Released: 28/01/2019
ISBN: 9781789014884
eISBN: 9781789012941
Format: Hardback/eBook
We live in disruptive times. The world is changing faster than ever before, leaving people dazed, businesses struggling, economies floundering and societies fracturing. But why? Transition Point is the result of over five years of research to establish the answer; a breathtaking tale of freedom, unintended consequences and disruptive technologies that starts 1000 years ago and ends up in the second half of the 21st Century.
The world is changing faster than ever before, leaving people dazed, businesses struggling, economies floundering and societies fracturing. But why? Transition Point is the result of years of research to establish the answer; a breath-taking three-part investigation into the cause, nature and effect of technological change and the future social, economic and cultural challenges we are likely to encounter as a result.
Part one dives into a historical analysis of why progress suddenly and exponentially exploded in the 18th Century. It investigates the drivers of technological change, why it happens in waves, and details the different waves we have experienced to date. It not only explains the nature of technological change, but uniquely explores the social, economic and political factors that enable or suppress it.
Part Two of the book then examines the breath of technologies in the current wave, and their impact on the world of work. From advanced robotics through to artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles and the blockchain, Culey explains how these technologies are converging together to automate the entire global supply chain, creating the potential to replace human labour and human cognitive skills.
Finally, in the book's third and biggest section, the book examines what impact this technological change will have on our business practices, our economy, the nature of work, our society and on our future as a species. It highlights trends that are leading us towards some very dystopian outcomes, from mass unemployment to a totalitarian society of constant surveillance. It also demonstrates why this period may represent the beginning of the end for Homo sapiens.
As Klaus Schwab, founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, stated; "We stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In its scale, scope, and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before." Transition Point explains why.
This is a fantastic book. Really well researched, well structured and makes sense of an enormous number of apparently contrasting or contradictory events. And it's not guesswork. The author cites dozens of real life examples of some of the future changes that are already happening. It's fascinating.
It has left me with a similar energised feeling about my understanding of the world and how I could be affected by it in the future as I was by Charles Handy's "The Empty Raincoat" in the 1980s - and that book enabled me to radically adjust (for the better) the way I ran my life to get the most out of the forthcoming technological disruption. I fully believe that I will be able to use Transition Point to provide me with pointers on how to ride the wave over the next 25 years too.
I bought, read and thoroughly enjoyed the e-book. It took a while because there's so much to the story and it introduced a whole new set of ideas and opinions that I wanted to reconcile and understand before moving on. There is so much detail and such strong sweeps of narrative that I also bought the paperback so I can refer to it and flick back and forth between ideas that spread across decades and even centuries.
A brilliant book for stimulating your mind and opening a window on how the future may look. I highly recommend it.
by Steve Corkhill
Sean Culey (SCOR-P, FCILT) advises leaders on how to develop and deliver new customer-centric business models and align their organisation to ensure they are executed successfully. He is also a Visiting Fellow at Cranfield University, a Fellow at the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (FCILT) and the UK's only certified SCOR Master Instructor. He is also a futurist for IBM Watson Supply Chain.
He is also the author of numerous articles on business transformation, supply chains and disruptive technologies that have been published in magazines such as Forbes, The World Financial Review, The European Business Review and The Chief Executive Officer.
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