Some people have an instinct that is the ability to understand how connection changes the nature of everything .
30 DISRUPTION NETWORKS
Some people have an instinct that is the ability to understand how connection changes the nature of everything .
5 . Understanding the age we are living in ; that financial volatility wasn ’ t just a feature of 2008 , but will be part of our lives for a long time . In the financial system , the more people who are connected and the faster those connections , the more stuff goes on that nobody can predict . Being able to take informed risks is essential . Successful people do things that have not been done before , but are cognizant of the fact that the environment they operate in is one of instability .
THE BUSINESS CONTEXT
In a corporate setting , the Seventh Sense is that ability to sit in the boardroom and look at whatever it is you sell and see the way in which connections affect your company . That ’ s hard to quantify , but you will be able to quantify what happens to your business ; you ’ ll see retail sales flattening , or store traffic declining , or an increase in sales of certain products , and you might wonder why on earth this is happening . Those who have developed the Seventh Sense are able to understand these developments .
So many of the puzzles in our world – why can ’ t we beat ISIS ? Why is the middle class emptying out ? What is going on with our politics ? – all are rooted in the way that connected systems are redistributing power . I don ’ t just mean the Internet but connected systems of finance or DNA or data or people . They behave differently than older , top-down , industrial systems . The sooner businesses understand this , the faster they can adjust .
Business leaders must keep in mind that we are what we ’ re connected to . In fact , the very growth of the start-up economy has been accelerated because it is so much easier to draw on all kinds of resources . The trick for real growth is to get network effects running in your business : the idea that the more people who use it , the better it gets , so more people want to use it . So many big start-ups today succeed because they become platforms . The reality is , once you had five billion people connected , there was going to be something like Facebook – something was going to serve that role . I think that ’ s true for almost all the billion-plus user platforms on the planet today . If you have a multi-billion user company , then success might be near-inevitable .
To use the example of Facebook again , it discovered that if people joined and found ten friends in seven days they would stay . Every business has a connection formula like that and the puzzle is figuring it out with constant testing , probing and feedback . There are also certain network features , such as speed , that can help a new firm get an edge on a network . The overall point , I think , is that as the world gets more connected , the firms in a position to accelerate and improve that connection – for data or products or ideas – should do very well . So , the secret is to decode what process will produce that for you .
WHY IT MATTERS
I have been asked why the Seventh Sense matters and my answer is this : we will soon be living inescapably inside connected systems and people need to be prepared for that . It is easy to feel overwhelmed by our era ; so much to master : modern warfare , complex politics , radically changing economics . We experience constant replacement of old technologies with new ones before we understand them . Future struggles are not about whether we are going to be enmeshed but , rather , the terms of that enmeshment .
We live in an age of leaders , whether they be business CEOs , politicians or military , who don ’ t have the technical instincts that the Seventh Sense demands and who lack fluency in the digital flux . We need men and women who can confidently command networks in a fight against network dangers . For example , more computer coding academies are needed , as is better popular education about network choices . Also , it is important to beware of handing over control to a new breed of “ technos ” who may or may not have a vision of the importance of keeping a balance with human needs .
Artificial intelligence ( AI ) is a big feature of this connectivity and raises significant questions : how do we design the topologies on which AI operates ? Can we protect ourselves ? These issues are already being debated in boardrooms , with many people thinking that AI is humanity ’ s greatest existential threat .
SECURITY IN A NETWORKED AGE
On the topic of threats , the connected world has immense power not only to create positive advancements , but to inflict grave harm . With this in mind , we need to gain security in a networked age . Here , it is important to understand that connectivity is power and , in our connected world , “ Gatelands ” may be the answer . That is , gated networks that are far more secure and run faster than open ones . Already , the world is
EMERGING MARKETS BUSINESS SUMMER 2017 ISSUE NO . 3