When I was a kid, the future to me revolved around flying cars. More than a few years later, we still don’t have flying cars (albeit DARPA is trying to develop one in its Transformer program), but given how most people drive, I’m not sure I really want to see them fly.
Sure, there’s been some excitement along the way - home microwaves, a moon landing or two, touchtone phones, PCs (and Macs), cell phones and smartphones, but nothing yet that has pulled it all together and screamed out loud that the future had arrived. That is until I watched a video produced by Microsoft’s Office group. Seriously.
To me, it’s partly the lack of hover boards, jetpacks and flying cars that help make it real. It’s also that I continue to believe our path forward is to integrate all of our separate technologies and processes (the nouns and the verbs) in ways that makes our lives that much better than the simple sum of our collective parts. And if that doesn’t produce opportunity for business, then I don’t know what will.
While there are some that will say the answer is in software (i.e., there’s an app for that), I think the challenge is larger than that. It’s how we must work on an integrated basis – to pull together all of the levers of change across the entire spectrum of our lives into an experience that ushers in the future.
I think we’re on to something big here. I’m pretty sure the world is up to the challenge. I know I can’t wait for the future to arrive.