Digital Humans: Thriving in an Online World

Living in a Changing World

We have identified 23 trends that we think are at the heart of the digital change and are worth paying attention to. The impact of these trends echoes throughout this book. We want to understand how they are disrupting our current lives and explore the implications for how we might work, learn, and live in the future.

The history of work since the Industrial Revolution is about humans being treated like machines in a system optimized for profitability and efficiency. Digital is a rising tide that is causing a sea change in how people are prepared to work. People want to be treated as individuals and with respect. We all want to engage in work and live lives that give us meaning.

Our assumptions about how our organizations and institutions operate are being rewritten as we evolve in response to the changing digital reality. As Einstein said, ‘the survivors will be those who adapt to new conditions’. The best performers will seize the opportunity to leap far ahead. Those who are slower to adapt will find themselves challenged and possibly overwhelmed, by disruptive new types of organizations, unconstrained by any legacy systems.

We have identified a number of trends that are evidence of the changes we are experiencing. We have organized them into three sections: technology, work, and learning. We believe that the skills associated with learning are as fundamental to thriving in the digital realm as reading and writing were to survival in the post-agricultural ...