7. A HISTORY OF NOW
• What’s
common?
• Times
of great changes in technology are inextricably linked to
times of great social change
• Because
they are opposite sides of the same coin
71. COPING MECHANISMS
• How
to deal with this pace of change?
• You
could spend all day every day just following trends and
not actually solving problems
• What
are the strategies?
76. BE THE BALL
• Tackle
from 2 angles
• Change
• Put
your perspective
yourself in your audience’s shoes
• Find
interests and allow yourself to get distracted by things
they would know nothing about
80. WHERE TO START
• Twitter
lists - twitter.com/mrayinteractive/twitterati
• Find
the influential people in some preferred subject matter
and stalk them. Follow their SlideShare, get audio/video/
transcripts of conference sessions. Build your own list.
• Freestyle
- pick a topic on Wikipedia. dive deep. come up for
air when you have 10 subjects that are interesting. rinse &
repeat.
Technology has always been a driving force in culture but now is nearly unavoidable.
Why the telephone? “Anything that was around when you were born isn’t really considered technology”
Language, writing, electricity, air travel, the telephone, all are considered to be utilities by our generation.
Technology fufills unmet need in a culture and then the culture moves forward and creates new needs
Because technology is what has enabled culture to exist. Quite literally feeds it.
We are social creatures and now that our social construct has evolved, its how we communicate, connect, share.
It truly is a new 'language' that that is being adopted. We are even at the cusp of being more than a language, almost like a sixth sense. It's how we see, experience and interact with the world.
As it has become more mainstream, technology has been liberated from the realm of engineers, scientists and nerds. It is now a tool, a part of everyday life that can help solve problems when paired with creative thought.
It’s worth exploring examples of technology’s impact on culture thru the past. (token printing press slide...)
Goal is to show that it’s not a new thing at all.
11000 bc - Neolithic Revolution, first large scale culture
farming led to surplus of resources, could spend time on other stuff
Now we had manufacturing, art, written language and could take the next step
80 ad - Roman Colosseum, Baths, Representative Government
Now we have the foundations of the modern world
we can sustain large populations in urban centers, we can have running water, entertainment, banking,
1500 ad - Printing press
incredibly disruptive - now meant knowledge was accessible by normal people and not just nobility
led to the spread of the renaissance, upheavals in religion, the spread of literacy and whole new creative arts (writing, illustrating)
It was the internet of its era.
What’s common? Times of great tech change are times of great social change
Nowadays, '6 months ago' is an eternity. And it's accelerating.
Why does time feel like its going faster? I propose that the increased sharing of ideas that corresponds with the technologies that enable it actually make us perceive time differently
Moore’s law - transistors double every 18 months. has been doing so for 43 years
ChefJet - edible 3d objects
X-Fab, printing durable, consumer level products, like ski goggles
Magic Arms &
Robohand (carpenter that lost 4 fingers filled the unmet need and replaced his missing fingers)
Direct Metal Laser Sintering - airplane parts created by additive process instead of casting.
lighter and stronger
3d printed structures are now a reality
moon base!
liberator -
3d printed organs
this is what people think about when they hear wearables
watches
and sometimes this
but the newest trend sees the technology disappear
netatmo & csr jewelry
monitor sun exposure, other data
it is also expanding into the youth market
tracking devices and data loggers for kids
ibitz
Mother
even personal safety
concussion helmet
if CES was any indication, the market will be flooded with wearables in the next few years
‘her’, w joaquin pheonix
alljoyn - seamlessly connect and share content across devices
Cisco - customer awareness & tracking systems
what happens when we have a trillion internet connected devices
we get things like our dishwasher texting us
cisco’s whole new ad campaign is centered around it
oculus rift
tobii eye tracking interfaces
boston dynamics, bot & dolly, meka robotics,
flutter, schaft, bump, nest, chromecast sdk...
tencent, tenpay, bringing credit/micropayment to chinese masses
reaction to the value of privacy
beyond the selfie
facebook’s fragmentation
jelly
crowdsourced questions
proliferates on the back of measured media
32M requested, 16M gathered
How to deal with this pace of change?You could spend all day every day just following trends and not actually solving problemsWhat are the strategies?
