Over the last ten posts, we have been building a clearer picture of what it means to live in a world approaching a systemic turning point. We began by examining why today feels unusually active and uneven, then traced the deeper pattern behind major shifts in history. We explored how change accumulates, compresses, destabilizes, and eventually reorganizes life around new assumptions. We introduced the seven domains that shape every transition and showed why no single force ever moves a civilization forward on its own. We examined the three drivers that push societies across thresholds and built gauges that make systemic pressure legible. Using those gauges, we read four major transitions in the long arc of history: from hunter-gatherer life to agriculture, from agriculture to the Axial reorientation of ideas, from the Axial age to the Renaissance, and from the Renaissance into the Industrial world. We then applied the same lens to the present, showing why the 2020s feel dense, fast, and tightly connected. Most recently, we explored the possibility of another transition forming and the kind of governance required when intelligence itself becomes a shared utility. Together, these posts formed a simple arc: understand the moment, understand the mechanics, understand what may be forming next.
Continue readingCulture
Vignette: Cooking With Grandma’s Digital Twin
It’s a rainy Sunday in 2029. You step into your kitchen and greet a familiar voice:
“Wash your hands first — and don’t forget, you always overcook the garlic.”
It’s your grandmother. Or rather, her AI-trained twin — a rich synthesis of voice recordings, handwritten recipe notes, photos, and family video calls. Her likeness lives in your kitchen’s AI assistant, trained not only on the technical aspects of her cooking but the emotional cues too — her sayings, her pacing, even her eye-roll when you forget the bay leaves.
Tonight, you’re making her famous Sunday stew.
As you begin, her voice guides you through each step.
“This is the part where we stir slowly — remember how we’d hum together at this point?”
The AI pulls up a shared memory — a short home video from when you were seven, standing on a stool next to her, stirring that same pot. You smile. You hum.
As you plate the stew, she adds one last note:
“Serve it with that crusty bread from the bakery — just like Grandpa liked.”
The food is real, the memory is enhanced, and your kitchen has become a portal to the past — powered by code, but steeped in love, culture, and identity.
Breaking The Cycle: How Digital Twins Can Preserve Wisdom And Rewire The Future
History doesn’t just repeat itself because we forget the facts. It repeats because we lose the wisdom of those who lived through it. When the last voices of a generation fade – those who endured war, depression, migration, or reinvention – we lose more than stories. We lose anchors. We lose quiet guidance in moments of moral fog. We lose the ability to ask: “What would you have done?”
Continue readingUnlocking Human Potential – Thriving In A World Of Change
This series concludes by examining what it takes to thrive in the era shaped by the forces of knowledge (part one), invention (part two), and the second scientific revolution (part three). As these transformative forces unfold, organizations and societies must go beyond mere adaptation and learn to flourish amidst constant change. This section delves into the essential capabilities and strategies needed to navigate and actively shape our collective future in this new era of unparalleled opportunities and challenges.
Continue readingOrganizing For Future Readiness
Back in 2013, weak signals clearly pointed to a structural change that was desperately needed. In a Post from that year, I described the type of change I envisioned in a world that looked very different than the world where these structures were born. The pandemic, as it has on so many levels, made something lying beneath the surface very visible. What it should also illuminate for leaders is that the future is uncertain, approaching rapidly, and likely to contain regular extreme events. Those factors make future readiness crucial to viability. To be future-ready, and to operate in a world dominated by uncertainty and pace, structures must change. When I say structure, I mean a broad set of things to consider:
Continue readingEcosystem Readiness
As the world continues its march towards platform-supported ecosystems, organizational readiness becomes a critical area of focus. Four facets of an organization contribute or detract from success in an ecosystem world:
- The mental models that drive an organization
- The lens in which an organization views value creation and capture
- The orientation of an organization – which in most cases is shareholder value
- The organization’s culture
The growth engine that ecosystems represent will serve as a forcing function, pushing Organizations to Mature across these key facets. For example, I firmly believe that over time, a transition occurs from shareholder value to stakeholder value. This transition places purpose at the center, with shared value at its core (Click on the Visual to expand).
Reimagining the Future 