Reading these articles, for me the greatest concern is that of restricting information, and entering into a world where for political reasons information is prevented from going to individuals who are seen to take politically unacceptable action. Under the Labour administration, which was a period of high employment and income in the city, a lot of money was put into health and education, but it seems that things have not really improved.

I have seen very few studies that examine the experience of people living in deprived areas where schools and services have been improved, but the overall environment has not. If one spends seven and a half hours in school and there is an improvement in tuition, culture and in the way students and staff are treated, then one would expect to see positive changes. But if that same pupil goes back to a home where three generations have not worked, or to a community that is highly alienated and where drugs and crime have become normal, then this becomes less straightforward.

So far, the way the Government has been handling problems has been to address parts of problems, but not the whole. When the financial support that kept education and health and benefits were reduced, this lit the spark needed to create the riots within communities that, because of the high levels of deprivation, a high level of criminality has been incurred.

But does it help matters to deprive people of Twitter and Facebook? I believe that it would only make them angrier, more determined to be organised, and even more alienated than before. The Google chief Eric Schmidt was absolutely right when he criticised David Cameron’s proposal to bar people from these sites.

We have to examine how powerful Twitter and Facebook, or any other form of electronic communication, actually are. Can that form of electronic communication really explain the level of organisation that was behind the riots in August? Twitter, Facebook and electronic mediums help people to communicate, but they do not help to organise masses of milk bottles full of petrol waiting to be thrown as petrol bombs, or for groups of youths quickly running from one street into another who seemed to be organised by a trail of 25-27 year olds.

Until we have a full and independent investigation into the riots and begin to recognise the level of organisation that was behind them, there is absolutely no point in targeting Twitter and Facebook. If people are deprived of these forms, what is to stop them simply using the phone, or another site?

We need to get the riots in perspective – they are symptoms of serious social deprivation in the UK, where 30 per cent of children live in poverty, in conditions which are comparable to Madagascar, and in communities where three or four generations have not worked at all. We are seeing greater isolation ofcommunities, and are seeing greater criminality within these areas, with members of those communities who wish to be honest and straightforward afraid to even go shopping, let alone go out at night. As a country, we are doing nothing about this, so it is a recipe for social disaster.

We need to examine how effective was the organisation of riots from city to city.  We also need to consider the level of social investment which now needs to take place within communities to bring people into employment, to train and develop people, to provide social services, and to provide good education. Crucially, these issues need to be addressed as a package rather than as individual policies.

Is the issue of communities not trusting the police critical?  Yes. If we continue to penalise individuals in term of the debts that have been incurred by investment patterns that went wrong. Allowing the rich to get away with the debts that they created and everyone else having to pay for them raises extreme resentment. I doubt that this can continue for much longer.

A small example of alienating the ordinary citizen is tax disks on cars. Until recently, when a disk ran out, the individual was given a week’s grace to get another disk. Examination of the new statement states that when road tax is due, the document now says the individual has 14 days to renew their disk, but that during this time it is illegal to drive your car, and that if the person does not submit their form within 14 days, then this is noted by the system and the police could legally take the car and crush it. I do not think that middle England will be happy with these circumstances for much longer. Unless the Government is seen to start listening to people’s concerns, the next riots we see might not be so far away.

Whilst the mainstream media is focussed on current issues of interest to the general public, presented with (supposed) neutrality, stakeholder run social media tends to focus on solutions to problems which are of interest to target communities, and even though subjective, are at least transparent. As highlighted by Paul Klein on his Forbes blog post, social media is inextricable linked to a rise in transparency.

Social media offers many benefits to individuals, groups, corporations and society, such as easy interaction with friends and relatives, sharing information, mobilizing resources to support members, and conducting business easily and efficiently. However, social media has raised various ethical issues, many of these centred on a violation of privacy rights, stemming from a lack of control over how one’s personal information is accessed, and further ‘manipulated’ and transmitted. Misuse of information on social media sites includes impersonation, fake identities, ambush marketing and unintended end uses (e.g. cyber-bullying). Another issue which has been raised is the possible effect on the individual of replacing “authentic” interpersonal communication with online messaging and file sharing, and spending so much time and energy preoccupied with online life, instead of real life. And social media, even when used as a source of information and/ or a space for open dialogue with stakeholders, uses infrastructure provided by third parties who may store and examine communications passed through their channels, and possibly even use this information for their own benefit, for example, through targeted marketing.

