The Death of Distance: How the Communications Revolution Is Changing our Lives - Softcover

Cairncross, Frances; Cairncross, Frances C.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 157851438X ISBN 13: 9781578514380

Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press, 2001

Synopsis

This is the corporate strategist's trendspotting guide to the new economy, outlining how advances in telecommunications are creating the single most important economic force to affect human society in the next half-century. The book offers 50% more new data, fresh analysis and new company examples offer a look at the economic landscape ahead in the wake of wireless. There is a shift of content, away from telephones and television to the Internet, which has emerged as an essential part of any company and absorbed the first two technologies. No firm will be an Internet company because every firm will be an Internet company, just as every firm is a telephone or a media company.

About this title

Review

From the advent of electronic communications, there's been talk about how the world has been shrinking. Frances Cairncross, senior editor for the Economist, makes her case from an economical standpoint: The growing ease and speed of communication is creating a world where the miles have little to do with our ability to work or interact together. Cairncross predicts that it won't be long before people organize globally on the basis of language and three basic time shifts--one for the Americas, one for Europe, and one for East Asia and Australia. Much work that can be done on a computer can be done from anywhere. Workers can code software in one part of the world and pass it to a company hundreds of miles away that will assemble the code for marketing. And with workers able to earn a living from anywhere, countries may find themselves competing for citizens as people relocate for reasons ranging from lower taxes to nicer weather. Cairncross discusses about 30 major changes likely to result from these trends, including greater self-policing of businesses, an unavoidable loss of personal privacy, and a diminishing need for countries to want emigration.

From the Publisher

A New York Times Business Bestseller

Edition details

• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 157851438X
• ISBN 13: 9781578514380
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 320