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Conversations on the Eve of the NEW Millennium
Looking ahead to a new century, how will our lives change?
What are the most important trends and challenges immediately ahead?
The CWA News asked a variety of thinkers, dreamers and doers to give us their opinions.
How Trends and Technology Will Impact Our Lives
EDWARD CORNISH is president of the World Future Society, a non-profit association and neutral clearinghouse for knowledge and ideas on how social and technological developments are shaping the future.
"The future doesn't just happen: People create it through their action or inaction today. To succeed in the future, we need to know more about how the world is likely to change.
"New technologies - an increasingly useful and expanded Internet, miniaturization in manufacturing, the development of 'intelligent machines' - will enable people to live longer, work less and enjoy more leisure time. But these changes will also affect how business is conducted, enable companies to hire where labor is cheapest and give employers a greater degree of control over employees.
"Telecommunications will bring people from around the world together in more efficient working relationships. Cellular telephones and computers will boost the productivity of countless workers. Expertise will flow easily and cheaply to places where it is needed most. Since telecommunications will offer increasing value to consumers at falling prices, the industry will continue to grow rapidly. In the increasingly globalized marketplace, consumers will become less loyal to businesses they once patronized. Competition will intensify.
"Telecommuting will likely increase, and not just on a local scale. Companies could attempt to control their costs by importing labor electronically from many different countries. U.S. companies, for example, are already finding it practical to use computer programmers in India, where wages are lower.
"Federal and state government employees could find themselves working for private companies if the trend toward downsizing 'big government' gains momentum. Self-service government could mean that more citizens will obtain information or do business directly with the government via the Internet rather than interacting with go-between employees.
"Hand-held computing devices connected to the Internet will change the way many of us do our jobs. NEC Corp. has even previewed 'wearable' systems tailored to particular occupations. Newspaper reporters, for example, might arrive on the scene of an accident wearing a lightweight, chest-mounted 'lapbody computer.' A fold-out screen and keyboard would allow them to write their story on location and transmit it directly to the newsroom. Paramedics might scan the victim with a handheld trackball containing special sensors. Data on vital signs and injuries would be displayed in their goggles while being transmitted to the hospital and matched against a medical encyclopedia on CD-ROM.
Microchips worn under the skin might replace credit and bank cards. Kevin Warwick, a professor of cybernetics at Reading University in England, is working to make such chips a reality and has implanted prototypes in his forearm to control the light and heat in his office by sending messages to a computer. While intended for convenience, Warwick admits such chips could also be used to monitor employees. Workers might not be able to pay a visit to the bathroom without a machine knowing it, he says.
"An increasing portion of the U.S. economy could be devoted to leisure- oriented businesses. Large entertainment conglomerates that already offer films, television programming, books, music, and theme parks are in the forefront of this new economy. One indicator of the trend is already evident: 15 million Americans visited Disneyland in Anaheim in 1996, while only 10.8 million non-business travelers visited the nation's capital."
Smart Machines, 'Anywhere' Communications
ARUN NETRAVALI is president of Bell Labs, the world renowned high-tech development laboratories of Lucent Technologies.
"By the year 2025 the entire world will be encased in a communications skin. We're already building the first layer of a mega network that will cover the entire planet. As communication continues to become faster, smaller, cheaper and smarter, this network, fed by a constant stream of information, will grow larger and more useful.
"Millions of electronic measuring devices - thermostats, pressure gauges, pollution detectors, cameras, microphones - monitoring cities, roadways and the environment, will transmit data directly into the network, just as our skin transmits a constant stream of sensory data to our brains. Such systems might be used for anything from constantly monitoring the traffic on a local road or water level in a river, to the temperature at the beach or the supply of food in a refrigerator.
"These sensors will be just one source of an increasing amount of machine-to- machine and object-to-object communication. By 2010, the volume of this 'infra-chatter' will actually surpass communication between humans. Your dishwasher will be able to call its manufacturer when it's malfunctioning, and the manufacturer will run diagnostics remotely. Or your lawn sprinkler could check the website of the National Weather Service before turning itself on, to make sure the forecast doesn't call for rain.
"We're doubling the capacity of optical fiber every nine months. Researchers at Bell Labs recently demonstrated the world's first long-distance, error-free transmission of a trillion bits (terabit) per second over a single strand of fiber. One terabit per second is enough bandwidth to transmit 500,000 movies simultaneously.
"And, there's been a tremendous decrease in the size of all kinds of electronics. In the last few years, we've developed the world's smallest transistor, a video camera on a chip and microelectronic machines. As the new millennium unfolds, we'll be able to create cell phones the size of a quarter, PCs the size of a wallet and high resolution monitors the size of an eyeglass.
"Software-driven intelligent networks and wireless technology will allow people to be reached wherever they are and will give the consumer the power to choose if a message will be an e-mail, voice mail or video clip. Placing a call to mom will be as simple as saying 'mom.' A small metaphone on your lapel will be able to read websites and e-mail to you. A videophone could fit on your wrist.
"Major advances in videoconferencing and high-speed networking will lead to a rise in telecommuting to virtual offices and to virtual business travel as well. Thousands of 360-degree cameras and stereo microphones placed around sporting events, music concerts and business meetings will give web participants full control of what they are seeing, hearing and experiencing.
