Clik here to view.
How Regulation is Used to Defend old Institutions
Avid readers of this blog will know how much we believe and observe that the Fourth Revolution will transform existing institutions. Older institutions do fight back though – and often through the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to create disruption for billions in 18 months
Disruption happens ever more quickly. According to this excellent post on Asymco, Android is the third platform to reach 1 billion users. Only that according to the graph, Android took 1.5 years to get...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why We Reject Inconvenient Truths – an Impediment to Change
We reject inconvenient truths – as long as they stay remote enough not to disturb too much our lifestyles. And so we stay in our comfort zone while disaster is looming further away, and although the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How Innovation Will Necessarily Alter the Power Balance
Following up on our previous post on why real disruptive innovation does have to change business models, this inspirational image from Hugh MacLeod is a great complement. Real good ideas do necessarily...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How Nature Always Reminds Us That Rare, Short Catastrophic Events Shape the...
In many natural science domains, we increasingly become conscious that in nature, 95%+ of the change we observe comes from short and intense phenomena such as storms, floods, earthquakes. For example...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why We Would Have Smartphones Today Even Without Steve Jobs – and the...
We do hail Steve Jobs for inventing the smartphone in the shape of an iPhone (and other marvels of modern technology). Yet today we see that this technology is becoming mainstream and ubiquitous. So,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why We Underestimate the Change Brought by The Fourth Revolution
It all fits into an interesting quote by Bill Gates: “We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten“. That quote...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Are We at the Edge of Another Spiritual Awakening?
Kevin Kelly notes about the birth of the religions we know today that they have all appeared around the same time, when agriculture was sufficiently developed to generate abundance. “About 2,500 years...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why There is a Gap Between Technology and Organization Evolution
There is a gap between technology development and the way organization change. And this is at the root of the Fourth Revolution: if the gap gets large enough, only a revolution can make organizations...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How Luxuries Tend to Become Necessities and Span Obligations
In the excellent book ‘Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind‘, Yuval Noah Harari writes: “One of history’s few iron laws is that luxuries tend to become necessities and to spawn new obligations. Once...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why a Crisis is Always a Great Opportunity to Change for the Better
Churchill is famous for his quote “Never let a good crisis got to waste“. A crisis is a great opportunity to change things for the better. In some instance it is even the only opportunity to change...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why a Crisis Could Be Better than a Slow Downfall
I am always amazed as how people in leadership positions try to avoid crisis and instead choose ways that lead to a slow downfall. I believe that comes from the need to have an impression of control...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why the Terminator Conundrum Requires Active Anti-proliferation Policies
In this excellent article, ‘the Pentagon’s Terminator Conundrum – robots that could kill on their own‘, the issue now faced by weapons developers is explained clearly. While the development of drones...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How the World is Not Yet Flat
Keeping all due respect to Thomas Friedman and his great best-seller book ‘the World is Flat‘, I have to observe that it is not quite the case yet. This stems from my observations as a globe-trotter...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How Daring Ideas May Be Beaten, And Start a Winning Game
Following on our previous post ‘How to Create Disruption With Small Steps‘ I like to share this quote from Goethe: “Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to Create Disruption With Small Steps
In a complex world disruption does happen, always with far reaching consequences. But creating disruption is hard. I am in the midst of an experiment with my venture CleanuC (trying to disrupt the way...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to Overcome The Critical Issue of the Working Poor in the Collaborative Age
New technology and the rise of the independent worker is a factor for creating “working poors” – people that work hard a substantial amount of their time but do not earn enough to support their...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How Excessive Inequality Will Lead to Revolutions
Cory Doctorow’s post ‘EXTREME WEALTH INEQUALITY WILL ALWAYS DEVOUR THE SOCIETIES THAT PRODUCE IT‘ and the associated longer piece ‘Shared Destinies: Why Wealth Inequality Matters‘ make an interesting...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How Each Civilization Bears the Seeds of Its Destruction Through Inequality...
Each civilization is characterized by a social organization and a specific elite. Following on our previous post ‘How Excessive Inequality Will Lead to Revolutions‘ and observation of the fall of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How the Antikythera Mechanism Shows How Societies Can Regress
The Antikythera mechanism is an absolutely high-technology astronomical system that was discovered onboard a greek shipwreck. Dated between 100 and 200BC it was a millenium in advance compared to the...
View Article
