Technical innovations in communication : how to relate technology to business by a culturally reliable human interface

The technology that makes the world into the global village envisioned by Marshall McLuhan more than 30 years ago now seems to be in place. thanks to the Internet and the World Wide Web. Technical innovations in communication technology have been quickly exploited by businesses to expand their reach into new markets. However, not much is yet known about the way this fechnology is inducing changes in long-standing cultural patterns that prescribe the preferred methods of negotiating business deals. In this presenfation, we survey the state of our unknowing under several heads, hoping to instigate contributions to a special issue of "IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication" on how technology works as a human interface in different parts of the world.