John Perry Barlow, an internet activist, made a bombastic declaration in 1996. He announced the independence of cyberspace with the words ‘Governments of the industrial world, you weary giants of flesh and steel. I come from cyberspace, the new home of mind. Cyberspace does not live within your borders. Our world is different. We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force and station of birth’.

In reality, of course, there is no such world today. Movement is confined by physical boundaries. Privilege and prejudice run through our lives and ultimately all of us build our identity not through the impersonal lenses of Google and Yahoo but the more tangibly emotive links of race, language and nationality. And we do this because it is through these tangible ties that we feel we can best fulfill our self-interest.

My second reason has a more granular foundation. I am of the view that the answer to a question like ‘what will not change’ will provide decision-makers in government and business a more solid foundation on which to manage risk and create value. Jeff Bezoz, the founder of Amazon.com, said in an interview to the Harvard Business Review that a strategy based on the ‘transitory’, that is, things that are continually changing like technology or customers — will have to be continually adapted and altered whereas strategy based on the ‘stable’ will lead to an assured and regular dividend payout. He said that in his business, the customers would always (or at least for the next decade or so) be looking for lower prices, quicker delivery and a wider selection of books. Therefore, the effort invested on cutting costs and creating an efficient supply chain would be more certain of generating value than the effort on identifying and anticipating the next paradigm.

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