Cortada readings

p. 179 in A nation transformed...: the criterion of new functionality, the ability to do something that existing technology does not do, is hard to satisfy. I wonder if the personal computer qualifies for criterion four?

p. 200 and elsewhere: key point is that the success of IBM and other computer firms in the 1960s was predicated on their pre-computer base of business machine customers. It is much easier to compete if you have a stable market which you understand and know how to address.

p. 202: what does it mean when a corporation acts as an innovator, as opposed to an individual?

p. 207-208: is the impulse to reform society always the same as the desire to improve society?

About the Digital applications in higher education chapter draft: a critique of higher education practices is more than implicit in the chapter. Cortada is correct to perceive that higher education is an industry that works in part by swaying the public with the institutional equivalent of Weber's "hereditary charisma." One comment prior to the talk: my guess as to why college administrators are so enthusiastic for administrative applications is because they act as an electronic moat to keep the students, faculty, and public out of the institutional fastness. Faculty only gradually become aware of their exclusion from the information network enjoyed by administrators.

From the Digital hand summary article: p. 764, two very important issues independent of technology: how does an industry make money, and how many real players are there? It seems that technological progress, that is, progress that can't be reversed in the foreseeable future, is dependent on financially stable firms that act within markets where real economic freedom, the freedom to succeed, is effectively limited. If not monopolies, then American industry thrives through coalitions of competing firms.