Future Gazing. It is notoriously difficult. Our vision is blinkered by the limiting factors of the present. An endearing example is the portrayal of space travel in old sci-fi movies before manned space flight actually existed. The ‘space rocket’ always moves vertically, following the skyward trajectory. Orbiting a planet was not envisaged.
From the universe of consumer research the classic case is the mobile phone market of the early 80s. BT (UK) and AT & T (US) believed customers would never want to do stuff like phone home while on a bus: carphone owners said they wouldn’t want to be perceived as foolish or extravagant by strangers. The immediacy and speed of a digitally connected world was yet to come.
Visionaries are born in every era. Leonardo da Vinci made drawings of a man powered flying machine in the 16th century. Perhaps it won him greater patronage for his art, and probably a few laughs too. Today, ‘Dragon’s Den’ and ‘The Apprentice’ regard themselves as the gate-keepers of zesty product development, though much less epochal than the painter of the Mona Lisa!
Our entire domestic environment will be Smart according to a former BT Chief Technology Officer, speaking to The Telegraph:
“In 2045, upon waking, you’ll walk into the bathroom, whose mirror will check your blood oxidation. By the time you enter the kitchen your bodily needs have been assessed and a suitable smoothie will have been prepared, along with a suggested breakfast menu of food, which is optimised to match the day’s activities pulled from your diary”.
Would this be the high watermark of the labour-saving device, or a dystopian overload of bio-feedback?
Substance QI’s Fusion Days proposition helps companies accelerate new thinking. You have a suite of ideas that needs to be developed: we hot-house and manage the exploration process. Collaborative workshops, including co-creation sessions with your customers, determine which ideas have traction and momentum.
Rest assured nobody during Fusion Days will claim sooth-sayer status, and our feet remain firmly under gravity’s control. One day, soon, you may hear colleagues whisper ‘he’s living on a different planet’ and know they mean it in a good way.