Now what?

I rarely completely clear my mind unless I'm trying to. Sometimes I think a big things; sometimes I think about small things. It tends to depend on how much I have going on.when I'm busy, it's the small things. Like, why is Adhesive Tape called that? Aside from videotape, what kind of tape isn't adhesive? Isn't adhesion what tape is for? It's a "where am I and what am I doing?" kind of mindset. But I'm with less busy, I tend to free associate more and other things coming to play. Like what's going to happen next.

"With what?" you may ask. And that's a very fair question to which I do not know the answer. I mean in general, what's the next big thing? Or you can pick any sort of societal trends. I think a lot about cell phones and smart phones. First, because I was in the cell phone business, albeit 20 years ago. But also because we spend an off a lot of time at school talking about cell phone (I personally prefer "mobile," which describes the usage, not a technology nobody understands, but then again, nobody knows what AM or FM mean either) policy. And as adults we talk a lot about what the effect of ubiquitous smart phones is going to be on our children.

I'm always a bit disappointed when people assume that what's going on with kids and mobile devices (can we come up with a better name please?) is bad. I've said this before. We have no way of knowing. It could be the biggest thing since sliced bread, which was itself a slight improvement over unsliced bread.

But back the matter of what's going to be the next big thing. Everyone having smart phones is a really big thing, a really big change in the way we conduct ourselves. First there's the ability to contact anyone from almost anywhere. Then there's the computer aspect of it. Computers have only been generally available for about 35 years, so in that time we've gone from there being no such thing as a personal computer, to everyone carrying one around with them all the time. That's crazy, considering how much computers can actually do for you. Revolutionary change of this sort means two things. One, it's really going to change people and the way they behave and the way they interact with each other in the world. Second, it means we have absolutely no idea how. How could we? 

So there is the "how is this going to affect us?" question, and there's also the next big thing question. I say this because I don't think people really understand that the personal computing revolution is over. But it is. That's not to say there aren't going to be advancements and improvements, and probably some important ones. But they're going to the evolutionary. The difference between having no computers it all up and having powerful one on your person at every moment was the revolution. Exactly how powerful they are and how big they are is not a revolution. It's evolution.

But the incredibly frustrating and incredibly cool thing about human history is that you can't anticipate this kind of stuff. We don't know what's going to be the next big thing. People spend all their lives and millions of dollars trying to figure it out, but it's never anything more than a educated guess and I don't pretend to have any better idea than anyone else, I just know that it's not going to have anything in particular to do with what's the next tablet or cell phone.

And don't talk to me about the so-called Internet of Things, as if it's something revolutionary. I know all about the stuff that's going on, voice activated assistants that connect to appliances and heating and cooling systems and alarms and all that kind of stuff. I have no argument with convenience and usefulness of this kind of business, but convenience and utility do not a revolution make. Yes, it's easier to tell the voice activated assistant to turn the thermostat down 2° but it's not that much easier than walking four steps to the thermostat and turning it down yourself. And if you're away from home, I agree that some sort of remote access is useful, but what sort of revolution has a result of saving a few dollars.

I mean, Amazon Prime is useful and convenient and can save money, and I like it. It's a really good thing. And it's great for Amazon's business. But it's not a revolution. It's just a better form of something that already existed. That's evolutionary. Same thing with self driving cars. They're still cars.

So now that I told you what the next revolution will not be, I suppose you're waiting for me to show you what the next revolution will be. To which I reply "Ha ha ha." How the hell can I know? I'm smart, but I'm just a guy who doesn't really know all that much in the largest scheme of things.

The people who call themselves futurists, and I use that phraseology because I don't think such a thing really exists, think about this kind of stuff is and they look for needs that are unmet. Unfortunately, there's no way to necessarily anticipate with those needs are. I don't think people thought we really needed to be able to communicate with everybody we know at any time and by multiple means. There were reasonably functional ways of communicating already. And yet now many people, especially young people, who are the ones who matter, do need to be in touch with everybody all the time. That took the fortuitously simultaneous development of mobile phone and micro computer.

So what else is like that? If you want to have fun and play with it, I'd suggest starting with fundamental human psychological needs. We've now dealt with the need for connectedness. What's next? Time to read some Maslow and dream a bit.