e 1970's, and who could therefore avoid repeating those missteps, may be lucky indeed.Only time will tell if the vestigial oral history remaining among a few stalwart Firestone employees enabled the company to learn its lesson, or if the lesson must be relearned, to the loss of all concerned.The ideal would be to transform such spatial complexity into a platform where space no longer exists. Marshall McLuhan, writing about his vision of a global electronic village, saw a place where space and time were no longer barriers to interaction or knowledge.1a It was a place in which the 17,000 islands in our information archipelago metamorphose into one continent. 3. Culture Clash & Competitive IntelligenceIf we could implement a system that allows us to take advantage of the knowledge within the organization -- to manage all the information in filing cabinets, hard drives, book shelves, and the heads of the employees, we would have done a great deal. But not nearly enough. What we would not have done is take a look outside the corporation. If we don't peer out the window to see what the competition is doing, we could be deluding ourselves.According to Peter Drucker, "Very few senior executives have asked the question, 'What information do I need to do my job?' The information you need the most --and not just in business --is about the outside world, and there is absolutely none. It doesn't exist. You'd be surprised how much outside information about customers and non-customers companies simply do not have and, in many cases, cannot get. And yet, you don't make your decisions [based] on what goes on inside the company; you shouldn't, at least." 3During World War II, at the southern tip of the Malay archipelago, islanders were exposed to a sudden influx of goods and wealth, courtesy of the Allied Armed Forces. Ships, guns, airplanes, jeeps, and the myriad goods necessary for modern warfare were produced in mass quantities. Soldiers, sailors, mar...
