future purpose
“One thought is that we might build on this enforced down time and the removal of data caps to make our career path more meaningful and use technology to have more purpose than social convenience but solve real problems caused by climate change and inequality.”
We’ve come a long way since Thomas More, the English scholar, wrote Utopia in 1516 advocating a ‘Universal Basic Income’.
In recent years that suggestion has been debated again and again as countries including India and Finland and even here in the UK sought to understand whether this social benefit, where everyone receives a subsistence income from Government, would lead to less unfairness, but also to less mental health issues due to income security and that ‘people would work only for enjoyment’.
That last phrase is something entrepreneurs and self-employed individuals consider to be a very important distinction that sets them apart from those in employment, and most will consider that’s what they strive to do every day.
So, it’s interesting then, with Coronavirus in our midst, that we’re seeing this 16th century utopian idyll played out before our eyes. Here we are watching as our own Government seeks to preserve the economy and prevent unnecessary business failures by offering to reimburse those that have lost trade and income, so that they hopefully won’t lose their long-term livelihoods as well. A form of Universal Basic income, if you will, which will see the employed, unemployed and self-employed subsidised by the state.
Will this artificial economic pause lead to changes in the way we all think about our work and our economy? At the Enterprise Trust, we had already planned to examine the future of entrepreneurship in a world where advances in technology and artificial intelligence could lead to a very different approach and that enterprise for all could be seen as not only an income-driver, but a creative outlet for otherwise unsatisfied employees.
In many ways, aside from the chaos, individuals have been grasping onto digital technology, many for the first time, to keep in touch with loved ones and family in order to obey strict social isolation rules imposed by the Government during the crisis.
According to Weforum.org, in China “...millions of workers are now using tools including Alibaba’s “DingTalk,” Tencent’s “WeChat Work” and “Meeting,” ByteDance’s “Feishu” and Huawei’s “WeLink” for online workplace collaboration. These tools have added new features in the past weeks, including increased quota of video conference participants and call times, online health check-ins and industry-specific solutions.”
Futurologists, including Gray Scott, think technology itself is leading us to become more naturally isolated.
And as we normalise meetings conducted by video technology, scheduling food deliveries via our laptops, nervously answering the door to strangers via our phones and even obeying the drones that will inevitably come, to ‘GO HOME’, what’s the logical progression for business following the contactless Cornonavirus crisis?
Even the BBC finds it can conduct news interviews without anyone coming into the studio (although admittedly, it can’ t film Eastenders).
Will technology free us up from unnecessary travel for more thoughtful, purposeful enterprise? Will this ban on normal life make us question our shopping habits, for example, and make us finally realise we can live without (some) of the frippery?
One thought is that we might build on this enforced down time and the removal of data caps to make our career path more meaningful and use technology to have more purpose than social convenience but solve real problems caused by climate change and inequality.
According to Beauhurst, investment rounds in UK businesses have continued to happen, 39 in the past week despite the crisis. Amidst the usual mix of banking software, there is a notable exception – a significant investment in Oddbox, a sustainable vegetable box delivery firm that uses odd vegetables and fruit that are often rejected by supermarkets looking for perfection.
As investment plummets over the next few months, and habits change, could the reality be in the long-run that we begin to appreciate and innovate in the simple things in life?
Only time will tell.