"The Internet will evolve from being a complexity in our lives that we have to spend time mastering, to a behind-the-scenes tool that will improve our quality of life. It will transform from an avalanche of data into a smarter 'HiQNet' in which personal 'cyberclones' will constantly anticipate our information wants, needs and preferences. People will use anything from a TV to a wireless lapel phone for access."
Internet and Education, The Equalizers Of the Future
JOHN CHAMBERS is president and CEO of Cisco Systems. Cisco is a principal manufacturer of Internet routing equipment and conducts information technology certification classes worldwide. Cisco, the Department of Labor and CWA have partnered to offer IT/network training to CWA members and veterans.
"The Internet is going to change the way all people, from the presidents of companies to rank-and-file workers, do their jobs, and it will improve all of our lives in ways we're just beginning to understand.
"There are interesting experiments taking place in 'e-living.' For example, people might stop for gas at a supermarket. By pushing buttons on a gas pump, they could check traffic news or weather, ask for directions to be displayed on a map or check to see if groceries they ordered earlier over the Internet are ready for delivery to the car.
This past holiday season, we saw e-commerce take off as 'dot-com' ads saturated the airwaves. E-learning is also on the rise as companies strive to compete in a global economy.
"Since 1993, the Internet has moved from a cost center for business, to a productivity tool, to a competitive advantage affecting survival. Right now every company, every country and every individual is in transition because of the Internet.
"Education and the Internet have no boundaries, and the jobs of the future will go to the countries where the educated workers are. If we don't find a way to train our workers faster, with the speed the market is evolving, we will be non-competitive.
"E-learning - taking courses over the Internet, along with lab work when necessary - will evolve to both challenge and compliment traditional post-secondary education. It empowers workers with control over when they do their course work. It's portable, and it's cost-effective. Periodic skills assessments, certifications and competency tests will affect the advancement of workers in the future as much or more than the degrees they possess. Workers with Cisco certifications are earning $30,000 to $60,000 today.
"We're engaged in a second Industrial Revolution, where the Internet and education will be the two equalizers in life. The people get it. The business leaders and the government leaders get it - and now they're getting behind it. The implications are exciting. We can change the standard of living around the world."
People Still Crave Human Contact in a High-Tech World
Alex Heard is Executive Editor of "Wired" magazine. He has written extensively about cyber culture and is author of a new book about utopian and apocalyptic beliefs and cults, "Apocalypse Pretty Soon; Travels in End-Time America."
"Imagining the future has become something of a national pastime as the 20th century draws to a close.
Wired magazine is doing its share of prognosticating. We're very optimistic about the new millennium. Here are some of our forecasts:
"People will live longer in the 21st century. Already scientists are able to manipulate human beings at the cellular level and one of the first applications of the new technology will be to address such issues as Alzheimers disease and to perfect anti-aging techniques. A lot of the survivalists I've met in the past decade are simply trying to guard their health and hang on until science can make them immortal.
"Personal computers, as we know them today, will become extinct. Computing will be increasingly pervasive and invisible. Hand-held devices will serve multiple functions now carried out by the telephone, television, and personal computer. Homes and public buildings will be "smart" and people will be able to find one another simply by pressing a button on the multi-purpose, hand-held gadget.
"Over time, computing will become ever more invisible and in 50 years, something like a small piece of cloth, for instance, will contain all the technology we need to heat and cool our homes, communicate with one another and so forth. Everything will be connected to everything else. Studies are going on now at UC Berkeley and MIT to try to figure out what networks might evolve into in the future.
"The question is, will people want all this convenience? There seems to be a point where technology infringes on our privacy. For example, for many years picture phones have been possible and even available. But there's no demand. Nobody seems to want one.
"Communications technology has given us the ability to make far-reaching contacts in our global society - e-mail and teleconferencing for instance. But at the same time, it seems to have created a greater need for face-to-face interaction. Paul Saffo at the Institute for the Future in California, says that the jet set is growing exponentially. It has become commonplace for top business executives and diplomats to log 200,000 miles in flight time each year."
Student Activists Uniting in Political, Social Movement
Kendra Fox-Davis, is president of the United States Student Association, a Washington D.C.- based organization of student governments from public and private universities and community colleges. She is on leave from UCLA, where she is a senior majoring in women's studies.
"Coming from our perspective, where we're coordinating youth activism on a national level, we feel students are as politically inspired and involved as ever. The interesting thing is that we're active on so many different fronts. We don't have one, single defining issue. There is a community of students that cares about campus diversity. There's one that cares about labor and working class issues.
Students in the United States are also very concerned about the role we play nationally, and what our connections are to students and people in other countries who are struggling for basic rights.
"Because fundamental changes have already been fought for and won, students today are starting from a different place. We don't have the same struggles around segregation. We're not fighting over basic rights, like people of different races having to go to different schools.
"I think what we'll see in the next decade is a large-scale social movement, the type of which we haven't seen since the 60s and early 70s. There's been a resurgence of activism that's joining a lot of communities together that had been working independently. There's the student community and labor and the environment and racial justice. All these groups are moving closer to one another as we're finding out that our issues intersect.
"We're going to find ways to exert that power on a state and national level in terms of who we're voting for and the support we give people who care about our issues."
The Coming Generation: Optimistic, Socially Active
Steve Friedman, vice president of public affairs for the MTV cable channel, directs youth outreach programs for MTV including "Choose or Lose 2000," an effort to encourage young people to vote and become active politically. This program is a coalition effort in conjunction with Rock the Vote and the Youth Vote Coalition.
