nzaghia's blog

Hosni Mubarak, a Swiss industrialist, or a media mogul whose paper just went bankrupt are all faced with the same confusion: trying to plan for the future while being utterly confused by the present.

In the pre-digital era, nations were defined by distance. Distance creates both borders: we’re “here” and you’re “there”; and a sense of belonging: I’m me because I am from here, you aren’t like me because you are from there. The digital age changes the game and our sense of belonging is no longer defined by the space we occupy. We no longer have the most in common with our neighbors or even our family, because we are able to seek out and maintain relationships with those who have similar interests, and this in all four corners of the world.

The pre-digital vision of the world also leads to certain ideas of hierarchy no longer applicable in the digital age. Our societies were defined by a vertical distance: Pyramids. Neat little societies with a leadership hierarchy and borders, both in politics and in business.

Digital natives are brought up in a world of networks: Sheets according to affinity and interest. People who didn’t grow with hierarchies have no concept of what a hierarchy is. Conversely, people used to a world of distance and hierarchy lack what Hammersley calls a cognitive toolkit necessary to understanding a world of networks and sheets. The reality of the post-digital era is that distance is dead!