Part 4 of the Fourth Revolution Manifesto is now online!

Today, in our daily life, there are already precursors of the Fourth Revolution that transform deeply our world. Things that don’t fit with the conventional world-view of the Industrial Age. Find out more about FOUR PRECURSORS of the FOURTH REVOLUTION you meet everyday in your life.

Fourth Revolution Manifesto part IV cover

You can access the fourth part of the Fourth Revolution Manifesto – FOUR PRECURSORS of the FOURTH REVOLUTION by clicking on the link. You can also read and share the document on Scribd – it has a great reader and can also be used as a backup if the above link does not work: the Fourth Revolution Manifesto – part IV on Scribd .

Don’t hesitate to comment and bring in suggestions in the comments to this blog post!

Can’t wait to see the follow-up? Next week we’ll dive deep into the consequences of the Fourth Revolution in the organizations – the Organization Revolution!

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How our perception of our environment shifted in the 1960's

In the 1960’s for the first time ever, we took pictures of Earth from space. From space!…

The Earth appeared to all eyes like a fragile, small, blue sphere teaming with life in the middle of inhospitable space.
fragile earth

The mindset shift which followed cannot be underestimated.

At the same period there started to be significant pollution scandals, observation of severe health effects of industrial activities, and large scale environmental disruptions. But no event touched humankind globally like these pictures.

For all of previous mankind history, nature was to be exploited. Humankind exploitation capabilities increased dramatically with each Revolution. The Industrial Age was able to lead to global changes in the Earth atmosphere with long term consequences.

Now, for the first time, nature had to be protected. For the sake of Humankind. For this small blue ball in the middle of the void, this miraculous sparkle of life.

This mindset shift is in opposition to Industrial Age mindset and to the mindset of all previous Ages.

It is a true precursor of the Fourth Revolution.

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Contraception – a new freedom factor – another precursor of the Fourth Revolution

When cheap, reliable contraception appeared in the 1960’s it was a social transformation. For the first time ever women could choose whether and when to have children.

Social shifts were deep. While they are still not entirely widespread when it comes to equal opportunity between genders, a long way has already been done towards it.

Half of humankind got an unprecedented freedom to decide on their life.

The next generation got an unprecedented opportunity: to be mostly desired children.

Each Humankind Revolution increases the freedom and availability of an increasing proportion of the population.

Since the 1960’s, the freedom and availability of half of humankind got liberated.

That’s another deep precursor of the Fourth Revolution.

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When you buy a manufactured item, you buy more and more intellectual work

A manufactured widget today has much more brain content than ever before.

Armies of engineers, designers, market specialists are engineering, designing, optimizing, marketing it.

Manufactured widgets do not come any more as a standard commodity. They have to be different. They have to be unique. They have to have options and be customizable.

It takes today 15 years and billions of dollars of intellectual work to design a new aircraft type, and hundreds need to be sold to get the money of its design back.
Airbus 380

Fifty years ago it took a few million dollars, a handful of engineers and two years. A few dozen of models sold, and that was enough to ensure fortune for the manufacturing company.

The same trend is at work in the automotive industry. Developing a new car type takes billions of dollars of intellectual work.

So, even standard manufactured widgets contain a lot more intellectual work than a few decades ago.

Not only manufacturing industries loose weight compared to the services industry, but even within them, the shift has occurred. When you buy a car, a large chunk of its price is to pay for intellectual work. Not for extracting and refining the raw material, or manufacturing the car. For pure intellectual work.

The Fourth Revolution is already at work in the economy.

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Part 3 of the Fourth Revolution Manifesto is on line !

The collective cognitive capability of humankind is once again deeply transformed by a new, ground breaking communication technology. Find out HOW cheap, long distance interactive communication transforms our collective cognitive capabilities!

Fourth Revolution Manifesto part III cover

You can access the third part of the Fourth Revolution Manifesto – HOW the collective cognitive capability of humankind is once again transformed! by clicking on the link. You can also read and share the document on Scribd – it has a great reader and can also be used as a backup if the above link does not work: the Fourth Revolution Manifesto – part III on Scribd .

Don’t hesitate to comment and bring in suggestions in the comments to this blog post!

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How value has shifted to the service economy in less than a decade

In the Industrial Age, extractive and manufacturing companies were the largest and the most powerful.

They were the absolute majority of the top companies until 1985.

They were the absolute rulers of the economy.

Then, in less than a decade, they became a minority. They got overtaken by service industries – banks, insurance companies, internet companies. Today they represent less than 30% of the top companies.

We still don’t realize how this shift is deeply transforming the economic landscape. We don’t realize how pure extractive and manufacturing value has decreased relative to the value of services and creativity.

When will we start realizing that the economic system has already started its Revolution? When will we start to realize that the bumps of the economy we are going through are but the painful adjustment of our economy to the Fourth Revolution value production system?

When will we start leaning into this new value system instead of trying to revert to the Industrial Age view of the economy?

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Creativity: the power of disciplined delivery

Already 50 posts in this blog!!

To tell the truth, at the beginning I doubted I would have inspiration for more than 20 posts!!

And then I gave me a rule – publish 3 posts a week.

Sometimes I am inspired and I can write 5 posts in a day.
And sometimes I am right there in front of my screen… stuck… what clever stuff could I talk to them about?

But because I need to deliver, I get my creative resources together and I do.