"Today's high school-and college-age kids, what we call Generation Y, are more optimistic about the possibilities of making a difference through political action than the Gen-exers were. I think we saw that in the participation by students recently in Seattle where the young people came together with organized labor and others to protest policies of the World Trade Organization.
"We get feedback from young people every day, and we're out there constantly with polls and focus groups. And what we find is that our youth are not apathetic like some people think, but they are much more interested in local issues in their communities than in national politics. They tend to think that their vote in national elections won't make much of a difference.
"For instance, in a recent poll we asked young people if they would be more inclined to vote or to volunteer in a soup kitchen, and overwhelmingly it was work in a soup kitchen. So what we're trying to do is tie the act of voting to that soup kitchen - to educate kids about how the political system and the leaders we elect directly impact their communities and neighborhoods."
Bridging The 'Digital Divide' For Minority Youth
Terry Lee is founder of the Cyber Youth Network, an Internet-based resource for minority young people that began in Washington, D.C., and is being expanded to other cities. He is also a consultant to the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department on building strategic partnerships with technology companies and an advisor to the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus Science and Technology Brain Trust.
"I'm optimistic about the potential of the Internet to expand educational and employment opportunities for minority youth as we move into the 21st century. And that's vital, because anyone who isn't comfortable with computers and the Internet is going to be two or three steps behind and be less desirable as an employee.
"One of the surprising things I've found is that there really isn't much of a digital divide when it comes to young people of color. For instance, I spoke to a group of 300 African-American school kids the other day and I asked how many owned computers and used the Internet, and 80 percent raised their hands. A lot of them know more about using computers than I do.
"There is probably more of a computer education gap among older workers, especially minorities, and that's something we are going to have to address with retraining and lifelong learning programs, which the administration is advocating.
"We're really making progress in wiring the schools and developing community access centers to the Internet through emphasis by the government and groups like the National Urban Coalition and Boys and Girls Clubs. And computers and Web access are getting cheaper. That's mainly because of e-commerce. These businesses want everybody to be on line - it's entertainment and commerce that are driving people to the Internet.
"The first step is to make Internet access widespread throughout our communities, and the next challenge is to get kids to use it for something besides games and shopping for sneakers - to educate them about the wealth of resources that are out there."
Government Can Expand Winners Circle
KATHLEEN KENNEDY TOWNSEND, currently lieutenant governor of Maryland, is expected to seek the Democratic nomination for governor in 2000.
"Despite the perception by some that people are disenchanted with government, I find that today, citizens are starting to rediscover the power of public service and the potential of government at all levels to deal effectively with problems. Whether it is crime, education, health care, or workplace issues, people are turning confidently to government seeking solutions. Citizen groups are more eager than ever to form partnerships with us.
"This kind of sea change doesn't happen all by itself. It happened because our public servants, including thousands of CWA members, are working harder and smarter than ever before, and because working together with labor, citizen groups, advocates and more, we have found new ways to mobilize the government to overcome common challenges.
"We've come a long way, but we have much more to accomplish. There are three challenges that will define our success in the coming decade.
"First, we need to continue our efforts to expand the winner's circle and usher in the areas of our country that have not yet felt the prosperity of the new economy. Second, we need to create an education system that truly prepares our country and our citizens for the demands of an information economy. And third, we need to find ways to help parents juggle the demands of work and family.
"These are the issues that matter most to Americans. They are local issues that demand local attention and governance. But they transcend state and even national borders. The truest challenge of state government is its ability to work shoulder to shoulder with federal and local governments to create coordinated responses to the most difficult challenges of the day.
If we can accomplish this, failure is impossible."
Education as Subversive Activity
ALEXANDER "SANDY" ASTIN is Allan Murray Carter Professor of Higher Education and Work at UCLA.
"As we look at the state of our schools in the beginning of the 21st century, there is a real need to develop good listening and comprehension skills. In education, we talk a lot about communication - writing and speaking skills - but if nobody is listening, or able to listen, then what's the point of everybody sending these messages out?
"Leadership is another skill we need to develop. Leaders make things happen; they mobilize other people. Management is only about maintaining the status quo - leadership is the willingness to be a change agent, the ability to get other people involved. It is the key quality to make a difference. And, it is not being fostered by our schools. Especially in a global society, this is how you create community.
"Leo Postman wrote a book about 20 years ago, called 'Education as a Subversive Activity,' in which he suggested that schools should develop student 'crap detectors.' That's more true today than when he wrote it. In a democracy, that's the first thing you need.
"The theory of democracy is that people need accurate information in order to make informed decisions. But when that information is being deliberately distorted with disinformation then the foundation of democracy is threatened.
"John Dewey was a brilliant proponent of education as a preparation for participatory democracy. He said that was education's purpose, to prepare people to be participants in democracy. When he wrote that book, we had a genuine free press. Today, the press is not doing the job; people are not getting the information they need to be engaged and stay engaged.
"One concrete trend that I see is the acceptance of the notion of service learning, combining class room learning with experience in the field. The evidence we have seen in our research is that students learn better when they see how their lessons are applied in practical circumstances. The results are amazing and the evidence is piling up that this is a win-win game."
Key to Good Jobs In the Future - Education
HOWARD FULLERTON is a labor economist for the Bureau of Labor Statistics at the U.S. Department of Labor.
