postcards from the future texas state fbla

Bill M Wooten, PhD

FBLA State Leadership Conference

March 9, 2012

Postcards From the Future

Presenter

Presentation Notes

“We tend to see the future as a continuation of the present. It never is. Today more than ever we can imagine a variety of good and bad futures. Here is a lively portraiture of some of them.” A few years back, Malcolm Gladwell penned a fascinating piece for the New Yorker, dealing with the fact that nearly all major technological and scientific advances tend to be "invented" by multiple, totally separate, people at the same time. This seemed like pretty good fodder for recognizing that patents for such things often don't make sense, since the evidence suggests that they were the natural progression of the state of the art, and giving one a monopoly would significantly punish the others who came up with the same concept (and may have even done a better job). Yet, oddly, Gladwell used the piece to play up how wonderful giant patent troll Intellectual Ventures was. It seemed like a weird disconnect. ��In his latest piece, Gladwell goes a step further in his exploration of innovation, in writing about the difference between invention and innovation, picking apart the classic story of Steve Jobs seeing the GUI/mouse combo at Xerox PARC and "copying" it for the Macintosh. Gladwell points out that the lessons that some take from the story aren't really correct. Specifically, one of the standard lessons is the idea that Xerox had the personal computer revolution in its hands and let it slip away. But Gladwell points out that this isn't really true. While PARC showed Jobs that idea (much of which was copied itself from Doug Engelbart and his famous work at SRI), it really was the implementation that mattered, and Jobs and Apple (along with Ideo) had to work quite hard to take the idea of the mouse -- which cost hundreds of dollars and was fragile in the Xerox version -- and make it cheap, reliable and easy to use.

Apple Google 3M Toyota Microsoft

“We tend to see the future as a continuation of the present. It never is. Today more than ever we can imagine a variety of good and bad futures. Here is a lively portraiture of some of them.”

Disruptive Innovation

“ Disruptive innovation points to situations in which new organizations can use relatively simple, convenient, low-cost innovations to create growth and triumph over powerful incumbents.”

Sustaining versus Disruptive Innovation

“The telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a

means of communication.” - Western Union Internal Memo, 1876

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Presenter

Presentation Notes

“true. This device that used to be called a phone….”

“There is no reason for any individuals to have a

computer in their home.” - Ken Olsen, President, Chairman and Founder of DEC, 1977

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Presenter

Presentation Notes

Agree…. Just tens of reasons. This is a black and white image of a DEC PDP-1 system (1960) in a large warehouse type room. There are three men wearing white shirts working near the computer. Two men on the left side of image are working closely with the PDP-1 with one man touching one of the modules or wires. The man on the far right of the image is looking down at the drawings or maps on the table. There are other test equipment and computers around the room. The PDP-1 used an 18-bit word size and had 4096 words as standard main memory (equivalent to 9,216 eight-bit bytes, though the system actually used six-bit bytes), upgradable to 65,536 words. The magnetic core memory's cycle time was 5 microseconds (corresponding roughly to a "clock speed" of 200 kilohertz; consequently most arithmetic instructions took 10 microseconds (100,000 operations per second) because they used two memory cycles: one for the instruction, one for the operand data fetch. Signed numbers were represented in one's complement. A System Building Block, seen end-on System Building Blocks 1103 hex-inverter card The PDP-1 was built mostly of DEC 1000-series System Building Blocks, using Micro-Alloy and Micro-Alloy-Diffused transistors with a rated switching speed of 5 MHz. The System Building Blocks were packaged into several 19-inch racks. The racks were themselves packaged into a single large mainframe case, with a hexagonal control panel containing switches and lights mounted to lay at table-top height at one end of the mainframe. Above the control panel was the system's standard input/output solution, a punch tape reader and writer. The PDP-1 sold in basic form for $120,000, or about $900,000 in 2011 US dollars.[15] By the time production ended in 1969, 53 PDP-1s had been delivered Computation rate of 100,000 additions per second (about 2.5 times the speed of most large computers in use during that time, and more than 100 times the speed of magnetic drum computers). Your computer now is capable executing approximately 100 million instructions per second.

Extrapolating the past… 1949 - “Where a calculator like the ENIAC today is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh only 1½ tons.”

Source: Popular Mechanics, Wikipedia

The reality…

“Heavier-than-air flying machines are

impossible.” - Lord Kelvin, President, Royal Society, 1895

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“A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth’s atmosphere.” NY Times, 1936

Source: http://listverse.com/2007/10/28/top-30-failed-technology-predictions/

The reality… The V-2, in 1942, Sputnik in 1957, and many more…

Extrapolating the past…

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Mckinsey : US mobile subscribers

Source: American Heritage Magazine - http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/2007/3/2007_3_8.shtml

forecast actual

1986 forecast for 2012

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United States with 234 million subscribers

