The Joy of Total Action

When the commercial Internet emerged in the mid-1990s, Al Dunn and Peter Vervest wrote a book about its future use: every activity in the organisation should serve the customer; if it does not, it should stop.

Total action, where advanced digital communications engage everyone and everything in the organisation toward a shared goal, or fatal inaction, where digital tools are misused or the people inside the organisation are left alone. Total action – or Fatal Inaction.

Thirty years later, Peter reflects on what happened. Digitalisation has affected all aspects of our business and social life, revolutionised retail and mobility, and profoundly impacted how we communicate and form social connections. We welcomed new uses and applications, but we also confronted the global spread of misinformation and entirely different vulnerabilities. In many sectors of our society, such as government, health, and education, its application is significantly misplaced.

While we still struggle to deploy the digital tools properly, we are at the forefront of a powerful wave of new technologies, from the Internet of Things to blockchain, robotics, and general artificial intelligence, which creates autonomous systems that we may struggle to control.

How should we, as teams and organisations, in business and social contexts and as responsible citizens, navigate and function in a future that is fully connected, populated by robots, and primarily composed of autonomous systems?

The Joy of Total Action is both a reflection and a call to action. It encourages readers to rethink how we lead, organise, and deliver value, utilising the full potential of digital technologies to address the changes of our time.

The authors

Peter Vervest

Peter Vervest is an emeritus professor of information management and networks at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. He was a partner at D-Age, a high-tech consulting and investment group, and consulted and served on the boards of major international companies.

In memory of Al Dunn (1945–2020)

Al Dunn was the co-creator of the original Total Action concept. Together with Peter Vervest, he developed the foundational ideas that shaped this approach to purposeful and coherent action in a digital world.