It was William Gibson who said ‘the future is already here, it is just unevenly distributed’. For the last year or so, I have felt as if I am living in the future. Which doesn’t mean that Arenas de San Pedro, the small rural town in Spain where I live looks like a set from Blade Runner. In fact, in many obvious ways (like local politics for example) the town is living in the past.
But that isn’t what I mean. The town itself isn’t the future, but the way I live and work here might be. At least, that is what my friends are telling me. Most of them have far more conventional, and far more prestigious careers than me. They have been successful in the traditional way and have the positions, the possessions and the power that goes along with that.
And yet, as their children start to leave university, several of them have observed that their kids will need to build a career (if that’s the right word) that looks more like mine than their own. A multiple, layered, portfolio, composite, globally connected, collaborative way of working – rather than a clearly marked professional path.
More evidence, perhaps, that the future won’t look like an extrapolation of the past.
