Conference rooms are the worst places I know – nothing feels more soulless or more depressing.

Yet these are exactly the spaces where we sit today, supposedly shaping the future – or at least believing we are. In reality, we’re managing existing structures, trying to make them more efficient with the help of technology. But we’re not coming up with anything truly new.

Insteat of shaping – we’re managing

The structures we manage – our healthcare system, working hours, economy, hierarchies in business and society, insurance, education, cities, homes, the idea of family, even the competencies we think we need to navigate this madness – all of these were invented for the steam engine, the assembly line, and industrial everyday life. And now we’re trying to force them to fit the possibilities of the digital age.

The good news: we have completely new options

• We don't need to cut costs in healthcare – we need to rethink the system entirely, to make it inherently more affordable, more humane, and safer.

• Instead of debating working hours, we should be talking about personal data sovereignty, digital democracy, and the difference between our industrial personas and our authentic selves.

• We moved from the extended family as a social safety net in agrarian society to the 4.135-person nuclear family of industrialization – supported by a social system. But what does family or communal living look like in the future?

• Education was designed for industrial skills. ADHD was defined as a disorder. Now we’re beginning to realize that many of the skills we need for the future resemble those often associated with ADHD.

• Industrial society taught people to build idealized versions of themselves – life blueprints designed to meet system expectations, not to nurture the authentic self.

It’s time we get out of those conference rooms and start rethinking how we can bring more quality of life and economy into the world – using the endless opportunities of new technologies, and doing so for as many people as possible.