Economic trajectories into the future

The Digital Revolution started only about 40 years ago. While much of it is still in the future, some of the challenges and opportunities ahead are already clearly visible. In essence, there are two major forces at work: One is the breakthrough of information as the next dominant economic fuel, the other is the diversity of economic realities around the globe. Today, I'll take a deeper look at this diversity and how it might evolve in the future.

What drives an economy in the very long run?

Just a few weeks ago, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the decision to award this year's Nobel Prize in Economics to Paul Romer for integrating technological change into macroeconomic analysis. That's a good reason for thinking through the long-term history of innovative activity, for investigating how technological change itself changed over time, and what the future might hold for us.

Seeing possibilities

At a global scale, how do you perceive the path of mankind? Getting better? Getting worse? Getting nowhere? Listening to our instincts, we are inclined to hold a gloomy, even bleak view of the current state and our future prospects. But is such pessimism at all justified? Should we rely on our guts? And what do the facts tell us? The big trends that shape the development of populations and define their health and wealth, these drivers of societal progress are the focus of Hans Rosling's lifelong mission as a public health practitioner, researcher, and teacher.

Where’s your innovation focus? – Part 1: Harmony

Innovation is never easy. Regardless of its purpose, you'll always have a lot to take into account: needs and expectations, resource implications, rules and regulations, the state of the art as well as technical limitations of legacy systems. Wrestling with all these constraints can easily distract you from your ultimate goal. To help you find your innovation focus, I'll revisit two conceptual maps I've discussed earlier to develop a hybrid navigation aid that combines the best of both concepts.

Embrace the seeming paradox!

Let's face it: your problems are like spoiled brats, just too willing to misbehave. And they can easily afford to be ill-tempered, irrational, incoherent, inconsistent. However, you cannot. Not as an individual, not as a leader, not as an organisation. For you must uphold some level of coherence and consistency to maintain your credibility (and I would add: your self-esteem). How can you achieve that goal if your problems obviously don't play fair?