“I don’t believe in futurists that much anymore – they are usually wrong,” he [Ito] says, responding to a label that is often applied to him. “I’m calling myself a ‘nowist,’ and I’m trying to figure out how to build up the ability to react to anything. In other words, I want to create a certain agility. The biggest liability for companies now is having too many assets; you need to learn how to be fluid and agile.
‘It’s kind of a spiritual thing,” he continues. “You want to have your peripherals wide open and adapt as quickly as you can. I think that will be an important survival trait of people and companies in the future.”
– Joi Ito, Director of the MIT Media Lab on trends to watch in 2013.
I couldn’t agree more. Your organizational goals and digital strategy need to be declarative and not reactive – but peripheral vision, fluidity, and agility are vital for success in a rapidly changing digital environment. Without understanding the speed and direction of the changes around you, it’s easy to bury yourself in a five-year-plan to nowhere.
• Survival traits for 2013: agility and adaptation •