As per the plan, in this post I should have discussed about telephone exchanges. Accordingly I started writing a paragraph on automatic switching system developed by Almon B. Strowger in 1889. Then I listed the merits of automatic switching system and tried to figure out demerits of Strowger system. I felt user would have lost the 'personal touch' and warmth they had in the manual exchange (in US call office). As Strowger's exchange is an automatic system people would have undergone a marked shift in their experience (user-to-manual operator to user-to-machine). Today we use advanced version of Strowger system and human-to-machine interaction (h2mi) is the norm. I wanted to dwell on the social impact of h2mi rather than discussing the evolution of exchanges. I will discuss the later in the upcoming post.
Simple question arises in our mind how the h2mi flourished without 'personal touch' and warmth. Human operators may offer a good service and at the same time they are prone to error and mood swings (happy, sad and angry). So, users should be accustomed to large variation in Quality of Service (from courteous to irresponsible reply). The h2mi offers a 'Stale' but consistent service. Over a period of time we become intolerant to unpredictability. We are subconsciously trained to enjoy 'consistency' and reap cost advantage (cost of automatic systems will come down over the years). We seldom learn to appreciate the unpredictability of divine nature.
Simple question arises in our mind how the h2mi flourished without 'personal touch' and warmth. Human operators may offer a good service and at the same time they are prone to error and mood swings (happy, sad and angry). So, users should be accustomed to large variation in Quality of Service (from courteous to irresponsible reply). The h2mi offers a 'Stale' but consistent service. Over a period of time we become intolerant to unpredictability. We are subconsciously trained to enjoy 'consistency' and reap cost advantage (cost of automatic systems will come down over the years). We seldom learn to appreciate the unpredictability of divine nature.
Importance of human-to-human interaction (h2hi)
People spend lot of money and take effort to see a football match in a stadium. Likewise people go to auditorium to listen a live concert. We all know after the advent of videography and video broadcasting one can sit at their home and watch the match or listen the concert in their TV. The cost and effort involved in watching TV is very less. Why then people visit the stadium. The answer is fans are able to connect with the environment (fellow fans and players). The "football fever" is not possible to get in the TV.
People spend lot of money and take effort to see a football match in a stadium. Likewise people go to auditorium to listen a live concert. We all know after the advent of videography and video broadcasting one can sit at their home and watch the match or listen the concert in their TV. The cost and effort involved in watching TV is very less. Why then people visit the stadium. The answer is fans are able to connect with the environment (fellow fans and players). The "football fever" is not possible to get in the TV.
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| Figure 1. People prefer human-to-machine interaction than human-to-human interaction. Image courtesy: Google images |
Next, human is basically a social animal. He/She may have borrowed some solitary animal characteristics. Social media is very popular in Internet. Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp are few examples for social media. They are able to create a virtual community from a geographically shifted and time shifted users. At last height of digital technology is used to make h2hi. Users are desperate to get 'likes' in Facebook and more 'retweets' in Twitter. Actually Facebook Likes are equivalent to real world 'pat at the back'. This is a digital form of social acceptance. In other end hard-core criminals are put in solitary confinement as a mark of harsh punishment. After 15 years of confinement convicts invariably become deluded persons. This would have given enough reasons why h2hi is important.
Shift to h2mi from h2hi
In my childhood buying coffee powder was assigned to me. On those days coffee powder won’t be available in grocery shops. The term super market was unheard by us. I will go to exclusive 'Coffee Works' shop. There I have to order the quantity and type of coffee (Peaberry) I want. Shop owner will take the roasted coffee beans and powder it. Then he will measure the weight and add 'Chicory' with it in right proportion and mix them. This has packed in butter paper packet or plastic packet and given to me. I have to patiently wait for 20 to 25 minutes after ordering coffee powder. To kill the boredom I used to have chit-chat with the owner. The experience is still fresh and produces a positive feel. Today I have just go to supermarket and buy instant coffee from a branded company in a jiffy. I can also order instant coffee in Internet.
Earlier coffee powder making was decentralized, suited for slow paced life and used h2hi. Today coffee powder making is centralized (manufactured in big factory), suited for fast paced life and uses h2mi (if Internet) interaction. In a careful look, one can find use of advanced technologies in today's manufacture and procurement of products. The machines used by 'Coffee works' would be simple and serviceable by the local technicians and it required less capital to start the business. But in the instant coffee manufacture requires huge capital, advanced machinery and well trained engineers to run the plant. Thus a conducive environment for corporate growth is created. Slow paced and decentralized systems cannot provide 24x7, consistent and economical service to customers.
I will narrate another case where h2mi is extremely beneficial. As India is a socialist republic (democracy implied) country domestic Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) or cooking gas for domestic consumption is subsidized. It means cooking gas is costlier than gas meant for domestic consumption. Small commercial enterprise (tea stall, snack stall, eatery) will use the domestic LPG clandestinely to cut costs. In each area there will be one or two gas agency that supply gas to common people. The eatery owners will bribe the gas agencies and they will get the domestic gas. Due to this Government of India (GoI) money was diverted to unworthy people. GoI made gas booking through telephone only permitted. Next, they limited the number of cylinder. At last they made a centralized domestic gas users' database and traced these fake accounts. They started depositing subsidy amount in users' account. By this they were able to save around 15000 Crores (nearly 2.5 Billion US$). This took ten years to complete but it is very successful.