"The U.S. economy will create 20 million jobs as the U.S. labor force expands by approximately 14 percent over the next 10 years. Workers who expect to be part of that growth will need at least an associate's degree in order to qualify for the best job opportunities, because occupations requiring two or more years of college will be the fastest growing segment of the job market and are expected to account for more than one-third of the market by 2008.
"In traditional blue-collar employment, there will be virtually no growth in manufacturing occupations and only modest growth - approximately half a million jobs - in construction. The service sector, along with some added jobs in retail trade and state and local government, will account for all the new jobs in the economy in the next decade.
"The BLS assigns three general levels of training among the blue-collar occupations we track: short-term training (one month or less) for occupations such as those found in fast food or clean-up at a construction site; moderate-term (up to one year), typically machine operators; and long-term (three years) which would be similar to an apprenticeship program. Demand for jobs in all three of those categories will decline as a result of automation and technology."
Voters Need To Sharpen Up, Pols Need To Straighten Up
Jack Germond, syndicated columnist and author, has been covering national politics since 1960, a career he chronicles in a newly published memoir, "Fat Man in A Middle Seat." Based in the Washington office of The Baltimore Sun, Germond writes "Politics Today" five days a week with journalist Jules Witcover. He appears regularly on TV shows "Inside Washington," "Washington Week in Review" and "Meet the Press."
"I think Jesse Ventura and all this talk about Donald Trump and Warren Beatty (in politics) is a reflection of the alienation voters feel toward conventional politicians today. They're disgusted with them.
"It's interesting to me that the Republicans, so far, have been doing a lot less negative campaigning. It's as if they understand, finally, that voters are really sick of this stuff. But I'm pessimistic. Negative campaigns have always worked in the past. What needs to happen for real change is that politicians need to behave better and succeed by doing so.
"What's wrong with the system is almost entirely the result of people not paying attention. Voters are lazy. If people read more and listened more we wouldn't have these clowns getting elected. Voters wouldn't be bamboozled. Most people think if they watch a debate on television, they've done all they need to do.
"Ventura is taking advantage of a circumstance that shouldn't have existed. He's not a bad guy, but he doesn't know anything about public policy. He's finding out that it's not as simple as he thought. I don't blame him, but I'd be embarrassed if I were from Minnesota.
"I think in the coming years, the Republican Party is going to be less driven by the cultural conservatives, the religious right, than it has been. They've lost too many moderates and independents by laying down moral strictures under the rubric of family values.
"I also think there's starting to be a reaction against political correctness. I'm so sick of these politically correct people. It's become ridiculous. You can't say anything. Candidates aren't nearly as interesting as they were when they were more individualistic."
Working Longer And Harder To Accomplish Less
MARIN CLARKBERG is a professor of sociology at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. She is associated with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Employment and Family Career Institute at Cornell, which studies the balance, or imbalance, between work and family.
"People are spending longer hours at work and thus less time with their families, which is a trend we need to be taking a hard look at. Actually less than 20 percent of employees who work long hours say they do it because they need the money. To employers, long hours are a mark of employee quality. Even if employees aren't any more productive by working longer hours, they feel they have to be there to be 'seen.'
"Interestingly, studies of part-time employees show they have a higher productivity per hour because they've had more time at home to take care of their personal needs. We need to keep doing these studies, because employers need that kind of information. They need to recognize that shorter hours aren't an impossibility.
"One of the things we have to talk about, too, is the role electronic communications is playing in the workforce, how it's brought work into the home. Even when people are home with their families, they have access to their e-mail at work and they have cell phones. How does that affect what we're doing at home? How is that shaping our experience of work and use of time? Our attention is divided. Technology allows us flexibility, but we really have to give some thought as to how we want to use that flexibility."
From 19th To 21st Century, Struggle Over Hours Continues
Juliet Schor, a professor and economist at Harvard University, is the author of "The Overworked American: the Unexpected Decline of Leisure." Her most recent work is "The Overspent American," which argues for a new "politics of consumption."
"This question of hours, family time and work life has become increasingly important in corporate America, as workers have been subjected to very arduous and demanding work schedules, both in terms of numbers of hours and in the pace of work, which has been ratcheted up so much.
"On the one hand, there is increasing competition and pressures that lead firms to demand longer hours because they don't want to hire more workers. On the other hand, whenever there's a strong economy and strong labor market, it becomes easier for people to argue for better working conditions.
"So there is some sense that some corporations are recognizing a problem, especially as it affects their bottom line, and retaining workers becomes increasingly important. But there hasn't been a massive response. They're kind of nibbling around the edges, looking for Band-Aid sorts of solutions.
"If you think about the history of the union movement, one of the major things unions struggled for was an eight-hour day. Unions understood the tradeoff between the path of long hours, high rates of growth, lots of private consumption and turning workers into consumers, versus an alternative path that emphasized using economic progress to make a better quality of life and a better community. That way, economic progress could be used to give workers more time off the job, so that they could go to school and become active in their political and civic lives.
"It was really a quality of life versus a quantity of stuff question. Unions were squarely in the quality of life camp and were staunch advocates of the importance of public goods and time for people. The potential for working people to become cultured and educated: that's what shorter working hours could do.
"Some 100 years ago, the question was: would it be just the rich who had free time to study and be involved in politics? The union movement was arguing for workers' rights to do that too.
"Now, we're back at that same question. With the long working hours people have, it's so difficult for them to have the time to be involved with their communities, with their families and in lifelong education - all the things that people love to do. Unions are so important in articulating an alternative value system to the idea that life is really just about acquiring stuff."
