Eudoxa

It was invigorating to listen to the students and their presentations. Some of them surprised me with their vision and presentations.

There were many interesting themes; the evolution of cinema, developments in personal technology, the future of music, personal safety and security, the future of housing, a vision of health care in the future, how travel will change, the teenager identity crisis and the development of the vast untapped oceans.

There were some trends in the students’ presentations that I wish to point as problematic. I have seen some of these fallacies done by professional trendspotters, as well as research and consulting firms, so the students did well.

Yesterday’s trends, tomorrow!
It is easy to extrapolate what is happening today into future, and even proposing returns to older trends. But are we really going to see flower children plugging out of the internet? The problem with the eternal return is that external conditions change. Part of this problem can be seen in the simple generalisation of the characteristics in focus groups, the famous branding of generation X, Y or whatever.

Concentrating on new gadgets and products, rather than on their impact in society
Short-term predictions based on prototypes in laboratories or tests, rarely predict the order in which technologies will come in general use. The reason is than even if you with certainty can identify what is in the pipeline it is the context of economical, political decisions and customer choices. Even a technically successful invention may have to overcome much resistance and delays before it reaches public use, and may be shaped by other contexts.

Beware of the superdrivers
It is quite easy to focus on a new product satisfying one demand. That the mobile phone can absorb and swallow functions such as the credit card, the wristwatch, the identity card, the door keys, the bus ticket etc may be convenient. But a demand for convenience may not be the only thing to drive demand, safety, desired degree of connectivity, integrity and price might also factor in.

Consider the alternatives
Trends are short narratives about the present and the future, so they do contain radical or conservative messages that are partially political. The application of RFID technology may contain some really dangerous trends, but countertrends are also available if we notice them. Thus prognostics may find various scenarios that in their turn influence how technology is applied.