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Economic Impact of Tech Understated, Study Says
narramissic writes "A report (available here) released this week by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a pro-technology think tank, claims that IT was responsible for nearly all of the US worker productivity growth between 1995 and 2002. But the creation of new jobs in IT will be modest, the study says. At a forum in Washington, D.C., the report's co-author and ITIF president Robert Atkinson warned lawmakers that there will be a 'significant cost to the economy if you hinder digital transformation' and called on the government to spur IT adoption in several industries, including health care, banking and transportation." The article also quotes an economist who is skeptical that this report's outsized claims for productivity gains have been proven.
You want to stop hindering the digital transformation? Fine ... fix software patents. It seems like you can't create anything anymore without running into some obvious patent.
Damn you, AC! You beat me to the punch!
AC is correct, this 'group' isn't exactly breaking new ground. Technology can improve productivity? Really? And, I always thought steam power was a step backward.
Why are we still in an age where doctors transmit prescription info to pharmacists with a nearly ineligible scrawl? Why are pharmacists still taking classes to learn how to read these? Why is it still possible to administer prescription/hospital medication without a computerized check for excessive dosage, drug interactions, and medical condition interaction. (e.g., "Hey, you just prescripted 20 times the highest typical dosage. You sure about that?")
... computerizing records?
Why does GE's health care division run ads bragging about how the accomplished the insurmountable task of
Why aren't expert-type systems routinely used at doctors' offices?
Why do doctors act like you're Satan if you ask questions based on knowledge you've gathered on the internet about your condition?
I could go on and on. Yes, health care has advanced technologically, but we still have multi-million dollar MRI machines next to doctors communicating by scribble and no clue about how to do CBA's for the whole process.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
The unwritten statement here that's implied by these sorts of studies is: "spend money on IT, increase productivity".
Which we know is false. IT and computing is squandered everywhere. Huge ERP installations go tits up regularly. Large systems integrators waste gobs of company's cash by running projects with clueless hordes & over-assertive managers that somehow mask that something that should take 3 people x 3 months should take 90 people x 2 years.
It also implies that IT vendors are responsible for the appropriate channeling of IT investment. This is like suggesting that weapons, communication, and transportation manufacturers should have been given credit for the Allied victory in WW2.
Investing - in anything - requires thought and management. It is good management that leads to an increase in productivity. Technology and computing capacity are just a means.
The paper is correct that technology can transform industries and markets, and that is a good source of productivity. But the catch is that there is no correlation between IT spending and transformation. Technology & computing capacity is "necessary but not sufficient" for transformation. Thus, it strikes me as a propaganda piece to squander billions with hardware & global services outsourcing.
A great source is Paul Strassmann's profitability & productivity studies, which he has conducted since the 1980's. He has plotted spending vs. productivity or profitability, in what is the now famous "scatter plot": there is *NO* correlation between IT spending and productivity & profitability. Yes, one CAN gain increases in both of these in concert with IT (witness the work of Toyota's lean approach, or Wal-Mart's data warehouse), but I'd attribute that gain to smart management plus technology over just IT.
-Stu
Isnt it fairly obvious that technology is primarily responsible for our increase in productivity? I mean, where else would it come from? It isnt like our generation became more hard working than our parents.
;-)
Computer technology was basically the one thing that changed in the 90s to increase worker productivity. I cannot even think of a number 2 contender. Doing work on computers instead of on paper leads to vast increases in productivity. And we are constantly getting better, even with side tracks such as Vista.
I wonder if I could get money to do obvious studies. I am going to try to find out if having an active sex life makes people happier, or if eating more helps solve hunger.
--
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
IT can't smooth and steamline operations. It can make it possible to do so, but it can't do it by itself.
The types of solutions you're talking about isn't just a matter of dropping in a box, and suddenly everything's more efficient. It requires analysing the business processes, and determine where the issues are (and sometimes more importantly, why they're there).
I can't remember who said it, but they made a statement to the effect of -- technology can only make things go faster; if you have a bad process, it'll just make you fail faster.
I've see technology implemented in such ways that it slowed down the processes, because the system designers didn't understand what was going on. (eg, a switch to online forms, that made the forms more complicated, but they had people print them out, sign them, then fax/mail them in where they were re-entered by hand just as before... only with more fields on it now, some of which had been auto-populated by the online forms system).
The problem that I see is that managers think that some contractor being brought in and being paid $200+/hr knows more about how things work than their own employees do -- contractors who are being paid by the hour, and get paid more if things take too long, or need corrections later, etc. But, when you're making big money, management will listen to you, as opposed to the pool of people doing data entry who just want auto-complete on the system. Management gets sold on compliated new features that may not be useful for their situation. They want the biggest system they can buy, so they brag about it with their (golf|fishing|whatever) buddies.
As for the MBAs -- there are a few alternate management degrees out there that stress technology -- Master of Engineering Management; Master of Information Systems; Master of Information Management, etc.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.