Inevitable

What do we REALLY believe as inevitable in this digitally-charged age? Who would have predicted that 10 years hence, we would have a device in our pocket or bag so critical to our lives that there are now psychological conditions, detox routines and lifestyles built around a metal, glass and chip-based piece of equipment?

Well, Kevin Kelly knows a thing or two about technology. Founding editor of Wired magazine, he’s been at the forefront of technology for decades.

His book from last year is called The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 technological forces that will shape our future. With a title like that I was drawn in and with a holiday in Sardinia last September, it was a Kindle-tastic way to celebrate some down time.

So what did he say? I wouldn’t want to spoil (or breach copyright on) the book so I’ll reveal the 12 and give you a tease of a few that stood out for me (and the professional field I work in / mission I have in life)

The 12 Inevitables are:

1. Becoming;
2. Cognifying;
3. Flowing;
4. Screening;
5. Accessing;
6. Sharing;
7. Filtering;
8. Remixing;
9. Interacting;
10. Tracking;
11. Questioning; and
12. Beginning.

Not quite what you’d expect from a technologist: no data analytics ninja; design maven or similar.

I’ll look at a few and starting with the first one: Becoming. What Kelly is talking about here is a state he calls protopia.  Everything we have - from paper, copper pipes to our coffee mugs - requires our attention and at times, fixing. He’s noticed that even digital entities (code; apps; and hardware) will weaken, corrode and ossify. He calls it the result of an upgrade arms race. He has a point. We have all (probably) put off upgrading (it works still, why do it?) and even lost data due to upgrades. Yet now it’s a form of hygiene. Delaying an upgrade can cause negative disruption. He calls it becoming because, in the background sometimes, or often, our machines are becoming renewed. We then, become newbies to the new User Interface (UI) or experience (UX) and we have to become adept at it all again. Skype, most recently, being a big change. LinkedIn desktop in January this year.  Twitter’s app last month. Kelly says that we will ALWAYS be newbies and becoming is a state we have to get used to. An inevitable. It would drive trainers and experts mad - because their expertise is lost in one upgrade. Not totally of course, but they have to become good at using it again. 

Protopia then is a term used by Kelly to describe a futuristic society that improves itself through slow but continuous progress. He states that the most important software of the next 30 years isn’t even with us yet: and so we won’t have time to master it before a small continuing upgrade makes it better than the version we’re used to. He asserts that dystopia is like the former Soviet Union rather than Mad Max and utopia brings sedentary ways and a form of stagnation. Protopia is a state of becoming rather than a destination. We also tend to see the new through the lens of old - witness that the earliest movies were like theatrical presentations but before cameras. We now cut cinematic productions in a totally different way. Bearing little or no resemblance to live theatre.

So becoming is an inevitable. We’d better get used to being consciously incompetent by our constant state of being upgraded. For HR this means we’re never going to get the training right, by the time we master it, it’s upgraded. So we have to become with our learners and swarm around utilisation, learning together and deploying collectively. We become one of Kelly’s others inevitables: Sharing types.

I’ll next look at Accessing. And we can see much of this now. Whatever as a service. Kelly asserts that possession is not as important now as accessing things. Think cloud storage, Uber and Lyft rides, watching streamed box sets and movies on Netflix and music via Spotify. It seems every year we own LESS of what we use. Kelly calls this dematerialisation. Some of this is in the development of better hardware like our smartphones and new types of monitors that can now be rolled up and stored in our bag. In Silicon Valley they say ‘software eats everything’.

It’s on-demand; it’s decentralised, it’s platforms and it’s cloud-based. We’re seeing it now and we’re likely to see more of it as an inevitable in the near future. Even our money and trusted transactions could go this way with the advent of more widespread use of the blockchain with bitcoins and ethereum. And for HR? Well work as a platform, employees as a service, a talent cloud? Already here and we're already behind the curve in many respects.

And lastly Interacting. We’re already taking our first tentative steps into interactive virtual reality worlds and 3-D IMAX experiences of immersive viewing.  VR is not a new technology but it is getting better and better and with Gear VR, Hololens, Magic Leap, Oculus and more, we’re seeing how processors are power us into ever more realistic simulations.

We’re also now seeing whole body (a la Minority Report’s UI) and particularly voice becoming a major interface over keyboards and a trackpad. As we become more Google Home, Alexa, Siri friendly the devices are fighting back somewhat; elegant to touch and hold, devices won’t be in rush to be passive boxes we wave at and talk to. Touch is still a human sensation that we cherish and enjoy.

As more of what we use becomes “smart” and therefore connected, so our sense of interaction comes with it. Smart clothing we can swipe; embedded microphones allow us to talk into our buttons; and then Elon Musk's recent announcement on exploring Neuralinks. Not even mentioned by Kelly specifically in the book, though he did mention thought-instigated technology.

Kelly states that the future of technology to come, resides in the discovery of new interactions. In the next 30 years, if anything isn’t intensely interactive in some way, we’ll just assume it’s broken.

In the inevitable future according to Kelly, your body and its uniqueness will be your password and your digital identity and your presence in the virtual world, is you. If this is how consumer technology is going, so will it be in the workplace. HR as the hiring, deploying, paying, developing function that it is, will need to mindful of all these new access points and interactions.

Kevin Kelly’s The Inevitable is a fascinating glimpse into the future of technology and our relations, interactions and the world we’ll be part of.

We’ll be discussing such inevitables and more at Henley Business School Careers special event - World Of Work 2030. A fine ensemble of practitioners, academics and enthusiasts helping you become part of the future of work, right now. 2030 is nearer than the year 2000, and we all remember that hype. So to distinguish hype from inevitables, join us by signing up to what will be a fascinating day, please click here: https://hly.ac/wow-2030