Summary

Both employees and employers in a wide variety of fields have benefited from computers and the Internet. According to a recent study by the Internet Advertising Bureau, the Internet contributes about $300 billion to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the United States and has created 1.2 million jobs. At the same time, the rapid and radical nature of the advances in digital technology over the last 50 years has created significant challenges in the workplace, as both workers and business owners have needed to adapt to such technology or face losing to the competition. Computers in the Workplace is a brand-new, full-color resource that discusses how digital technology has affected business, addressing topics such as the systemization of work, the division of labor, outsourcing, and crowdsourcing.

Chapters include:

• Scientific Management: the Systematization of Work
• Manufacturing: from Line Workers to Robots
• Administrative Assistants: from Typist to Office Manager
• Managers: Business Information at Your Fingertips
• Computer Programmers: Creating Software for Creating Software
• Law: from Parchment to PCs
• Medicine: Doctors Enter the Digital Age
• How Computers are Changing the Nature of Work.
  
  

Specifications

Full-color photographs and line illustrations. Index. Glossary. Chronology. Further resources.

About the Author(s)

Robert Plotkin is a patent attorney specializing in patent protection for computer technology. His firm, Robert Plotkin, P.C., has been named a "Go-To Law Firm for Leading Technology Companies" by American Lawyer Media. He is the author of The Genie in the Machine: How Computer-Automated Inventing Is Revolutionizing Law and Business, which explores the impact of invention automation technology on high-tech companies and patent law. Plotkin received his undergraduate degree in computer science and engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his law degree from the Boston University School of Law and currently teaches a course entitled Software and the Law.