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Although most of us don't realize this, we live in an era completely dependent on information systems. And although many of us argue that we could perfectly live without these systems, since all they do is facilitate our lives (and are not an imperative for our survival), if we take a closer look we can see that in fact these disposable information systems are an imperative of our survival: our social survival.

Confusing? Yes in deed... I only realized the complexity of our dependence during a trip I did to Madrid last week. You'll get my point in just a second...

Take for instance Valentine's day. Along with the birthday of your girlfriend and your anniversary, this is probably one of the most crucial dates for someone in the couple not to forget (although personally I believe it to simply be one the most successful marketing campaigns ever imagined, along with Coca-Cola's Santa...). And this is one of the days where information systems are an imperative and need to work for the day to end in happiness instead of a big nasty fight.

First comes the actual reminder of the day. Lets be realistic: most of us do need a small alarm a week before to remind us of what's coming and start preparing things. Here took place the first information system: your alarm.

Then you need to book the restaurant: a phone call to the maître de cérémonies and he'll take care of the rest. Here come in a few more information systems: your phone call, the register of the reservation by the maître de cérémonies, the communication of this reservation to the rest of the employees so that they can allocate a table, and the transfer of the proper reservation list to whoever will be welcoming the customers at the door. All these are information systems.

Ok, so now that the restaurant is booked you can start thinking about the gift: for the sake of this example we'll take the typical package: a rose and chocolates. You get to the store and order those: you pay with your card because everyone those it like that in our days. But you want to spice things up, and it's a week day so you have to work, so you have those gifts delivered to your loved one in the morning at the workplace. Ok, the package is transfered from hands and everyone along the way needs to know where it's going, when, and what thy need to be careful about (not melting the chocolates or ruining the flowers). And since we're in a work-day, you'll be sending a few messages and making a few phone calls to your loved one during the day.

Ok, let's stop things here, so we don't turn this into a messy day.

Now imagine that all these information systems fail.

• Your alarm didn't ring, so your could be reminded to book the restaurant beforehand and have the best rose picked. You don't get the best restaurant or the best rose by the time you remember this, but it's ok because you love each other.


• Then when you try calling the restaurant the phone is not working: so you go there personally to book the table and spend a few hours of your day on this.


• Then, on the 14th the package isn't delivered to your loved one and was sent to the other side of the world. You don't know this because it was suposed to be a surprise.


• You send her messages during the morning that never get delivered because the network hadn´t properly calculated valentine´s day sms traffic on their information systems.


• You try calling her, and finally get to speak to her after one hour of busy lines. Ok, at least you still have dinner.


• When you get to the restaurant the waiter tells you that your name is not on the reservation list, that there must have been some problem on the reservation system, that he is sorry but that there is nothing he can do since they're fully booked.


• Every other decent place in town is full so you end up eating leftovers or Chinese at home after an exhausting day where everything went wrong.

I personally don't mind this outcome, since what's important is that you're together. But now imagine this was a business meeting where millions were involved... get my point?

Disinformation Systems

As yet another year has started, technology keeps developing. With ever faster processors and advanced displaying methods, we now live in a world where a constant paradox of information is present: do we have too much information?

Democratic governments brag themselves for having a free press and facilitating access to the information with sounding statements such as the Freedom of Information Act, but the truth is the gun seems to have back-fired. Be careful not to misinterpret me: I’m all in favour of democracy and freedom of information!

Web 2.0… boy, do teachers LOOOOVE to talk about this: the revolutionary capability of people posting information themselves accessible to anyone in the world.. or almost. I doubt most people in China can access this post. But the truth is, this boost of information freedom has actually created an overload on the general public. Take the example of news broadcasters: most of them now use the public to obtain information and pictures from all over the world… for free. They get to chose what information they will then convey on their news programs. And lets be realistic: no one has the time to read every single piece of information available out there, so people usually turn towards these news broadcasters to get a compilation of the relevant information available out there.

The issue here is that, in order to cope with this excess information, people rely on a system that is highly biased: news broadcaster are companies, and as such depend on profits to survive. With the economy in current conditions, the power of such incomes rely on one institution: the Government. The Government and its projects to boost the economy are the ones that currently distribute the real money that funds these news broadcasters’ clients, and as such, if a news broadcaster starts saying things the government doesn’t like, then its clients will move away with fears of loosing this precious government support. The outcome is clear: do we rely get unbiased information? Who actually has the unbiased information and where can we get it? Who has the more “realistic version”?

With the amount of information available online, we should theoretically be able to access any information and to better understand the truth about any given event. But the reality contains two hard to beat issues: First the amount of information available is too huge for one person to have the time to evaluate by himself the reality of the facts: how can we be sure that the information provided is truthful and that the facts have not been duped? And even if one were to say that if many sources have the same information, then this information must be true, the second-hand of the problem blows this theory out the window: most of the information providers rely on the information one-another publishes and act accordingly. If in the end the source comes from the same place, it would be natural to see the same information repeated by the various channels of information.

And then again, here comes the irony of it all… I myself am, through this post, a source of this “information”.

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