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By
Barbara Luhring
3WDesign
The Oxford
Pocket Dictionary I keep on my desk (my real desk, not my
desktop) tells me that a futurist is 1) a believer in human
progress; 2) a student of the future. There are futurists
whose focus is technology. There are futurists whose focus
is marketing. There may even be a futurist in your own backyard,
someone who gave you advice that changed your life forever.
I'd like to think of myself as an amateur futurist. I have
poured over writings of technology, science even marketing
futurists, and I never tire of imagining what the future
will bring, both globally and personall. Here are some of
my favorite futurists, the individuals who help me understand
the "digital moment" we all live in.
My favorite "trend" futurist is Faith Popcorn. She is the
individual who identified and named the "cocooning" trend.
Popcorn is a futurist whose company, Brain Reserve founded
in 1974, has worked with companies such as Pepsi/Lipton,
IBM, Nabisco and BMW to identify long term trends in consumer
behavior. She has written three books with Lys Marigold:
"The Popcorn Report: Faith Popcorn on the Future of your
Company, your World, your Life" (1992), "Clicking : 17 Trends
That Drive Your Business and Your Life" (1998); and her
latest effort, "EVEolution: The Eight Truths of Marketing
to Women" (2000). Her writings are fascinating observations
of human behavior. They challenge you to use the trends
to your advantage instead of the other way around. What
person working in technology today can't utilize that advice?
Another media futurist is Herbert Marshall McLuhan, born
in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in 1911, who coined the phrase
"The medium is the message". His perceptions of today's
world from his 1960's vantage point clearly foretold the
media and image centric world that exists today. McLuhan
studied the media's effects on society and the senses of
the individual and even in 2001, are valid observations
of how society exists with information overload. McLuhan,
who died in 1980, is well represented on the Web. His writings
have been published in Wired magazine and one of his most
famous books, "Understanding Media," has been re-published.
In the crowded field of technology futurists, two individuals
stand out. Writer, investor and general Internet guru, Esther
Dyson, focuses her energies on emerging technologies and
businesses. Her fields of expertise are peer-to-peer technology,
artificial intelligence, the Internet and wireless applications.
Dyson spends much of her time in eastern Europe, identifying
emerging companies and markets. In 1994, she studied the
impact of the Net on Intellectual property, writing a book
in 1997, "Release 2.0: A design for living in the digital
age." It's a commentary on the influence of the Internet
on individuals' lives. Dyson also publishes the very influential
newsletter, Release 1.0, a must read for Internet and technology
decision makers.
The second individual whose influence on the future of technology
has been felt the world over, is Nicholas Negroponte, co-founder
of the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Media
Lab. Negroponte, pioneered computer aided design as a member
of the MIT faculty since 1966. Addressing the convergence
of computing, publishing and broadcasting, the MIT Media
Lab opened its doors in 1985. In 1995 Negroponte wrote "Being
Digital," which has become a must-read for anyone even remotely
involved in the business of communications. He writes with
some regularity in Wired magazine and, like Dyson, is often
a "talking-head" featured on television news talk shows.
The futurists listed above were influential to me in my
understanding of the impact of technology on our world.
On a personal basis however, someone much closer to home
actually caused me to experience my first "digital moment."
In January of 1994, I was a graphic designer operating my
two-person advertising business from an office in Sister
Bay. The office building that housed my office, housed other
individuals and their businesses. One of those individuals
was John McMahon, who worked for a company called Cisco
Systems. Before I met John, the only company pronounced
"Cisco" that I had heard of, was the "Sysco" food company
whose delivery trucks were a common sight in Door County
during high tourism season. Cisco, John told me, manufactured
and sold the "routers" that helped create the Internet.
I'm sure I looked puzzled, so John popped open his laptop
in his office, dialed Cisco's 800 number for dial-up service
and proceeded to introduce me to the Internet. At the age
of thirty-five, I was having my first "digital moment".
The pages, viewed on Mosaic 1.0 (the precursor to Netscape
Navigator), were functional, but from a designers point
of view, left alot to be desired. Filled with text, these
pages were given an added flourish by the addition of simple
color logos and graphics. Thinking back to that moment,
I didn't realize how quickly this new technology would impact
me and the rest of the world. I didn't realize it, but John
did.
John, along with a consortium of public and private individuals,
including Rick Gordon (owner of Door County Computers and
Online Door County), helped bring the Internet to Door County.
At John's urging, my husband Gregg and I created the first
Door County homepage, www.doorcounty.org, for the consortium
(the site has since been retired). We did so voluntarily,
in order to learn the process with the hope of setting up
homepages for Door County businesses. It turned out that
Door County tourism and the Internet were a perfect match.
Related sites:
http://release1.edventure.com/
http://www.beaulieuhome.com/mcluhan/default.html
http://www.faithpopcorn.com/
Barbara
Luhring operates 3WDesign and can be e-mailed at [email protected].
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