Linear Technology Myopia (LTM) is an affliction that limits technology vision. It causes sufferers to misunderstand the power and impact certain technologies will have on humanity’s future. This problem is a result of focusing on innovation linearly rather than exponentially. As innovations are integrated, a compounding effect accelerates their potential. Two areas of innovation that will soon experience this compounding growth are wearables and the Internet of Things (IoT). Wearable technology directly connects man-to-machine while the IoT connects machine-to-machine. How do we begin to understand the impact these technologies will have?
Wearables enable sensors to capture physiological occurrences in the human body, including mechanical, physical, and biochemical functioning. If a comparison can be made to video gaming, we are in the “Pong” (the famous video game originally released in 1972) era of wearables. When you compare the evolution of gaming over the last 40+ years, to exponential innovation and the compounding effect on wearables, it will only take eight-ten years to produce a similar evolutionary capability change. As wearable, ingestible, and implantable technologies quickly evolve, the human condition will have the potential to be digitally captured and analyzed in near real-time. The technologies to enable this do exist today, however they are rapidly improving in their shape/size, function, energy consumption, and accuracy. Meaning we are only witnessing the beginning.
What many fail to see (due to LTM) is that devices like smartwatches, clothing, heads-up displays, and others are merely bridging technologies that will both harvest data and provide the user with constant feedback on what is happening both inside and outside the body.
As we become more comfortable and trusting of our data being captured, stored, shared, and analyzed (within acceptable and currently developing privacy standards), we will unleash the most powerful systems in the world to provide us insight from the most up-to-date knowledge-bases in the world nearly instantaneously. What happens when you add in the power of cognitive systems like IBM’s Watson (that are able to simulate the human thought process, gather and assemble massive amounts of data, perform pattern and trend recognition at blazing speeds, process natural language, and mimic the function of the human brain)? We will then have access to monitoring algorithms, and other capabilities, as well as the collective thinking, as captured digitally, of the greatest minds in the world. While the “Watson Effect” may take a little longer to actually realize, a great deal will happen over the next decade.
Ten years ago a young man named Mark Zuckerberg had recently purchased the domain Facebook.com, the first video was recently uploaded to YouTube, the most innovative smartphone was called a Blackberry, and the first driverless vehicles crossed the Mojave Desert. When you think about all of the changes we’ve witnessed in the last decade, I think it is safe to say all of this will be here before you know it.
For those of you with visions of Terminator robots and Skynet dancing around your head, do not fear. Humanity will be centrally positioned to take advantage of these powerful new technological advancements. These advancements will offer us the ability to gain immediate insight into ourselves (the quantified self), access to collective intelligence (hive mind) through social technologies, and cognitive computing that will all augment our own human intelligence.
To avoid LTM, it is important to take time each week to research new technologies and the impact they will have on the future of humanity. Below are some links to tools that can help you:
Rivers of Information is the efficient aggregation of information. Think of it like a river with streams of content from different areas flowing into your net. For instance, if you want to learn more about wearable technology or the IoT, you can develop rivers dedicated to those subjects using inexpensive tools. One developed by Future Point of View is called the Rivers of Information Dashboard. It will scour the internet for the most relevant topics on subjects of your choosing and present it in an absorbable way. You can also share your rivers with others to increase the collective knowledge within your organization.
If you are interested in learning more about how humanity is being impacted by technology, you can subscribe to my free Flipboard eMagazine “Humalogy: Humanity & Technology.” You will find fascinating resources about the latest cutting edge technology and how these technologies are dramatically changing the world around us.
Education is vital. Future Point of View’s Technology Mastery Institute is dedicated to developing leaders who can utilize technology to make their organizations stronger and more adaptable. It offers public courses on a wide range of critical areas such as digital marketing, data intelligence, cybersecurity, profit amplification, developing high beam leadership, and much more. The 2016 schedule is now available.
If you think you are suffering from LTM, never fear, it is curable. But you will be required to take some steps to increase your understanding daily. The future begins now!
About the Author
Vaughn Rachal is a gifted customer engagement, experience, and revenue generation evangelist on a mission to empower exponential increases in marketing reach, revenue generation, and sales capacity. Applying decades of leadership experience with practical “know how” on sales, sales enablement, and marketing, he equips FPOV clients to gain a competitive advantage through the proper adoption and use of digital technologies.