( CNN ) -- I learned a new word today : Heterarchy . I came across it buried in this year 's Davos theme . Apparently it means multiple structures , overlapping , interacting , connecting and networking . Good grief , am I really climbing a Swiss mountain to learn about an arcane corner of the English dictionary ? The theme is set each year by the World Economic Forum . It is invariably a wordy bit of pretentious nonsense , designed to sum up what they hope we will focus upon in our meetings in the Swiss Alps . This year its headline is `` The Reshaping of the World : Consequences for Society , Politics and Business . '' Often the theme is overtaken by crises , pressing issues and economic fires , and everyone long forgets all about it before the first marshmallows have melted into the first hot chocolates . But suddenly I realized I was tapping this out on an iPad , with a Bluetooth keyboard , while flying at 30,000 feet , and using the airliner 's Wi-Fi to read a blog post by an influential 19-year-old from some eastern emerging market . Hang on , I thought , this year 's theme may have a little more staying power . In a further break from tradition , it may also actually make sense ( assuming one can boil it down to useable English ! ) . What this theme recognizes is that during five years of crises massive changes have taken place simultaneously : The ubiquitous Internet has forged its way into previously closed societies ; social media has exploded ; there has been a revolution in communication ; new , powerful economies have emerged ; and there has been a fundamental shift in economic power towards the east . In an incredibly short space of time , all the accepted truths that have guided us pretty much since the end of World War II have gone up in smoke . As well as trumpeting that the immediate crisis is over , this year 's Davos will posit that we now need to think about what 's next -- and how we will manage it . WEFers are being asked to debate how society should make decisions in the future in this new world . I think the WEF has a point . This is not just about smartphones , blogging and Facebook . It 's about different ways of doing almost everything . The economic , social and cultural wreckage from the crises of the past five years is everywhere ; in its wake is a landscape where old rules no longer exist and the new ones have yet to be written and agreed . Economically , central bankers own the world . Societally , a `` lost generation '' threatens cohesion . Culturally , the issue of privacy has leaped to the top of the agenda -- from NSA-style data snooping by governments , to private companies like Facebook , Google ( including its intriguing purchase of Nest ) and Yahoo thinking it is ok to treat my information as their own -- and to sell it on . Davos works best in two very clear situations : When there is a full-scale raging fire , and the big economic players come together and thrash it out ( the Middle East , the Great Recession , and the eurozone crises spring to mind ) ; or when serious tectonic shifts are going on in economies and societies . Often the WEF 's grandiosity forces the issue beyond breaking point . But I do n't think this will happen this time round . The issues are prescient , they are on everyone 's mind , we all know that 'times are different ' and we are by no means sure how to handle them . The question is whether the people coming to Davos can set their own little agendas aside for a few days , sit down , and really think about the kind of world we are facing now that the long overdue recovery is taking hold . They must then question the role of government , social media , traditional media , and business in all of this . If they can do this then our trip up the Swiss mountain will have been worth it . Of course this will require CEOs , government ministers and the grandees of Davos to actually practice what they preach and truly behave heterarchically . Perhaps WEF should provide a dictionary for all delegates in case anyone is in any doubt . READ MORE : . Complete coverage : Davos 2014 .
This year 's theme recognizes that during five years of crises massive changes have taken place , Richard Quest writes . All the accepted values that have guided us pretty much since the end of the World War II have gone up in smoke . People coming to America must question the role of politics , social media , traditional media , and business in all of this .