Darwin at the Information Society: adaptation (and benefits) or extinction

On Wednesday 10th June 2009, I’m giving a conference at the Centre d’Estudis Jurídics i Formació Especialitzada, Justice Department of the Government of Catalonia (Spain). It is framed in the Web Sessions series to debate about the changes and impacts of the Information Society. My conference is called Darwin a la societat de la informació: adaptació (i beneficis) o extinció (Darwin at the Information Society: adaptation (and benefits) or extinction).

[click here to enlarge]
[cliqueu aquí per a una versió en català]

As the presentation shows, the speech is made up of four parts or general ideas:

  1. The industrial era — or the industrial economy — is based (among many other things) on two main issues: scarcity and transaction costs. These two limitations have shaped the world as we know it, especially institutions: schools, parties and governments, firms, civic associations… When shifting towards a knowledge based economy, both issues of scarcity and transaction costs fall down into pieces. Will institutions, and intermediation in general, follow?
  2. Second part is an overview on some of these institutions, and how their models and, sometimes, their sheer survival is threatened by these radical changes on costs and scarcity. Some will violently disappear, some will just fade, some will suffer adaptations along the following years. All in all, it’s about the risk of exclusion from society — not digital exclusion —, the risk of becoming worthless.
  3. Thus, there might be a need for new (digital) competences to face the present and the nearest future. These competences (to be acquired both by individuals and institutions) will be necessary to interact with each other and rebuild how we learn, work, or engage in politics or everyday life.
  4. To foster the acquisition of these competences some policies to foster the Information Society will have to be put to work, and the role of the government seems to be a crucial one

I will conclude that it all is a matter of bringing on changes while making sense of them.

More information

I want to heartily thank Jordi Graells for giving me the excuse — actually, to push me — to sit down and put together some ideas that had been rambling on my mind for some time. The title is his and it was great inspiration that helped me in weaving those ideas together. Not surprisingly, his work with the Catalan e-Justice Community (Compartim) is a most inspiring one too.

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If you need to cite this article in a formal way (i.e. for bibliographical purposes) I dare suggest:

Peña-López, I. (2009) “Darwin at the Information Society: adaptation (and benefits) or extinction” In ICTlogy, #69, June 2009. Barcelona: ICTlogy.
Retrieved month dd, yyyy from https://ictlogy.net/review/?p=2288

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10 Comments to “Darwin at the Information Society: adaptation (and benefits) or extinction” »

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  2. Ismael, excel·lent sessió. Has parlat d’experiències d’acreditació oberta (a Utah?)Podries facilitar referència?
    Grpàcies

  3. Enric,

    Primer de tot, moltes gràcies pel teu resum de la sessió. És precisament el contingut i el to que volia transmetre!!

    (per cert, em prendré això de “barreja de nivells de formalitat sorprenent […] però contingut interessant” com un compliment, hehe)

    Tema acreditació oberta: parlava el que va fer el David Wiley quan era a la Utah State University (USU; ell ara és a la Brigham Young University).

    Era un curs que es deia Introduction to Open Education i que ell i altres professors impartien a USU, però en línia i accessible per a tothom.

    Fins aquí, “cap” novetat.

    La revolució ve, al meu parer, en què aquest curs podia ser reconegut a posteriori per altres universitats. A simple vista, pot semblar el mateix model que el dels crèdits lliures del sistema universitari català. Però, sempre segons el meu parer, crec que les subtils diferències de procediment són, tot i que subtils, molt i molt substancials.

  4. Pingback: P2P Foundation » Blog Archive » ICTlogy » Darwin at the Information Society: adaptation (and benefits) or extinction

  5. Pingback: “Darwin en la Sociedad de la Información” « opiniones

  6. Pingback: ICTlogy » SociedadRed » Desinstitucionalizando la educación

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