Alan Simpson
The drive for the selfish worship
of individual desires, cravings and goals, achieved at any cost to the
team, and to society, finally hit a brick
wall thanks to the Y2K crisis. The worship of the individual, carefully crafted
by Madison Avenue, to sell a disposable consumer lifestyle, could not cope
with the new paradigm. Y2K
has shown that unless there is communication, cooperation, and an understanding
of the needs of each link in the supply chain, all that selfish scheming
is in vain
Let this lesson not be forgotten. This generation forgot the lessons learned by those
weathering the Depression, World Wars, and more recently the lines for gasoline, caused by
circumstances beyond our control, in a land far away.
In every strata of society there has been an awakening of cooperation, and
communication thanks to Y2K. Competitors have joined together in exchanging information,
and progress reports. Federal, State and local governments have joined together in forming
teams, committees and information-sharing networks. Local User Groups have been created to
encourage, and monitor Y2K progress. People are talking to each other, and demanding
answers, not just spin control.
Churches have stopped their fundraising for a short while, and addressed the potential
of serious shortages for their congregations. As a result they have found a new spirit.
The needs of the community are coming to the fore.
For over fifty years the yardstick of success has been individual achievement. The
advertising machine has pounded the message into a receptive public. It is winning that
matters, only being number one, and the more you smash your opponents into the dirt, the
greater the victory. It's not a team; it's the MVP, the superstar that gets all the media
attention.
That superstar status has been sold
to industry. It is the CEO who gets the mega-million bonuses, and the workers
who get the pink slips. The philosophy of Wall
Street dictated, "Replace the workers with computers, available 24 hours
a day, needing no benefits, or insurance, and never complaining."
Well along came Y2K. The computers threatened to strike.
The CEO found that he was just one man, surrounded by computers filled with millions of
lines of broken code. He needed machine minders. But his wiz kid consultants, had sold him
on the idea of downsizing... sorry rightsizing, and those trained, dedicated employees
were now scratching a meager existence, flipping hamburgers.
Those young, naive consultants predicted that these discarded COBOL programmers would
be grateful to rush back and correct the code. All would be well.It never happened!
Around the end of 1998, the Armani-suited twenty-four year old consultants started
panicking. People needed people! The Decline and Fall of the I-Society had started.
For the first time in living memory, corporations and governments had to start coming
together and asking each other some serious questions.
At first the parasitic lawyers advised organizations not to answer questions, and
ignore all communications. Then they realized that their colleagues were sending out the
same compliance demands, this time to their suppliers. The dilemma of the lawyers was how
could you refuse to disclose progress to your customers, whilst demanding disclosure from
your suppliers.
This dilemma began to take on epidemic proportions during 1998, with stories about the
grid failing, telephones being silent, and the distribution network stalled. The high
priests of the I-Society suddenly realized that we needed each other to survive.
Not only needed each other's skills but needed to communicate with each other.
As the year progressed the collapse of the I-Society took on global dimensions. Safe in
their New York towers, believing the superiority of Super-Power status, the power brokers
began to realize that if the suppliers of raw materials in the Third World failed to
deliver, then the assembly plants in Mexico and China would grind to a halt, and the
lucrative US marketplace would be starved of finished goods. The down side of shipping
production offshore had been realized.
True to the I-Society mantra, a forceful demand was issued to the owners of the
factories in far distant lands, supply, on time, or else.
But these factories, in far distant lands had problems of their own. They were
dependent on their own power grid, telephones, distribution system and critical
infrastructure, outside of the control of the United States. General Motors was now at the
mercy of an assembly worker being able to buy a railway ticket, to get to work in
Indonesia.
The scenario I predicted in my "Global Food Chain" presentation
for the Senate Small Business Committee, in April 1998, now percolated
up to the heady heights of
the boardrooms of Corporate America, and Corporate Britain, Corporate France,
Japan, Germany...
But there was still the individual members of the I-Society, secure smug and insulated
in they're suburban oasis, living the good life.
The combined might of the news networks combined to shatter this illusion. Evening News
carried stories of families stockpiling food, and water. Survivalist camps being set up,
and pundits predicting Apocalypse 2000, and the end of the world, as we know it! The
doomsayers predicted up to a year without electricity, and a global recession, even a
global depression.
Suddenly that Armani Suit, that Gucci purse, or that sleek imported sports car, seemed
insignificant against the need for power, telecommunications, transport, food and water.
Like the CEO in the boardroom, they felt very alone, very vulnerable.
So did a lot of concerned families. What is going on? What is Y2K? What will happen in
2000?
No longer could the authorities
say "Trust Uncle Sam"; no longer could the
CEO say, "Trust the Board." Everyone was in the Y2K mess together.
Without the cooperation of each and every one in the global supply and distribution
chain, Y2K could
be a disaster.
With cooperation, and effective communication, it will be a period of minor
inconveniences. The people responded with grass roots action.
Around the United States there has been an awakening of community activism, and Civic
Preparedness. There are those of course who choose to run to the hills, arm themselves to
the teeth, and threaten to kill anyone who comes near their stockpiles of dehydrated food,
and stagnant well water. Of course should they suffer frostbite, or hypothermia in the
winter of 2000, they would be the first to shout for an Ambulance, and sue the local
hospital for not getting them into the ER quick enough!
Despite the total lack of a centralized communication structure, these local groups are
coming together for Y2K. But why should it end come 2000? Why do not we put the I-Society
behind us, once and for all? The next time we need to communicate with each other in times
of crisis, we may not have 30 years lead-time.
Let us realize that the false worship of total individual consumerism, foisted upon us
by a greedy Madison Avenue, is as flawed as the old-style Soviet Communism. We need to
communicate, and cooperate with each other to survive.
It is no use being smug, in the knowledge that the US Military can destroy the world 15
times over, that your fashion designer clothes cost more than an average African earns in
a lifetime, and that your sports-car costs more than the average house, if you are in the
cold, and dark, with no electricity, no food, contaminated water, and no income. Let Y2K
make us realize how intertwined, and complex our modern information-based society really
is.
Let the fledgling consultative, and information-sharing meetings, become a way of life,
in the new We-Society, of the New Millennium.
Alan Simpson
Broadcaster and Speaker
(This paper was chosen by the US Government
and featured on their ITPolicy site on GSA.gov)
Y2K -
The End of The "I" Society