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This is part 3 of a series of articles on how the "paperless office" and management systems paradigm are performing worldwide. The first two parts of this article can be found at these two locations: Part 1 and PART 2 are in the foot notes sections [1] and [2] below.
In Part, I provided a personal vignette on how "best practices" in education and the goal of promoting development (along a great various learning dimensions) should currently be requiring schools, human resources, and universities to constantly be training and updating all their users and stakeholder (or consumers) of the system. This has not been the case, in fact,
In that example vignette, the University of Kansas is seen to be failing to serve a variety of students and numerous potential students who (1) have not been properly trained to use the system or who (2) have physical and age-related learning deficiencies that make the few opportunities insufficient (i.e. slow learning curves are developing) to accommodate learn preferences and styles--even as the paperless institution has developed over several generations in real time.
In short, too much information is being put-out by the system. This is overwhelming certain students, clients, and user--and the institution has not developed the adequat amount of flexibility in accommodating the great variety of learning styles it faces.
On the one hand, it should be easy for both the academic or administrator to grasp or comprehend that (a) with a universe of learning styles out there and (b) with a large variety of students coming into universities with different technological experiences, it is essential that (c) constant active learning communities must be monitoring the system--especially when the university, like that one in Lawrence, Kansas has over 30,000 faculty, students staff, and service personnel to manage.
In other words, constantly evolving and flexible, client or end-user friendly procedures may be needed must be constantly redeveloped and monitored, so that any one educational institution can effectively accommodate learners as the information revolution rolls on. So, despite advances in the paperless management infrastructure, huge gaps continue to remain between knowledge and capabilities of staff--and the ongoing adaptations required by other users in our paperless offices.
This is an enormous task that we in the so-called information age and in the midst of this paperless-paradigm-dominated-managerial system or world face. Alas, most medium and large institutions and businesses, especially universities and schools are not keeping up with their roles for continuous training and monitoring of what they have created and require others to use. This is true--regardless of the platform we are discussing. These enormous needs should be constantly acquiring information from all users--not just general samples or small samples--which has been the a case to date. Any learning community would or should anticipate these needs and be open to further growth and flexibility if they are to embrace the new paradigm of the age: paperless business model doctrine .
PARADIGM SHIFT to PAPERLESS-NESS
A "paradigm shift" is commonly described as: "A dramatic change in methodology or practice. It often refers to a major change in thinking and planning, which ultimately changes the way projects are implemented. For example, accessing applications and data from the Web instead of from local servers is a paradigm shift."
http://computer.yourdictionary.com/paradigm-shift
We are supposedly in the midst of a paradigm shift in how offices, institutions, businesses and schools are run. This shift began in the early years of what was called the "Information Economy", which started in the mid- to late 20th Century. "Twentieth-century information technology produced what's been called a second industrial revolution, as people turned from factory work to information-related work. In today's information economy (sometimes called a postindustrial economy), clerical workers outnumber factory workers, and most people earn their living working with words, numbers, and ideas. Instead of planting corn or making shoes, most of us shuffle bits in one form or another."
PAPERLESS OFFICE SHIFT
In the late 1980s and 1990s people began to talk about a reformed way of organizing our lives, businesses and institutions. This was visualized within the framework of something we might call "paperless" information management.
The problem that partially has been leading to this shift over the years was the issue of storage, i.e. the problem of storing exponentially growing data. Environmentally concerned people and cost-cutting businessmen began to talk of how to use and create technology networks, so that less paper and a lot less storage space would be necessary. Many technologies in telecommunications have been encouraged and supported through this concept of storing information in vast quantities in tiny locations all over our universe. This continuing process will be supported in the future because it is both space-saving and tree-saving.
Moreover, because digitalized storage has been the mode of most of this information age, it was expected that advances in technology and standardization of network and storage facilities would grow to meet the demands of the age--through something similar to natural osmosis where everything will come-together to realize the dream of paperless institutions.
It has been perceived that efficiency in gathering, storing , and finding bits of data absolutely has demanded this shift in many business & management paradigms that run the world's largest and medium sized institutions. Later on, the paradigm was shifted to much smaller offices and businesses, too. This new trend was spurred by the realization that autonomous units, like small computers, could be linked together through larger network and thus grain capacity through improvements in networking tools and systems of methods development.
EXPONENTIAL GROWTH IN BITS OF INFORMATION
Alas, as the paperless management systems have been created and developed over the decades, the exponential growth in data-to-be- stored--and to be rediscovered or accessed--has continued to be an important reality of the information age.
For this reason--aside from when I view TV crime dramas, like CSI, where total-information consciousness seems to be at play--the average individual still finds it difficult to imagine a perfectly developed paperless system because of the fact that as information accumulates exponentially, new technologies and networking skills need to be formatted, standardized, learned, updated, monitored, and well-managed,
To do this, a very positive environment for continuous learning and open sharing learning communities must be present. Such learners, researchers, and learning communities should work hand in hand with more and more helpful resource communities. However, the fact is, due to institutional creep--even at some high tech firms, like GOOGLE--was, great learning communities are often stymied by old-school-information thinking and management in environments that are often way-behind-the-curve in terms of gathering updated market and consumer needs and/or capabilities.
To combat this trend towards institutional creep, I suggest that high tech data analyses be preferred or used less in this world of learning--in lieu of a lot more personal interviewing and specific-consumer data gathering on emotions and other cognitive and user domains, i.e. where the social sciences used to be more high regarded. (Now, too many pseudo social science is being used and passed on via information systems courses than should be the case. Real training in social science methods would bring us further.)
Until information on users and potential users is gathered in a more personal and individual-specific manner, systems at any modern institution are going to be focused only on either (a) the beliefs of the lead opinion-makers in the community, (b) those who own the technology or (c) those who have the most financial an political clout..
COMING TO GRIPS
If management personnel, social scientists working with human resources personnel, and educators do not regain control and transform the current practices and reality-based theory of the paperless paradigm, any old sociologist can accurately predict where the project will be heading. That is, isolation and marginalization are already occurring at present and the problems will rise as those who cannot keep up with the paradigm of the age (and paperless platform changes, etc. , i.e. as defined and formulated by the largest and most influential opinion-makers and designers) will increasingly be seen throwing up their hands in dismay and getting quickly outsourced--They will simply have to accept even lower valued and lower paid work.
This is one reason that many Americans are out of long-term work today, i.e. the management paradigms are not people- and learning system friendly.
In no way am saying that the paperless paradigm should be thrown out the window. On the other hand, implementing new administrative paradigms institutionally requires more staff monitoring much more thoroughly the entire system in order to ward off all-kinds-of institutional creep--as well as the dangerous group think that dominates many institutions, especially public institutions, like universities and state departments today.
In my next three articles, I plan to take the narration and vignettes on one-of-the-dominant-management-paradigms of this age (and how it is playing in schools and universities around the world) by looking at examples on three countries: Kuwait, Germany and Taiwan. Later, I will return to the USA market and share a little bit more about the inter-connectedness of these developments, i.e. as the USA school and university system is currently a major export article of the USA in this information age.
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