Most significant innovation for business

1. Computer technology
2. Telecommunications
3. Internet

Third among alumni was the Internet, although younger graduates were more than twice as likely to pick it for that spot than were their older colleagues (who ranked the Internet only slightly ahead of jet travel). "More people are using the Internet faster than was the case with the automobile, the telephone, or television," concluded one respondent, while another peered inside the machinery to see what makes it all run: "The transistor made the computer revolution possible, which in turn begat the Internet."

Among other innovations noted were mass media, plastics, air-conditioning, mass production, Japanese competition, globalization, access to capital, electricity infrastructure, and cell phones.

So What's New?

While the low-tech automobile was selected as the most significant consumer product, the "most significant innovation for business" was overwhelmingly seen to be computer technology. "Computer technology will drive commerce for the next fifty years," one respondent commented, while another added that "with almost Śreal-time' information, business can now make appropriate decisions rather than guess."

Second on the list was telecommunications, "a great facilitator, the pipeline that allows other innovations to happen (the Internet, mass media)," according to one alumnus. Another noted that telecommunications also enable "the emergence and success of complex organizations with large-scale integration and interdependence."