Happy New Year
As we enter 2019 I’ve managed to already break my first resolution – to get this blog post out before everyone gets back to work. As an excuse I’ve had a very busy start to the new year. As a warning, I think we will all have a busy year this year.
When looking forward, I often find it useful to reflect first on the past and see how thoughts are changing. After you’ve read this post, please revisit this one [link]. It was written in March 2016 – Trump had not been elected, the Brexit Referendum had not occurred, Cambridge Analytics had not been exposed and Russian interference in the US election was not known about. An extract from the post reads as follows:
With modern communications and the ability to mobilise quickly we’ve already seen massive changes in the way the people (or, in Greek, demos) interact with conventional democratic systems and capitalism. [….] Whether that’s the Arab spring, so-called ISIS, Brexit, the mass-migration of populations or the astonishing rise of Donald Trump, things are getting decidedly odd in traditional politics. […..]
Cyber-politics is a whole new dimension. Whether cyber aggression is aimed at accessing private information, denying or altering the dissemination of information or compromising the physical integrity of machine-based systems the ability of people to alter the course of events through “hacking” has never been so great.
As the 4th Industrial revolution unfolds there will be more disruption ahead.
On the positive front, last year we saw the unveiling of the first industrial strategy for Britain for a generation link. I’m seeing the ripples of this throughout the industrial landscape of Britain, including a member of the Bestem network who told me about some very innovative work he’s doing with the railways – all funded from central government. The funding he has access to is much larger than the whole OGTC [link] annual budget and he just needs to fill in a form to get it. It’s very light weight, no committees, websites, offices, equipment, industry sponsors – just get on with it. And he has. Big time. Oil and Gas is still not innovating, but we are good at committees and wasting each-other’s time.
My top predictions for 2019
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Attention will continue to swing away from economics & finance and towards science, inventiveness and engineering (genetic, information, computing, transport).
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Competition between nations will intensify with value-capture swinging towards creators and away from traders and rent-seekers.
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Politics will continue its rise – no more will debates be settled on the economic benefits of an argument. Politicians will start to use emotive language more. Manuals on speech-writing for rhetoric, bathos and pathos will be dusted off along with words and phrases including: trade, craft, pride, sacrifice, service, future, humanity, community, future-generations and “for-our-nations-children”.
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Language will continue its progression-regression. Old words take on new meanings. In my field the fourth industrial revolution became digitalisation, I am sensing that this is now becoming “innovation”. Again.
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Productivity will increase and the british economy will grow. Not, you understand, because it will objectively do so – but because the way we decide to measure it will change. We are already moving to double-deflation accounting in April [link] . You can expect more of this type of thing. It may be good for us.
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The Oil business will still be ruled by old-world economics and yesteryear-practices. I remember the dot-com boom in the late 1990s when there was genuine fear in my part of the Schlumberger world that we may be acquired by Yahoo. Now Google (which was only formed in 1998 and not floated until 2004) could swallow Schlumberger many times over – but frankly, my dear, doesn’t give a damn. It’ll be the same this cycle, the Oil business will still work, be profitable and vital – but paradoxically become increasingly (and proportionally) less relevant to measured world economic activity.
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The Big-Oil innovation committee will, after a multi-year tender programme, finally hold a committee meeting to issue the PO for the automated remote light switch. After their youngest member retires on full final-salary and is the last to leave the building this will be used to turn off the lights. By SMS. Sent by his secretary. From the last electrons of his dying Blackberry.
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Elon Musk will either be killed in a freak mid-air collision between him and Richard Branson, or will buy a small nation (to be called Matrix) and will be joined John McAfee [link] and Larry Ellison. They will declare independence.
2019 looks like it will be a fascinating, scary, depressing, joyful and amazing ride. Strap-on, tune-in and don’t drop-off. All the best my friends, it’s going to be a wild-one.
