Thinque Futurist Blog by Anders Sorman-Nilsson

Re-Emergence: the 2nd Renaissance of Human Creativity

Written by Anders | October 20, 2020
If digital disruption was the dress rehearsal for your business model’s transformation, COVID19 became the burning platform. By now, we know that this virus has wreaked havoc on lives and livelihoods. None of us, professional, essential worker or otherwise, has been immune to either type of future shock.

But what does the world beyond the pandemic look like? And how do we as humans prepare ourselves for it?
 
Will we be going back to the status quo after lockdowns ease, or will we be forever transformed? What will we value, and how will we be spending our disposable income? What technologies are here to stay? Will we be migrating back into cities for work, or stay at home? Will the physical and virtual continue to blend? Will frugality be the new norm? What consumer behaviour will shape the commerce of tomorrow?

Beyond COVID19, will we continue to be germophobes, or will the ‘2 Second Rule’ ever make a comeback? Did Corona deliver a deadly blow to the ‘Sharing Economy’? Have we finally understood exponentiality and science, and how to respond to it? Will we be ok with living in surveillance states, and will sustainability become the central tenet of the near horizon future?

Importantly, what can we learn from disruptive events in history and are we now potentially at the dawn of the 2nd Renaissance of human creativity and flourishing?    

Questions abound. And while answers about the future are not definitive, imagining emerging future worlds can help us prepare for tomorrow, and enable us to accelerate out of the curve today.

While history doesn’t necessarily repeat itself, occasionally it rhymes. After disruptive pandemics like the black plague, human ingenuity has flourished.

Structural and existential shocks can bring about values and behavioural shifts that usher in transformative new worlds.

I believe we are at the beginning of such a re-set. Let us decode tomorrow in the 2nd Renaissance.
 
 
 
I am addressing the concept of the 2nd Renaissance at the 2020 CPA Congress, so make sure you check out this virtual keynote. 
 
If you have an upcoming virtual (or physical) conference, strategy retreat, or team meeting and want to inject some empowering news about the near future, reach out today to book keynote speaker Anders Sorman-Nilsson.