Business, more than most factors throughout the course of human history, has been both a driver of societal stability and a catalyst for change. Fundamental to human civilization, business enriches lives and enables dreams, through the presentation of a dynamic, ever-expanding list of connections, products, and services. While originally seeking to meet base human needs, business evolved beyond than the simple trade of one item for another. Business grew to encompass art, literature, culture, sports, communication, transportation, education ... and the list goes on. Providing entertainment for those in need of diversion, definition for those seeking purpose, and comfort for those requiring care, business now exists as the foundation of society, there to serve and support.
Information technology is concerned with creating information through the intelligent management and application of data, and acts as a change agent for human cultures. Like business, technology permeates every aspect of humanity in our communal striving to do better, to communicate more effectively, and to continually build whatever we can imagine. Transforming every aspect of our lives, information technology improves the fields of agriculture, biomedical, construction, educational, energy, environmental, industrial, telecommunications, transportation ... and the list goes on. The incredible proliferation of social media is the latest demonstration of technology connecting our society. In order to substain and integrate business and law in the constantly evolving world of today, information technology is integral. Where data can be recorded, it can be measured, analyzed, and evaluated -- creating new information, new business and new possibilities for the human race.
Law and its incomparable influence can been seen in the flourishing of civilization. Comparable to business and information technology, law influences every element of human action. Beginning with the civil code of Ancient Egypt, on to the Roman law and following through to the legal volumes of the modern era, one can see that law adapts as cultures metamorphose. Undergirding human society, law empowers us to envisage and implement new forms of business and governance, even as we maintain the traditional.
Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river. Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth. But one creature said at last, "I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom." The other creatures laughed and said, "Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!" But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks. Yet, in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more.
And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, "See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah, come to save us all!" And the one carried in the current said, "I am no more Messiah than you. The river delight to lift us free, if only we dare let go.
Our true work is this voyage, this adventure.
But they cried the more, "Saviour!" all the while clinging to the rocks, making legends of a Saviour.
-- Richard Bach