It is easy these days to be overtaken by the future. Take e-mail, for example, the mainstay of modern business communication: “Younger people see e-mail as something older people do,” grimaces Don Rippert, chief technology officer for Accenture, the world’s largest consultancy.

“I thought it was a novel, next generation technology, but to young people it’s: ‘You should post to my site on MySpace [a social networking website], you should text message me, you should instant message me, why would you want to e-mail me? I don’t even check my inbox any more’.”