Our current research topic is called “Digital Happiness” and we’re exploring new ideas about how companies should interact with their clients and employees. This time we want to share the idea and vision from Peter Leyden: ‘The Future of the Platform Economy’. Leyden presented his vision to us and our clients during our event In Pursuit of Digital Happiness in Brussels on November 9-10. Leyden foresees the end of conservative reactionary politics that led to the division of wealth and valuing capital over meaning. He thinks that we are moving into a new period in which we will fundamentally rework the economy and the distribution of wealth. He gives inspiring examples and elaborates on the consequences of this change for businesses which sell and produce. His optimism about the future is contagious, have a look at the future of the platform economy! About Peter Leyden Peter Leyden is an expert in new technologies and future trends who frequently gives keynote talks and works for innovative organizations out to reinvent fields. Leyden was managing editor at the original Wired Magazine, and worked at Global Business Network, the pioneering think tank on the future. He was founding director of the New Politics Institute helping reinvent politics on the Internet. Leyden currently is founder and CEO of Reinventors, a network of innovators using the new medium of group video for a series of conversations about how to reinvent America. Leyden started his career as a journalist, including as a special correspondent for Newsweek magazine in Asia. He coauthored two books on the future: The Long Boom and What’s Next. About the In Pursuit of Digital Happiness events Two recent deep dives with a group of IT Executives gave us more insights in how our current research topic “Digital Happiness” is going to evolve. We’ll share the videos recorded at these meetings that we’ve organized in the coming months. Both in the US (Chicago) and Europe (Brussels) business executives, media experts and academia shared their views on the massive transformative impact of digital technologies. The fundamentals on which the program In Pursuit of Digital Happiness was based are simple: the technological and financial limitations of digital progress have been dealt with. The real question to answer for businesses to be successful in the society that emerges is, “What do we desire?” Happiness, in the broad definition by the school of positive psychology – from fun and the daily pleasure to getting in a state of flow, and the rewarding feeling of living a meaningful life and doing meaningful things – guided the discussions about the social desirability.