We’re leaving the Information Age and entering the Network Age, at least that’s whatJoshua Cooper Ramo.在他引人注目和挑衅的商业书中辩称，第七个感觉.
As we move to digitize everything from retail and services to cities and healthcare, networks are the secret sauce at the center of new business models. They separate the winners from the losers. They transform industries, social movements, governments and our everyday lives.
网络不仅仅是隐藏的魔法，使我们能够互相连接以及我们所有的东西。它们也在竞争优势的核心和通过每个行业席卷的中断来源。他们正在改变我们的生活方式和做生意。
你不想在“是”的业务中？
As companies move to digitize, we need to rethink the way we build networks and deliver value. We need to do for networks what the Agile movement did for software. That means moving from hierarchical, slow and closed systems to agile, programmable and open ones. In IT, in particular, we need to go from being in the business of saying “No” to being in the business of saying “Yes” to our line of business colleagues. We need to make the network a platform for innovation that accelerates business value and growth, rather than hinders it.
The stakes have never been higher for you and your business. The rate of change has never been faster. The stress, perhaps, has never been greater.
网络隐藏和网络都有 - 不是
我f you believe as I do that we’re in the Network Age, then you won’t be surprised that we’re seeing the emergence of the network haves和the network have-nots.
This isn’t like the “Digital Divide” of the early days of the internet where you either had internet access or you did not. Today, the divide is about whether your network is designed to help be a growth engine for your business or whether it’s holding your business back. Before that gap gets so large it can’t be bridged, you need to decide which side your company will be on—and which side you’ll pick for yourself and your career. Modern networks, and the network effects they deliver, will ultimately decide which companies thrive and which go by the wayside.
我s your network the silent killer of your business?
有职业生涯的影响，至少与业务一样重要。我们可以从最近的历史上学习关于公司和人们在技术中错过的公司和人们的历史：它们消失在不可取的状态。
Approximately 60 percent of the companies on Fortune’s list of the 500 largest companies in the mid-1990s are no longer on that list today, just 20 years later. These were some of the largest companies in the world, yet many couldn’t retain their status because they missed the transition to the internet. For many, their systems proved to be the silent killer of their business, while several of the companies that filled the open slots—think Google, Amazon, Facebook—were born from the internet movement.
1995年，SEARS是财富500强的第9和KMART＃15，综合收入近890亿美元。今天，他们是单一的公司，名单上的111号，收入为250亿美元。1995年，亚马逊刚刚推出。今天，他们是＃18，收入为1.07亿美元。
There’s a new wave of technology change, perhaps even more disruptive, as we embrace cloud services, mobility, data analytics and the underlying new IP networks that unleash new and rapid business innovation. Like the last wave, it will sweep through every industry, disrupting, creating, destroying and remaking the landscape. You can embrace it or be overwhelmed by it, but it will be impossible to ignore or outrun.
As one person put it to me best, as we discussed the changes facing our industry:
“You may not get fired for picking the status quo, but you might get laid off.”