The smartphones we carry in our pockets are a million times more powerful than the supercomputers of the sixties. But the revolution doesn’t stop here: networking, software development and communications devices have also advanced at an exponential rate. My point being that the accelerating rate of improvement in information science will hit escape velocity very, very soon.
Technology is penetrating our daily lives at very crazy rates. We now discover apps daily, purchase new hardware every six months or so and read tech news multiple times per day. To further illustrate this point consider the entrance of information science and startup culture into the mainstream via publications such as TechCrunch and comedy series like Big Bang Theory and HBO’s Silicon Valley. Clearly, there is something very big going on. Everything from financial projections to leadership styles to parenting will change. In this scenario, we have to adjust our behaviors and expectations to become “exponential men and women” shall we seek to remain relevant.
From my vantage point the changes that we will experience in the next decade call for “an extreme adaptive mindset”. Trends like crypto currency adoption, mobile commerce, cloud computing and focused artificial intelligence will give birth to a cadre of businesses and phenomena that will change the way we live. However, this will happen at a hundred-fold the speed of the change the Internet brought to our lives. Because now communication, education and software distribution are hundred times faster.
It’s about to get crazy and most of us aren’t prepared for this new times at all. If you are in a leadership position of any kind I suggest you exercise several of the following recipes to keep up with what’s coming:
– Retain the partnership, collaboration or services of forward-thinking information science professionals
– Make the effort to understand what is going on by making technology media part of your daily readings
– Include tech people in your social and professional networks
– Attend conferences and seminars featuring information science thought leaders
– Upgrade your technology twice as fast
– Discover the technological trends of the places you visit. Then ask your IT team why Canada’s mobile payment infrastructure is so sophisticated or why eCommerce in South Asia is so advanced, for example.
– Take into account massive upcoming trends for your strategy meetings and financial forecasts
– And, finally, talk with your children about technology to understand what’s coming
The revolution will not be televised, and it won’t be shared on social media either. All of these changes will hit us like a rock at the same time and we’ll have just a handful of months to catch up or be rendered obsolete. The only answer is to remain ahead of the curve.