Apprendre à dancer sous la pluie...

There was a time when we believed that the world was becoming smaller , more predictable and increasingly interconnected .  Goods travelled freely across continents , energy flowed through international markets, technology connected people and businesses, and economic interdependence was presented as one of the strongest guarantees of peace . The underlying assumption was reassuring: countries would become so economically dependent on one another that conflict would become too costly , cooperation would prevail, and prosperity would gradually spread. For a while, this seemed to work. But something fundamental has changed.  Or perhaps , more accurately , something we preferred not to see has finally become impossible to ignore. We are entering a new world disorder . The wars , trade disputes , technological rivalries, energy crises, climate pressures and growing competition for natural resources are not isolated events.  They are different manifestations...

I nearly once married a Russian girl from Tula. That was a long … long time ago… She was fascinating, beautiful, smart, challenging, exotic, with a personality of her own… For a few months, we were fascinated by each other… We held hands, looked into each other’s eyes when we spoke, and watched each other’s movements with admiration. Everything seemed to work…at first … until it didn't. In effect, the cultural gap between us had an extraordinary ability to turn perfectly innocent conversations into big misunderstandings, … sometimes at astonishing speed. I vividly remember one evening, The Evening that would become legendary between us… trying rather foolishly to impress her with my supposedly broad cultural knowledge, (Needless to say, during our courtship , I read every Russian book I could get my hands on…for obvious reasons!!) I asked her about Ilya Muromets ; I asked if she knew the story… Of one of the great heroes of the Russian mythology, Muromet...

Il est 9 heures du matin. Dans une entreprise quelconque, quelque part entre Londres, Casablanca, Paris, ou Lisbonne, un salarié ouvre son ordinateur. Son tableau de bord est déjà là. 1- Dossiers traités Semaine S33 : 47 . 2- Objectif : 52. 3- Productivité : 90 %. 4- Temps moyen de traitement : 15 min 42. 5- Satisfaction client : 87 %. 6- Taux d’occupation : 93 %. Quelques chiffres, soigneusement alignés dans des cases vertes, orange et rouges, suffisent désormais à raconter sa journée. Ou plutôt : à prétendre la raconter . Car quelque chose d’essentiel vient de se produire. L’organisation a transformé une réalité multidimensionnelle :  aider un client, résoudre un problème complexe, transmettre un savoir, éviter une erreur, rassurer un collègue, traiter une situation exceptionnelle … en quelques variables numériques. Le salarié n’est plus seulement un salarié. Il est devenu un vecteur de données . Et c’est ici  que Charles Go...