together, their actions could conflict with each other. One team member may type up one sentence, and then another team member may not like that sentence and delete it. This would cause a lot of frustration and confusion. Limited lines of communication will hinder group work over the internet if members cannot hear or see each other when working.

However, I still foresee that the future of internet team work application will become more and more popular in the future. It may be possible that internet video chatting technologies will eventually merge with applications such as wiggio and googledocs. Therefore, an actual virtual office may occur, wherein a group editing the same document could also communicate with each other directly via a video chat.

Another future innovation could perhaps have these virtual teams create virtual presentations via these applications. Technology could improve to such an extent that a user may be able to upload a PowerPoint presentation to a projector screen in the boardroom of a company and control the presentation from his home computer while speaking to his audience through a video chat screen.

As information systems technologies improve, the advantage of these group work internet applications will be more and more obvious. Communications between team members will become much more streamlined and group projects can be done in a much more effective and efficient manner.