It is now generally accepted that a language embeds a world view, or theory of the world (Gadamer, 1989; Pinker 1994), in that the concepts available within it limit what can and cannot be said in that language. The strong form of this idea is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which states it is impossible to conceptualise something in the absence of the appropriate linguistic constructs, and that genuinely new ideas are therefore dependent for their adoption and survival on the progressive extension of the language (Aronoff and Rees-Miller, 2003, p. 99). This extreme view still has support from some philosophers and linguists, but even those who do not accept it in totality concede that the idea contains a critical insight – that possibilities of social interaction are constrained by the language available to the parties concerned (Pinker, 1994).

The ISBL shows this with unusual clarity in that the underlying content reflects both a very specific way of doing business, and a very restricted conceptual universe. It is important to note that a key distinction is drawn between the ‘content’ and ‘expression’ planes of a language (Eco, 1997), and that discussion in this paper is limited to the content plane. ISBL expression, which can involve combinations of mouse clicks, key presses, symbols and verbal statements, has some extremely interesting implications, particularly from the perspective of the social disadvantages for people who are unable to ‘speak’ the language, but these are left for subsequent investigation.

In basic terms, ISBL content is conceptualised as comprising a set of data, process and object definitions that:

In effect, the ISBL is a language that mediates conversations at the electronic frontier; that is to say, at the point of intersection between people and automated systems. The terminology for use is strictly controlled. To take a specific example, the concept ‘customer’ may be instantiated in the ISBL as an entity characterised by a set of mandatory attributes including a name, address, and telephone number, and associated with a recorded history of one or more purchases from a relevant organisation. In a new transaction entered into by the customer and an IS, both implicitly agree to the use of ISBL terminology and concepts. The system presents itself at a venue at which interactions can occur, the putative customer identifies him- or herself, the system enquires as to the nature and scope of the transaction envisaged, the customer provides this additional information, the system responds, and so on through to an exchange of values and transactional closure. Communication has occurred, and has been mediated through a closely defined language.

Generally speaking the ISBL deals with concepts for which there are approximately equivalent expressions in natural languages. In English, these would include ‘customer’, ‘product’, ‘service’, ‘account’, ‘asset’, and ‘invoice’ among many others. The formality and rigour of ISBL definitions suggest that, while it might be a pidgin language at the moment, it could also be seen as a prototypical ‘perfect language’ (Eco, 1997) of business. As indicated earlier, there are fundamental differences between the ISBL and English, despite the superficial similarities, and these are summarised in Table 15.1, “ISBL-English comparison”.

A reasonable natural language definition of a customer is ‘one who currently purchases anywhere; a buyer, purchaser’ (Onions, 1973). Within this broad interpretation, the extension of the concept to encompass specific individuals can occur in a variety of ways, which can include personal familiarity, face recognition, showing a receipt from a previous transaction, or a conversation in which the person simply reveals an intention to buy. Both the customer and the vendor have the full resources of natural language to use in their attempt to establish a workable relationship. Such interactions are intrinsically messy, even in a highly structured bureaucracy, where the use of natural language provides a means by which the participants can, if they so choose, step outside any predefined scripts.

The definition of customer in the ISBL is quite different, being in practice something like ‘an entity characterised by the following mandatory attributes’, where the mandatory attributes might include identification number (valid) + account number (valid) + credit card number (valid) + credit status (valid). More to the point, the adopted definition is designed to leave no room for debate on terminological grounds; a person wishing to be identified as a customer must satisfy the validity requirements no matter what the previous status of his or her relationship with the organisation behind the autonomous system. It may seem redundant to stress the differences in the two conceptions in this way, but the free use of terms like ‘customer’ or ‘client’ or ‘product’ in published literature can help to conceal the full implications of the distinction being drawn here.

A major factor propelling development of the ISBL is that many business activities are supported by information content that tends to be broadly similar across organisations, and it has been recognised that very real gains in efficiency can be made through the general adoption of standardised definitions (Threlkel and Kavan, 1999). Thus, although there may be subtle differences in how different organisations interpret the meaning of the various business concepts involved, the generic assumption is that there should be sufficient commonality of interpretation to make the prospect of coming up with a standard definition feasible as well as economically appealing. It is, in fact, the possibilities for standardisation that have driven a range of systems integration initiatives including B2B procurement exchanges, EDI-based inter-organisational systems, and various types of data sharing arrangements. Progress can be difficult to achieve in practice (Goodhue et al., 1992), but is nevertheless being made on several fronts (Wyzalek, 2000) to the extent that the emergence of a standard or ‘authorised’ version of the ISBL is becoming probable rather than possible.