TECH

The Fifth Conference launches new discussion topic

TECH - a discussion on technology and its impact

Brief introduction

Over the next few weeks we will be publishing a series of interviews and opinion pieces on the impact of technology. In the near future, it is argued, technology will be everywhere. In our daily lives, in our industries and the economy at large, technology will be all pervasive. And therefore we will become more reliant on technology; at every level. But are we prepared? What will this mean to us, as individuals in our daily lives, but also as entrepreneurs, as managers, as policy makers?

At The Fifth Conference we address the issues that drive our future; call them ‘growth drivers.’ Technology is one of those growth drivers, or rather; it is the patriarch of all growth drivers. Sometimes a growth driver is an urgent and important problem that needs fixing, like global warming or the state of our roads. But technology is different. Technology is de facto about change. It is usually via technology that we come up with better and easier ways of doing things. A Neanderthal sharpened a stone to better feed and clothe himself. Today we’re trying to capture carbon so that we don’t boil the planet. But technology isn’t simply about the means to an end; often it becomes or creates new ‘ends’.

New technological developments can have unintended consequences. What at first may seem a somewhat unassuming tool—e.g. the first bulky mobile phones, or even Twitter—later turns out to have dramatic impact on the way we go about our daily business. This is the type of change that sociologists study. Technology also is able to ‘disrupt’ entire industries; think of the music or the newspaper business. And perhaps less visible to non-corporate types, technology is changing the way that organisations ‘organise’ themselves.

Interestingly, sometimes one technological development can trigger a run-away train of new technological developments. This happens when one technology becomes a ‘platform’ for the development of others. Today, all eyes are on the iPad to see what it will spawn; but the iPad is itself a progeny of the ultimate platform, the internet.