The Changing Future
When I was a young boy, I would spend time in the summer working on my Grandfather’s farm in a small Texas town named Telephone, 97 miles north of Dallas. How small was it? It was so small that the entering and leaving sign was on the same post.
One day Grandpa shared a little wisdom with me, and as I think of technological change, his words ring true. He said, “Son, it’s easier to ride a horse in the direction it’s going.”
The horses of technological change are not standing still; they are moving faster every day. And when they change direction, you had better pay attention.
In the early 1990s, IBM missed the change in direction from mainframes to servers using PCs and almost lost the company. Kodak missed the change from film to digital photography and is still trying to recover. The music industry missed the change from CDs to MP3s, and the phone companies missed the switch from expensive long distance to almost free Internet telephone (VoIP).
The Changing Future
When the horses of technological change, change direction, the future changes. The old future will no longer be profitable. Customers won’t be there. So why do so many companies of every size and in every industry miss so many disruptive changes?
The answer is human nature. When faced with change, it is human nature to protect and defend the status quo. It happens to us all. It can even happen to the world’s richest man, Bill Gates.
When Netscape started to change our world in the mid 1990s by offering a Web browser as a free download, “The Wall Street Journal” interviewed Mr. Gates and asked how the browser would affect Microsoft. His answer was basically, not much. In addition, Mr. Gates had just written a book titled The Road Ahead and had failed to mention the Internet.
To his credit, he did something very good. He got over it quickly! He stopped defending the status quo, and embraced the future. He re-directed company efforts to focus on the new future and, as far as his new book, there was a quick re-write to include the Internet.
Seeing The New Big Picture
Technology has the power to change how we live, work, and play. It changes our behaviors. For example, when Apple introduced the iPod, millions of people changed how, and where, they listened to music.
In today’s world of information overload, it is important to focus on your area of expertise. The problem is that by focusing on one area, you miss everything else.
Every now and then, it is imperative to do a broad scan of the technology changes outside of your area of expertise, looking for both potential disruption and opportunity. This will allow you to anticipate when the horses of technological change will change direction.
Daniel Burrus, one of the world's leading technology forecasters, business strategists, and author of six books
Copyright 2006 Author retains copyright. All Rights Reserved.
