ABSTRACT
The world we live in is changing so much and so rapidly that “there is nothing permanent except
change,” although that statement is attributed to Heraclitus writing about 500 BCE. This applies
across society and not just to work, as detailed, for example, by Fukuyama (1999) and Kennedy
(2000). The predictions of how this future will affect work have a wide spectrum, from the cautiously
optimistic (Friedman, 1999) to the thoroughly pessimistic (Rifkin, 1995; Mander and Goldsmith,
1996). Note that these sources were from the more optimistic 1990s (at least in the United States)
where the Cold War had ended, the Internet was expanding explosively and the influence of inter-
national terrorism was relatively minor.
