Challenges faced by organizations

Reflections on Associative Constraints and Possibilities in an Information society (Part #6)

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• to function in the information society (the 'adaptive group' of arenas);
• to recognize its innovative contributions within that context (the 'innovative group' of arenas);
• to respond effectively to its own limitations in relation to other bodies with alternative perspectives (the 'transformative group of arenas).

Particular challenges which may be usefully highlighted at this point include:

• (a) the continuing problem of information overload and the total inadequacy of narrow specialization as a 'solution' in a context of cross-sectoral issues;
• (b) the emergence of an even greater range of specialized interests to which commercial information providers will respond if associations fail to fulfil this traditional function of theirs;
• (c) increasing 'competition' between associations and commercial bodies interested in providing the same services, thus depriving many associations of an important source of income;
• (d) increasing costs in conventional communications traditionally employed by associations (e.g. postage, telephone), coupled with economic restrictions on electronic exchange of information (possibly deliberately imposed to reduce association activity):
• (e) imposition of restrictive regulations to inhibit electronic exchanges of information and trans-border data flows (possibly for reasons of 'national security');
• (f) proliferation of a wide range of 'alternative' forms of electronic communication (e.g. videodisks, electronic mail and conferencing systems, lasercards, paperstrip), many requiring different, and often incompatible, equipment.
• (g) proliferation of computer crime and abuses designed to sabotage, exploit or manipulate information systems which it would otherwise be easy for associations to set up and share;
• (h) reinforcement of the prevailing pattern of inequality, discrimination and fragmentation as vested interests find ways to establish their position in the information society;
• (i) erosion of the significance of existing conceptual distinctions, whether established by scholars, legislation or administrations, whose maintenance has been justified by operational convenience in the pre-information society (e.g. such distinctions as profit / non-profit, governmental / nongovernmental, temporary / permanent. formal / informal, national / international, and possibly even legal / illegal);
• (j) extreme difficulty of ensuring that messages of requisite complexity (cf Ashby's Law) can be communicated successfully (via reductionist conceptual filters imposed by computerised thesauri) to a sufficiently wide audience;
• (k) difficulties of responding effectively to the opportunities (and financial drain) offered by a multiplicity of information exchange facilities, whether initiated by associations, by commercial bodies or bv governmental bodies.

One interesting challenge for associations, whether national or international, will be that of responding to the changing significance of their relationship to intergovernmental institutions (e.g. UNESCO, ILO, WHO, ECOSOC). In the emerging environment the latter's privileged status will be brought into question, to the extent that it is nonfunctional within the communicating network of international bodies - leading perhaps to a role analogous to that of the aristocracy in European countries.

Perhaps the most profound challenge for international associations will be to discover ways to use the facilities of the information society to communicate, interrelate and defend the subtler insights and values for which they stand - in an information environment in which such insights must 'compete' for attention (and therefore resources) with other less subtle, and seemingly more striking items of information. This is the traditional challenge of international associations transferred to a context where the opportunities and obstacles are much greater than before.

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