Entire human history can be divided into tribal, agrarian, industrial and digital era. Migration from one era to another is because of improvement in tool making and social acceptance of new tool usage. Human beings stand out from the mammalian group and able to control the world because of tool usage. Technology is manifestation of tool making and usage. So, it is natural for us to become a technophile. The implications of being a technophile are discussed in this post. Technologies are important but obsession with technology is unwarranted. The concept of technology management is not taught to us our educational system.
In my childhood buying coffee powder was assigned to me. On those days coffee powder won’t be available in grocery shops. The term super market was unheard by us. I will go to exclusive 'Coffee Works' shop. There I have to order the quantity and type of coffee (Peaberry) I want. Shop owner will take the roasted coffee beans and powder it. Then he will measure the weight and add 'Chicory' with it in right proportion and mix them. This has packed in butter paper packet or plastic packet and given to me. I have to patiently wait for 20 to 25 minutes after ordering coffee powder. To kill the boredom I used to have chit-chat with the owner. The experience is still fresh and produces a positive feel. Today I have just go to supermarket and buy instant coffee from a branded company in a jiffy. I can also order instant coffee in Internet.
Earlier coffee powder making was decentralized, suited for slow paced life and used h2hi. Today coffee powder making is centralized (manufactured in big factory), suited for fast paced life and uses h2mi (if Internet) interaction. In a careful look, one can find use of advanced technologies in today's manufacture and procurement of products. The machines used by 'Coffee works' would be simple and serviceable by the local technicians and it required less capital to start the business. But in the instant coffee manufacture requires huge capital, advanced machinery and well trained engineers to run the plant. Thus a conducive environment for corporate growth is created. Slow paced and decentralized systems cannot provide 24x7, consistent and economical service to customers.
I will narrate another case where h2mi is extremely beneficial. As India is a socialist republic (democracy implied) country domestic Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) or cooking gas for domestic consumption is subsidized. It means cooking gas is costlier than gas meant for domestic consumption. Small commercial enterprise (tea stall, snack stall, eatery) will use the domestic LPG clandestinely to cut costs. In each area there will be one or two gas agency that supply gas to common people. The eatery owners will bribe the gas agencies and they will get the domestic gas. Due to this Government of India (GoI) money was diverted to unworthy people. GoI made gas booking through telephone only permitted. Next, they limited the number of cylinder. At last they made a centralized domestic gas users' database and traced these fake accounts. They started depositing subsidy amount in users' account. By this they were able to save around 15000 Crores (nearly 2.5 Billion US$). This took ten years to complete but it is very successful.
Entire human history can be divided into tribal, agrarian, industrial and digital era. Migration from one era to another is because of improvement in tool making and social acceptance of new tool usage. Human beings stand out from the mammalian group and able to control the world because of tool usage. Technology is manifestation of tool making and usage. So, it is natural for us to become a technophile. The implications of being a technophile are discussed in this post. Technologies are important but obsession with technology is unwarranted. The concept of technology management is not taught to us our educational system.
Power of Corporate
A corporation is a company or group of people authorized to act as a single entity (legally a person) and recognized as such in law [1]. A manufacturing company requires huge capital, raw material, factory and a market to sell the products. Inside the factory raw materials undergo several processes and product is made and shipped. Employees (workers, supervisors and managers) of the company carry out the process. To sustain the business the companies has to have tight control over the raw materials, employees and market. So, they try to influence or lobby the government in such a way that law of the land and government policies are always favourable to them.
The motivation for Britain to colonize India was two fold. First objective was to have uninterrupted supply of raw materials second to have a market to sell their finished goods. European countries like France, Portugal and Spain colonized several Asian, African and South American countries for the same reason. In the early stage European industrialization manufacturing activity yielded good profit for corporate. Nowadays corporate are moving towards service sector so as to make profit. Service sector includes retail, tourism, financial services (banking), education etc. In developed countries most of the people are engaged in service sector. In third world countries people will be engaged in agriculture and manufacture. Stating it in another way low profit jobs are carried out by poor countries. Nowadays, developed countries make cutting edge technologies in their R&D (Research and Development) centers and transfers them to Asian countries to for manufacture. For example cell phone company NOKIA R&D is in Finland and manufacturing hub was in India (now in Vietnam).
Armed with this information if you look at the coffee manufacturing one can understand a lot. Corporate will try finding h2hi and converting it into h2mi. This will help them to maintain their profit margin. Think of Vending machines (Coffee, Cola and Juice) and Anytime Teller Machine (ATM) are typical examples of h2mi services.
Implications of h2mi
Our children are trained to become comfortable with h2mi (toys, video games, television and audio systems) rather playing with fellow toddlers (h2hi). A social animal becomes a solitary animal. This is against nature. Children are unable to understand subtle feeling of other living beings (humans and animals). We make a life long customer for a corporate. Today robots are produced in Japan to assist disabled humans. Visually challenged (blind) people are usually accompanied with dogs. In the years to come robot may replace dog. It can be viewed as height of human achievement or height of unhuman-ness.
Conclusion
We are born social animal but we are turned into a solitary technophile. We have to unwind ourselves and understand that technology is just a tool to accomplish our goals. We should be very judicious when we go for h2mi instead of h2hi.
We are born social animal but we are turned into a solitary technophile. We have to unwind ourselves and understand that technology is just a tool to accomplish our goals. We should be very judicious when we go for h2mi instead of h2hi.
Reference
1. Corporation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation
