The explosion of the information world has been a benefit for our organisation, but has raised its own set of new problems.

Science and technology play a central role in our society. They are part of everybody’s life, they help to tackle the grand challenges of humankind and they create innovation and jobs and improve quality of life. Science and technology are part of our culture, and in essence define us as a species that “wants to know”–hence why we are called Homo sapiens. But do we really give science its proper value when it comes to taking political decisions?

The rise of IT and the Internet have been boons to Asia, but not everyone has benefited. There are challenges to overcome, not least in the area of governance.

In 2002 Henry Copeland, chief of Blogads and Pressflex.com, wrote about how blogs, largely unknown at the time, would change web writing and publishing forever. He was right. Then in 2008 in these pages, he told us to bet on Twitter several months before it took off (the OECD opened its first accounts in April 2009). So where is the information world taking us now? Henry provides some fresh thoughts.

The media is changing, but must assume a leading role in the unfolding narrative of the information world. That includes building trust and involving new voices in the discussion.

Did you know that the organisation that brought you the Higgs Boson (“god particle”) also brought you the world wide web? Robert Cailliau, one of its founders, and James Gillies, a first-hand witness, retrace the story.

People create policy, but underpinning their work, and in some ways hidden from view, is a well-developed, smart information and communications infrastructure. It is a fundamental driver of progress.

The future will be inherently knowledge-based. Are we moving in the right direction? What must we know to be able to get there? Understanding knowledge-based capital is an important first step.

Education is one OECD department that has embraced the information revolution.

Translators are at the forefront of global communications and knowledge. Yet their work has not always been helped by the information revolution. Here are the challenges.

Taking as many long-haul flights as possible could hold the answer to your knowledge management problems.

Did you know that, according to the UN Global Pulse, more data was created in 2011 than in the whole of human history, or at least, since the invention of the alphabet?

Nearly two decades ago, in May 1994, Mexico became the first Latin American country to join the OECD. Not long after, in 1996, the secretary general of the OECD at the time, Jean-Claude Paye and the then Mexican minister of foreign affairs and current secretary-general, Angel Gurría, opened the OECD Mexico Centre. Initially, our job was to promote OECD publications in Mexico and throughout Latin America. But that mission has grown since, to include “disseminating, promoting and making accessible better policies, to governments, economic and social actors throughout Latin America, for better lives of their citizens”. 

Democracy is a good thing; transparency is too, and so is openness. Nothing too controversial in this statement, you might think. The veil of ignorance is slowly but steadily being lifted from the eyes of the general public across the world thanks to thriving media, innovation in global communications and the pressure on governments to open up and reach out.

The Internet is much more than a multi-billion dollar industry. The world’s economy now depends on this global “cloud”, which was once little more than a means of connecting different computers over a phone network. Today, the digital age has vast new potential to serve as a force of progress in the global economy, but better, smarter public policies will be needed for that potential to become reality.

The OECD Observer is celebrating its 50th anniversary: no better time than to turn our focus to the currency of information itself.

Though mobile technology is making waves in Africa, airwaves still count.

Politicians have long called on the services of public relations firms, design experts and advertising agencies to help them communicate. What impact do they have, and how has their role changed? We asked one of the very biggest in the business, Saatchi & Saatchi, for some insights.

A weekly catch from behind the headlines on oecd.org, No 1

Leaders et the OECD; Jobs; Spanish bull; Web sense; Fish

As technology progresses, so do labour market needs. For economies today, maintaining competitiveness means that skills must adapt and keep pace. 

Social media is being exploited by advertisers, politicians and headhunters. Government tax offices are also weighing in.

Have you ever followed a tax official on Twitter, or “liked” your tax office’s Facebook page? From the US to New Zealand, tax authorities are raising their social media profiles by providing advice on filling out tax forms, sharing information on budget changes, promoting e-tax forms and, of course, with reminders of payment deadlines. 

While the quality of online education is a subject of intense debate among educators, parents and students alike, what is no longer open to debate is the need for digital literacy. A recent report in The Guardian affirmed that adults with Internet skills are 25% more likely to get work and to earn as much as 10% more than their colleagues who don’t have such skills.

You say that "in the UK, the Home Office estimates that ID fraud costs £1.7 billion (US$330 billion) to the UK economy, nearly 50% up on 2002." ("Online identity theft", in No 268, June 2008) If everyone is given a "place" on the net where people can be contacted, that also creates an opportunity for people to protect themselves. But this "place" must be made safe, and therefore must be seen by governments as part of their country's normal infrastructure. Integrity is the key word.