The new source of power is not money in the hands of a few, but information in the hands of many.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that information, rather than financial power, is what truly empowers individuals in society.
John Naisbitt's quote highlights a fundamental shift in the dynamics of power from a concentrated monetary influence to the widespread accessibility of information. In today's world, the ability to access and utilize information can empower the masses, making it a more democratic force than wealth alone. This perspective urges us to recognize the value of knowledge and information in driving innovation, societal change, and individual potential.
In practice
In a discussion about social media's role in modern activism.
If you have to be right, you put yourself in a hedged lane, but once you experience the power of not having to be right, you will feel like you are walking across open fields, the perspective wide and your feet free to take any turn.
Intuition becomes increasingly valuable in the new information society precisely because there is so much data.
The most important skill to acquire now is learning how to learn.
Strategic planning is worthless - unless there is first a strategic vision.
Trends, like horses, are easier to ride in the direction they are going.
The most reliable way to forecast the future is to try to understand the present.
It's just astonishing to me, but not surprising in some respects, how dependent we are on the somewhat meaningless and certainly ephemeral feedback that we get from strangers on the Internet. I think that's a dangerous dependence to develop.
We humans are not the end of evolution, so if we can make a machine that's as smart as a person, we can probably also make one that's much smarter. There's no point in making just another person. You want to make one that can do things we can't.
To turn really interesting ideas and fledgling technologies into a company that can continue to innovate for years, it requires a lot of disciplines.
Technology magnifies differences, and it's been replacing or obviating jobs for a long time. But what happens as that case accelerates? I'm not one of these doomsayers who says, 'There will be no jobs.'
What the Net does is shift the emphasis of our intelligence, away from what might be called a meditative or contemplative intelligence and more toward what might be called a utilitarian intelligence. The price of zipping among lots of bits of information is a loss of depth in our thinking.
Progress is possible only if we train ourselves to think about programs without thinking of them as pieces of executable code.
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