A 2020s Mindset: Technology Inspiration to push the boundaries of one’s existing Mindset
Our mindset is a critical factor in how we approach the world, create opportunities, solve problems and pave uncharted paths. At present children today will be employed in jobs that don’t exist today and by the time freshman today graduate from college much of what they learned this year will be outdated. This is a direct reflection of how fast things are changing. It does not have to be a negative change, however it requires some expectation management and in terms of how new value can and will be generated. Likewise, it also requires coming to terms with models, systems, goods and services that are becoming obsolete.
This article offers some perspectives to expand our mindset for the next decade with examples of (1) new platforms that have been created which others have built value on, (2) innovative thinkers who are building creative value propositions, and (3) ideas that anticipate the unimaginable that at present seems challenging to imagine.
New Platforms
As new platforms get created, they offer new opportunities to generate value at scale. Here are some examples of platforms that bloomed in the 2010s.
· Mobile GPS
When Google offered GoogleMaps in its first browser based format in 2005 and their mobile version in 2007, they didn’t anticipate GPS enabled mobile apps such as Uber or people wanting to share their location with loved ones as they travel, or geofencing to be used by stores to notify their customer’s that there store is in their proximity. Advancements in mobile GPS have tremendously improved since 2007 and can be leveraged in conjunction with any mobile app to geographically augment its offering.
· Virtual Reality (VR)
Virtual reality has been many decades in the making, however one of the most popular VR headsets today (Oculus) started on Kickstarter in 2010. In just the past decade many VR headsets appeared and every single industry has been experimenting with VR from the military using VR as a simulated training environment, to dementia related health use cases, to remote real estate viewings to name a few. The headsets and corresponding VR software offer platforms for anyone to offer services, build sales pipelines, sell products, tell stories, teach, learn and creatively express oneself.
· Blockchain
Blockchain made its first appearance in 2008 when the cryptocurrency Bitcoin was launched. This peer-to-peer digital financial system has taken off in the last decade being used by early adopters, criminals and rogue nations alike. The technology underneath it, Blockchain, however has many other use-cases apart from direct peer-to-peer money exchange. Over the past decade the Blockchain ledger has been leveraged to conduct secure and trusted exchanges in a wide range of areas. Estonia’s virtual e-government services run on blockchain, Finland is about to launch a program to safeguard its nuclear fuel cycle with blockchain transactions from all stakeholders involved; in Malaysia the world’s first fully decentralized autonomous social ride-sharing service called ‘Decentralised Alternative Cabs Serving & Empowering Everyone’ (DACSEE) uses blockchain to maximize profits for all stakeholders and blockchain is also being used to create new marketplaces to sell art. Blockchain allows anyone to use its distributed ledger to sell digital products and services, exchange cryptocurrency and maintain a transparent and secure supply chain. More use-cases will be developed this decade.
· 3D Printing
Arguably still in the deceptive stage as 3D printing was invented in 1984, this technology has been experimented with across industries. In the last decade it has already been used to make food, build homes, recreate organs, and make jewelry among many other things. Including this 3D printed frame I designed for one of my art about artificial intelligence pieces. While 3D printers are not something that has reached critical mass in the general population, it has made significant progress in industry. Once a 3D printable file is created it can be emailed and shared to anyone in the world. This also means it can create new niche markets.
These are some platforms that serve as launchpads to create new markets, new services and even new platforms on top of those platforms. For example, social media is a platform which is mostly used on top of a disruptive technology: mobile internet.
Creative Value Propositions
In 2010 brought about creative new value propositions. Here are some examples of some unexpected ones that broke ground and/or gained traction this decade:
· 3 Dimensional Expression:
Virtual and Augmented reality have created new spaces to experience and experiment with. The tools are available for anyone to create in these mediums. One example that 3D expression lends well for is art. Traditionally art was two dimensional with the intention of representing three dimensional space, now it can not only be directly created in 3D, but it can also be inhabited and experienced through a full body immersion. This pushes the bounds even further of what can be drawn, created and experienced in three dimensions.
· Travel-less Travel: There are many beautiful places to see in the world and for environmental, financial or time reasons people can choose to travel to them without leaving their house. Virtual Reality has created new opportunities to not just see, but interact and experience the tombs of Ancient Egyptian Queens, go to a relaxing spa retreat, receive an on-demand guided tour of the Vatican, get close to wild animals in an African safari, or attend a work meeting in VR. This has the potential to reduce costs, create revenue, be environmentally friendly, connect in new ways with others around the world and create new environments and experiences.
· Social Media as the Everything Place:
From custom emojis, to filters to companies who make millions providing Instagram story templates, there are a variety of successful business models inside the many social media worlds. It started as a social place, but then became a business place, a work place, a news place and then an everything place. Few expected that by the end of 2010s there would be fully staffed teams of people dedicated to social media management and that businesses would need a solid social media customer service plan and that by the end of the decade the public would demand that social media platforms had a plan for disinformation during election cycles. The 2010s brought about opportunities for small entrepreneurs to do Direct to Customer business and reach wider audiences. It was the decade when social media became a legitimate business infrastructure while simultaneously being primary location for cute animal pictures and trolling.
· ‘Digital Humans’ aka Computer Generated Influencers (CGI):
The 2010s saw the rise in influencer income, and the decade ended with non-human, non-living, non-real-life-existing, computer generated characters who became influencers in their own right with millions of followers. Including the world’s first digital supermodel. The computer generated influencers post real pictures which they have been digitized into, and get featured in ads for popular brands. Perhaps in a world of disinformation, authentically-not-real-influencers could hold and represent values which parts of society rally around. We’ll see more of how CGIs unfold in the 2020s.
