Generally – Bollocks!

In fact I am willing to put donw $250 per prediction against almost all of these. (Assuming Ross wants to clarify what we mean by ‘commonplace’)

Actually, if he wants to head off to http://www.longbets.org/ I will be happy to accomodate. Using an independent public service, that requires a more detailed statement will help with such. And if Anthill is still owned and run by james we can have a live streamed debate about which ones we won/lost. And we can get others involved in the debate too!

This might be fun! (Assuming my public reputation is worth anything at the time!)

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Agreed Nick. Many of these are off by at least 10-15 years. In response to the article:

1. On the horizon but definately not commonplace by 2016. More of a niche product rather than mainstream.

2. Agreed but the fractured landscape of social media sites will make lifestreaming difficult to be taken up by the masses without a “one-stop destination”. Ultimately, this will likely be Facebook but the site has a long way to go in terms of its UI to make lifestreaming palatable for mainstream users. There’s also a generational shift that needs to happen, ie: perhaps commonplace by 2025.

3. Some major Australian institutions are investing millions of dollars into actually reverting back to domestic human-staffed call centres. The general public can’t stand offshore or automated call centres. Big companies are taking note.

4. Yep, agreed.

5. If this were to happen I’d hate to think what would happen to our economy. Of all the predictions, I think this one is the least likely.

6. The technology would have to be extremely basic. In seven years time, I doubt whether any consumer-ready device along these lines would be available.

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Always nice to get a response from my provocations

My preferred tool for long-term strategy work is scenario planning, because we cannot predict the future. But sometimes it’s useful to be specific, as it makes people think – among other things about what they do and don’t believe will happen. To be frank I think some of my forecasts are more likely than others, but I do believe all of them are likely.

Nick, OK I’ll make some of these more specific and put them up on Long Bets.

Tim, you might want to look at the following:
1. http://www.myvu.com/ – I bought a pair of video glasses over 3 years ago and current designs are way better. If they take off (which is not a certainty), it will be by 2016.

2. Facebook opened to the public in September 2006. Given how much people have started sharing (most from scratch) in the last 3 years, do you think it will take another 16 for us to share much more?

3. http://www.dmgconsult.com/services/qmreport/sample-figure.jpg I question your data Tim – there is no question that voice analytics and interactive voice response are on a dramatic upturn, with just maybe one or two companies pulling back on the pace of their shift.

5. http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/407/freelance-facts.html Over 30% of workers in the US are independent and rising rapidly. Less structured employment creates a far more flexible and dynamic economy – let’s hope that Australia goes this way!

6. http://www.emotiv.com/ Consumer-ready thought interface – order it now!

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Nick Dalla Riva Reply:
October 13th, 2009 at 5:35 pm

To be fair, I do agree that what you are predicting is likely to come true, the challenge I see, is with the time frame and the market penetration – hence my query over the definition of ‘commonplace’.

1 & 2 I don’t believe will be commonplace (more than 50% of population)
3 – I would like to explore what is meant by ‘conversations with computers’ before ‘betting’ , but I don’t believe Call Centres will be replaced to even 60% of the curent numbers.
4. Arguably people are already using public sources. Although recent legal consequences and advice are suggesting firms should avoid using public sources without the express request from the candidate, or at the very least advising them they have utilised th einformation. (privacy implications) So this is very likely, pending legal consequences.
5. Unlike Tim, I think is probably the most likely. I guess its a question of definition – independent contractor, agency service, consultant. The growth of professional services in a knowledge economy will definitely increase – but what the contractual and tax consequences are for individuals and companies with reagrds to employment will be interesting.
6. This is happening – I agree. But ‘commonplace’ – no chance. Certainly not ‘thought to action’. Maybe ‘motion detection to action’ will have more significant penetration in the gaming and diability markets, and less so in task based or daily operational environements (home, office and public services – like health). Note – I thought the http://www.emotiv.com presentation was all about ‘motion detection to action’ and not thought to action. (There is actually so research in Japan on ‘thought to action’ for driving wheelchairs tha is pretty interesting. Anyway, I look forward to further discussion and maybe a couple of ‘bets’ for charity!

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Hi Nick, it seems we’re using ‘commonplace’ in a different way.

I certainly don’t think that over 50% of people will wear video glasses or lifestream large chunks of their life. However it will be very common to see people wearing video glasses on public transport or on the street, and lifestreaming at a significant level could well be as common as Twitter is today, which is a mile away from half the population, but I think we can say that Twitter is an everyday, accepted, understood part of the world we live in for just about everybody.

3. It sounds like we might be able to disagree on call centers. As mentioned there is a fair bit of uncertainty on this one, but I think that there’s a good chance that over 50% of people in call centers today are replaced within 7 years.

4. Yes, we already Google people before we meet them. But this will go a lot further to a specific measure. There is a lot to work through here, including legal issues, however aggregating publicly available data should be OK.

5. It will indeed be VERY interesting – the future of work may evolve at a pace that surprises us all.

6. I think the guy in the Emotiv demo was trying to show what he was thinking, but in any case this is pretty crude at this point. Absolutely the best current BCI (Brain Computer Interface) technologies are for quadriplegics, and some of them quite good. Other technologies are very good (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOkpn0BN2HE) though most people don’t want electrodes implanted in their brains!

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