Address at the World Trade Center of New Orleans

Good morning! I had at first thought to title my remarks "Y3K". But I got such a bad reaction from people who can't handle Y2K, that I revised the topic. As advertised, this is going to be a discussion rather than a speech. When I first thought about the Technology Revolution, Gene Schreiber called - asked me to include "women" in the title. Obviously, having been one all my life, I had no objection, but it started me thinking about how women in particular manage information, and all the historical guilt and fear that accompanies what is probably our greatest skill -- juggling the unexpected.

 My business partner suggested I go to the Internet for ideas. So I typed in "Women in the Global Marketplace" - try it sometime, and came up with all 6 of us. 4 if you exclude Queen Noor and Madeline Albright. Seriously, there was a web site called Voices of Women, whose offerings included subjects such as Whole living.com, heyhon.com, and articles entitled The Goddess Ungirdled, the Natural Hormone Alternative,and Abortion Access. Then there was the piece entitled Keys to Feminine Empowerment from the Yoruba West African Tradition. I had learned all about laying low in a Power Environment while running the Nigerian Television Authority for 2 years — at gunpoint. In the Moslem North they had to vote me in as an "honorary gentleman" in order to have staff meetings with me — the boss!

 When I tuned out the Internet, which after all, only has what folks want you to know about them, I started thinking about the Technology Revolution, and let's define that for a moment. In this century which is coming to an end, the invention of the wheel led to the automobile, highways, suburbs, fast food, condos and supersonic jets. As we enter the 21st century, the invention of the telephone, television and computer — and electronic boxes yet to be discovered — are leading to Internet communication, mass multilingual communication systems, Smart Cities, longer life spans, and the stretching of cultural sexual and communications boundaries. These all increasingly determine how we think, eat, study, work and age.

 What do women bring to this revolution? In the Industrial age we worked in sweatshops, we sewed and cooked, wrote for newspapers and labored in munitions factories. I consider the sexual revolution in the United States to be the single greatest event in the 20th century. How will women impact the 21st century?

 Let's talk frankly about some of the unusual skills women possess. We in television know that women see the color palette differently, we edit videotape differently, we paint, sculpt, and word process differently. One of the major differences is women's ability to organize. We have generations of experience in managing stress, multitasking, and taking responsibility for operational as well as strategic planning, from the kitchen to the playground. We are superb time managers.

 If we had to use only one word to define the Technology revolution, it would be time. With a capital T. When I was 16 I learned to drive a car. When I was 23 and learning to fly a plane, all of a sudden - a new axis. Forward (no backward), left./right, but then there was "turn and bank". Today let us explore time, the "turn and bank" of technology. Hours, days and years — the management of information and what it does to us and for us.

 First, you are not alone. The speed of information, fueled largely by the existence of Teleports (and other purveyors of electronic speed), is coming at us, fast & furious. We tend to think it's our fault, that we can't cope with rapid change and the bombardment of dozens of faxes, E- Mails, and so forth. But you are not alone. This is actually happening -- to everyone. You are not incompetent or disorganized. Despite the speed of information, which after all is designed to save us time, we find that even the simplest tasks now often take more time. Our ability to think is so radically enhanced by tools and toys, by interaction with other, no more one boss giving you one task at a time. We create daily as we go along. And because of this speed of information, most of the time we need to see all the pieces of a puzzle before we can even start working on the problem.

 History presents us with a new axis. What is green on Monday is blue one second later, and fuschia on Tuesday. The ways we are leaning to think, look, listen and communicate are propelling us into unprecendented flexibility and fluidity of thought & action. The quality of our survival over the next 150 — yes I said 150 years depends on our ability to adapt to and control rapid audio/visual stimuli, machines which process info faster than our brains, brains which work overtime while we sleep, and our ability to thrive in one giant, worldwide living room.

 It is very likely that most of us in this room will live well into the 21st century, perhaps even the 22nd century. What we are at 95 today will be age 150 tomorrow. I hope to see the dawning of the 22nd century. In planning to live another 100 years, we must examine how living an extended life will change what we do today? What should we study? How should we harness time? What tools will we need for managing stress and speed?

 The answer may lie in new ways of looking at the concept of time. The 21st century will bring new meaning to the term "time travel". Instead of traveling through time, time will be traveling through us. And unless we are poised to deal with the unexpected, remaining fluid in the face of challenges, the technology revolution can and will bury us. The challenge then is to develop brand new skills, understanding cause and effect, dealing with the larger picture. We cannot possibly win the race to master each new machine, each new phone, fax, computer, television technology. During the Industrial revolution our parents and grandparents had to learn to drive, then learn traffic signals, highway protocol, adjust to suburbs, commuting and fast food. International travel made the world a smaller place.

 In the 22nd century I believe the Technology revolution will create even larger and certainly swifter changes in our way of life. Already what used to take hours now takes only minutes. A bit about our company. NTI transmits voice, video and data signals from New Orleans and other cities to satellites some 23,000 miles out in space. Small dishes atop retail stores, pharmacies, gas stations, homes and offices receive these signals, providing you information and entertainment, and sending information about you to service providers. Doctors in New Orleans link with teaching hospitals in Latin America using video or live classes. Chambers of Commerce and World Trade Centers share information with hundreds of sites.

 I got involved with satellite technology in Business school, where at age 45 I was struggling to find a subject which I could understand and courses I could pass. Having been out of college for 25 years, I was at a career mid-point as a broadcaster, and my background in bandwidth and electronic transmission helped me enter this exciting, brand new field of communications. The Teleport is now 12 years old, and no one day is like another. We have had to get used to clients who need reliable, secure video transmission at one speed today, and large Internet services tomorrow, and mini-data streams far out at sea.

 The people on our staff are constantly involved in constant learning to manage time, not just their own time and space, but the second by second changes which technology brings. This third axis which makes our job so interesting is already affecting everyone's lives, making life both more rapid and more complex. Will we continue to feel more and more out of control, or will we learn to harness global change in our daily (or minute-by-minute) lives? Whether it be the confluence of telephony, fiber optics, Palm Pilots, laptops, radio or television, we are daily learning to understand that it's not about hardware, but technology - the science of systems.

 I'd like to leave you with something to think about. If you knew you were going to live another 100 years, how would it change the way you live today? What new skills would you learn? How would you change your vision of today's life "certainties". And how will you prepare in 1999 for a world in 2099 where people don't quit their jobs just because they move, where geography will be irrelevant and cash may be a forgotten commodity?

 Consider how people in 1899 could not have imagined our world today. Most did not even believe they might still be alive at age 100. Then imagine 200 times the speed of change in the next century and envision yourself in 2099, alive, healthy and well at 125. The challenge - how will you get from here to there? Welcome to the Technology Revolution.