Despite Andy Pemberton’s well-argued article, it’s far-fetched to assert that Brexit was a vote against digital. As Andy admits, Uber, Google and co were not top of mind as people went to the polls.
It was, or so I’m led to believe, a vote against the establishment, and the seemingly unjust division of wealth and opportunity in this country. And that’s something we should all sit up and take notice of.
Sure, exceptional digital services won’t mitigate the negative economic impact of Brexit – it’s unrealistic to claim otherwise. However even as a staunch remainer, I don’t think that the vote for leave heralds a massive geopolitical disaster.
There will be adversity and then adjustment. And while grandiose claims continue to be made for digital, it has led to new business models that disrupt the status quo for the advancement of many. Look at the sharing economy and peer-to- peer lending services for example.
Airbnb allows us to rent rooms but we can also rent cars, power tools and more from each other more cheaply and easily than ever before.
While grandiose claims continue to be made for digital, it has led to new business models that disrupt the status quo for the advancement of many.
As the UK enters a period of fiscal uncertainty, it’s interesting to note that the sharing economy was created not only because of the ubiquity of smartphones, but also because of a weak economy.
Yes, digital disruption causes trouble not least placing bricks and mortar retailers, the hotel business and non-Uber taxi firms under immense commercial pressure but name me any revolution – industrial, internet, mobile, that hasn’t. It also forces traditional businesses to adapt their business models and get involved in disruption – look at car manufacturers like Ford investigating ride sharing services."
Within healthcare and science, digital brings tremendous value to areas like research. One of many reasons I voted Remain is that EU membership enabled the sharing of scientific research and funding.
So I am grateful for the alternatives digital may offer in the way of crowd-funding for important scientific research and the creation of cloud-based sharing platforms allowing medical professionals and ordinary consumers to pool data expertise and accelerate R&D and personalised medicine.
Cancer Research’s citizen science service is a small example of this. For me, digital is less about Uber and more about Simprints, a mobile fingerprint scanning solution for isolated communities or Flatiron Health, a start-up that gathers and analyses data on cancer treatments and sells software based on those insights.
As the UK enters a period of fiscal uncertainty, it’s interesting to note that the sharing economy was created not only because of the ubiquity of smartphones, but also because of a weak economy.
Crucially, for a country that is more divided than ever, digital encourages collaboration. EU or not, digital brings many of us together in new ways; we work differently, we share resources more efficiently, we create together. I’m sure for example, campaigning platform 38 degrees, which allows people to group together to petition MPs or big business, has been used frequently in the past few weeks.
None of this lets the digital behemoths off the hooks – as consumers we should be using (digital) social media and our purchasing power to pressure the Googles, the Facebooks, the Amazons and the Ubers to harness some of their global scale into being a force for social good: at the very least by paying their fair share of taxes, but also by partnering social ventures in local communities and sharing technologies with struggling independents.
It seems to me that the EU vote focused a lot on what we don’t want as a country. Within that digital was largely absent as an issue.
By focusing on the collaborative, sharing aspects of digital and placing people at the centre of what we do, we can start to work out what we do want and try to shape a better, fairer future.