I have been following Seth for a while now. I read one of his books and my RSS is full of his posts. Seth likes to talk about change. Change that is happening around us, affecting us immediately and fast. Seth talks about change a lot like many people do; however when he named this change a revolution, an end to an era and a start to a new one, it all became clearer to me.
Yes. Just like everything else, industrial era is soon to come to an end. Or, maybe, it did already. The problem is the realization, the awareness, embracing the change and act accordingly.
For a start, I will define a few things industrial revolution brought into our lives. Then, making a thought experiment, we will see how they are fading away.
- Output/Input was called efficiency. Decreasing input and increasing output was called profit.
- Product development was about manufacturing. Innovation meant cheaper and faster production.
- Management meant creating instructions for everyone to follow.
These are some of the many things industrial revolution standardized. We were born into them. We take them to be what they are and not to be changed.
In today’s world, being efficient is not adjusting the aforementioned ratio. It is about being different, remarkable and up-to-date. Manufacturing technologies are so sophisticated, that products are not designed according to manufacturing technologies. Products are just designed. Manufacturing will be done in a way or the other. For management, encouraging employees to follow instructions is not the way to go these day. Most organizations realized that employees given the opportunity to be creative, employees with fewer instructions and more willpower are more efficient.
Let’s embrace change. People and organizations who embrace change will make it to the end of the day. For the rest, it will be painful and slow as they fade away into history.
mehmettekin 