When Finland was catching up other industrial states after the war, productivity growth attained rates as high as 5% per annum. The standard of living doubled in 14 years. By the 1970s, Finland had made use of the vast possibilities of electricity to stimulate productivity. A common feature of ICT and electricity is that they are multipurpose technologies.
Industrialisation, which was based on the utilisation of electricity, provided people with machines and equipment for  BIS Review 78/2006  1  processing raw materials into products more efficiently than with muscle power. The new IT revolution, for its part, provides the means to use information more effectively. It increases our brain power.