A turbulent and uncer- tain decade lies ahead. Emerging from the reces- sion of the past few years hows evidence of more than just an economic
crisis—political, social, corporate and
personal norms have been irrevocably
altered. People in many industries are starting to say they
hope things will “get back to
normal” soon.
That isn’t going to
happen.
The changes will affect
every client or potential
client at some level, and
for that reason alone it is
worth pausing to consider the new realities
of work. Of course,
the forces reshaping
this world will impact
speakers, too.
To help understand
and manage the disruptive trends in the
next decade, I’d like to
suggest that they fall into
five distinct categories: technology, institutional change, demography,
environment, and social values.
Composed as an acronym, they represent the TIDES of change:
TECHNOLOGY IMPACTS EVERYTHING
The decade ahead will be dominated
by unbelievable technological advances.
Cheap and easy DNA scanning will lead
to personalized medication, robotic
artificial organs, alternative energy
sources and applications, nanotechnology and space tourism, to name just the
headline grabbers. But the biggest technology revolution of the next few years
will not be found on any shop shelf: It
is a revolution in how people process
information, and it has the potential to
change everything.
How we process information influ-
ences who we trust, where we go for
information, how we access it, where
we store it and how we use it. If this
changes, it will affect purchasing behav-
iors and, therefore, how things are
branded, marketed and sold. It will
change communications, and how
people work as individuals, group
together in
teams, manage
and lead. And
so, it will also
impact organizational
designs. In other words: everything.
