The 21st Century: What will it look like?
Peter Pesti, a student at Georgia Tech University wrote this roadmap to the 21st century. His document is really worth taking a closer look as he brought together predictions from many different (scientific) ressources, covering mostly the fields of technology, economics and climate conditions. The video on YouTube is a shorter version of his long list.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1KEFgD6Dtg]
But do we have to believe what he is telling us? Especially about the audacious ideas for live at the end of 21st century?
- The personal view: Having a personal view about the future is quite a difficult thing. We know things will change in the long run and scientific progress tends to emerge and make live easier. In addition to that many of us share the feeling, that scientific progress modifies our lives faster and with more intensity than in former times (centuries). This is the reason why I think we all should reflect about future from time to time. Ideas or roadmaps like the one from Peter Pesti can be a great help to see what might happen and to build up one’s own opinion.
- The business view: Business is about markets and competition – and quite often very shortsighted (or should I say shortminded?). So in this field it might be good to reflect about a companies visions and long term strategies (if there are any!). My experience is, that many companies tend to predict future as a simple prolongation of trends that have occoured long ago. But mostly future is different from what companies thought it would be. That’s the reason, why there is so much failure and misunderstanding about market shifts and technological ruptures. So for business people reflecting (different) scenarios about future from time to time would be a good exercise.
- The technological view: The roadmap makes quite clear that technology becomes more and more imporant. And Peter Pesti is not the only one to think so: Former IBM strategist and manager Irving Wladawsky-Berger in a recent blog post stressed the fact, that technical talent is more important than ever before, as it is increasingly permeating all aspects of business, society and our personal lives. So thinking about future for technologists should be “normal homework”.
One important remark has to be made about Peter Pesti’s roadmap: Two of his assumptions are of central relevance to the final outcome and both can be heavily discussed. The first is the occurrence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) sooner or later in 21st century and the second is this sort of possible transition of human intelligence and consciousness into a computational context (robotic, machinery, virtual life). If both will show up, 21st century will really be the begin of a totally new era. If not, well then changes won’t be that dramatic and life may continue to be relatively “human”.
This very special focus on AI as an important factor of technological development appears to me to be a specific hope for eternal life placed in a non-religious but scientific context. So far there is no proof, that AI will soon occour. The dreams and serious reflections about it are some 50 years old. Surprisingly there is no general debate about it in modern society.
So Peter Pesti’s roadmap to the 21st century is a very good starting point for personal thinking as well as for a more openminded business perspective about future, technology and modern society.
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Hello Jeremy :
“The business view: Business is about markets and competition” : NO AT ALL !!!
That is a big fundamental mistake. Business is about THE CUSTOMER, full stop.
The goal of any business is to create a customer. Then, there are means such as creating a new market from scratch and issues such as the competition, but those are definitely not the purpose of business.
Once you realize that and start thinking your business in the customer’s perspective, everything ease. Including predicting the Future, because YOU will create the Future.
_Marc
It’s actually Matthias that wrote the post, Marc.
I agree with you to the extent that it applies to a specific type of business, but not all. In my view there are a number of business models, which all have different allowances for a customer-focus. Take a highly competitive environment, say soft-drinks, where margins are low. In this case, the individual customer will be much further from the creative process, and instead the market will be looked at through the form of e.g. surveys, and beating the competition will be a priority as well.
A focus on the customer works well at the beginning of the life-cycle, and then you have to assume that you know what the customer wants. Of course it can be argued that this is how and why disruptive innovation happens, because, as it grows more mature, the business is too far removed from actual customer-needs.
@ Matthias: a very, very interesting post, and you can be sure that I will study the list carefully.
On AI. I think there are philosophical discussions about it, however probably still very much restricted to sci-fi circles. I think Assimov is good reading there and I heard about some movement in Korea, I think, about the implementation of his three laws of robotics in regard to the robots they are developing. Sadly, other than that and Star Trek, I’m not much of an expert in this area.
@Vincent : thanks for the hint, didn’t read the headline.
Back on the core issue here : I’m afraid that considering that you must be customer-focused at the beginning of the product life-cycle ONLY and then that “you have to assume that you know what the customer wants” is a true mistake, Buddy.
Because, with such an approach, you’re saying to the customer : we don’t care about you. About the way you use our product, what it does actually brings to you, if it does really help you go better, what are the issues you face with it, etc etc etc…
In other words, you launch a product based on some customer survey/interviews/feedback/whatsoever, and then let it live its life like a balloon in the air at Disneyland – see what I mean. You take the money out of your customer’s pocket, and then, boom, you disappear. Okay, that can work. Once.
