Looking for your Christmas gift of 2018 industry predictions?
Then rush to the latest annual Economist Intelligence Unit prognostications, available in our publications folder.
What do companies (as opposed to everyone else), need to do to develop their resilience?
The Innovation Advisory of the Warren Centre, of which I am co-chair with Christine Chen, has offered some interesting thoughts on what companies need to do to get fit and resilient. Read more at https://thewarrencentre.org.au/resilient-businesses-building-businesses-maximise-innovation/ and https://thewarrencentre.org.au/resilient-businesses-building-businesses-maximise-innovation-part-2/
So what does Industry 4.0 offer to give, and take away?
We are seeing regular references, and exhortations from politicians (who would know nothing), to join the Industry 4.0 revolution before its too late. What is it? ever-ready Wikipedia tells us
“Industry 4.0 (4IR) is a name for the current trend of automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies. It includes cyber-physical systems, the Internet of things, cloud computing and cognitive computing.”
NESTA, the outstanding UK future-thinking organisation, provides some timely advice on greeting, and humanising, new waves of technology. Now is the time for:
- shifting the focus of 4IR from military and advertising to ends that really matter – healthcare, mobility and education
- shifting participation; development is largely hidden away in the big IT companies, and governments who will knee-jerk “commercial in confidence”; open it up to all.
- humanising 4IR – most of the focus is on the worst human traits – exploitation, demonisation, exclusion; turn its undoubted capacities to the human needs to care, cure and relate
- Proponents of 4IR ignore the long history of the complementary innovations that are needed to connect new technological capabilities to human needs.
To learn more about the taming of 4IR, go tohttps://www.nesta.org.uk/blog/how-can-fourth-industrial-revolution-be-made-good
Ron Johnston