Growth 2025 Roadmap: Start Universal Exponential Growth
Could a leading company disrupt and lead the economy by solving low economic growth, inequality and the decline of the middle class?
Business thrives on optimism, but today’s forecast is gloom and doom.
Today’s leaders risk total failure. Due to tech-driven Digital Transformation the experts forecast that “75% of the S&P 500 will be replaced by 2027.”
Even if you only have a good job, widely quoted research forecasts the automation of up to 47% of today’s jobs.
Capitalism and “democratic” politicians are widely disbelieved. They have spent decades distributing most of the economic growth to the wealthy, while lower paid workers are usually worse off. GDP per capita is up by 78% since 1980, but real median wages are only up 5%.
Anger and anxiety are everywhere, especially from large numbers of hard-working people who believe the system is rigged. Their anger now threatens to disrupt the prosperous global economic system: Whether it is Brexit in the UK, Trump in America, Marie Le Pen in France or similar movements in other countries, the movements of globalism and optimism are threatened.
Today’s political and corporate leaders think the world we lived in will be similar in the future, just ”more digital.” None of them realize how the world could go through a phase change from the scarcity we have always known to the start of universal prosperity on a potentially far more successful planet.
If you’re a CXO executive at a leading company, how will you plan and deliver continuing leadership by your company?
The biggest pain point: Growing populist rejections of capitalism and governments
Since about 1980, the elites-focused distribution of economic growth has triggered widespread rejections of governments, democracy and capitalism. At the same time, the rise of computing, networking and digital access to knowledge and tools have started transforming the economy.
By now, your company’s biggest problems seem beyond your executive control — digital disruptions are impacting your company, in the midst of:
- Stagnant economies
- Inequality
- Declining middle class and their consumption
- Elites-directed democracies
- Seemingly intractable rejections of capitalism and captured “democratic” governments
Your control over your company’s future appears threatened: Join the herd of companies that will collectively spend over $1 trillion on their Digital Transformations during the next decade. All your company can do is find and accelerate new technology disruptions, with ever-faster digital advances from competitors who will collectively transform your industry.
One huge risk: You will fail to innovate enough and be left behind like Nokia was after Apple transformed smart phones.
Your even bigger risk: Rising anger will bring populist leaders to power, and destroy your position—like Britain’s elites just discovered. You think your markets are protected by your connections in Washington and state capitols—but they can’t protect you if they’re swept aside by populist anger.
Just because your company is winning today doesn’t mean you will win in the future — even if your company is one of the high-tech leaders of today’s surging Internet growth.
Will a people-first Digital Earth transform everything?
Digital disruption is now forecast for every industry. As transformation scales, this will add people and the world: Both personal productivity and the world economy will be the next disruptions.
The big surprise will be a Global Digital Transformation that eclipses individual company transformations. Part of that surprise will be Personal Exponential Growth that includes everyone — with new abilities, achievements and control by every person.
Here’s an example: Today, everyone is wirelessly surrounded by the world’s best knowledge and digital resources. But these are disconnected from what we do on our digital devices and services.
Active Knowledge adds the bridge. It turns the steps we do into triggers, and delivers the “next best step” in a task, or the “short path” to a successful “customer journey.”
During that personal and private interaction, Active Resources adds immediate access to the best available digital resource to succeed immediately. Corporations will provide these by remote control, so all their employees perform at the highest levels. A sharing economy will want this so everyone can become the world’s best at everything—turning many of tech‘s products and services into shared global resources.
Active Knowledge and Active Resources are not education or critical thinking. They’re IA — Intelligence Amplification that combines the Internet of Things data, big data analytics, machine learning, remote control and more.
This will be like step-by-step GPS directions that direct people to their destinations. GPS became an everyday expectation in just a few years.
After this transition, humanity’s best knowledge and best resources will find everyone during their moments of need. At first, this will transform parts of searching, advertising, shopping and learning.
Next, Adam Smith’s “visible hand of the market” (from 1776) will be turned into the “visible hand of the market.” Successes, failures and unmet needs will be known to each company that provides Active Knowledge. Gaps will be filled by developing new products and services. Once proven these will be delivered by Active Knowledge during those moments of need, worldwide.
Human growth engineering will become a revenue-producing process, then a profession. Learning will be by the system, and everyone’s abilities will rise without needing classes or degrees.