(Continued in Section II file...)
What are the most important trends and challenges immediately ahead?
The CWA News asked a variety of thinkers, dreamers and doers to give us their opinions.
How Trends and Technology Will Impact Our Lives
EDWARD CORNISH is president of the World Future Society, a non-profit association and neutral clearinghouse for knowledge and ideas on how social and technological developments are shaping the future.
"The future doesn't just happen: People create it through their action or inaction today. To succeed in the future, we need to know more about how the world is likely to change.
"New technologies - an increasingly useful and expanded Internet, miniaturization in manufacturing, the development of 'intelligent machines' - will enable people to live longer, work less and enjoy more leisure time. But these changes will also affect how business is conducted, enable companies to hire where labor is cheapest and give employers a greater degree of control over employees.
"Telecommunications will bring people from around the world together in more efficient working relationships. Cellular telephones and computers will boost the productivity of countless workers. Expertise will flow easily and cheaply to places where it is needed most. Since telecommunications will offer increasing value to consumers at falling prices, the industry will continue to grow rapidly. In the increasingly globalized marketplace, consumers will become less loyal to businesses they once patronized. Competition will intensify.
"Telecommuting will likely increase, and not just on a local scale. Companies could attempt to control their costs by importing labor electronically from many different countries. U.S. companies, for example, are already finding it practical to use computer programmers in India, where wages are lower.
"Federal and state government employees could find themselves working for private companies if the trend toward downsizing 'big government' gains momentum. Self-service government could mean that more citizens will obtain information or do business directly with the government via the Internet rather than interacting with go-between employees.
"Hand-held computing devices connected to the Internet will change the way many of us do our jobs. NEC Corp. has even previewed 'wearable' systems tailored to particular occupations. Newspaper reporters, for example, might arrive on the scene of an accident wearing a lightweight, chest-mounted 'lapbody computer.' A fold-out screen and keyboard would allow them to write their story on location and transmit it directly to the newsroom. Paramedics might scan the victim with a handheld trackball containing special sensors. Data on vital signs and injuries would be displayed in their goggles while being transmitted to the hospital and matched against a medical encyclopedia on CD-ROM.
Microchips worn under the skin might replace credit and bank cards. Kevin Warwick, a professor of cybernetics at Reading University in England, is working to make such chips a reality and has implanted prototypes in his forearm to control the light and heat in his office by sending messages to a computer. While intended for convenience, Warwick admits such chips could also be used to monitor employees. Workers might not be able to pay a visit to the bathroom without a machine knowing it, he says.
"An increasing portion of the U.S. economy could be devoted to leisure- oriented businesses. Large entertainment conglomerates that already offer films, television programming, books, music, and theme parks are in the forefront of this new economy. One indicator of the trend is already evident: 15 million Americans visited Disneyland in Anaheim in 1996, while only 10.8 million non-business travelers visited the nation's capital."
Smart Machines, 'Anywhere' Communications
ARUN NETRAVALI is president of Bell Labs, the world renowned high-tech development laboratories of Lucent Technologies.
"By the year 2025 the entire world will be encased in a communications skin. We're already building the first layer of a mega network that will cover the entire planet. As communication continues to become faster, smaller, cheaper and smarter, this network, fed by a constant stream of information, will grow larger and more useful.
"Millions of electronic measuring devices - thermostats, pressure gauges, pollution detectors, cameras, microphones - monitoring cities, roadways and the environment, will transmit data directly into the network, just as our skin transmits a constant stream of sensory data to our brains. Such systems might be used for anything from constantly monitoring the traffic on a local road or water level in a river, to the temperature at the beach or the supply of food in a refrigerator.
"These sensors will be just one source of an increasing amount of machine-to- machine and object-to-object communication. By 2010, the volume of this 'infra-chatter' will actually surpass communication between humans. Your dishwasher will be able to call its manufacturer when it's malfunctioning, and the manufacturer will run diagnostics remotely. Or your lawn sprinkler could check the website of the National Weather Service before turning itself on, to make sure the forecast doesn't call for rain.
"We're doubling the capacity of optical fiber every nine months. Researchers at Bell Labs recently demonstrated the world's first long-distance, error-free transmission of a trillion bits (terabit) per second over a single strand of fiber. One terabit per second is enough bandwidth to transmit 500,000 movies simultaneously.
"And, there's been a tremendous decrease in the size of all kinds of electronics. In the last few years, we've developed the world's smallest transistor, a video camera on a chip and microelectronic machines. As the new millennium unfolds, we'll be able to create cell phones the size of a quarter, PCs the size of a wallet and high resolution monitors the size of an eyeglass.
"Software-driven intelligent networks and wireless technology will allow people to be reached wherever they are and will give the consumer the power to choose if a message will be an e-mail, voice mail or video clip. Placing a call to mom will be as simple as saying 'mom.' A small metaphone on your lapel will be able to read websites and e-mail to you. A videophone could fit on your wrist.
"Major advances in videoconferencing and high-speed networking will lead to a rise in telecommuting to virtual offices and to virtual business travel as well. Thousands of 360-degree cameras and stereo microphones placed around sporting events, music concerts and business meetings will give web participants full control of what they are seeing, hearing and experiencing.
"The Internet will evolve from being a complexity in our lives that we have to spend time mastering, to a behind-the-scenes tool that will improve our quality of life. It will transform from an avalanche of data into a smarter 'HiQNet' in which personal 'cyberclones' will constantly anticipate our information wants, needs and preferences. People will use anything from a TV to a wireless lapel phone for access."
