Excerpt from “Future Focus: Tapping into the Wealth In Digital”

By Wale Ameen

Looking back to predict the future:

Back in the 1920s, no one could have thought that cars would one day replace horse coaches and that jobs

hitherto unknown or unheard of would spring up.

First was the Agricultural revolution of the 118th century during which humanity moved up from an era

of simply hunting and gathering to farming. According to records, this period spanned from 10,000 BC to

2020 BC with earliest known developments occurring in the Middle East.

Then came the Industrial Revolution which began in the 18th century, when agricultural societies became

more industrialized and urban. This period saw to the development and coming of transcontinental railroad,

the cotton gin, electricity and other inventions which permanently changed society.

Next was the industrial revolution of the 19th century which saw the development of industrial machinery

which in turn saw to the rise and development of new industries in the steel and manufacturing sector.

It was a period when new sources of energy, such as coal and steam, were introduced in powering new

machines designed to reduce human labor and increase production. The move to a more industrial society

would forever change the face of labor.

From this period, the world has never looked back.

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Taking a cue from the development, several big businesses plan to let much of their staff work from

home permanently, even after the pandemic. Working from home could become the new normal — at least

for some.

CNN quotes Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook as saying that as many as 50% of Facebook employees

could be working remotely within the next five to 10 years. It said Zuckerberg had pitched the idea as both a

matter of satisfying employee desires and also as an effort to create “more broad-based economic

prosperity.”

Twitter also announced that it will allow some of its workforce to continue working from home “forever,”

should they choose.

Between April and May this year, several other companies have toed the same path, announcing new

policies that allow staffs various degrees of work from home flexibity following the realities COVID-19 has

dropped on everyone. Square, Shopify are just some of such companies.

What this means is that with this in view, projections are that in another 10 years virtual work culture will be

the norm. This essentially means that either as an entrepreneur or job seeker or even an undergraduate

you must begin to think ahead and pattern your desires accordingly.

A good example of a company that was rightly placed to meet a demand in the ensuing digital eco-system

with the coming of COVID-19 is Zoom.

Just some 9 years ago, Zoom was non-existent but the same company that was didn’t exist just 9 years ago is

now worth over $48.988b in valuation.

A recent review puts Zoom’s valuation as bigger than the top 7 US airlines. To put this in proper context, US

top 7 airlines combined are worth $46.21b. That’s a whooping 2 billion margin between this tech start-up

and the arguably top 7 biggest airlines in the world!

Founded by a former Cisco WebEx (this is Cisco’s video conferencing service offering which by the way

appears to have fallen by the wayside) engineer, Eric Yuan in 2011, it started offering cloud based video

service in 2013.

 

It is available in leading online book sellers and on Amazon as an ebook or paperback.

For enquiries, please email: waleameen@gmail.com or call 09052846131