Specialisation, disintermediation, 24×7 – there’s nothing new in these phrases, Peter Cochrane points out. So will 2020 just be like today, only more so? In the last 20 years the working lives of most people have been radically changed by IT. Days are longer, activities and information are more intense, travel is more regular and frantic, specialism is more valued and rewarded, there are more machines and new interfaces to cope with. Will the exponential change invoked by technology continue over the next 20 years? I think so. But it will increasingly spill over into our markets, trading practices and the way we sell and complete work. Imagine for a moment… it is the year 2020 and the latest version of the 21st century bible of marketing and sales opens with the following words: Customers don