Internet and Education, The Equalizers Of the Future
JOHN CHAMBERS is president and CEO of Cisco Systems. Cisco is a principal manufacturer of Internet routing equipment and conducts information technology certification classes worldwide. Cisco, the Department of Labor and CWA have partnered to offer IT/network training to CWA members and veterans.
"The Internet is going to change the way all people, from the presidents of companies to rank-and-file workers, do their jobs, and it will improve all of our lives in ways we're just beginning to understand.
"There are interesting experiments taking place in 'e-living.' For example, people might stop for gas at a supermarket. By pushing buttons on a gas pump, they could check traffic news or weather, ask for directions to be displayed on a map or check to see if groceries they ordered earlier over the Internet are ready for delivery to the car.
This past holiday season, we saw e-commerce take off as 'dot-com' ads saturated the airwaves. E-learning is also on the rise as companies strive to compete in a global economy.
"Since 1993, the Internet has moved from a cost center for business, to a productivity tool, to a competitive advantage affecting survival. Right now every company, every country and every individual is in transition because of the Internet.
"Education and the Internet have no boundaries, and the jobs of the future will go to the countries where the educated workers are. If we don't find a way to train our workers faster, with the speed the market is evolving, we will be non-competitive.
"E-learning - taking courses over the Internet, along with lab work when necessary - will evolve to both challenge and compliment traditional post-secondary education. It empowers workers with control over when they do their course work. It's portable, and it's cost-effective. Periodic skills assessments, certifications and competency tests will affect the advancement of workers in the future as much or more than the degrees they possess. Workers with Cisco certifications are earning $30,000 to $60,000 today.
"We're engaged in a second Industrial Revolution, where the Internet and education will be the two equalizers in life. The people get it. The business leaders and the government leaders get it - and now they're getting behind it. The implications are exciting. We can change the standard of living around the world."
People Still Crave Human Contact in a High-Tech World
Alex Heard is Executive Editor of "Wired" magazine. He has written extensively about cyber culture and is author of a new book about utopian and apocalyptic beliefs and cults, "Apocalypse Pretty Soon; Travels in End-Time America."
"Imagining the future has become something of a national pastime as the 20th century draws to a close.
Wired magazine is doing its share of prognosticating. We're very optimistic about the new millennium. Here are some of our forecasts:
"People will live longer in the 21st century. Already scientists are able to manipulate human beings at the cellular level and one of the first applications of the new technology will be to address such issues as Alzheimers disease and to perfect anti-aging techniques. A lot of the survivalists I've met in the past decade are simply trying to guard their health and hang on until science can make them immortal.
"Personal computers, as we know them today, will become extinct. Computing will be increasingly pervasive and invisible. Hand-held devices will serve multiple functions now carried out by the telephone, television, and personal computer. Homes and public buildings will be "smart" and people will be able to find one another simply by pressing a button on the multi-purpose, hand-held gadget.
"Over time, computing will become ever more invisible and in 50 years, something like a small piece of cloth, for instance, will contain all the technology we need to heat and cool our homes, communicate with one another and so forth. Everything will be connected to everything else. Studies are going on now at UC Berkeley and MIT to try to figure out what networks might evolve into in the future.
"The question is, will people want all this convenience? There seems to be a point where technology infringes on our privacy. For example, for many years picture phones have been possible and even available. But there's no demand. Nobody seems to want one.
"Communications technology has given us the ability to make far-reaching contacts in our global society - e-mail and teleconferencing for instance. But at the same time, it seems to have created a greater need for face-to-face interaction. Paul Saffo at the Institute for the Future in California, says that the jet set is growing exponentially. It has become commonplace for top business executives and diplomats to log 200,000 miles in flight time each year."
Student Activists Uniting in Political, Social Movement
Kendra Fox-Davis, is president of the United States Student Association, a Washington D.C.- based organization of student governments from public and private universities and community colleges. She is on leave from UCLA, where she is a senior majoring in women's studies.
"Coming from our perspective, where we're coordinating youth activism on a national level, we feel students are as politically inspired and involved as ever. The interesting thing is that we're active on so many different fronts. We don't have one, single defining issue. There is a community of students that cares about campus diversity. There's one that cares about labor and working class issues.
Students in the United States are also very concerned about the role we play nationally, and what our connections are to students and people in other countries who are struggling for basic rights.
"Because fundamental changes have already been fought for and won, students today are starting from a different place. We don't have the same struggles around segregation. We're not fighting over basic rights, like people of different races having to go to different schools.
"I think what we'll see in the next decade is a large-scale social movement, the type of which we haven't seen since the 60s and early 70s. There's been a resurgence of activism that's joining a lot of communities together that had been working independently. There's the student community and labor and the environment and racial justice. All these groups are moving closer to one another as we're finding out that our issues intersect.
"We're going to find ways to exert that power on a state and national level in terms of who we're voting for and the support we give people who care about our issues."
The Coming Generation: Optimistic, Socially Active
Steve Friedman, vice president of public affairs for the MTV cable channel, directs youth outreach programs for MTV including "Choose or Lose 2000," an effort to encourage young people to vote and become active politically. This program is a coalition effort in conjunction with Rock the Vote and the Youth Vote Coalition.
