January 29, 1999
Contact: Lew Harris, (615) 322-NEWS, [email protected]
Bio-Materials Age to replace Information Age, Vanderbilt professor predicts
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The Information Age is over and is being replaced by the Bio-Materials Age, says Richard W. Oliver, a professor at Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management and a former telecommunications executive. Evidence of this transition is seen in the cloning of animals and the engineering of replacement body parts. The potential impact cuts across a wide spectrum, including agriculture, environment, medicine, pharmaceuticals and other businesses.
Oliver makes his bold prediction and offers a plan for companies to move ahead in a rapidly changing business environment in his new book, The Shape of Things to Come: 7 Imperatives for Winning in the New World of Business.
Oliver does not imply that information, or information companies supplying telecommunications, software, computers, the Internet and the like are no longer important. Like energy, information will be essential to our economic lives. But Oliver believes information companies are rapidly losing their power as the engine that drives and shapes our economic future. Information companies, particularly hardware producers, are near the mature phase of their lifecycle and the shape of their world is clear: rivalry is intensifying; they compete increasingly on price; and technological development is in applications rather than in new science. "Bio-materials represent the next logical step in the evolution of science and technology, and the production of such materials will flip us from our current economic era of information to a new dramatically different one," Oliver says. "The real high tech of today is not information management but bio-technology and new materials."
Oliver cites such advances as the engineering of living human tissue and the creation from scratch of surrogates for human body parts-everything from skin to heart valves and arteries. He notes that parts from genetically engineered pigs are already being used as replacements for human tissues and organs and such innovations are certain to continue. "The cloning of the sheep, Dolly, made instant headlines around the world and created a host of ethical concerns,"Oliver says. "When I think of Dolly, I think of the business ramifications--more and cheaper wool. I understand the ethical concerns but they need to be dealt with by experts in ethics. I hope that rational approaches to bio-materials development will be articulated and agreed upon globally." While cloning and engineering human tissue have grabbed the world's attention and have stirred ethics controversies, biotech's potential is almost unlimited in the area of pharmaceutical product development. Biotech is also in the process of genetically altering vegetables in order to create more and better products. Biotechnology research is also discovering ways to use bacteria to solve environmental problems such as pollutants from industry. As the former vice-president for marketing at Northern Telecom (now Nortel), Oliver knows the business world firsthand. He says the conversion of bio-technology and bio-materials to commercial applications will have the greatest economic impact.
"The ultimate achievement in the Industrial Age was when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon," Oliver says. "The ultimate achievement of the Information Age is the Internet, which links all people with the world's information for a very cheap price. In the Industrial Age we conquered space, in the Information Age we conquered time and in the Bio-Materials age we will conquer matter."
Members of the media who wish to talk with Oliver should contact Lew Harris at (615) 322-2706.
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