The Age of Discontinuity

This month marks my third anniversary as the CEO of the Society for Information Management. Of course, that means two-thirds of my tenure has been during the pandemic, when every aspect of business and life has been disrupted. As we begin to steer back toward our “new normal,” I reflect on an almost daily basis about how our association, our members, and their employers have changed during these unprecedented times.

?Last week, the consulting giant Deloitte borrowed a phrase from Peter Drucker in their report on “socially responsible leadership in an age of discontinuity.” Each of the five areas they address relate to SIM and its members, but none more than the first:

?“Over the past 60 years, the primary focus of technology has been digital computing, which has changed the world at a staggering pace. Over the next decade, these advances will have an ever-expanding influence and transform the art of the possible across societies, economies, and businesses.”

The timing they note tracks with the creation, in 1968, of the Society for Management Information Systems, a place for “digital computing” leaders to come together to share, learn, and grow, and later our reorganization in 1982 as the Society for Information Management, with a greater focus on the leadership aspect of technology.

I love that idea of transforming the art of the possible, which the report explains as it highlights the rapid change of pace that is before us: “We are primed for truly unprecedented levels of technological innovation and the emergence of an entirely new scientific discovery model fueled by exponential growth in digitized data and increasingly powerful AI and machine learning algorithms.?New worlds are emerging… each generating both remarkable new opportunities for human progress and profound new ethical dilemmas and challenges.”

The five “new worlds” of technology they describe are fascinating:

?Inner World: augmenting healthcare (prevention, diagnosis, and treatment) through data to improve outcomes, not only to increase how long we live but how healthy we remain

?Mirror World: as cyberspace becomes the “twin” of reality, we will increase our ability to solve problems faster, but technology is subject to attack, distortion, and other challenges; cybersecurity is of paramount concern

?Off World: the use of space will enhance virtually every aspect of life, and technology companies are now every bit as important as government agencies, but we need some kind of global governance authority to insure peaceful and collaborative use of the cosmos

?War World: some of our greatest technological advances have been to reduce military casualties on the battlefield and to promote security, but conflict can be exacerbated through cyberattacks and disinformation… an enormous problem we are seeing play out every day in the news

?Habitable World: technology is working at a rapid pace to halt climate change, but the scale of transformation needed to protect the resources of our planet requires more than just innovation, it requires collaboration and cooperation at virtually every level of society

?At SIM, we say that our community and our mission are at the intersection of business, technology, and leadership. It’s hard to think of a more compelling case for this tenet than the Deloitte report, which challenges us with this charge: “Bold action will be required from business and other leaders, as we endeavor to forge a shared future that is productive and sustainable, meritocratic and equitable, profitable and purposeful, logical and human-centric, and competitive but also deeply collaborative.”

?Let’s be bold!