Slide 26 of 28
Notes:
To date Europe has been too ready to accept and follow North American leadership and direction in the broad thrust of information society applications and trends.
The time has come to be more put more effort into finding new ideas and concepts of our own. That doesn’t mean of course rejecting the USA experience - that would be nonsensical from an economic standpoint and doomed to failure from both a marketing and a sociological standpoint. We must continue to apply the best of the USA’s learning and technologies wherever we can gain from doing so.
But at the same time we have to be courageous enough to pursue other and different visions. The place to find these visions is in our diversity - not only of cultures but also of local and national economic and social structures.
We must seek out, identify, cherish and benefit from our differences. We must not seek to gloss over them or worse still to eliminate them. They exist at every level - between Europe, North America and Asia; between the countries within Europe, including the Mediterranean region and Central and Eastern Europe; between our regions and towns and villages; and between our citizens with all their immense variety of capabilities, attitudes and aspirations.
In developing a national strategy, or a town strategy or a village strategy or a company strategy, let’s ask “What is different and special” about our particular country, town or company.