"Today's high school-and college-age kids, what we call Generation Y, are more optimistic about the possibilities of making a difference through political action than the Gen-exers were. I think we saw that in the participation by students recently in Seattle where the young people came together with organized labor and others to protest policies of the World Trade Organization.
"We get feedback from young people every day, and we're out there constantly with polls and focus groups. And what we find is that our youth are not apathetic like some people think, but they are much more interested in local issues in their communities than in national politics. They tend to think that their vote in national elections won't make much of a difference.
"For instance, in a recent poll we asked young people if they would be more inclined to vote or to volunteer in a soup kitchen, and overwhelmingly it was work in a soup kitchen. So what we're trying to do is tie the act of voting to that soup kitchen - to educate kids about how the political system and the leaders we elect directly impact their communities and neighborhoods."
Bridging The 'Digital Divide' For Minority Youth
Terry Lee is founder of the Cyber Youth Network, an Internet-based resource for minority young people that began in Washington, D.C., and is being expanded to other cities. He is also a consultant to the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department on building strategic partnerships with technology companies and an advisor to the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus Science and Technology Brain Trust.
"I'm optimistic about the potential of the Internet to expand educational and employment opportunities for minority youth as we move into the 21st century. And that's vital, because anyone who isn't comfortable with computers and the Internet is going to be two or three steps behind and be less desirable as an employee.
"One of the surprising things I've found is that there really isn't much of a digital divide when it comes to young people of color. For instance, I spoke to a group of 300 African-American school kids the other day and I asked how many owned computers and used the Internet, and 80 percent raised their hands. A lot of them know more about using computers than I do.
"There is probably more of a computer education gap among older workers, especially minorities, and that's something we are going to have to address with retraining and lifelong learning programs, which the administration is advocating.
"We're really making progress in wiring the schools and developing community access centers to the Internet through emphasis by the government and groups like the National Urban Coalition and Boys and Girls Clubs. And computers and Web access are getting cheaper. That's mainly because of e-commerce. These businesses want everybody to be on line - it's entertainment and commerce that are driving people to the Internet.
"The first step is to make Internet access widespread throughout our communities, and the next challenge is to get kids to use it for something besides games and shopping for sneakers - to educate them about the wealth of resources that are out there."
Government Can Expand Winners Circle
KATHLEEN KENNEDY TOWNSEND, currently lieutenant governor of Maryland, is expected to seek the Democratic nomination for governor in 2000.
"Despite the perception by some that people are disenchanted with government, I find that today, citizens are starting to rediscover the power of public service and the potential of government at all levels to deal effectively with problems. Whether it is crime, education, health care, or workplace issues, people are turning confidently to government seeking solutions. Citizen groups are more eager than ever to form partnerships with us.
"This kind of sea change doesn't happen all by itself. It happened because our public servants, including thousands of CWA members, are working harder and smarter than ever before, and because working together with labor, citizen groups, advocates and more, we have found new ways to mobilize the government to overcome common challenges.
"We've come a long way, but we have much more to accomplish. There are three challenges that will define our success in the coming decade.
"First, we need to continue our efforts to expand the winner's circle and usher in the areas of our country that have not yet felt the prosperity of the new economy. Second, we need to create an education system that truly prepares our country and our citizens for the demands of an information economy. And third, we need to find ways to help parents juggle the demands of work and family.
"These are the issues that matter most to Americans. They are local issues that demand local attention and governance. But they transcend state and even national borders. The truest challenge of state government is its ability to work shoulder to shoulder with federal and local governments to create coordinated responses to the most difficult challenges of the day.
If we can accomplish this, failure is impossible."
Education as Subversive Activity
ALEXANDER "SANDY" ASTIN is Allan Murray Carter Professor of Higher Education and Work at UCLA.
"As we look at the state of our schools in the beginning of the 21st century, there is a real need to develop good listening and comprehension skills. In education, we talk a lot about communication - writing and speaking skills - but if nobody is listening, or able to listen, then what's the point of everybody sending these messages out?
"Leadership is another skill we need to develop. Leaders make things happen; they mobilize other people. Management is only about maintaining the status quo - leadership is the willingness to be a change agent, the ability to get other people involved. It is the key quality to make a difference. And, it is not being fostered by our schools. Especially in a global society, this is how you create community.
"Leo Postman wrote a book about 20 years ago, called 'Education as a Subversive Activity,' in which he suggested that schools should develop student 'crap detectors.' That's more true today than when he wrote it. In a democracy, that's the first thing you need.
"The theory of democracy is that people need accurate information in order to make informed decisions. But when that information is being deliberately distorted with disinformation then the foundation of democracy is threatened.
"John Dewey was a brilliant proponent of education as a preparation for participatory democracy. He said that was education's purpose, to prepare people to be participants in democracy. When he wrote that book, we had a genuine free press. Today, the press is not doing the job; people are not getting the information they need to be engaged and stay engaged.
"One concrete trend that I see is the acceptance of the notion of service learning, combining class room learning with experience in the field. The evidence we have seen in our research is that students learn better when they see how their lessons are applied in practical circumstances. The results are amazing and the evidence is piling up that this is a win-win game."
Key to Good Jobs In the Future - Education
HOWARD FULLERTON is a labor economist for the Bureau of Labor Statistics at the U.S. Department of Labor.
"The U.S. economy will create 20 million jobs as the U.S. labor force expands by approximately 14 percent over the next 10 years. Workers who expect to be part of that growth will need at least an associate's degree in order to qualify for the best job opportunities, because occupations requiring two or more years of college will be the fastest growing segment of the job market and are expected to account for more than one-third of the market by 2008.
