No, digitalization is not the biggest revolution of all time. It is just the beginning!

Interesting comments were posted on t3n in response to my last article. One of the topics was the significance of the digital transformation in a historical context. So here is an attempt to visualize the orders of magnitude and time intervals in order to show how exceptional the times we live in are.

(Reading time: 4 minutes)

“… to adapt to the ever-increasing digitalization of our world (which is certainly one of the greatest upheavals of all time)”

JR Brodersen

When I heard “the greatest upheaval of all time”, my thoughts faltered and I wrote more instinctively than thoughtfully in my reply comment:

“That’s where I think many people are wrong. Digitalization is not the biggest revolution of ALL time, it’s just the biggest so far.”

Is that really true? It is worth taking a look at the digital changes we are driving in a historical context. So here is a small, non-scientific list to illustrate the orders of magnitude:

Time horizon

On the X-axis we have the period of around 11,000 years. This is the time span in which human economic life has taken place up to now.

Technological development

Technological development (shown here in red). Here in annual, worldwide patent applications (from 1875).

The world population

The green curve shows the global population. Like technological development, the world’s population is growing exponentially. A great explanation of exponential growth can be found here.

Exponential technological progress

We must recognize this: Digitalization does not play a major role in the longer term. If we look at the figures and the visualization of them, we simply realize that we are living in an extraordinary time in terms of technological development and the development of humanity. More extraordinary than life in the Bronze Age, for example.

So is digitalization the biggest upheaval of all time? No, we have seen far too little of it for that. But even in a historical context, the statement is not formally correct. I know, it’s so academic that it’s no longer relevant.

What is relevant, however, is that the speed of technological progress has become so fast that we consciously perceive it within a lifetime. My grandmother grew up in a household that was not yet electrified and died when my company at the time already had an online store. Of course, my first company had an online store early on and my grandmother died late. Nevertheless, she experienced so many technological innovations in a single lifetime that her whole life changed completely (compared to her childhood). However, this development was still spread over decades and was only obvious and astonishing in flashback. In daily life, the change felt natural.

What we are experiencing today with the digital transformation is already significantly faster. Even my own everyday life is so different today than it was when I was a child (in terms of technological possibilities and otherwise, of course). But I don’t have to go back that far. Twenty years ago alone, today’s lifestyle would have been unthinkable.

A permanent disruption for our society and our economy

There are no signs that this growth in technological progress should slow down again. On the contrary. There is every indication that it will accelerate significantly in the future. The digital revolution is just the beginning. The beginning of a comprehensive upheaval that is coming faster than we have ever seen before. For society, this means that it will have to adapt to fundamental changes in ever shorter cycles. For example, imagine that in the foreseeable future there is a medication for cancer that cures 90% of patients permanently.

What would be a blessing on the one hand is also a social challenge, because what do we do with a society that is ageing even faster? How will the economy react if a much larger, broader range of services for older people has to be available within a short space of time? Probably not at all at first.

That’s why “disruption”!

The longer I use the term“perpetual disruption“, the more I like it. And at the risk of seeming stubborn, let me make a plea for it once again: I maintain that the technological advances will follow each other in such quick succession that the economic players in today’s structures and with today’s cultural background will not be able to keep up at all.

Companies that have not set themselves up as an agile company in good time and constantly keep an eye on research & development and society will always be confronted with disruption. That’s why it’s not about mastering the digital transformation, but about establishing a long-term culture that embraces change and can deal with it. Today’s digital is the mundane mandatory part from which you start as an entrepreneur. Or rather, it should be the mandatory part. Unfortunately, we are not there yet.