The Great Extinction Redux

Will future social scientists looking back on this age be puzzled by what so abruptly changed the economy, society, and the world business climate in just a few short years? If they’re probing for answers, I’ll assume they won’t blame a large heavenly object for today’s cataclysmic reordering. But, similar to the comet that struck earth and wiped out dinosaurs 65 million years ago, the rapid changes of our present period will likely lead to some business model extinctions.

Technology and the Internet are rapidly altering the business platform for almost all organizations. The changes are swift and deep. Books such as The World is Flat,  Three Billion New Capitalists and China Inc. predict sweeping transformations that will revolutionize the world. Of course, revolutions can be viewed as good or bad depending on if you are the “revolutioner” or the “revolutionee.”

The dinosaurs died because a catastrophic event almost instantly and profoundly destabilized their world. They couldn’t adapt fast enough and they were replaced by species that could.

I find the extinction analogies here intriguing. Futurists don’t have a great track record in predicting past a few years, and I don’t pretend to be one. However, most people in the business community can sense that the world around them is accelerating. Concurrently, many in business sense they have to speed up their strategic thinking and implementation to assimilate and monetize this rapid pace of change or they will risk becoming a footnote on a page of business history.

This will create turmoil in many industries, but, as always, turmoil is the cauldron of opportunity. There is sure to be a wealth of promise for those who are scanning the horizon and bringing about the incremental adjustments necessary to rapidly adapt to a new world.