Thread by @swardley

X : Your peace, war and wonder cycle
Me : ... yes?
X : ... what did you mean by social change?
Me : Example?
X : This ...

https://twitter.com/swardley/status/751433615007969280

Me : Oh. Social stuff will happen, kicking off around 2025-2030 and ongoing to 2040.
X : What stuff?
Me : There are couple of different paths, anyway that's from a time ago.
X : You're not answering.
Me : I know. But we will see soon enough.

X : Still not any clearer. Perhaps put your predictions in escrow?
Me : No interest. I've even removed it from the heatmap and I don't make any claim other than it was a mistake to include it in the first place. On the upside it got me thinking more about culture and society ...

... however I do see encouraging changes of behaviour that are happening e.g. in the last population study I did of companies. There are many paths.

X : I still don't understand the social change bit.
Me : Gosh, you're not giving up. There are reasons why I've been banging on about have that societal discussion around the balance of Me (the ethics of choice) vs We (the ethics of care) ... there are reasons why ...

... why I talked about brexit as a release valve for what was happening (remember I did the underlying work on the heatmap back in 2014) .... there are reasons why I've banged on about integrity, why Corbyn offered a different path etc ...

.... there are reasons why I bang on about adapting to this virtual first world, about adopting those next generation practices ... that social change is all about reforming starting sometime 2025-2030 running through until 2040, that could mean ...

.... anything between nothing much, a new society (good) or a new society (bad) or the end of society as we know it. I don't know which path we're on, all I could say back in 2014 is that change seemed to be heading towards us. It was a mistake to include it which is why I don't.

X : So, what's going to happen?
Me : I have no idea. None whatsoever. All I could say was change seemed to be heading towards us and it might be a good idea to have those discussions like the Me vs We etc. To think about this stuff.
X : Are we?
Me : In the West? No.

X : That's a bit of useless statement. Change is going to happen, we should talk about it.
Me : Yes. Which is why it was a mistake to include it in the heatmap and I've removed it since.
X : What was that based upon?
Me : Specific weak signals based upon text analysis.

X : But I thought maps can help anticipate change?
Me : Yes, when that change is based upon aggregate market action i.e. we can sense compute is shifting from product to utility but we can't sense who will make the first move (individual actors actions) ...

... the weak signals give me an sense of when a change is coming. It's easier with discrete tech than wider meanings. To try and work out the impact then you have to map that space but that assume you have access to the components that matter ...

i.e. you can't map brexit when no-one knows what the key 100 value chains are to the UK. We've been learning this lesson during covid that understanding those chains (i.e. supply chains) would be really useful. It's hard to map when no-one knows the chains ...

... it's often the same problem with the climate field. Now, take something like society ... well, I have very basic map of culture (it needs decades of work) but ...

... I am nowhere near the level of sophistication needed to try and anticipate future societal changes. Things like cloud, serverless and other discrete tech were a walk in the park by comparison - though that didn't stop most execs from messing it up.

X : If you suspect change but don't know the chains or the maps then what do you do?
Me : You guess based on little information i.e. you kick the ball in some direction in the totally dark room and hope it reveals something.