Mastering the 4th Industrial Revolution

Recently, the World Economic Forum held its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. The group – a who’s who of global leaders in business – discussed what is being called the fourth Industrial Revolution. Consisting of developments that we are already familiar with like the Internet of Things (IoT) and others that are on the cusp of entering the mainstream like quantum computing, this latest industrial revolution is presenting some fresh challenges.
Before we get to that though, we should probably take a brief look at the other three Industrial Revolutions. After all, we usually only really talk about one. That one that we are so used to talking about began with the introduction of steam power. That brought us trains and boats, both things that made transportation of large amounts of materials over a long distance possible. The second was focused on electric power, giving people the ability to get much more work done with the flip of a switch and to literally keep the lights on all night long. The third industrial revolution came about with the advent of automation. Now we no longer have to rely strictly on people to get all the work done. Machines are literally making machines now, though still under human direction. This began in the 1960s with the introduction of the transistor and has driven much of our world from the tangible tactile world of the past, a world that is fairly simple to grasp, to the modern digital world in which many things are happening strictly electronically with processes that we can’t and may never be able to see. This is a world that is much more difficult to wrap our heads around. So it only makes sense that this new Industrial Revolution will be even harder to understand and adapt to. 
Strangely, as this latest stage in technological development gains traction, the gap between the non-technological and the technological is shrinking. Even in the business world, every company is a tech company on some level. This is just as true of small businesses run out of someone’s garage as it is of a multi-billion dollar corporation. That’s how you can buy a highly customized quilt from a company operating out of a pole barn in Michigan while you are sitting in a coffee shop in Seattle. They’ve understood the importance of data to their business and learned how to apply it to their situation.
So what are some of the problems and concerns brought about by the fourth industrial revolution? One of them is the fact that so many have a difficult time learning how to understand not just how to analyze data but how important it is in the first place. While some small businesses have done a great job learning how to use data to their advantage a massive number of others, even larger businesses are still a full industrial revolution behind the curve. They may realize they need to adapt but have no idea how. 
There are also concerns about how the latest round of development will hurt people and their ability to make a living. This is a legitimate concern. After all, once the car became viable on a large scale, there was little use for people who made wagons. Suddenly, there were whole groups of people who had to learn how to do something new. However, there were lots of new things to do. The move to cars actually created lots of new jobs that no one saw coming. Even now that a lot of those assembly lines are automated, there are still jobs repairing, designing, and installing the machines that build the cars. In short, while the concern is valid, especially in the short term, a standard feature of each industrial revolution has been the creation of jobs that no one could predict.
Another, more important problem is that as things become more digital, it will be harder to keep people at the center of everything. While the world’s economic and technological growth becomes less tangible it will be ever easier to make decisions in the abstract, to think only in terms of numbers and increasing the bottom line without concern for whether or not people are being helped or hurt by those decisions. 
That is TARTLE’s concern, to keep reminding people that while we don’t have to be afraid of the next Industrial Revolution, we do need to remember that it doesn’t happen without people and it should happen not for the benefit of a wealthy few but for the benefit of all.
What’s your data worth? www.tartle.co