Almost everything we touch today was designed when energy, water, food and air were essentially free, or at least ample and consistently inexpensive. Not anymore.
Tomorrow, everything we touch will be designed knowing that these things are not only not free, but they must become more expensive.
It is easy to underestimate the scale of the change and the challenge we are talking about here.
This isn't about a globalized Prius or iPod. And it's not about "greening" or "optimizing" -- codewords for cost-shifting. Think much bigger.
This time may well be viewed as among the two or three most important times in human history, ranking among the grand shifts from hunting to harvesting, from tribalism to egalitarianism, and from mass illiteracy to mass literacy. Like all of these human miracles, massive flows in old ways and thinking were identified, understood and addressed with new ways and thinking. Innovation sprang from pessimism and brought fresh optimism with a clear path forward. Innovation disrupted and displaced entire cultures at the same time that the complete cultural conversation centered on the need to change.
Don't believe it? Look around. We're talking about rethinking everything all at the same time: our cars, boats and planes, our phones, networks and computers, our power plants, our houses, schools and books, our languages and bodies, our currency and banks and our food, medicine and water.
We're even using a new language to talk about it; a digital language, as opposed to a phonetic or an analog one. Digital seems better suited to the challenge.
Everything is on the table: even the ways that we talk, listen, think, create and do business in the first place.
How might a business that did well enough making things in the pre-limits world find a way to thrive in a world with limits? If cogent strategy and innovation provides a path forward and an opportunity to create value in new ways, how does an organization learn to do these things? Is it even possible?
We're building our business on the premise that it is not only possible -- it is vital. We see that when businesses commit to grappling with the big problems of the day -- they deliberately change and bring change -- it results in better lives and bring better living for people everywhere.
So we've assembled creative methods, powerful tools, and a vast network of connected and talented people all over the world to meet the new reality head on, seeing big problems not as threats, but great opportunities to thrive, in a finite world.
We're re-imagining everything: products, technologies, services, relationships, models and strategies. As importantly, we're working very closely with our clients to make certain that these things are put to good use.
You in?
