Some thoughts on the "generations" of life. Having recently returned from a family trip outside the U.S., I was taken how in three generations of my life — college grad, newly married, college age kids — travel has gone from Fodor’s with large periods of “lost,” to periodic wifi-based navigation via an iPod touch, to seamless mobile with instant local awareness of the "best" right now and directions how to get there by foot, car, bus or train.
This got me thinking about the waves of technology that have shaped the generations of my parents, my peers and my kids.
There is a simple goodness in just musing on how dramatically different times were before, and the new normal that emerged from it.
My parents grew up in a world where cars, planes, freeways, air conditioning and the suburbs became universal.
My generation experienced the explosion of surplus, ultra cheap goods, a PC on every desktop, the internet, social media, broadband, mobile and the cloud.
My kids are at the dawn of an unparalleled mass of innovations (and disruptions) across AI, robotics, automation and embedded, ubiquitous intelligence.
I have five thoughts on this.
- Each wave of technology that emerges is bigger and more diverse than the wave it replaces. Case in point, we've gone from hundreds of computers to billions of devices.
- The inevitable transitions these innovations introduce don't benefit all parties equally, and for those disrupted, professional, financial and social rebirth doesn't get allotted equally. Our winner-takes-most culture struggles with this truth, which is why there is an understandable worry for the industries, jobs and roles that the next wave will kill, or seriously hobble.
- There is an inevitability to innovation and disruptive technologies, and we live on a global stage of both good and bad actors. The best defense is good offense, most basically through market and technological leadership.
- As there have been a LOT of learnings from prior waves, we should be thoughtful in assessing the takeaways, and holistic & reflective in how we adopt those learnings. We struggle as a nation in paradoxical challenges where the solution is not simple all-or-none. One simple case in point, Craigslist liberated the classified ads business, which in turn, helped kill the local newspaper, resulting in "news deserts" and low information voters across the country.
- Speed is better than perfection. The feedback loop that speed offers yields rapid iteration and refinement, real-world experience that no amount of planning in a vacuum can equal.
A final, more human thought. The hard edges of life, something we all face, will either harden your heart or soften it.
I am a firm believer in the goodness of the softer heart mindset. It leads to a happier life.
