The rise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, the two outsiders who are challenging the “establishment” should not come as a surprise to any one! After all we live in a world where multi billion dollar enterprises (Apple, Amazon, Google,….) and all other Digital Technology enabled giants have dwarfed the role and attention away traditional giants such as GE, P&W, Timken, GM, Ford, etc. In fact these companies are considered as “established”, “industrial”and “brick and mortar” companies, while the Silicon Valley giants are lauded as the “hi-tech” companies.
Yes, it is the period for the glory for those who leverage IT (Digital Technology in a broader sense) in unique ways and make an enormous impact. Donald Trump has exploited the cable news – a product of Digital Technology – and access to free press in unique ways for his success as of now. His success in public arena merely mirrors the success of the few IT giants in the industry, bur only in terms of their ability to deploy Digital Tools. The anger and divisiveness of Donald Trump campaign are sad and do not deserve any analysis or comparison.
The stagnant wages, low income, lack of growth opportunities, fear of terrorism, need for immigration reform have all been issues brewing over the past four decades. This is also the period of relentless use of Digital Technology which creates large opportunities for the few at the expense of economic disadvantage for the many and the hollowing out of the middle. These are issues that require sustained economic planning and re-thinking of priorities we as a nation can subscribe to. They can not be achieved merely through slogans of “Make America great again”.
Over the past four decades work as we know of it has changed. Rewards of the investors and the reward for the rest are no longer two sides of the same coin. Investors can continue to make huge rewards by gradually and constantly eliminating the need for human involvement (i.e.) wage earning workers.
In this climate every US Citizen and resident must look for skills to (a) identify new opportunities, (b) develop them into solutions, (c) implement them and (d) garner the benefits as a result. Of these (a) and (d) belonged to the investors; (b) and (c) belonged to the workers – the two sides of the coin. Now all four of these tasks have to be carried out as an integral effort. We call the skills for this as Transformational Skills.
Donald Trump is smart in identifying the opportunity (i.e) a disaffected population can be excited through anger and bigotry; this opportunity can be developed into a solution for his political ambitions. Now he is in the phase of implementing his solution through the general election.
The question is this: Is America smarter than Donald Trump? Can the American population see the true nature of the Binary Economy at work? Can they see the opportunities in the Binary Economy which requires every one to become Transformational? Can they demand economic reforms, educational reform and work force training that moves the population away from task orientation (skills for success on one side of the coin only) into a system oriented solution providers (take hold of the coin as a whole)?
America has less than six months left to answer this question: Is America smarter than Donald Trump?
STIMS Institute 