Sander Klous

Building trust in a smart society asks one essential question: how can we manage complexity in a world where interactions become more data-rich and more global? The idea of an increasingly algorithm-based set of systems for running our lives provokes fear in a lot of people, and there certainly are ethical and technical dilemmas to contend with. We hear about the poorly controlled financial systems responsible for the stock market crash of 2008 and wonder if the system is now running us. The first self-replenishing fridge goes on sale and we start to think it can't be long until the machines take over - Terminator-like. And when even our landmark political decisions seem to be at the mercy of `bots' and the tweets they send out is it any wonder we despair of our technological future? So is there a positive side to this complex world? There are in fact huge possibilities here for those willing to evolve alongside the technology and learn to use it to their advantage. Technology will (some would say has to) continue to develop, so how might leaders and business owners work with it? At the heart of Building trust in a smart society is a MAD idea - that by throwing off traditional organizational systems and taking a modular, agile and decentralized approach, businesses can evolve and grow, while those unwilling to adapt are left behind. Complexity can become opportunity. Building trust in a smart society is essential reading for those willing to embrace the future and change the way they interact with the world.

This book demonstrates the inevitability of a continuously growing role of data in our society and it stresses that this role does not need to be threatening: to the contrary, collection and analysis of data can help us prevent traffic jams, suppress epidemics, or produce tailor made medicine. The authors sketch the contours of a new information society, in which everything will be measured from our heartbeat during our morning run to the music we listen to and our walking patterns through department stores and they discuss the resistances within the society that have to be overcome. Sander Klous holds a PhD in High Energy Physics and contributed to the discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN (Nobel prize 2013). Klous works at KPMG and is professor in Big Data at the University of Amsterdam. Nart Wielaard is a self-employed consultant and business writer. He develops compelling and clear stories on complex topics for a broad range of clients. Wielaard specializes in the domain where technology, society and business meet.