The final lecture I’m presenting to you this year covers the future of work, but perhaps not in the traditional technological disruption sense, but rather from a demographic perspective.

Most western societies are ageing rapidly, which has a number of implications, whether the challenge of a longer retirement, a probably longer working life, multi-generational workplaces and so on.

A nice example of how this might play out comes from sharing economy darling Airbnb, who have hired travel veteran Chip Conley to act as a mentor to the much younger founding team at the company.

He’s written a book about his experiences, but the following is a talk at Google, where he discusses many of the things covered in the book.  It’s likely that for the future of work to be managed comfortably, we’ll need to have a healthier perspective on older people in both the workplace and society more generally.

I hope you’ve enjoyed these lectures, and indeed have had a relaxing festive period more generally.