Many people assume that evolution is about the survival of the fittest. It’s not. What really drives evolution is adaptation to changing environments.
That’s why our planet is made up of more than just one super-fit organism. Instead, we have a complex ecosystem. New things come in and displace old ones, but the old ones tend to stick around somehow. Some have survived for millions of years.
We can imagine sharks and algae thumbing their nose. For all the newfangled organisms that have come along in the past million years, they still thrive. To them, not much has changed. Yet it surely has. In much the same way, as old industrial giants are just getting used to the knowledge and information economies, a new hacker economy is emerging.
People like to say that we can send a man to the moon, but still can’t cure the common cold. It’s become such an enduring cliche because, in fact, there is some truth to it.
While the promise of new technologies like genomics and stem cell research suggest breakthroughs, a visit to the doctor is very much like it always was. We go in, a nurse checks our vitals, the doctor asks us some questions, prescribes treatment and sends us on our way. That’s about to change.
Much like other industries, technology is about to give healthcare a major makeover and no stone will be left unturned. Everything from examination to diagnosis to treatment is becoming a hotbed of innovation. While much of the medical establishment is skeptical, even obstructive, there are unmistakable signs that a transformation is underway.
It’s hard to imagine a more revolutionary product than the iPhone. Launched just six years ago, in January 2007, it has significantly changed the way we live. Go to any city street almost anywhere in the world and you’ll see people glued to their smartphones.
Beyond just the sheer human enjoyment, the numbers are pretty startling as well. By itself, the iPhone would be the most profitable business in the world and has the power to lift the entire US economy. to say nothing the vast ecosystem that has built up around it.
Amazingly, Steve Jobs was, at best, a mediocre engineer and Apple continues to have one of the stingiest R&D programs in the business. So where did the technology come from? How can we create more businesses like Apple? Or, for that matter, more Silicon Valleys and Research Triangles? The answers are as clear as they are surprising.
The marketing industry runs on heuristics, although nobody actually uses that term. Simple rules of thumb become axioms, which are then dressed up in a new, snappier shell and presented as insights. They are then recycled and reused.
They do, of course, contain grains of truth and so they resonate. They gain traction. Consensus builds around them and they propagate, under slightly different guises, through various agency frameworks and client marketing programs.
Unfortunately, as momentum builds, so does inertia and it becomes difficult to pivot or even evolve. Just as it used to be that no one got fired for buying IBM, no marketer gets called out for propagating conventional wisdom, even if the evidence doesn’t support it. Some of today’s most popular marketing concepts need to be rethought.
No one doubts that Leo Tolstoy was a singular genius. His novel, War and Peace , is considered one of history’s great works and another, Anna Karenina, was recently adapted for a major motion picture, nearly 150 years after it was written.
Famous lines such as “Happy families are all alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” the opening of Anna Karenina, show not only uncommon insight into the human condition, but a superlative talent for communication that spans barriers of time and language.
Yet if you would put an infinite amount of monkeys sitting at an infinite amount of keyboards, the problem of producing masterworks like Tolstoy’s would be one of curation, not creation. Up till now, the concept of infinite monkeys has been an interesting notion and nothing more, but amazing advances in artificial intelligence are making it a reality.
Every manager wants to boost productivity. We invest billions in new machinery and software every year, not to mention a vast array of consultants, management books and other tools designed to increase the efficiency of our efforts.
Yet I’ve found that the most effective way to get results is not to dream up the unimaginably brilliant, but to put a stop to doing the unbelievably stupid and what most companies do horribly is meetings.
A recent Wall Street Journal article points out that CEO’s spend over 30% of their time in ineffective meetings. A wider survey, covering decades of research, came to even more disturbing conclusions (including that 40% of managers fall asleep in meetings). Clearly, making meetings more effective is one of the best ways to increase overall productivity.
In 1982, Steve Jobs first made the cover of Time magazine, where he was celebrated as the 26 year-old college-dropout-wunderkind who created the personal computer industry and made a fortune in the process. It seemed like a new age had dawned.
Unfortunately, tangible results were frustratingly hard to find. By 1987, the economist Robert Solow complained that “You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics,” a phenomenon which came to be known as the productivity paradox.
Today, nobody questions that computers have fundamentally changed the way we create, deliver and capture value. Erik Brynjolfsson, who coined the term “productivity paradox,” even has a new book out touting technology’s impressive contributions. What’s changed? I would argue that a big part of it is our ability to enjoy success while simulating failure.
I’ve long given up the habit of making New Years resolutions. What’s the point? The seeds of the next year are sown in the previous one. So rather than empty vows of change, all that effort can be put to better use by planning for what is to come.
To do so, we need to go beyond simple linear extrapolation. Principles like accelerating returns and hype cycles help point the way and we also need to keep in touch with the technologists and entrepreneurs that drive events.
As I’ve noted before, blindly following trends is for suckers, but putting serious thought into where things are headed is an essential exercise. Mapping out what we can expect helps us prepare for the unexpected, be robust and stay on our toes. With that in mind, here are 6 things we can expect to shape the digital world over the next year and beyond
The industrial world was built by practical men, those hearty souls who rolled up their sleeves and got things done. They were men of action, unhindered by the softheaded notions of ivory towers.
Today, however, we no longer live in an industrial world of railroads, furnaces and factories, but one of the visceral abstract, where the common devices that dominate our everyday lives are based on principles that the proverbial “man on the street” would find totally impractical, absolutely nutty.
Every time you use a computer or smartphone, drive a car, use a navigation system or shop at Wal-mart, you are in a very real sense, believing in ideas that defy common sense. These notions were often ridiculed because they defied common experience. In that sense, they were revolutions no less heroic than the physical kind. Here are four:
Well, we’ve almost made it through 2012 without blowing up the economy (hopefully) or a good sized country. Along the way, we found the Higgs boson and landed a rover on Mars that continues to send us back amazing pictures and other souvenirs.
I have a feeling that when we look back, 2012 will be seen as a pivotal year. Partly because Microsoft has entered the three-way race for mobile domination, but mostly because it was this year when artificial intelligence finally came into its own and looks set to drive technology for the next decade or so.
Most of all it was a great year for Digital Tonto. The community grew by leaps and bounds this year, to almost 150,000. Thank you all for your support, encouragement and advice. Once again, here are the posts you liked best over the past 12 months. I wish you a safe, happy and prosperous New Year. All the best!
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, is considered one of history’s great works and another, 
, was recently adapted for a major motion picture, nearly 150 years after it was written.
out touting technology’s impressive contributions. What’s changed? I would argue that a big part of it is our ability to enjoy success while simulating failure.