Now, the question is : with such an approach, how do you improve your product ? Just by doing competitive analysis and market surveys ? Come on, Folks ! Ever heard of Sales Channels ? How do you, the Vendor, reach your customers w/o proper sales channels in place ?
My suggestion here is for you to digg information about what do the most effective sales channels – direct, indirect, doesn’t matter : at the end of the day, they are intimate parts of your business. You’ll be surprised : they don’t only sell, they also get Customers feedback. For what ? Product Improvement, New Product Generation…
Last, on disruption : how do you think it does happen ? Just by Miracle, or because somebody somewhere realized that a group of people were facing a problem which wasn’t solved properly by actual solutions ? So, even Disruption is about Customers.
post-scriptum : look at the most famous failures of the last decades in the Automotive industry for instance. In the US, the Big 3 are in big trouble because they’ve lost contact with their customers : like many others, they considered their customers are their sales channels. False : End-User is the real Customer, because it’s this guy who pays you the check. On the other hand, Fiat came back from Hell because they’ve listen to what the End-User/Customer wants. And they keep delivering on it.
@Marc: Thanks a lot for your comments. I agree with you that business should focus on the customer. I used the word “markets” but could have written “customer” instead.
As you point out with your example about american car manufacturers the true customer can get out of sight when companies seem to worry only about sales figures and profit margins.
And yes, even disruption can be seen as a problem related to customer focus. So there is quite a very interesting idea coming up here: Companies (or managers) with a true focus on their customers will not only achive better results on markets but also have a better understanding of future (progress, market shifts…).
Apple might be a good example for this since Steve Jobs’ return into the management some 10 years ago. Doesn’t he have a true focus on customers needs?
@ Marc:
Once again, we are not in disagreement, though I don’t want to put things this black and white.
You won’t find a counter-argument anywhere that sales-channels are effective ways to collect data. Up to a point. As a producer, you have to differentiate between noise and core-demands, as the first leads to featuritis and inferiority, and the latter to a superior product.
There are also stages of company-development, where factors, like profit-margins, shareholders, strong competition, etc., prevent an accurate customer-focus and instead you focus on just beating the competition and meeting targets. I’m not saying this is perfect, but if you have the market-power, this approach can actually work. On the internet, there is also the phenomenon of the network-effect, where users find it more difficult to move to other services, even if their current provider doesn’t do the job 100% well.
I really like the approach of Mercedes, which adds equipment to its cars which reports back what works and what could work better to the factory.
And I really respect creative companies like Apple and Pixar, which instead of focussing too much on market-trends, produce superior products by hiring quality people to create products even customers can’t envision. There’s also the case of enslaving yourself too much to customers, you know?
The worst company is something like Gillette, which produced the perfect product, the Mach 3, and now is stuck with either innovating incrementally (yes, more blades please) and charging crazy prices for razor-blades. I’m not sure if the problem is a lack of customer-focus or simply a lack of quality in the company. That clearly is a company that has to go back to the drawing-board.
I imagine there is a sweet spot for customer-focus, after the idea and in the building process. As soon as you market, there is the need for proper marketing-approaches, which is more dependant on market-trends. And throughout this movement, you need to defend yourself from competitive actions as well. Etc. etc. I really don’t see customer focus as an absolute condition throughout the life-cycle.
On disruption. I pretty much wrote that exact sentence in my post on Coke Zero.
Anyway, I got to get back to work. Expect future responses in a few hours. I hope we’re not distracting from Matthias core-focus too much either.
@ Matthias: I would say that Apple ignores much of what the outside world has to say and instead focusses on blue oceans = competing in areas that it’s competitors cannot compete in.
Many people argued that there isn’t space for a $300 mp3-player and similar for a $600 phone. And if it was up to customers, we would now have Newton 2, an ultra-portable Macbook pro, and a gaming desktop Mac.
@Vincent: Your examples are very good, I agree with you. When marketresearchers simply ask people, what they would like to have, the answers never go very far. Mostly these answers are useless in the term of building long term strategies.
And that brings us back to Peter Pesti and his catalogue! For most companies it would be useful to take into consideration what experts in the field of longterm development and technical progress think to come out.
Maybe that’s what Steve Job did and he may have concluded then, that it would be useful to enter the market for mobile phones (as an example)…