Meeting of the Minds: Key future trends with Ross Dawson and Gerd Leonhard
When I was in Switzerland recently, esteemed colleague Gerd Leonhard and I recorded a number of video conversations, produced by Jonathan Marks. Following ones on Big Data, the future of privacy, and the future of Switzerland, here is our conversation on Key future trends.
For more conversations about the future see Meeting of the Minds.
After discussing some of the major trends, we go on to discuss our own preferred futures.
Trends and implications that we raise and discuss in the video include:
* We will be more connected in every way.
* The interfaces between humans and machines will become far richer and more developed.
* The rise of distributed value creation will see value generated – and shared – across boundaries of all kinds.
* The unit of the value creation is no longer the organization, but the individual.
* Companies will move from empires to networks. It is no longer possible to be a monopoly in an interdependent world.
* The Internet of Things is creating interconnected networks of devices and monitoring, creating hyper-collaboration instead of hyper-competition.
* This pushes us beyond capitalism to mutual value creation, generating sustainable capitalism.
* The central social trend is that of increased expectations: of opportunity, education, information, freedom, quality, services. Those expectations will only ever rise, never fall.
* These rising expectations will drive changes in government, business, structures.
* The idea of rampant consumerism is evaporating as the majority of humanity is moving into developed world. Our world cannot be driven by consumption.
* Economics can be run as a biosphere, a transparent participatory system.
* Collective problems need collective answers.
* We need to find mechanisms to reward people for their ideas and contribution in creating value for all.
* There is a constant battle between open and closed, trust and control. We are being forced to being networked.
* Networks are the fundamental structures in which we are working, and provide the architecture to transcend these challenges.
* Free markets are failing for climate change and many other domains; we need systems suited for a world of exponential technological change.
* A central issue is the degree to which we can collaborate across nations and national boundaries.
