Academic Lecture Programme

The world of 'infinite expectations' was explored in a fascinating and challenging lecture from one of the UK's leading experts in management and business.

Professor Bogdan Costea investigated the promises being made by the modern 'have it now' economy and the massive implications this has for our view of society and ultimately of ourselves.

He focused in particular on Amazon and their offer to deliver almost any product to our doorstep within just a couple of hours. 

"The world has now been brought to such a level of organisation that world itself stands for us as a service," said Prof Costea, from the Department of Organisation, Work and Technology at the University of Lancaster. 

"Jeff Bezos understood that we live in a world of infinite promises requiring endless organisation, work and technology ready to serve our every whim."

The lecture was part of the Queen's Academic Lecture Programme which seeks to give girls the opportunity to hear from cutting edge researchers and academics as part of their preparation for higher education.

"Jeff Bezos himself spoke of the 'divinely discontented' consumer who constantly feels dissatisfied with what they have compared to the promise of what they can get in the future," said Prof Costea. 

"The unfortunate fact is that we are being promised the infinite but the world itself can only ever be finite."

Prof Costea raised a series of fascinating questions about what these new structures and technologies might mean for living and working in the future. 

Year 12 pupil Caroline said: "The lecture really made me think about the effect technology is having - I genuinely did not want to use my phone when I got home afterwards."