Two years ago I sought the counsel of a brainy acquaintance of mine on the subject of my flagging and flaccid career as a broadcaster. The bloke in question has a jaw dropping arsenal of loot; more money than you can shake a stick at. While being a notorious sociopath  (he doesn’t leave the confines of his security estate, and hasn’t been on a ‘plane since 2002) he is abreast of the extraordinary world in which we live through the magic of technology.

His house, a cold and clinical monument to bad taste and functionality, has a TV in every room that makes Ster Kinekor’s screens look like an iPad, and a sound system that can be adjusted while sitting in any one of its beautifully appointed bogs. And every other room, for that matter.

In the study was a device that was to be the prop that formed the basis of his argument. Here was a gizmo that allowed this pale and interesting fish to tune into digital radio in far flung territories at the flick of a dial.

This, he said, is the future of broadcasting. This, he said, will make FM radio a quaint relic along the lines of vinyl records. Go forth, he said, as casually as he might buy some more Japanese stocks.

In a world that starts revolutions via social networking, the days of the big budget campaigns as a necessity for success are over. TV will follow suit. And in the wings is a raft of copycats, and competition is welcome.

Me old Mum used to say, bless her: “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”.

What’s happening in the Middle East and North Africa today will be a case study that is used by future generations of academic lecturers to describe one of the first social revolutions perpetrated by new media. The trick now is to predict the next.

My call on that matter is that the Monday to Friday treadmill will soon be a distant memory. Soon a goodly chunk of the working population will work from wherever it happens to be on whatever day of the week, and via a digital ‘office’. Office blocks will be redundant; giant relics of a past that embraced mindless morning meetings and flirtations by the coffee machine with the big-breasted and pneumatic new girl from accounts. Work will be handed in at 3pm from a sun drenched beach. And it’ll be fine work.

Like Jack Daniels, Table Mountain, Nelson Mandela, and the push-up bra, the digital revolution is a bona fide original. Well done for reading this. You’re part of the future.