The most valuable corporate position will be to sit on top of the flow of information and see the world’s steps, successes and gaps — from running the invisible, embedded Active Knowledge and Active Resources channels.
Every missed step can include 2-way learning: each person can gain some productivity immediately, and the vendor might gain a transaction if the person switches to the world’s best resource for that task.
Everyone can raise themselves a little today, by being connected. Then everyone can rise a bit more tomorrow. Over time, the world will climb to the top of humanity’s combined abilities.
Active Knowledge is one of seven components and five results that are in the new Growth 2025 Roadmap that apply to solving low economic growth, inequality and middle class decline. This Roadmap introduces some parts of the new Expandiverse Global Technology Architecture.
This isn’t the only Roadmap. These first resources include 4 more Roadmaps and 3 Executive Briefings.
As a CXO executive, these will show you a new way to think about your company’s future. You will realize that your company and its IT vendors can build this. To fit your business, these Roadmaps can be cherry picked or custom designed to help you lead this new kind of people-first Digital Earth.
How can your company take advantage of this?
Today’s changes arrive faster than ever. Your company could deliver the coming Global Digital Transformation to help everyone achieve upward, giving your company a world leading role.
The best process is a two-speed strategy: Start by focusing on your current business to produce the resources needed. For example, many industries are like cable TV and Internet access vendors, mobile communications vendors, and similar oligopolies. Use your dominance to generate resources from captured markets that are protected by Washington, Wall Street and state capitals.
In parallel, budget some of those resources for this leap-ahead strategy to capture tomorrow’s Digital Earth—before a competitor takes it first.
To lead tomorrow’s Digital Earth, use lean design-testing to develop your industry leadership first, by adding new Expandiverse abilities for your industry’s consumers. This can start quickly by using today’s networks and devices to deliver a customer-centered DEaaS platform — Digital Earth as a Service.
By starting soon you could drive your industry leading platform to grow its ecosystem through 2018–2020. As you gain traction and prove a repeatable model, scale it to a Digital Earth platform by 2025. During those years, capture multiple industries and markets worldwide, and work with governments to secure them.
The real destination will help drive your company to the top: Everyone, everywhere, can start rising to the top for the first time in history. Without revolutions and without attacking those at the top.
That Expandiverse goal is to start universal prosperity. This is based on Human Exponential Growth Engineering, which helps everyone achieve their full human potentials every minute. That includes a new Business and Society Maturity Model, to develop a successful planet where personal greatness becomes the norm.
But could your company ever decide to lead today’s world toward planetary success? Will you commit even a small team to turn today’s huge problems and frustrations into the world’s biggest business opportunity?
This historic decision has no other alternatives.
Because of digital’s network effects, there will be only a few leaders in tomorrow’s winner-take-all Digital Economy. Only one Google rules search and smart phone operating systems, There is only one Amazon in shopping, and Facebook owns social media and is pursuing digital living.
This makes your company’s Digital Transformation Strategy binary: Get to the top, or go home.
Your company will either be an owner of the Digital Economy, be owned, or lead an Expandiverse Digital Earth where everyone wins.
Since the Digital Economy is already substantially owned, you’re too late if you’re not one of today’s tech leaders. The world’s connected billions of people are already claimed, tracked, targeted and monetized at every turn.
Your company has only one option to get to the top: Either lead your industry then a Global Digital Transformation, or go home.
If you’re quick you could be “the one” leading company. But the hope here is many companies will see the dangers, and the dream, and decide to Lead the Word. Then they might all win—along with every person, everywhere.
This article was originally published as the introduction to the Growth 2025 Roadmap, as Growth Roadmap: Solve inequality, low economic growth and the decline of the middle class.
The Digital Earth 2025 website provides access to Roadmaps and online Briefings. It also includes videos and foresights into the future of Business, Technology, World, Health, Education, Living, Entertainment and Opinion.
Dan Abelow’s latest invention, the Expandiverse, is new technology for building a people-first Digital Earth. Its first patent has already been cited over 500 times by subsequent patents. His latest project helps build a Global Digital Transformation by posting Roadmaps and foresights at DigitalEarth2025.com, with technology and services at Expandiverse.com.
Dan is an independent inventor, author, speaker and technology consultant. His previous patents have been licensed by over 500 corporations that include Apple, Google, Microsoft, Samsung Electronics and others. He holds degrees from Harvard and the Wharton School.
