Innovation, the technological changes that brings with it and the related productivity increases they generate, have been the main cause of the cultural and social changes taken place throughout mankind´s history.
Just as the fire, the wheel and the adoption of more sedentary practices played decisive roles in the reorganization of the primitive hunter-gatherer societies, the printing press and – centuries later – the steam engine had an impact of similar proportions, or even biger ones, in the societies that developed them.
This is the same role that information technology and the telecommunications revolution play in the emergence of the information age and the knowledge society.
Information technologies and new applications in telecommunications have been developing their potential, incrementally, over the last three or four decades.
There is a distinctive fact, however, that deserves to be highlighted. Its development has been concomitant with that of other technological and productive sectors, and has fertilized them. Moreover, they have triggered the emerence of new disciplines such as nanotechnology or the “new” biotechnology.
Gradually, new technologies extend their ramifications in the industrial and entrepreneurial fabric, stimulating innovation in various fields. From there, they are taking our daily life by assault, influencing our cultural expressions, social interactions and the way we exercise our political rights.
This is the reason why we speak of the emergence of a New Economy. It is a phenomenon that is not defined by a single technology because it goes beyond any of them individually.
Its heart lies in the relationship that some emblematic sectors establish with each other, the way in which they reciprocally fertilize each other, and the manner they influence the traditional products and markets of the industrial and agricultural economies.