Presenter

Presentation Notes

hat a difference just one year can make. In our Year in Tech post, I pointed out that 2011 was the year that Apple and Google won the smartphone wars. I put together the chart above from comScore U.S. mobile subscriber estimates to illustrate the dramatic shift in market share in the smartphone market. In less than 18 months, Apple’s and Google’s combined market share of U.S. mobile subscribers for iPhones and Android phones went from 43.8 percent to 75.6 percent between August, 2010 and November, 2011. During the same period, RIM’s Blackberry tumbled from 37.6 percent to 19.7 percent (an almost 18-point drop). Microsoft’s mobile share was also nearly cut in half from 10.8 percent to 5.7 percent. And Palm, which had almost 5 percent share 18 months ago, basically disappeared (comScore stopped reporting its share). In the space of little more than a year, Android and Apple gobbled up three quarters of the smartphone market in the U.S. Combined, they gained 31.8 points in market share over this period. When you drill down further, almost all of these gains went to Android, which added 27.3 points of market share versus a more modest 4.5 points for Apple. There is some evidence that Android growth is slowing in the U.S. (nothing can keep growing this fast forever). But the fact that market dominance can shift so rapidly (a year ago, Blackberry was still the single largest smartphone platform in the U.S.) is quite startling. Shift happens, and it is happening faster than ever. I’d be surprised if there was ever a year when PC market share changed so dramatically.

http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/2007/3/2007_3_8.shtml

One Billion China Mobile Subscribers

by 2012

yesterday’s technology, tomorrow’s forecast 1980’s phone: year 2000 phone:

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2012 phone:

500,000 available apps 7bn+ apps downloaded

Presenter

Presentation Notes

the folly of predictions: Tetlock study

hundreds of experts. 80,000+ “expert” forecasts & 20+ years

results: experts about the same accuracy as dart-throwing monkeys

Source: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/12/05/051205crbo_books1

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Presenter

Presentation Notes

It is the somewhat gratifying lesson of Philip Tetlock’s new book, “Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?” (Princeton; $35), that people who make prediction their business—people who appear as experts on television, get quoted in newspaper articles, advise governments and businesses, and participate in punditry roundtables—are no better than the rest of us. When they’re wrong, they’re rarely held accountable, and they rarely admit it, either. They insist that they were just off on timing, or blindsided by an improbable event, or almost right, or wrong for the right reasons. They have the same repertoire of self-justifications that everyone has, and are no more inclined than anyone else to revise their beliefs about the way the world works, or ought to work, just because they made a mistake. No one is paying you for your gratuitous opinions about other people, but the experts are being paid, and Tetlock claims that the better known and more frequently quoted they are, the less reliable their guesses about the future are likely to be. The accuracy of an expert’s predictions actually has an inverse relationship to his or her self-confidence, renown, and, beyond a certain point, depth of knowledge.�Read more http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/12/05/051205crbo_books1#ixzz1j48onwy1�

more?

… specialists are not significantly more reliable than non-specialists in guessing what is going to happen in the region they study…


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why?


“…. experts were much tougher in assessing the validity of information that undercut their theory than they were in crediting information that supported it.”

- Tetlock

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Presenter

Presentation Notes

Full quote: Tetlock’s experts were also no different from the rest of us when it came to learning from their mistakes. Most people tend to dismiss new information that doesn’t fit with what they already believe. Tetlock found that his experts used a double standard: they were much tougher in assessing the validity of information that undercut their theory than they were in crediting information that supported it. … We are not natural falsificationists: we would rather find more reasons for believing what we already believe than look for reasons that we might be wrong. In the terms of Karl Popper’s famous example, to verify our intuition that all swans are white we look for lots more white swans, when what we should really be looking for is one black swan.

The losing mentality…

“If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this."

Source: Wikipedia

Spencer Silver on work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M "Post-It" Notepads.

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020

Dev

ices

/ U

sers

(M

M in

Log

Sca

le)

New Computing Cycle Characteristics

Minicomputer

10+

Computing Growth Drivers Over Time, 1960 – 2020E

Note: PC installed base reached 100MM in 1993, cellphone / Internet users reached 1B in 2002 / 2005 respectively; Source: ITU, Mark Lipacis, Morgan Stanley Research.

1

10

100

1000

10,000

100,000

1,000,000

PC

100+

Mainframe 1+

Mobile/Gadget Internet

10000?

Desktop Internet

1000+

The old don’t innovate – the new “create the future”

Mainframes 1960s

Personal Computing

1980s

Desktop Internet Computing

1990s

Mobile Internet Computing

2000s

Mini Computing

1970s

New Winners

New Winners

New Winners

New Winners

Note: Winners from 1950s to 1980s based on Fortune 500 rankings (revenue-based), desktop Internet winners based on wealth created from 1995 to respective peak market capitalizations. Source: Factset, Fortune, Morgan Stanley Research.

Microsoft Cisco Intel Apple Oracle EMC Dell Compaq

Google AOL eBay Yahoo! Amazon.com

Digital Equipment Data General HP Prime Computervision Wang Labs

IBM NCR Control Data Sperry Honeywell Burroughs

New Winners Facebook Twitter Apple (exception?) Google ??

Presenter

Presentation Notes

http://www.usatoday.com/news/topstories/2010-10-30-3843176683_x.htm

"Cynics never do the impossible, achieve the improbable, take on the inadvisable.

Hope is only path to extraordinary success."

