"Cher, what's a dictionary?": My predictions on a superapp future

I tutor kids. 12 year olds. English. Sometime Science, but mostly English. 

One of them, a chubby little kid nestled away in the heartlands of Sengkang, asked me what the meaning of a particular word was. I told him to bring me the dictionary I spotted below his television. He looked confused, but obediently brought me the book. He put it down on the table, and looked at me expectantly. 

"Cher, what's a dictionary?" (Cher is not the singer, but rather, a terrible abbreviation of 'teacher'. )

"Huh? Just find the word in the dictionary. The words are in alphabetical order." 

"I just google can already right?" He whips out his smartphone - ("Sweetie, no phones during my lessons", "But I am LEARNING!!!") Anyway - 

I left that lesson slightly bewildered and strangely... hurt. What did it mean something you thought was absolutely essential (categorizing words alphabetically) - was now absolutely obsolete and irrevocably irrelevant? What did it mean for the rest of my skills? 

Now, when I think back to that experience and my resultant feelings that day, I mostly wonder about other trickle-down effects of the changing world that we live in, and I built my speech at the Business Innovation Forum around those thoughts. 

Below: An excerpt from my speech at Business Innovation Forum: The Future of Work

Two weeks ago, I was invited to the Business Innovation Forum 2019, hosted by IDC. Having been assigned to speak on the track of 'Future of Workforce', I was given the liberty to choose my own topic, contingent on the fact that it fit in with the bigger overall theme of the event. 

After some riffing around with the organizers on 'Go Gig or Go Home', a commentary on the gig economy; I decided to speak on a related topic, 'Go Big or Go Home: Superapps, the way of the future', which featured the gig economy as a by-product of Superapps.

I first set the scene, speaking about what I saw was a general movement towards aggregation of services. There are manifestations of this in different forms all around us - from the Apple ecosystem (iTunes, Apple Music, Siri); to the upcoming introduction of the Healthcare Services Act, where healthcare institutions in Singapore will be licensed by type of service provided (telemedicine; mobile medicine; health screening etc) for the first time in Singapore's history. 

I predicted that there would be four main trickle-down effects from the Superapp future: a labour-light, asset-light gig economy; higher value creation that made use of 'time' as a critical factor; a future that was no longer mobile-led, but one which was built around empathy-led creation. 

I flashed this infographic below, the one that was widely circulated a few years back - the famous one about how the world's most valuable companies don't own their own assets. And I spoke about how it was clear that it's clear from the present that the future was destined to be labour-light and asset-light, simply because the on-demand economy mandated it be that way.  

But what truly interested me wasn't Gig Economy 101; but rather the logical thought process that with the gig economy - jobs were going to be better-matched, and as a result, the economy as a whole was going to be performing at a much higher level. 

Thinking about it simplistically: imagine the difference between a walker, an owner of an e-scooter and an owner of a motorcycle, all of whom work for a food delivery company. Proper resource allocation would dictate that these three people be assigned different tasks - perhaps based on the size of the food order or the travel distance. Whichever it was, there was a proportionate degree of difficulty that was awarded to people with better and more specialised tools. 

Thinking about it more sophisticatedly: imagine this. I watched a cool new show on Netflix, called 'Diagnosis'. Dr Lisa Sanders, a consulting doctor on 'House M.D.', reviews patients with 0.01% diagnoses, where their symptoms don't fit conventional diagnoses, and nobody can figure out what's wrong with them. The episode that I watched featured a dude called Willy, who was having problems with movement control and loss of emotional control. The end diagnosis wasn't made by a neurologist, or a neurosurgeon, or psychiatrist, but rather - people who had lived with loved ones with similar symptoms. Willy was eventually diagnosed with Gulf War Illness by people who lived with Gulf War Illness on a daily basis. They were subject matter experts by sheer virtue of the fact that they had lived and breathed these same symptoms. 

