You have probably sometimes thought how nanotech is going to disrupt the future. You probably have not notice something remarkably. BPM, something you know so well, is for the IT industry, what nanotech is for manufacturing. Even though they have both been around for some time, few people understand how revolutionary they are (as in not evolutionary).

As one of my smartest blog readers, you know that nanotechnology brings a brand new world of possibilities (http://www.crnano.org/index.html). The question is then, how does BPM compare to it?

The question is simple - efficiency. Both BPM and Nanotech are a reminder of how much more efficient our day-to-day activities can be. Why submit cancer patients to radio and chemo therapies, if we can have a nanobots identify and destroy the cancer cell by cell? Why use steal to build very sturdy infrastructure when you can have it done using nanotubes?

BPM and Nanotech allow doing more with less and they both extend the abilities of humanity. Both are paramount for sustainable living in this planet. In a world of billions of middle class people, it will not be possible to continue to extract from nature what our societies need. We need to evolve from our current dependency of natural resources. We need to synthesize all our needs, from constructions materials to food, without ever touching the natural systems around us.

Whereas nanotech will deal with the very small, BPM will deal with the very large. They initially complement each other, up to the time that they, like so many other disciplines, will converge - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-2Xw-GNkUQ.

The bottom line:

You have to remember yourself constantly that BPM is multidisciplinary. Focusing on the tree instead of the forest will prevent you from seeing the future. If you do not do it, others will. Those others may not be as you good, as I know you are.