Are you ready to live to 120? We were faced with what could be described as a tsunami of thought provoking observations and insights on our collective futures, by David Smith - Chief Executive of Global Futures & Foresight. We might be able to claim we’d heard some the of the thoughts before, but I must admit I have never had such a comprehensive picture of the most important aspects of our future and the issues that we will need to address in our organisations and what means for us as leaders of technology. In summary, the key points that struck me were:
- We are likely to have a global population of between 9 and 10 billion and all of the implications that will have for us all in terms of feeding the population, providing enough water for everyone and the sustained migration of people to cities that are the centre of economic activity
- The sustained prodigious growth of the economies in China, India, Brazil et al, the implications of the anticipated very significant infrastructure investments required to support this development and what that means for the organisations that will be successful going forward
- The implications of global warming, the arctic ice melting and new sea lanes across the top of Canada and Russia and what that means to growth in those countries and also for us in Europe having China and Japan etc. much “nearer”
- The combination of ubiquitous technology and the “digital natives” moving through into work and more senior levels in organisations
- The changing nature of work, expectation of several careers, working beyond traditional retirement age and also different norms for psychological contract and finally,
- The consensus that we are all likely to live through to at least 120 and thinking through what the implications are for you, your organisations’ products and services and your customers.
So, if you were there we would value understanding what your “take-aways” were and indeed what it means for your as an IT Leader in 2015. If not, the slides are here (CIOnet members only), take a look and let us know what you think it means for us all in the UK as we emerge from the recession. By Alistair Russell
To hear the views from one of our attendees, Andrew Tuson of City University London, please click here.