INSPIRATIONAL TWEET:

-140 characters that millions of people follow -Can tell the mood of a nation – “Arab Spring” -Creates an instantaneous backchannel -Formation of a personal brand -Promotes content

Did not exist 6 years ago! Today: More than 300 million users 300 million tweets are posted each day

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Wikipedia blackout on Wednesday of this week – Twitter stepped in . . .

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The nine dots problem

Source: Amory Lovins, RMI

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Standard nine dots solution

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Standard nine dots solution

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But…how about just one line?


Better: use just three lines

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Geographer’s solution

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Mechanical Engineer’s Solution

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Wide line solution

example: high oil prices

Standard solution: drill, baby, drill

Three line solution: cellulosic ethanol

One line solution: renewable crude oil

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example: battery life

Standard solution: Make bigger batteries

One line solution: 10x more efficient “amped” wireless

3 line solution: low power wireless

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Presenter

Presentation Notes

Timeline of Battery History 1748 - Benjamin Franklin first coined the term "battery" to describe an array of charged glass plates. 1780 to 1786 - Luigi Galvani demonstrated what we now understand to be the electrical basis of nerve impulses and provided the cornerstone of research for later inventors like Volta to create batteries.

…and

2004: Facebook

2006: Twitter

2007: Iphone

2008: Smart grid What else to come: Four Square….? Sonar….?

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2011: Google +

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Foursquare, stylized as foursquare, is a location-based social networking website for mobile devices, such as smartphones. Foursquare 4.0 was released for the iPhone on the morning of October 12, 2011

32 Source: Clay Christenson “Untangling Skill and Luck” (7/15/2010); Michael Mauboussin, Legg Mason Capital Management; Steven Johnson

disruptive innovation & disruptors

Low-End Segment Strategy

Create a new market…

Amazon.com / Netflix…

Google / iPhone / iPad / Facebook Twitter…

Invent the market Disrupt the market

…move up market with lower cost

New-Consumption

Strategy

Create a new experience

iPod / iTunes/Kindle/Netfllix

Online

Invent by design

Re-invent Consumption

Strategy

introduce a low-end loss leader…

a product that hasn’t existed

use design to re-invent product

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iPhone + Android Apps – fundamental disruption

Landline phone

Standalone radio

Portable DVD

Low-end Cameras/ camcorders

MP3 players

GPS

Portable gaming

Voice recorders

Translator/ dictionary

Iphone Ipad

Android

Existing static products…

Multi-function platform just first phase of disruption?

“The fine line separating the delusional from the visionaries amongst us is often

not foresight, but rather hindsight.”

Ben Semel

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"Those who dare to dream the dreams, and then are foolish enough to try to

make those dreams come true."

dream the dreams…

How to Innovate Tackle hard problems

Imagine what could be

Let technology lead market

Fail often, fail early, keep trying

Find the best people, who disagree with you

“extrapolation of the past”

vs.

“inventing the future”

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Aliph

…another new applications platform …wearable computing

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square

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“revolutionary point-of-sale system for all”

point source power

“Can $1M fuel cell technology become a $4 charger?”

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Disruptive Innovation Exercise •Form into teams of 4 or 5 each. •Pick two items to discuss •Describe what existing components can make this a reality!

1.Standard solution - Easiest 2.Two line solution – More out of the box thinking 3.One line solution- Completely out of the box thinking

1. $15,000 all-electric car with range of 200 miles per charge. How? 2. Imagine converting motion -- from auto traffic or pedestrians -- to

electricity. How? 3. New technologies to unsnarl traffic. What would it look like? 4. The energy storage business will grow 10-fold over the next 20 years. How? 5. Space based power plants. How? 6. Electronic Wallet/Purse. What would it look like? 7. Spray-on solar cells 8. Wearable health monitors 9. Renewable water sources 10.Apple vs Android – Who will win and why? 11. Internet connected contact lens. – How?

The Weather Forecast …

Rate of change will accelerate…

Adaptability, agility & momentum are the key to success!

Innovation & entrepreneurship will thrive

Fun, fortunes & failure will be in abundance

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Being Right is Insufficient

Be Wrong Be Right

✗ ✔

Join Bandwagon

Be Contrarian

✗ ✗

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??????? ????????

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What’s next?

Landline phone

Standalone radio

Portable DVD

Low-end Cameras/ camcorders

MP3 players

GPS

Portable gaming

Voice recorders

Translator/ dictionary

Iphone Ipad

Android

Existing static products…

Difficult to predict the future, when innovation is the name of the game

sensors

medicine

NFC

privacy & authentication

payments

gadgets

social

Advertising/Commerce

steve jobs

personalization

Voice recognition

Everything everywhere

Anticipate needs (agents)

Read “wellness”

Group-sourced innovation 45

as surely as...

1985: NOT a PC in every home 1990: NO email for grandma 1995: NOT the internet 2000: NO pervasive mobile 2005: NO facebook / iphone 2008: NO Goldman/Morgan near bankruptcy? 2012+: reason for optimism 46

to predict the future, invent it!

Alan Kay

postcards from the future texas state fbla

Documents

morgan stanley research

line solution

amory lovins

000 vacuum tubes

low

invent

create

reality