But the pace of technologic change today means that the future happens far more quickly. Arguably, we’re all futurists now–practical futurists, trying to map the smartest path between today and a point not that far in the distance. Individuals, businesses–even countries–ignore technology at their peril. But the rest of the world won’t.
How do you chart the course of a business, or an education, or a life, amid such uncertainty? It’s a complex problem that with luck will provide fodder for many columns to come. But to start, here’s a New Year’s look at two technologies of last year–one spectacular disaster called CueCat and one quiet success: wireless local networking.
The much-ballyhooed CueCat was supposed to provide a seamless link between print publications and the Internet. It was basically a small scanning pen that you attached to a computer and could then use to scan barcodes printed alongside ads and articles in newspapers and magazines. Via the scanner pen, the barcodes automatically ordered the computer’s Internet browser to open a specific page on the Web that offered more information about the topic. With vast amounts of funding, the plan was to flood the nation with CueCats by mail and in Radio Shack stores, while publications ranging from Forbes and Wired to the Dallas Morning News printed the barcodes in their ads and stories.
Publishers loved the idea, in part because it let them participate in the Internet without really having to make big changes in what they were already doing. (This might have been a clue: if a new technology makes all of the incumbent parties happy, there’s probably something wrong with it.) Computer hackers loved the idea too–they snapped up the free scanner pens and now there are a dozen Websites offering instructions on modifying CueCats for various purposes. Unfortunately, magazine and newspapers readers didn’t love the idea. Last year Belo, the huge publishing company that bankrolled much of the effort, withdrew its own publications from the project.
What went wrong? Well, for starters, people don’t usually sit next to their computers when they’re reading a magazine or newspaper. But even assuming that might have happened (as a bunch of investors certainly did), there was another problem. Projects like CueCat sound good on paper, but to work commercially they require a massive and immediate adoption by consumers. Newspapers and magazines aren’t going to clutter their pages with clunky barcodes unless there are readers clamoring for the service. And readers aren’t going to risk messing up their computers by installing a new piece of hardware unless there is a big immediate payoff. It’s the classic chicken-and-egg dilemma, obvious in retrospect, but which somehow the technologist’s mind doesn’t always register as an obstacle. The visionary sees how good it’s going to be–not everything it will take to get there. Venture capitalists used to call business plans that required grand and widespread execution as “boil-the-ocean” ideas. But during the Internet boom, too many investors thought that with enough money you could boil anything.
The second technology, local wireless networking, began very quietly a few years ago with Apple’s introduction of the AirPort. This small oval gadget used an obscure radio technology called 802.11b to provide high-speed wireless connections between a desktop computer and a Macintosh laptop. Thus, if you had a desktop computer connected to the Internet by telephone line or cable modem, with the AirPort you could then log onto the Internet with your laptop, or multiple laptops, anywhere within several hundred feet. The trade press saw AirPort as a specialized product for classroom use, but then Apple owners started to use the devices at home with their laptops, sitting wherever they wanted–the couch, the front porch–and surfing the Web. The technology turned out to be reliable and easy to use, and soon 802.11b started to show up in businesses, where it was sometimes cheaper to put in a wireless network than run new cables. And last year wireless networks (renamed Wi-Fi) began to appear in public places like hotels, Starbucks and airport lounges.
In December, one trade Website reported that with a wireless laptop you can now pick up dozens of Wi-Fi networks just by standing at downtown intersections in San Francisco. Your next laptop may well come with Wi-Fi built in. At this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, a new home-entertainment system included built-in Wi-Fi. In short, the average citizen is likely to be surrounded by wireless Internet access fairly quickly, and no one single huge investment made it happen. And that’s sometimes how the future happens: it sneaks up on you, before you even notice. The best new technologies insinuate themselves. And then you don’t need to boil the ocean: you just need to make one good cup of soup.