"In traditional blue-collar employment, there will be virtually no growth in manufacturing occupations and only modest growth - approximately half a million jobs - in construction. The service sector, along with some added jobs in retail trade and state and local government, will account for all the new jobs in the economy in the next decade.
"The BLS assigns three general levels of training among the blue-collar occupations we track: short-term training (one month or less) for occupations such as those found in fast food or clean-up at a construction site; moderate-term (up to one year), typically machine operators; and long-term (three years) which would be similar to an apprenticeship program. Demand for jobs in all three of those categories will decline as a result of automation and technology."
Voters Need To Sharpen Up, Pols Need To Straighten Up
Jack Germond, syndicated columnist and author, has been covering national politics since 1960, a career he chronicles in a newly published memoir, "Fat Man in A Middle Seat." Based in the Washington office of The Baltimore Sun, Germond writes "Politics Today" five days a week with journalist Jules Witcover. He appears regularly on TV shows "Inside Washington," "Washington Week in Review" and "Meet the Press."
"I think Jesse Ventura and all this talk about Donald Trump and Warren Beatty (in politics) is a reflection of the alienation voters feel toward conventional politicians today. They're disgusted with them.
"It's interesting to me that the Republicans, so far, have been doing a lot less negative campaigning. It's as if they understand, finally, that voters are really sick of this stuff. But I'm pessimistic. Negative campaigns have always worked in the past. What needs to happen for real change is that politicians need to behave better and succeed by doing so.
"What's wrong with the system is almost entirely the result of people not paying attention. Voters are lazy. If people read more and listened more we wouldn't have these clowns getting elected. Voters wouldn't be bamboozled. Most people think if they watch a debate on television, they've done all they need to do.
"Ventura is taking advantage of a circumstance that shouldn't have existed. He's not a bad guy, but he doesn't know anything about public policy. He's finding out that it's not as simple as he thought. I don't blame him, but I'd be embarrassed if I were from Minnesota.
"I think in the coming years, the Republican Party is going to be less driven by the cultural conservatives, the religious right, than it has been. They've lost too many moderates and independents by laying down moral strictures under the rubric of family values.
"I also think there's starting to be a reaction against political correctness. I'm so sick of these politically correct people. It's become ridiculous. You can't say anything. Candidates aren't nearly as interesting as they were when they were more individualistic."
Working Longer And Harder To Accomplish Less
MARIN CLARKBERG is a professor of sociology at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. She is associated with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Employment and Family Career Institute at Cornell, which studies the balance, or imbalance, between work and family.
"People are spending longer hours at work and thus less time with their families, which is a trend we need to be taking a hard look at. Actually less than 20 percent of employees who work long hours say they do it because they need the money. To employers, long hours are a mark of employee quality. Even if employees aren't any more productive by working longer hours, they feel they have to be there to be 'seen.'
"Interestingly, studies of part-time employees show they have a higher productivity per hour because they've had more time at home to take care of their personal needs. We need to keep doing these studies, because employers need that kind of information. They need to recognize that shorter hours aren't an impossibility.
"One of the things we have to talk about, too, is the role electronic communications is playing in the workforce, how it's brought work into the home. Even when people are home with their families, they have access to their e-mail at work and they have cell phones. How does that affect what we're doing at home? How is that shaping our experience of work and use of time? Our attention is divided. Technology allows us flexibility, but we really have to give some thought as to how we want to use that flexibility."
From 19th To 21st Century, Struggle Over Hours Continues
Juliet Schor, a professor and economist at Harvard University, is the author of "The Overworked American: the Unexpected Decline of Leisure." Her most recent work is "The Overspent American," which argues for a new "politics of consumption."
"This question of hours, family time and work life has become increasingly important in corporate America, as workers have been subjected to very arduous and demanding work schedules, both in terms of numbers of hours and in the pace of work, which has been ratcheted up so much.
"On the one hand, there is increasing competition and pressures that lead firms to demand longer hours because they don't want to hire more workers. On the other hand, whenever there's a strong economy and strong labor market, it becomes easier for people to argue for better working conditions.
"So there is some sense that some corporations are recognizing a problem, especially as it affects their bottom line, and retaining workers becomes increasingly important. But there hasn't been a massive response. They're kind of nibbling around the edges, looking for Band-Aid sorts of solutions.
"If you think about the history of the union movement, one of the major things unions struggled for was an eight-hour day. Unions understood the tradeoff between the path of long hours, high rates of growth, lots of private consumption and turning workers into consumers, versus an alternative path that emphasized using economic progress to make a better quality of life and a better community. That way, economic progress could be used to give workers more time off the job, so that they could go to school and become active in their political and civic lives.
"It was really a quality of life versus a quantity of stuff question. Unions were squarely in the quality of life camp and were staunch advocates of the importance of public goods and time for people. The potential for working people to become cultured and educated: that's what shorter working hours could do.
"Some 100 years ago, the question was: would it be just the rich who had free time to study and be involved in politics? The union movement was arguing for workers' rights to do that too.
"Now, we're back at that same question. With the long working hours people have, it's so difficult for them to have the time to be involved with their communities, with their families and in lifelong education - all the things that people love to do. Unions are so important in articulating an alternative value system to the idea that life is really just about acquiring stuff."
(Continued in Section II file...)