The uses and abuses of social media suggest that there are many stakeholders involved, with benefits and risks for all (e.g. higher transparency), but at the same time focus on individual or interest group rather than public good and society. By its nature, social media is used to focus on issues of interest to the individual/groups using it.  In this sense the truth that it promises is inherently subjective, – meaning that it can just as often be used for personal motives as for the “public good”.  As the mass media/press, through the current Murdoch inquiry, are being examined and hopefully, ultimately be subject to regulation to protect the interests of the ‘public good’ but without the truth being prevented from emerging, so should the social media be exposed to a similar level of scrutiny.

While new technology creates new spaces where individuals can express themselves and their thoughts under different names and so on – which can serve as wonderful sources of self-expression – it can also create a sense of false reality. Indeed the ICT revolution has exponentially amplified our ability to make social connections, but as individuals grow increasingly dependent and addicted to ICT, they can develop a distorted sense of time and gradually withdraw from social interaction.

As opposed to older generations who had to spend much more time communicating and interacting face to face, the use of new electronic media and technology today filters out the level of emotional intelligence required for interacting with others. People are increasingly able to hide behind technology and thus younger generations have less opportunity or need to develop such interpersonal skills. Time spent making friends ‘online’, joining networks and communities online, means less time spent meeting people and engaging in communities ‘offline’ in real material time. Individuals become more vulnerable despite being connected to their ‘virtual’ friends as they lose out on real human interactions with their family and friends.

The effects of this are not good. Research has shown that ignoring offline social interaction can hinder effective communication and personal growth, and can be harmful to both the individual and society. Being hooked into ICT gadgets can lead to antisocial behaviour resulting in social isolation and alienation, relationship problems and burnout. This burnout can cause emotional deterioration, and an internal loss of creativity and authenticity, amongst other negative effects.

Finding a better balance between online and offline activities is crucial if individuals are going to find ‘a way back’ into a sustainable relationship with technology – or simply ‘a way’, for younger generations who may have never known otherwise. Unfortunately, I do not expect this situation to improve in the near future. As our gadgets continue to be able to do increasingly more, we are being required to do increasingly less. With our hands currently full juggling an assortment of mobile gadgets, mobile technology will likely soon merge into one operating system. Individuals will soon be able to do everything with one multifunctional gadget or use a controlling device to activate other gadgets. This is worrying when one considers the fact that humans can generally cope with seven tasks simultaneously (e.g. processing information) plus or minus one or two.

Moreover, new identification and smart technologies, such as biometrics and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), are becoming more commonplace and opening unlimited possibilities in a wireless society. RFID tags, such as microchips fixed to car windshields as toll-paying devices and on many ‘contactless’ payment cards such as Chase’s ‘Blink’ or MasterCard’s ‘PayPass’, are all part of this movement towards compressed and dehumanized interactions. More frightening, perhaps, are the recent developments in electronic human tagging and implants, where technology is increasingly penetrating onto the people and trying to get under the skin.

Because computers and technology will soon be able to do everything, with the exception of one thing – being human – in the very near future, I believe that the human dimension and emotional intelligence is going to become extremely valuable. We have to ensure that when that time comes, older generations remember, and younger generations know how to be human.

In a recent FT article titled “Misconceptions about cloud computing”, authors Chris Burn and Conrad Thompson suggest that Cloud can help a company lower IT costs and improve the efficiency of IT operations, but that its true potential exists in its ability to transform business models. Cloud can stimulate innovation and offer a true competitive edge, but as they further suggest, this true potential can only be realised if business leaders are able to think differently about IT and are able to engage everyone across the organisation to use IT in a different way.

This argument is very much in line with some previous research that Andrew and I conducted on the development of Application Service Providers (ASPs) and the findings from a Cranfield School of Management UK study on which we reported in our 2002 paper, “Application Service Providers (ASPs): New impetus for transformational change”. Results from this UK survey showed that the ASP model for using software as a service requires fundamental rethinking of the organisation’s business model. This rethinking must involve a radical redesign of business processes in order to see improvements in key performance areas such as cost, quality, and service. Such change is possible only if design shifts in technology organisational structure are accompanied by shifts in operating philosophy. These shifts, which involve dramatically altering internal processes, aspiring to more corporate ways of working and improving levels of service for customers, are all aspects of transformational change and require visionary leadership to set out an energising vision and to focus the organisation in a new direction.

Perhaps the biggest concern is, according to one of the biggest think tanks, Eurasia, that the bombing of Iran will take place in 2011.  While attending a briefing with the think tank, a colleague of mine who works for one of the major funds in the City was told that Eurasia were absolutely convinced that the bombing will take place this year. What he wouldn’t tell me, for confidentiality reasons, was which week in 2011.