And that's the future of the way forward, I think. With the increasing prevalence of communication technology and the increasing societal comfort in using said technology (arguably more important than the existence of technology itself), more specialised tasks will and can be awarded to people with more specialised knowledge -- and the most interesting(!!) thing is that this specialist knowledge may not come from professional qualifications, but rather, being subject matter experts due to personal experience. 

My second point was about heightened value creation and the concept of time within ecosystems. I talked about both the Apple and Amazon ecosystems, and how we live within ecosystems; and I talked about how the concept of time applying within these ecosystems first occurred to me when I encountered the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I saw how people watched a simple trailer, and pointed out an inconsistency between the 1st and the n-th movie, ensuing in endless conspiracy theories and plot line speculations. 

And I thought to myself - that's happening right now, in front of our eyes! The concept of time already applies to us simplistically, much like how Elon Musk says that humans are already simplistic cyborgs, by virtue of our smartphones and wearables being crude extensions of us. 

The concept of time already exists within our consumer tech ecosystem, We can go back in time and check our order histories, and know what food we ordered last Tuesday, or what clothes we bought online a month ago. We can see the future, and know what we're doing next Tuesday at 2pm, because we've made a dental appointment at that time. 

And so, what happens if we apply sophistication to that thought experiment? 

What if, today, the data we input into a system is instrumental in helping YOU in a diagnosis and a personalized medical treatment plan 50, 60 years down the line? I predicted that the next natural step was to see if companies could create universes out of ecosystems. A universe is what you get when you apply the concept of time within an ecosystem. 

My opinion is that companies that put effort into future-proofing data collection - into really laying the foundations of collecting clean data that could be beneficial in the future, rather than pandering to the twin slavish addictions of chasing the AI and ML wave - are the companies that are truly going to bring about the universes that we will live in. It's reminiscent of something I read, I think, about how Google was collecting satellite data of building heights, and finally found a use by implementing 3D structure into Google maps, changing the landscape of online maps forever. It's truly amazing how things that seem fundamental today were, once upon a time, merely ideas, foresight and proper execution. 

I then launched into talking about superapps, the title of my speech. 

I talked about how the first superapps all originated from China, because of the penetration rate of mobile internet. China was expanding, and the people living in poverty couldn't afford personal computers. PCs weren't then what they are today. People couldn't buy PCs, but they could buy a phone with a mobile connection. From a needs-based situation, grew superapps. And in one generation, China has leapt from a nation of digitally illiterate people to true digital natives. 

Since then, other superapps have flourished. You will recognize the names - Grab, of course; and Go-Jek and Wechat and the list goes on. 

What all the superapps have in common are that they're mobile-led. Out of necessity. The most common medium is the mobile phone. But with the price of PCs dropping - (a quick google search shows Raspberry Pi starter kits at $110) - will apps really remain the medium of choice for much longer? My instinct says no. Perhaps it may be so for the next 5 years, but beyond that? My guess is a cloud-based super system. Beyond that? The sky's the limit. My guess is an AI-powered system that works intelligently with IOT devices to make hyperaware decisions about you and your life, such as a SmartCar unlocking when it detects your presence and automatically driving you to Ristorante Italiano because your girlfriend texted you the booking details. 

Exciting times. 

I ended with the most intuitive point - empathy-driven creation. I talked about how through the changes that this world has brought, and whatever else lies in the future - fundamentally, people haven't changed.

At the very crux of flux, remains the fact that all the changes to the way we live life are just proxies for society. At the end, how differently we book a ride, or order food, or get to work is secondary to the end-goal of community-building. And that- I said, was going to be the way forward. 

Just as early men settled down and formed societies, people want and will want to form communities. People want to feel treasured, and loved, and connected - just like the people who lived a million years ago, and like people will a million years from now. I predicted that companies that understand this and put human connection at the heart of all they do will be the ones left standing in the end.

Well - then I also proceeded to thank everyone and announce a lunch break when it wasn't a lunch break - but that's a story for another time. I would love to know any thoughts you have on this topic and my predictions - so don't hesitate to drop comments below!