December 27, 1999 Web posted at: 9:50 a.m. EST (1450 GMT) by Network World Fusion

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(IDG) -- January 01, 2000 is, by even the most conservative estimates, a columnist's dream date. The number of Y2K topics alone could keep you busy for an entire year. Then you've got all your predictions for the future, and of course your summary of events from the past. So putting aside for a minute the fact that the millennium really doesn't end until January 01, 2001 rolls over, let's start off this "last December of the millennium" with our first Top 5 list of the month: Major Societal Events That Shaped IT/Networking/Computing. No, they're not directly related to networking. However, as you'll see, their indirect effects helped shape the way we work today.

1. The consolidation of the railroad system. Without all those wonderful miles of rail and wood, we would likely not have seen the rise of bypass networks in quite so rapid a manner (Sprint started life as the Southern Pacific INTernal phone network). Besides, some of the techniques they invented to switch freight cars around would sound very familiar to any student of network switching.

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2. Sputnik and the Cold War. Two major impacts here: Sputnik spurred a massive investment in science education. Who knows how many of the people who've made breakthroughs in computer technology got their first taste of science in classes basically funded by the Sputnik scare? The Cold War, meanwhile, meant massive government funding of projects such as, oh, the Internet (and related technologies, such as switching).

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3. The escalating rate of change. Whoever said "build a better mousetrap and they will come" was only partly right. For most products that simply isn't true. In less than 50 years, we've gone from computers as science-fiction ideas to absolute necessities for life. Now, the Internet speeds up the rate of change (who'd heard of the Internet in 1988?).

4. The demise of the nuclear family. Where have all the children gone? They've clearly left the small towns and moved not just in to the next big city, but across the globe. With the nuclear family all but destroyed, the need (and the market opportunity) for long-distance voice services shows no sign of slowing at all. And that is what helped drive AT&T the first time, and will continue to drive the entire phone/Internet market for the near-term future.

5. The rise of the multi-national conglomerate. If the death of the nuclear family did it for personal communications usage, the multinational firm did it for business. Remember when decentralization was all the rage? The past few years have seen a swing back to Big; every week, it seems, brings news of a merger or acquisition that's larger than the one the week before. It's especially pronounced in the IT arena (think of the seeming race between Lucent and Cisco to see who can gobble up more firms). This has helped build demand for massive amounts of long-distance voice, date, video traffic and helped open up new sales/marketing opportunities to the point where national boundaries mean less and less (to the information community) with each passing day.

Well, those are my top five picks. If you've got more, or different opinions, let me know. Next week: The top 5 most significant technology developments of the century.