Slide 24 of 28
Notes:
This leads to my second conclusion.
Travelling across Europe I hear much the same sermons being preached about the information society, about electronic commerce, and about new methods of work, regardless of whether I am in Tuurku or in Turkey, in Madrid or in Munich. This cannot possibly be right. All too often these messages reflect USA experiences rather than European ones - not surprising since the USA so visibily dominates the Internet and there is a lot more USA experience to relate. But all too often they exhort their audiences to emulate these experiences, when that is quite patently the wrong thing for most of a European audience to do.
In the relatively short time since the Bangemann report drew Europe’s attention to the information society and the networked economy, our main focus has been on awareness and action, with relatively little attention to the specifics of action. Now we have the attention; almost every country has some kind of “information society” programme. Now we need to get to the specifics. And in getting to the specifics it is very clear indeed that we need to look for differences not similarities, differentiation not uniformity, experimentation rather than regulation, innovation rather than consensus.
This may not be a popular message in all quarters but I have no doubt it is the only realistic way for Europe to establish its own strength and effective presence in the global networked economy: strength through differentiation.