Prior to conflict breaking out, I think we’re going to see a race for positions between the Anglo-American allies and the Chinese allies. It won’t be pleasant. Because of continuous divisions within itself, the European Union will have little say in how world affairs are going to be conducted. The competitive behaviour will continue. Tension flash points will also emerge. What is so unpredictable is what will happen once Iran is bombed. There is no doubt: Iran will be bombed.

There have been a number of economists who for many years have been foretelling that China is going to emerge as the global power, not the US or Anglo-American interests. Now the question may be: why do you want to be a global power? This is especially the case when the world’s resources are diminishing and the majority of those resources are in Russia. The answer is that it is not to control oil, gas, minerals and so on, but it is to control space: to control all movement through space and control the unlimited resources in space.. What it actually means to control space is not yet clear. It could be the number of satellites and the number of manned space stations but ultimately it will be the technology that will take you to other planets so you can begin the process of excavation. This will require military technology to be put into space, allowing you to attack anyone threatening your capacity to penetrate space.

What has not been mentioned in the media is that the Chinese have just quadrupled their defence and military spending, of which a large portion is going towards increasing its space exploration budgets.  The American budget for space, however, is static or declining, even though their military budget is increasing.  It is not quite understood why the American space budget is decreasing, considering that they can see the Chinese budget is rapidly increasing. Perhaps the reason is that controlling the world counts before controlling space, but why not take that extra step and get to space first rather than trying to outbid the other side for what is essentially territory that will be of no use to anybody, and that’s land. If you look at the time frames of governments, they look ahead in 50 year terms, or 75 year terms; businesses in 5 year terms. With 50 years not being a great deal of time to rethink your whole military strategy, why spend your money chasing something where the resource space is declining when you could be controlling space where the resource space is unlimited?

So will it be the Americans or the Chinese who will become the global dominant power? The interesting point is that whoever it is, it is the control of space that counts. It’s a 50/50 question because despite the Chinese budget increasing, their technological position is radically behind the Americans. On the surface, it does seem that the Chinese are on the ascendancy and the US is on the decline, both in terms of the race for power but also in terms of the race for space.

Should companies be monitoring their employees’ email? I don’t think they should, but it’s become standard practice for many companies. Plus in government, there are nearly 630 agencies in the UK alone that have access to all your emails and other electronic communications (including mobile telephony) and keep them for 12 months. (Info about this here, here and here)/ So you really need to be aware of the fact that you are being watched, and that in many ways privacy doesn’t exist anymore. It’s up to you to know the consequences of using technology.

Academic studies will be objective; studies funded by technology companies, whether the science is valid or not, often seem to have results that differ from other research, and most come up with very positive results while underplaying negative results. Sponsored studies are actually quite common, so when talking about the benefits and drawbacks of technology, it’s really important to know the provenance of studies in question.

‘Techno Addicts: Young Person Addiction to Technology‘ describes the disruptive effect that technology addiction can have on positive attitudes towards learning. While students expressed little concern of addiction, technology obsession is hindering spelling skills, encouraging plagiarism and disrupting classroom learning.

‘Techno Addicts: Life Style Through Technology‘ examines the effects of information communication technology (ICT) on individuals. Using quantitative data from over 1,200 respondents across a broad spectrum of society ranging from lower income groups to top managers and directors, we found shocking information about how individuals adopt technology for work, personal use, and pleasure.

Both can be downloaded from Sigel Press.

Download audio file (onlinequestion.mp3)

With the rise in popularity of social networking and Smart Phones, people are feeling the need to be connected to the Internet at all times. I spoke to Sky News about my recent study on the effects of “Information Overload”, a phenomenon where people feel the need to be constantly connected, whether by mobile phone or home computer. As more people begin using Smart Phones – phones that have functionality to utilise the Internet and send messages – the number of people suffering from “Information Overload” will increase along with it.

This addiction to technology and the Internet often comes at the expense of one’s health and social life. People who are constantly switched on will likely see a negative impact on their overall productivity, even with tasks that they would consider to be routine. In speaking with Sky, I explained that individuals who are in “Information Overload” often shun others around them, including family. They tend to feel lethargic and possibly have trouble getting out of bed, feeling that they can no longer be asked to do anything for anyone due to lethargy. Another effect of this disorder is increased anxiety and potentially depression.

In the study it was revealed that one-third of our sample suffered from some form of technological addiction. People who suffer from Information Overload will often feel that they need to connect as soon as they wake up in the morning, starting their day by checking their e-mail or various other online presences every few minutes throughout the day.