August 2000
7 pages
23m
English
Throughout history, societies have organized around the tools available. The invention of the plow about 7,000 years ago, for instance, vastly increased the productivity of land and hastened the transition to an agrarian way of life. Similarly, the invention of the steam engine in 1769 sparked the move away from an agriculture-centered society and toward the mechanized factory system of the industrial revolution, which dramatically altered the economic and social structures. The technology explosion currently under way—at a pace that dwarfs that of the industrial revolution—has introduced a new set of tools that redefine leadership and dictate a need to organize work in entirely new ways. Principal among these ...