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- The
Denver Post, May 23, 1999; by Bob Diddlebock; "Will we ever
learn to live with pervasive change?"
- In
his 1990 "The Work of Nations,'' author Robert Reich identified
"symbolic analysts'' and the services they perform - identifying
and brokering problems by manipulating symbols such as numbers
and words - as prime drivers in tomorrow's world economy.
- According
to Reich, research scientists, design engineers, software
engineers, computer designers, investment bankers and others
are finding new ways to collect more and different information,
interpret it and then distribute it. In turn, they will
continue to generate ever-deepening pools of wealth well
into the next century.
- Reich
identified the trend, but he didn't dig deeply into how
the wealth it will create could be used for the greater
good.
- Enter
Denver businessman Glenn Jones, who has done more than spend
the last 30 years merely pumping pro wrestling and "Petticoat
Junction'' reruns over the cable TV systems he built nationwide.
- A
man with one foot rooted in history and the other in the
future, Jones has long viewed cable and telecommunications
as a "bridge'' to the millennium. There, commerce, education,
philanthropy, information-sharing and community-building
efforts will gain more currency thanks to technology's warp
and woof.
- In
his new book, "Free Market Fusion: How Entrepreneurs and
Nonprofits Create 21st Century Success,'' Jones explores
that vision and how it can be a key to continued prosperity,
as well [as] the solution to some nettlesome problems.
- To
Jones, free market fusion transplants the fruits of capitalism
- mainly, money - to organizations whose mission doesn't
center on turning a buck. Take, for example, the Library
of Congress' National Digital Library project.
- With
financial and technological support from AT&T, Baby
Bells, foundations and other private-sector organizations,
the library's vast resources are being broken down into
the digital bits that will promote their access over the
Internet, TV and other new-age platforms.
- Jones
looks at how the library project came about and how that
process can be applied to, say, feeding starving populations
and extending education's reach in a post-millennium world
that he believes will be marked by constant disorder.
- "We
must determine not how to control the rate of change, but
how to identify and teach the skills necessary to excel
in an environment of pervasive, incessant change,'' he writes.
- As
such, "Free Market Fusion'' is something of a soapbox for
the educator in Jones. He aggressively argues that schooling
of all stripes - elementary, secondary and higher - must
take advantage of technologies like TV and the Internet
to teach people "how to embrace change.''
- "We
must help them to develop the internal balance and underlying
stability of values and confidence that will enable them
to see in a constantly changing world not crisis, but opportunity,''
Jones writes.
-
"Free Market Fusion'' is textbookish at times, heavy
on lectures and paradigm charts, and light on anecdotes.
-
But penetrating interviews with the likes of futurist Alvin
Toffler and journalist James Fallows help break up the monotony.
And in the end, taking to heart Jones' message - "think
solutions, not problems'' - is well worth the slogging.
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