Let's Predict the Future

I’ve been reading up a lot about technology and innovation history and although my math isn’t steller, understanding the phenomenon of technological advances is so intriguing.

First and foremost, I think I’ve been impressed for quite a while by the impact of Moore’s Law. For everybody who may think PR can’t be impactful I suggest you read up on Gordon Moore’s visionary and how Intel has thrillingly developed. He made a prediction in the 1965 in Electronics Magazine (which, in 2005 was worth $10,000 according *see CNET’s: Intel offers $10,000 for Moore’s Law magazine*). The law precisely describes a driving force of technological and social change throughout decades. The trend is not expected to stop until 2015 or later.

The following are in no particular order…

Nicholas Negroponte’s book, Being Digital forecasted the interactive world, the entertainment world and the information world would all band together into one. After reading, Being Digital, it’s evident that Negroponte is a digital optimist but even so the unification of the three different worlds seems likely. He discusses that humanity will head towards a fture where everything will be digitalized – which I whole heartedly believe. From newspapers to various types of entertainment it’s all digital. Considering the book was written in 1995 I’m impressed by the prediction that wires and cables would cease to exist and the touch-screen will be the mouse of the future.

I ran the June Monthly Staff meeting at my company and tradition holds that whoever runs the staff meeting gives a 10 minutes presentation before business updates are made. Well, I talked about 2012 and the end of the world phenomenon (it was more uplifting than it sounds here on my blog). I discussed a little bit about overpopulation which was inspired not by Aristotle or the Mayans but by Harry Harrison’s book Make Room! Make Room! Where he discusses the consequences of unchecked population growth on society may be solved by cannibalism. It sounds crazy, but it’s a great read and an amusing theory to say the least.

1996 – Alan Greenspan warned of irrational exuberance in the stock Market on December 5, 1996. Nobody listened to him, the stock market boomed and then took a major downturn in 2000 and 2001.

Also, a couple predictions that turned out to be incredibly incorrect../

John Langdon-Davies: 1938, “Democracy will be dead by 1950.”

Business Week: August 2, 1968 – “With over fifteen types of foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn’t likely to carve out a big share of the market for itself.

Anyways, it seems that we’re always looking at what’s going to happen in the future. It’s going to be super interesting to see what happens next in terms of where we’re going and where the world says we’re going.