Digital Nervous System
Encyclopedia
Digital nervous system is a phrase, popularly associated with Bill Gates
of Microsoft
, used to describe a vision for how the IT
infrastructure of an enterprise could be analogous to the autonomic nervous system
of a biological organism. Gates made extensive use of the term in his 1999 book Business @ The Speed of Thought
. The actual phrase digital nervous system may not have originated with Gates however, as it has been reported that Judith Dayhoff used the term before Gates did.
Steve Ballmer
attempted to explain the digital nervous system by saying the following:
Gates himself offered the following explanation as part of a keynote speech at Microsoft's Second Annual CEO Summit in 1998.
Digital nervous system has also been described as being synonymous with the term 'Zero Latency Enterprise', another phrase representing the way an enterprise uses IT systems to rapidly communicate between customers, employees and trading partners.
Mr Seitz had developed the concept and an architecture for business design based on the General Systems Theory by Ludwig von Bertalanffy
taxonomy while designing a computer-integrated manufacturing system at Rockwell Int'l NAAO B1-B division in the mid-80s before joining IBM.
Bill Gates
William Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business magnate, investor, philanthropist, and author. Gates is the former CEO and current chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen...
of Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
, used to describe a vision for how the IT
Information technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
infrastructure of an enterprise could be analogous to the autonomic nervous system
Autonomic nervous system
The autonomic nervous system is the part of the peripheral nervous system that acts as a control system functioning largely below the level of consciousness, and controls visceral functions. The ANS affects heart rate, digestion, respiration rate, salivation, perspiration, diameter of the pupils,...
of a biological organism. Gates made extensive use of the term in his 1999 book Business @ The Speed of Thought
Business @ the Speed of Thought
Business @ the Speed of Thought is a book written by Bill Gates in 1999. It discusses how business and technology are integrated, and shows how digital infrastructures and information networks can help getting an edge on the competition....
. The actual phrase digital nervous system may not have originated with Gates however, as it has been reported that Judith Dayhoff used the term before Gates did.
Steve Ballmer
Steve Ballmer
Steven Anthony "Steve" Ballmer is an American business magnate. He is the chief executive officer of Microsoft, having held that post since January 2000. , his personal wealth is estimated at US$13.9 billion, ranking number 19 on the Forbes 400.-Early life:Ballmer was born in Detroit, Michigan to...
attempted to explain the digital nervous system by saying the following:
- If you think of the human body, what does our nervous system let us do? It lets us hear, see, take input. It lets us think and analyze and plan. It lets us make decisions and communicate and take action. Every company essentially has a nervous system: companies take inputs, they think, they plan, they communicate, they take action. The question is how does the nervous system in your company operate? Is the IT infrastructure really adding value?
Gates himself offered the following explanation as part of a keynote speech at Microsoft's Second Annual CEO Summit in 1998.
- The term 'digital nervous system' is kind of an interesting one. The analogy, of course, is to the biological nervous system where you always have the information you need. You always are alert to the most important things, and you block out the information that's not important. And companies really need to have that same kind of thing: the information that's valuable getting to the people who need to know about it.
Digital nervous system has also been described as being synonymous with the term 'Zero Latency Enterprise', another phrase representing the way an enterprise uses IT systems to rapidly communicate between customers, employees and trading partners.
History
The term digital nervous systems was used in 1987–89 at the IBM Guide/Share Conference in a presentation originally titled "The Body Enterprise" later retitled "The Cybernetic Factory -- the next generation in CIM". The author/presentor Brian K Seitz was later a Microsoft employee and later a DMR Consultant contributing to Business @ The Speed of Thought through a series of interviews with his research staff arranged by a fellow DMR consultant Ricardo Buenaventura.Mr Seitz had developed the concept and an architecture for business design based on the General Systems Theory by Ludwig von Bertalanffy
Ludwig von Bertalanffy
Karl Ludwig von Bertalanffy was an Austrian-born biologist known as one of the founders of general systems theory . GST is an interdisciplinary practice that describes systems with interacting components, applicable to biology, cybernetics, and other fields...
taxonomy while designing a computer-integrated manufacturing system at Rockwell Int'l NAAO B1-B division in the mid-80s before joining IBM.