The first time I understood the gravity and the effects of the emerging forces of the ongoing technology disruption I was hooked and very excited. There are many things in this world that are not the way they should be, we people are not encouraged or enabled to be all we can be, use our full capacity and interact with whomever, wherever and/or however we like. We are locked down by huge corporations, national restrictions in our countries and other unjust and unfair systems, like for example banks, that limits us all. In many ways, we are still victims of different obstacles holding us down, limiting our options. However, this all is about to change. Please bear with me, as I would like to express why I think that this is one of the greatest things that has happened in a long time.
The technology disruption may be one of the biggest things in several hundreds of years. With this great evolution humanity will have opportunity to do things very differently and now is the time to embrace change, to make something of all these new opportunities.
First, let us make a brief journey through time.
About 400 years ago in Sweden, where I was born, most people were farmers, scattered in the countryside, living their lives on and by what they could grow and breed. Then about 150 years ago, the industrialization happened, and people moved to the bigger cities to get jobs. Since then most things has been about centralization, growing into corporation, massive size as a measure of success and a plethora of different mechanisms to keep everything under tight control.
As most of you know this all is already changing.
With the growing user base and utilization of Internet and “online” in all forms the game is changing. We already see a massive increase in the number of small, super specialized and clever startups. Cross- country/organization/etc collaboration in all forms are growing fast. The evolution of solution for digital currencies, outside the ancient and in many ways dysfunctional and unfair bank systems, are making progress as we speak. Never before has the change rate been so fast, so much happened at the same time, and I do believe that we are seeing the start of something that will change the way we live, work and interact with both in private and professionally.
To continue our journey in time, with these great changes, empowered by the technology disruption, I really think that what we are experiencing now is the decentralization of people, power and work. Not all people will start to move to the countryside, but they could if they want. Countries will lose power, old control mechanisms will fade away and die, the world in becoming increasingly global in the way we act, think and do business. The huge corporation find themselves lost and struggling to keep up, most of time forcing them to act “smaller” and collaborate. You could almost say that a storm is already here and when the waves has settled again I do think we will see a new, completely different, business ecosystem, enabling people to live out their full potential.
For many people this is scary. Many things we take for granted are changing and in general, people do not react well to change, it makes us uneasy or even afraid. We are creatures of habit and do not like our circles, our normal life and the way we see the world, to be stirred. This time however we must cope, and develop with the world, because it is in many aspects going to improve, even if the journey might be bumpy. I think we all need to try to be more entrepreneurial, awake and active to survive in this new world.
For me it means that I as a professional has to embrace new markets, new forms of collaboration and most of all new ways to help organizations grow and reach their full potential. Right now, I am really enjoying myself in my agile learning journey, formalizing my toolbox to help organizations to be fast as well as stable and efficient. I also recently became member of a global, virtual, consultancy organization and already mentored people and organization in other places then where I live, using online resources and ways of working.
A couple of years ago I wanted to write something funny in my presentation and used the word globonaut. This word did however not exist, so I invented it and published on the online urban dictionary as a person living in another place where he/she was born, working and collaborating with people in other countries. I firmly believe that we all are globonauts, we just do know it yet and so far has not been able to live this way. For me as a person it started many years ago when I first started to travel and enjoying things, from all over the world, that makes this planet such a cool place to be.
As William Arthur Ward once declared; The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails. You all know what you have to do if you really want to sail!
Valorize IT - Digital Tranformist 