Of course all the posts are not great, have not the same appeal. But at the end – the discipline of delivery obliges to be creative. And I am quite happy about the overall result.
Salvador Dali
Wait… discipline and creative are two words that don’t go together?

The creative artist is often depicted as somebody who has no discipline in his life at all!..

But maybe that’s just what conventional wisdom wants us to think. Scratching the varnish, one often finds that successful artists are disciplined in their own way.

When do you start the discipline of delivering to enhance your creativity?

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The second part of the Fourth Revolution manifesto is on line!

Cheap, long distance interactive communication is NEW! Understand what has changed in the last 20 years that triggers the Fourth Revolution.

Fourth Revolution Manifesto part II cover

You can access the second part of the Fourth Revolution Manifesto – Cheap, long distance interactive communication is NEW by clicking on the link. You can also read and share the document on Scribd – it has a great reader and can also be used as a backup if the above link does not work: the Fourth Revolution Manifesto – part II on Scribd .

Don’t hesitate to comment and bring in suggestions in the comments to this blog post!

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The case for collaborative consumption

This presentation by Rachel Botsman on TED about collaborative consumption is an eye-opener about the power of the Fourth Revolution in the field of consumption.

It gives revolutionary ideas in particular about what to do of the unwanted Christmas presents!

It also gives revolutionary ideas about how our day-to-day behaviors about consumption will be revolutionized.

When you think about it, consumption currently is in the broadcasting stage. The Broadcasting intermediaries are the stores and the department-stores. You buy what they have. They decide which products are being sold. They spend huge money in advertisement to try to influence tastes.

Like publishers will progressively disappear in the field of book and music publishing, so will the broadcasters of consumption. It has started. The infinite shelves of online stores like Amazon reference many more articles, and the collaborative platform of ratings and discussion gives the power to the consumers.

That idea is scary. But so real. We need to understand its intricate consequences.

Consumption broadcasters beware! The Fourth Revolution is on you! If you want to survive, anticipate!

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Choice and life purpose – the lesson of Matthieu Ricard

Do you know Matthieu Ricard? Matthieu Ricard

He is a great example to show that one’s purpose in life is often concealed and revealed only later. And also, that one must make real choices to reveal one’s purpose.

If you haven’t heard about him, you might want to take a few minutes to discover this personality. It’s a person worthwhile listening to with great insights for modern life.

One particularly interesting thing is that, being a young scientific researcher, son of a prominent philosopher, fully embedded in modern society’s elite, he decided as a young man to leave everything and seek spirituality as a Tibetan Buddhist monk. He left the comfort of Europe to join a spiritual quest. He became the disciple of great spiritual leaders there. He became prominent in the Tibetan Buddhist community.
Then around the year 2000 he somehow managed to reconcile his scientific mindset and his Buddhist monk experience, by being a key driver into the investigation of the brain activity of experienced meditators. Mind exercise is shown to change significantly the brain!
He is now a bestseller author, writing marvelous books about happiness and a number of other issues, gives talks worldwide.

Matthieu Ricard made a tremendous choice to leave modern society, living for 20 years with very little resources in remote places in Asia. He is finally contributing much more powerfully to the world and our understanding of ourselves than if he had stayed a PhD student and became a researcher like many others in a research institute. He probably could not anticipate this when he made his initial choice.

What a better example than this one to show that one’s purpose in life is often concealed and revealed only later? To show that one must make real choices to reveal one’s purpose? That otherwise it may stay forever latent?.

What REAL choice will you make in 2011?

Do you want to know more about Matthieu Ricard?
There are a lot of resources by him on internet – videos, pictures. You can visit for example Matthieu Ricard’s website or watch one of his videos on Youtube. For example, his video on “changing your mind – changing your brain” is a great insight into brain modification induced by training.

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Publication of the first part of the Fourth Revolution manifesto!

The Fourth Revolution Manifesto part I – a short history of humankind – 100,000 years in 3 Revolutions is finally out !

This is also to announce the kick-off of the publication of the Fourth Revolution Manifesto!

Fourth Revolution Manifesto part I cover

You can access the first part of the Fourth Revolution Manifesto – a short history of humankind – 100,000 years in 3 Revolutions by clicking on the link. You can also read and share the Fourth Revolution Manifesto – part I on Scribd .

Don’t hesitate to comment and bring in suggestions in the comments to this blog post!

Note on the future publication of the manifesto

Because of the amount of information and to make it more readable, I have decided to split it into 8 parts. These 8 parts will be progressively released over the next 2 month.

Why?

  • Each part will be more readable, being around 30-40 pages.
  • The reader can focus on the sections he or she will want to read… and skip the rest!
  • It is expected that the progressive release of the Manifesto will foster its wide communication.

The first Part of the Fourth Revolution Manifesto is published for the New year 2011 as a good start for an exceptional year!

… and the plan is to publish one part every week for the next weeks, around Sundays!

To discover all parts of the Fourth Revolution Manifesto, here is the link access the Manifesto page on the Fourth Revolution website

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Let your light shine. Happy new year!

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?”
by Marianne Williamson, American Author and Peace activist, in “A return to love”, 1992

At the time of the new year when we are thinking about the year ahead and possibly forging some new year’s resolutions or writing down our objectives for the year, what could be a better inspirational quote?

Happy new year and I wish you great, meaningful undertakings in 2011.

“[…] And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others”

Let your light shine. Contribute to the world. And help us get free.

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