High Frequency Change
As highlighted in the section on Amplitude and Frequency, it’s simply not true that change happens faster across the board. But some things have absolutely accelerated.
The trick is to understand what and why.
Technology strips the friction from innovation, distribution, commerce and communication.
Creatives, scientists and engineers assisted by digital tools and automation can research, design, prototype and prove ideas faster than ever before.
Globalised supply chains and digital communication make it easier than ever to access suppliers around the world and move goods or deliver services at low cost.
Electronic banking interconnections, digital currencies and credit make it much easier to move money in return for those products and services.
Digital communications channels allow ideas, media, and software to move incredibly fast, accelerating trends and memes, and rapidly shifting the locus of the ‘water cooler conversation’.
The result is that we have an accelerated turnover of products and services in those domains that have few restrictions, be they capital, regulatory, risk-based etc.
Organisations and individuals need to change their behaviour in order to cope with this High Frequency Change, adopting - I would argue, with no self interest at all - the tools of Applied Futurism.
We also have massively increased choice, and that has its own implications, like Cultural Fracture.
Why does it matter?
The result is that we have an accelerated turnover of products and services in those domains that have few restrictions, be they capital, regulatory, risk-based etc. Organisations and individuals need to change their behaviour in order to cope with this High Frequency Change, adopting - I would argue, with no self interest at all - the tools of Applied Futurism.
Let me give you a couple of personal examples.
When I started my first business, getting all the basics set up - bank account, company registration etc - took weeks. And needed lots of professional assistance. These days you can do it in hours, on your sofa, on a phone, with a glass of wine in your hand. I often joke that the biggest risk used to be that I would buy something stupid on eBay after a few glasses of wine. Now I might wake up having started a company.
Before I even entered the world of work, I studied Mechatronic Engineering at Lancaster. Part of the course was learning computer aided design (CAD), the tools with which most products are designed these days, from bridges to smartphones. Back then the tools were slow and clunky, and hard to use. Fast forward 25 years and my kids were using the modern equivalents to design their own dolls house furniture and 3D print it. They weren’t even 10 years old.
So, technology strips friction from innovation, production, distribution and communication. But there are also second order effects. This lowering of friction means we also have massively increased choice, and that has its own implications, like Cultural Fracture.