David J.
Danto
Business travel
thoughts in my own, personal opinion
eMail: ddanto@IMCCA.org Follow Industry News: @NJDavidD
Who Wins
the Technology Revolution?
My
family and I were in our car on the way to a restaurant for dinner the other
evening when we suddenly heard a piercing noise. It was coming from my smartphone. We were aware that rain was falling pretty
hard, but my phone let us know that a flood warning had been issued for the
area we were driving through. We weren’t
planning to take any of the flood prone routes…but we might have been. While my family marveled about the value of AT&T
bringing Emergency Alerts to iPhone users, my thoughts drifted elsewhere.
A gazillion years ago I wrote a college paper comparing the
movies to broadcasting. I remember explaining
how a TV or radio audience always knew that if something important happened
someone would break-in and let them know.
In the movies, there would never be that urgent interruption – that
guarantee that you’d be kept informed.
Nowadays we’d be informed anywhere our smartphone was working.
While everyone was thinking about how cool it was to be
getting urgent updates anywhere, I was contemplating just how much the world
had changed. We’re clearly living
through a technology revolution. In my last blog I
explained how innovations like the mobile phone moved from cultural oddity to
perceived necessity in just sixteen years.
But that’s really only part of the story. In today’s modern world every bit of
information is at our fingertips.
Questions like “What do
yellow roses mean?” or “What
ever happened to my High School Music Director?” or “How do you perform an
emergency tracheotomy?” can be answered - all the time, with one hundred percent
accuracy and in excruciating detail.
What does this mean to everyone?
A lot, really…
For
starters it means that no human being will ever again have to agonize through The
Readers Guide to Periodical Literature at a library. That in itself must have helped retire a
division at Amnesty International (and I personally feel a significant amount
of justice just linking to its description on Wikipedia.) However, this technology revolution is more
than just a convenience. The past and
imminent disruptions will have a transformative effect on every part of our
lives. If you don’t believe me, just ask
the people who used to work at Tower Records or Newsweek or Kodak. Which will be the next business or
organization that closes its doors because it did not adapt quickly enough?
That’s why I feel it essential to stay on top of this
technology revolution. It’s why I advise
clients to adopt new technology with a detailed, well-thought-out plan and as
soon as possible. Don’t be the last one
standing when the music stops.
What can you do to keep the needed edge? Well, if “hire me to design a modern unified
collaborative ecosystem” is advice that’s too self-serving, how about
registering to attend the next International
CES Show (in Las Vegas in January.)
Registration is free through the end of August, you’ll see first-hand
the technologies that will be in the marketplace in the next couple of years,
you might get the chance to meet-up and chat with me, and what’s not to like
about a few days in Vegas? Especially when it might mean the difference between
winning and losing in the technology revolution.
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This article was written by David Danto and contains solely his own, personal
opinions.
All image and links provided above as reference under
prevailing fair use statutes.