Web‐Weaving: : Intranets, Extranets and Strategic Alliances

Citation

Andrew, A.M. (1999), "Web‐Weaving: : Intranets, Extranets and Strategic Alliances", Kybernetes, Vol. 28 No. 3, pp. 312-314. https://doi.org/10.1108/k.1999.28.3.312.2

This is a collection of essays ‐ 37 of them in all, by different authors ‐ expounding diverse views of the effect on business and society of the use of intranets, extranets and the electronic links between organisations that are referred to as strategic alliances. The emphasis is on these restricted‐access nets associated with organisations rather than on the public Internet or World‐Wide Web, though the latter is referred to at many points. It is claimed that the restricted‐access nets have, in total, many more access points than the Internet, and it is predicted that they will be the basis of most business transactions in the next century.

My initial assumption was that the term “intranet” would be interchangeable with “local area network” but in this I was wrong. An intranet can be set up with little expense and uses all the facilities of the Internet, and can be accessed by its authorised users wherever they may be on the globe. The software arrangements to keep the intranet exclusive, presumably by use of passwords and protocols and encryption, are termed “firewalls”. Extranets are essentially the same except that the firewalls are placed further out to include other organisations with which the central one has dealings.

Although some of these technical details are reviewed in the first chapter, the book is not so much concerned with the technology as with the organisational and social consequences, and with attempts to look into the future. In the Preface the phenomenon of the world becoming wired is described in almost mystical terms, suggesting the emergence of a global intelligence that can be likened to the noosphere of Teilhard de Chardin. The prediction is quoted that the global network could rival a brain in complexity by the year 2000.

Intranets are used to convey the information essential for a company’s business, with the advantage of openness, encouraging a feeling of community. They have the advantage, compared to other forms of computer intercommunication, of allowing a large degree of local autonomy about how the information is handled.

The book is divided into three parts, dealing respectively with Elements of Web‐Weaving, W.‐W. in Practice, and W.‐W. ‐ What Next? The 37 chapters are allocated to these fairly evenly ‐ 13 to part one, 14 to part two and ten to part three. The set of authors who have been enlisted is very impressive. In part one there is a chapter by two authors well‐known in the AI literature, John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid, on “organising knowledge”, in which they discuss the nature of communally‐held knowledge. In part two there are contributions describing the establishment and use of nets in a variety of powerful organisations including among others IPC Magazines, the British Library, City University Business School, the Boeing Company, British Petroleum and the Oracle Corporation. There is also a cautionary anecdotal contribution called “reality bytes” showing how expensive it can be to an organisation, and how damaging to its public image, if the system malfunctions. Apart from the prestigious organisations that have used nets to further their business in other directions, a number are described that are essentially net‐dependent, including those called Global Office Network, BrainPool and Trading Post.

There is also in this part an important contribution from Raul Espejo on an application of Stafford Beer’s principle of team syntegrity. The application is in fact to the preparation of a multi‐author work that is a tribute to Stafford. The syntegrity principle does not depend on the latest developments in information technology but readily adapts to them, and in the project described here the facilities of the Internet played an important part.

As though the list of organisations represented were not enough to impress, the authorship of part three includes both Bill Gates of Microsoft, and Tim Berners‐Lee, credited with the creation of the World‐Wide Web, initially as a means of exchanging information between atomic physicists at CERN. He is now active in the World‐Wide Web Consortium. A paper by another author in this section has the title: “Staying human in a machine‐dominated world” and describes facilities that allow staff to experience trees, water, grass, insects and birds as in a pre‐computer age.

The various authors treat their subject in different ways, some of them as futuristic anecdotes. One that I found rather chilling is called: “Automating the virtual salesforce” and describes a salesman negotiating a tricky deal with the help of global communications. The final chapter in the book is highly futuristic, though placed in only the year 2010 which is not really so far away. Its author supposes that there has been something of a reaction against machine dominance, not in a Luddite way but in the form of a reassertion of human values. He also supposes, controversially, that present means of communication will be supplemented by others depending on quantum entanglement related to quantum views of consciousness.

It can be seen that there is something for everyone here and a great deal of food for thought. There is much that is meant to jolt readers out of complacency and to force appreciation of the rate of change. Although I became a little tired of the trendy terms “empowerment” and “leverage” I feel the general message is sound and well presented.