Let me sketch out a couple of examples drawn from a chapter in my new book, under the subtitle New Directions for Traditional Jobs. I discuss three new directions for women facing redundancy in traditional support office jobs. These are toward information packaging and formatting, information and information systems management, and third, information brokerage and research. Someone with a flair for design and an interest in layout could move from simply laying out letters and reports as a secretary to formatting information packages in the new Videotext mode. Some courses in computer graphics, Telidon and computer systems would be helpful additions to on-the-job learning deliberately designed into the evolving job description. This career path would lead into personnel and public relations work.

For someone interested in administration and office management, on-the-job projects to formalize her already broad, informal knowledge of how the office works, and outside courses in office administration, plus systems analysis and, perhaps, even systems theory would help build a career as a manager in the office of the future. For information brokerage work, someone who had simply filed and retrieved from files could begin conducting data searches in outside data banks, go on to learn about the contents of and the access protocols to different specialized data bases and, with some outside courses in library science, formulate the keyword probes for retrieving the most relevant information from these outside sources and help organize her own employer's databases.

As you can see from all three examples, what I see as the; necessary adjustment to the change we're undergoing goes far beyond simple skills training, for instance, on a word processor. The adjustment must accommodate the prospect of ongoing change, ongoing obsolescence of skills and knowledge.

And in case there are any doubters still out there, let me add that it's been estimated that, between the years 1979 and the year 2000, two-thirds of the content of most jobs will have been replaced by new activities requiring new knowledge and skills. The best preparation, then, is to start with a solid, general knowledge base in computer technology: i.e., become computer-literate.

There are many definitions of what computer literacy involves, but there is at least a consensus of what it doesn't involve. It doesn't involve becoming a computer professional or specialist. Just as we all use the telephone without having the foggiest notion of how a telephone works, so we'll increasingly be using the equally powerful information tool, the computer, without having to know how a computer works. We only need to know how to make use of it. And that's what computer literacy involves.

The first element of computer literacy is, becoming familiar with the different types of computer systems - for calculating and for text editing, and for materials and inventory handling - and the components common to all computer systems: input, output, storage, etc. A second stage in developing a working understanding of computer technology is to learn some of the basic principles at work in them. For instance, programs operate on the principles of logical deduction, which have been around since Aristotle. The either/or operations of this principle correspond physically to the binary switches in an on or off position inside the computer. A third element of computer literacy is, understanding the role of computers in society and the context in which the technology is being introduced. This element not only cultivates a sense of the responsibility attached to technological innovation, but also reinforces the linkage between technological cause and social effect.