Professionalism and Personal Skills

1
Professionalism and Personal Skills

• Lecture 3
• Perspectives

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Professionalism and Personal Skills

• Objectives
• By the end of this lecture the student should
• Understand IT and its relationship with Society
• Understand what is meant by the Distinctiveness
  of NT
• Appreciate why we ask, Is IT Revolutionary?
• Appreciate the comparison with the Industrial
  Revolution
• Appreciate the main points of the Technology and
  Choice debate

3
Professionalism and Personal Skills

• Introduction
• Without doubt New Technology (NT) and Information
  Technology (IT) has had an impact on society.
  Many writers have written widely about the
  subject and given a number of predictions
• It is the purpose of this lecture to make you
  aware of these theories and debates, NOT to judge
  any theory or reach a conclusion

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Professionalism and Personal Skills

• New Technology
• Can NT be seen as
• Distinctive?
• or
• Revolutionary?
• What is the cost of failure?

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Professionalism and Personal Skills

• Distinctiveness of NT
• Rowe and Thompson in People and Chips
• Size
• Cost
• Speed
• Capacity
• Reliability
• (R)evolutionary ?

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Professionalism and Personal Skills

• Forms of Application
• Basis for New Products
• Replacing Conventional Circuitry
• Change Production Process
• Affect Communication and Information

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Professionalism and Personal Skills

• The Industrial Revolution
• A Term used to describe changes between
  mid-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

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Professionalism and Personal Skills

• The Industrial Revolution
• Fundamental Changes which typified the period
  (Phyllis Deane, 1980)
• 1 Application of Science and Knowledge
• 2 Specialisation of economic activity
• 3 Movement of population
• 4 Movement of labour between employment sectors
• 5 Growth of new production units
• 6 Intensive and extensive use of capital
  resources
• 7 Emergence of new social classes

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Professionalism and Personal Skills

• The Industrial Revolution
• Key Point
• The first industrial revolution involved not only
  significant technological changes, but also a
  dramatic SOCIAL transformation

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Professionalism and Personal Skills

• A New (Industrial) Revolution?
• Towards a new society?
• Daniel Bell argues that we are moving into a new
  form of Society
• The Post Industrial Society

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Professionalism and Personal Skills

• A New (Industrial) Revolution?
• Bell argued that Deane's seven characteristics
  apply as much today as they did 2 centuries ago
• 1 Application of Science and Knowledge
• 2 Specialisation of economic activity
• 3 Movement of Population
• 4 Movement of labour between employment sectors
• 5 Growth of new production units
• 6 Intensive and Extensive use of capital
  resources
• 7 Emergence of new social classes

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Professionalism and Personal Skills

• Technology and Choice
• The impact of Technology on Society is directly
  linked to its application
• Electricity
• Personal Computers
• Lasers
• Flight Control Systems

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Professionalism and Personal Skills

• Major Issues
• Are we now (with Micro technology) seeing the
  beginning of a revolution similar to 1715 to
  1850?
• Shown what typified Industrial Revolution
  do they apply that to the modern world?
• Views of whether technology is good or bad is
  dependent upon viewpoint

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Professionalism and Personal Skills

• Characteristics of the Contrasting Perspectives

Optimistic View
Pessimistic View
Society
Industrial
Capitalist
Technology
Neutral product
Social product
Technological Focus
Invention
Innovation
Technological Change
Revolutionary
Evolutionary
Social Structure
Elite (meritocratic)
Class
Changes to Social Structure
Convergence
Polarisation
Social Relations
Concensus
Conflict
Nature of Work
Reskilling
Deskilling
State
Pluralist
Unitary
Political Orientation
Conservative
Radical
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Professionalism and Personal Skills

• Summary
• IT and its relationship with Society
• Distinctiveness of NT
• Is it Revolutionary?
• Industrial Revolution
• Current (R)evolution
• Technology and Choice

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Professionalism and Personal Skills

• References
• Bell, Daniel The Coming of Post Industrial
  Society. London Heinman
• Deane, P. The First Industrial Revolution,
  Cambridge, Cambridge University Press