Laser-Guided Ideas - big idea at EXACTLY the right time
Think far enough ahead so you get an idea into the market just before it becomes mainstream but not too far
Too early is just as bad as too late
It’s REALLY hard even for experts who have been successful in the past
A better strategy is to rapidly iterate, live in constant ‘beta’ and adopt Agile processes.
Quickly get stuff in market and see what sticks and go from there
(Beta being the software engineering concept for pre-release products.)
Create and Idea incubator, let the audience help discover what is relevant.
Remember how we said stuff that exists when you were born isn’t technology?
Now imagine a 10 year old right now, they never saw a world without an iPhone or Facebook. That doesn’t count as technology to them. My 3 year old son thinks every screen is a multi touch screen.
Most classes about what has BEEN done, not what HASN’T.
You probably won’t be in that situation much more. Everything will be new, with no prescedent, and you will need to figure it out.
Goal is to become an expert at problem solving.
Similar to Jeopardy it’s not the right answer that’s most important, its asking the right question.
Solution is to ‘be the ball’ (clip from caddyshack)
Diversify. It’s not only for stock market investors - it’s one of the tenets of T-shaped people. Expertise (major) AND side interests (minor).
Diversified interests help find solutions from one industry or practice that may be applicable to the problem that needs to be solved
Hopefully you will never know everything about all your interestsRotate. Pick a few, run with it for a while. If it fizzles, pick anotherChallenge yourself and keep trying on new topics
Developers often do this - pick a ‘recreational’ programming language, play with it for a while. Sometimes you like it sometimes you don’t
Be efficient, its easy to get sucked down the rabbit hole - budget your time between making and researching
Finding connections is not enough, have to have enough experience and interest to have the dots to connect
Places to start - some examples
Diversified interests help find solutions from one industry or practice that may be applicable to the problem that needs to be solved
Cast a wide net, get out of comfort zone, challenge yourself, research things you never think about
Be efficient, its easy to get sucked down the rabbit hole
Finding connections is not enough, have to have enough experience and interest to have the dots to connect
Once you come across something that’s interesting, don’t let it go. Trust your gut.
Sometimes the best ideas come from failures. Case in point = Post-it Notes
Accidentally made super weak glue, tirelessly tried to convice coworkers of its merit
5 years later another engineer thought to use it on paper to keep bookmarks from falling out
Had to develop a coating so the glue would stick to the paper, then they tried to market it
Marketing campaign flopped but project owners were convinced people would buy em if they used em and launched a targeted trial campaign
Needless to say, it worked.Wasn’t one ‘stroke of genius’ but lots of creative ideas and a LOT of work (7 years of advocacy and a failed ad campaign before it)
See this pattern elsewhere too, art, music, mobile gaming etc
Convince yourself there is no such thing as a Eureka! moment.
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/11/post-it-notes-were-invented-by-accident/
Moral of the story?
All about collisions, how to accelerate them.What would the post-it story look like today? Kickstarter? Crowdsourcing?
The other moral - fail fast. Fail when it is still ok to do so, not once a large investment in time and effort has been made.
We don’t live in the same world that 3M lived in when they invented PostIt Notes.
Keep trying to explore new things.Because when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Research has shown babies subconsciously can calculate probabilities BEFORE THEY CAN TALK.
Play is invaluable. There is immeasurable stuff going on behind the scenes, use that to your advantage.
Check out Alison Gopnik’s TED Talk
http://www.alisongopnik.com/papers_alison/sciam-gopnik.pdf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cplaWsiu7Yg
MacGyverism
Creative Solutions are subjective (thinking up great ideas)
Innovation changes the rules of the game (doing something with those ideas, being disruptive, action)
http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/004920.html
MacRecipes - 2011 - Fathom http://fathom.info/macrecipes/
Always Help, entertain or amaze
Ironically, ads can be the least effective advertising In every case - really make sure you understand what makes them tick.
What’s your output?
Is it strategic positioning, convincing a client to do something scary, coding or designing a web application or physical experience?Figure out what your role will be contributing toward the final product.