· From watching a movie to being in the movie:
The first movies that existed were black and white and didn’t have sound. When technology advanced, movies with sound were an enjoyable novelty, as were color movies when they came out. With each new technological possibility we can expect to see film directors experiment. Allumette was the first digitally created VR film, where the viewer could walk around the city in the sky and see various angles of the story. With the rise of virtual reality 360 filming, the movie industry is experimenting with bringing their audience inside the filmed movie as a “first person” in ways that HD and 3D are not able to. And so begins a new film category of VR First Person Movies where the action movie Agent Emerson became the first of its kind.
Anticipating the Unimaginable
We are at the start of a new decade and while it is hard to anticipate the unimaginable, some breadcrumbs have been left behind that would indicate some forward leaning business models, services and concepts that are to come this decade.
· Virtual Clothes:
The fashion industry is one of the most polluting in the world and as more consumers start to become more environmentally minded in their fashion purchases, there is an opportunity for people to express their fashion sense virtually through digital fashion in digital mediums. That means they would buy clothes that would be digitally super imposed on pictures of themselves which they would then share in virtual spaces and that they would never physically receive any physical clothes. There are less than a handful of companies foraging this new fashion frontier and who are already selling digital clothes.
· Virtual Beings & Interactive Imaginary Friends, Mentors, Teachers: Children have unrestricted amounts of imagination which they use to play, pretend and for many, create ‘imaginary friends’. Kids (and adults) today who interact with Amazon Alexa, Google Go, or Apple’s Siri have a more interactive ‘imaginary friend’ than the generations before them. These artificial intelligence enabled digital assistants can help manage calendars, tell the weather, play music and read books. As they evolve they will also come to serve as teachers and mentors.
We are currently at the early stages of creating digital clones of humans. Deepak Chopra is the first public figure to have made a digital clone of himself which can be used by anyone who wants to interact with him and seek guidance and wellness advice. The way his digital clone was created was through all his videos, books and articles which served as the big data for the artificial intelligence to create his digital clone. This can also be used in a mentor/coach/lawyer/doctor-as-a-service business model for leading public figures. It could also be the next generation of personal assistants who will be fused with the assistant-AI and the wisdom or mentorship of a public figure.
This is about to go to a whole new level as computer vision, natural language processing, and artificial intelligence fuse with 3D graphic design and virtual reality where characters interact with humans in real time and remember them and their interactions grow with the person, like human relationships do. Fable Studio’s Lucy won an Emmy award and is an example of such a virtual reality interactive ‘virtual being’ — a concept that is being seen as an art form, predicting that “artificial intelligence is the next great art form”.
At present, there are three categories of ‘virtual beings’:
1. Virtual Companions — mainly exist across these formats: Physical presence (Robotics ), Interactive visual media (social media, gaming, AR/VR), Text-based messaging, and Interactive voice
2. Humanoid Character Creation — which exist across various virtual environments and can be custom created.
3. Virtual Influencers — include digital super models, and computer-generated personalities which have social media presence that they use to engage and interact with others, contemporary brands and pop culture.
· Living and Interacting in Simultaneous Realities:
I have argued that we already live in world where we physically, mentally and emotionally inhabit several realities at once. This is because of how we interact with communities in and outside our geographical space. Our digital and physical worlds have melded into one in our minds. This includes the fictional and non-fictional worlds as well as the virtual and the physical. However, with the new frontier of Virtual and Augmented reality there are new possibilities to for companies, governments, brands and individuals to tell us new kinds of stories that inhabit our world instead of a screen, that allow us participatory and dynamic interactive agency instead of passive consumption of content. This would allow people to be co-creators of new story-telling narratives in ways that the viral ‘ReTweet with a comment’ from last decade becomes a stale form of ‘dynamic interaction’. The rise of stereophonic sound with higher fidelity will make this 360 experienced auditory self-aware environment come to life with embedded artificial intelligence. It will be an immersive and interactive form of creativity we have not experienced before.
These are only some forward leaning examples that I anticipate to further develop in the 2020s. Sometimes seeing the unknown is difficult, but inside every single one of us exists an imagination and a creative side. This is the decade where the time has come to cultivate them and set them free. To do so we will need to extend the realm of our current mindset to be able to consider new platforms, value propositions, business models and services that are outside the bounds of what we understand to be the art of the possible.
As science fiction is rapidly becoming science fact, it will be the art of the imaginative possibility that will map the new uncharted path ahead.
Dr. Lydia Kostopoulos (@Lkcyber) is a Strategy and Innovation Advisor who loves to experiment and push the bounds of the possible. She helps her clients posture themselves to make the most of new technologies in the context of changing and emerging trends. She is currently conducting strategic research on technology and the future operating environment for the J5 at the U.S. Special Operations Command. She addressed the United Nations member states at the CCW GGE meeting on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS) and keynotes at technology and national security conferences. She speaks and writes on disruptive technology convergence, innovation, tech ethics, and national security. In efforts to raise awareness on AI and ethics she makes reflectional art #ArtAboutAI, and made a game about emerging technology and ethics called Sapien2.0 .
You can find her on Twitter, Instagram or Linkedin, for more about her projects check out her site.
