How do we develop genuinely agile enterprises that can improvise into the future?
How then shall we “swim with information” rather than “drown in data”?
Seven Questions for the 4th Industrial Age
- Given the four postures I articulated via the “War of the Worlds” matrix, how shall we function in a world where man, woman, and machine will have interchangeable and complementary functions?
- It is one thing to have the capabilities and capacities to blend artificial and human intelligences, quite another to have organisational structures to enable such sharing. Structure can be an enabler or an impediment to progress and a full OD review will be needed to facilitate such changes. How then will we reorganise organisations to make best use of collective cybernetic and human intelligence?
- Following the statistic about the veritable Tsunami of data that now rains upon us (34 Gb daily), how shall we become more intelligent, individually, collectively and corporately? Does this require new levels of discipline of us to search for valuable intelligence? Does sharing more knowledge improve collective intelligence or do we need to be more surgical in our thirst for knowledge? What are the downsides of a reduced information palette?
- Government can help set the environment for businesses to flourish or flounder? What can and should governments do to encourage intelligent societies and communities? The work on smart cities and smart societies is relevant here. For example, Japan’s Society 5.0 envisions transforming the Japanese way of life by blurring the frontier between cyberspace and physical space.
- How shall we lay to rest the problems, threats, and legacy of the industrial era? This is perhaps an entire book of its own, but we have created a number of legacy issues in the industrial age. See “wicked problems” below.
- How shall we find sustainable resolutions to emerging complex and “wicked” world problems, such as climate change, feeding the world, dealing with the effects of a dying planet, etc.?
- UNESCO’s Sustainable Development Goal 4 requires that all of its 193 member states spends 4-6% of GDP and / or 15-20% of total public expenditure on education by 2030. But, how will education need to change in order to continue to be relevant and effective? In a world where all the data in the world is available, our old notions of storing knowledge in our brains will be replaced by the ability to apply knowledge. What will the concept of exams at school start to mean in such a world?