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.