Editorial

Citation

Coleman, J. and Birch, D. (1999), "Editorial", European Business Review, Vol. 99 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/ebr.1999.05499daa.001

Editorial

The Guest Editors

John Colemanis currently editor of New European, which is published by MCB University Press. He is also Managing Director of New European Publications Limited, which publishes a variety of books both independently and with other leading publishers. He is chairman of the editorial board of World Review. He is deeply suspicious of over-specialisation and feels that important links between various disciplines are easily overlooked, in spite of the lip service that is paid to interdisciplinary approaches. His academic career includes an Oxford degree in Theology, a research degree in Education from the University of London, as well as the usual teaching qualifications: the Postgraduate Certificate in Education and the Academic Diploma in Education. He has had many years of practical experience in education, especially in the area of emotional and psychological problems, and has published a book on a special school for children with emotional problems, Childscont (Macdonald, 1968). He has also written Coleman's Drive (Faber, 1962; republished New European Publications, 1996) in addition to several books on motoring history, published by Faber & Faber, and is currently editing a book on The Conscience of Europe to mark the 50th anniversary of the Council of Europe, which is due to be published later this year jointly by the Council of Europe Publishing and New European Publications.

David G.W. Birchis a Director of the IT management consultancy Consult Hyperion, which he helped to found in 1986. Prior to this he spent several years working as a consultant, specialising in communications, in Europe, the Far East and North America. He graduated from the University of Southampton with a BSc (Hons) in Physics. His recent work for clients including Microsoft and BT has been at the forefront of the electronic commerce sector. Dave was a visiting MBA lecturer in IT Management at the City University Business School and lectured on the impact of new information and communications technologies for the Nortel/Aspen Institute of Information Studies. He is on the editorial board of the Financial Times Virtual Finance Report and Microsoft's Banking on Windows NIT. He often writes for Internet Business and was a correspondent for the on-line Journal of Internet Banking and Commerce. He chaired the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation's first working group on the Internet and Retail Banking and has recently become Director of CommerceNet UK's smart card interoperability project. He has also written for publications ranging from Wired magazine to the Computer Law and Security Report and is a media commentator on electronic commerce issues. He is often asked to speak to industry groups and recently addressed members of the European Parliament to help build a European vision for electronic commerce. Dave is married with two children and is a very happy Manchester City supporter.

This special combined issue of European Business Review and New European is the result of a remarkable conference on digital money organised by Consult Hyperion, the FT Virtual Finance Report and Demos.

It is not so much a collection of articles on specific aspects of electronic money as a handbook to refer to for guidance as we try to cope with the electronic revolution that is taking place in business and society. In today's jargon it should serve as a "networking tool" or rather a comprehensive box of tools. For this reason a list of names and addresses of those participating is included at the end.

However, the raison d'Átre of the conference is summed up in Sir Richard Body's quotation from Francis Bacon (the Lord Chancellor not the artist): "money is like muck, not good except it be spread". Electronic money, of whatever sort, carries with it the opportunity to be spread. Wherever there is real wealth money provides the chance for it to be used for the benefit of humanity; as Abraham Lincoln once said, the question is whether money becomes the master or the servant of man.

Anyone listening to the contributors to this conference would be aware that in various ways electronic money is going to come into being and supersede many of the functions of traditional money, for example airlines are exchanging air miles for goods in exactly the way they would with money.

The crucial question today is to see that this new form of money frees us and does not fall under dictatorial control. Ian Christie and Duncan Goldie-Scot make it clear that democratic governments must have a basic regulatory role in licensing sources of e-cash.

One of government's great worries, of course, will be the question of taxation but this could be taken care of by an electronic tax on the first use of natural resources - a theme this journal has expounded over the years through a number of its contributors - and thereby not only financing essential public services but also checking the reckless use of natural resources by vested interests and thus protecting the environment for us all into the bargain. A proportion of such taxes might also be used to prevent the "social exclusion" of which Ian Christie speaks.

No further general comment is required as specific introduction to contributions are given by the two chairmen of the days events, Duncan Goldie-Scot of the FT Virtual Finance Report and Ian Christie of Demos, as well as a final overview of the conference by Jan Wyllie of Trend Monitor.

John ColemanDavid Birch