Have you considered how changes in Population, Resources, Technology, Knowledge, Integration, Conflict, and Governments affect our future? Erik Peterson, Senior Vice President of the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington, D.C. has attempted to forecast key trends in those seven areas past the year 2025. He presented his findings at the personal/professional growth convocation sponsored by the College of Business Administration on Wednesday, February 11, 2009. Mr. Peterson took us back in time and showed his audience how far we have come in each of those seven areas and projected each area into the future. How old will you be in 2025? What do you envision your life to be at that point?
My personal area of interest is technology. I used a manual typewriter in high school. Copies were made using carbon paper, a mimeograph machine, or by cutting stencils that allowed ink to squeeze onto the paper. College students concentrated on the theory and writing. They hired someone to type their research reports, theses and dissertations for them. I published a genealogy in the early 1980s, retyping the entire book each time I discovered additional information. I wore down and had to replace the platen on my typewriter before the final product went to print! I was delighted to find German character keys and manually swapped typewriter keys each time I needed to type a German character into the text – and wished for the ability to insert symbols, as we now do in Word. A more imaginative person than I searched for a way to make it happen.
I gladly embraced computer technology when it began to move into the private sector. The dots and dashes of Morse code that once allowed people to communicate across the country via telegraph had become the 0s and 1s of computer code. I learned Basic computer language and programmed a Vic 20 with a multiplication game for my son to play.
As a municipal clerk, I purchased a desktop computer for the village, which allowed me to store documents on 5 1/4” floppy disks. Better still, I could easily print and modify the many forms used and licenses issued and maintain a current list of property owners real estate within the village changed hands. My son and I also served on a focus group testing the ease of use as the Waukesha Public Library considered its switch to a computerized card catalog. Those “cutting edge” technological improvements now seem archaic.
Early computers were large and immobile. Today, they’re transportable. The development of the Ipod and small speakers allowed my husband to take music to assisted living facilities so residents could gather for worship services each week. And technology marches on. Computer components are still increasing in capacity and speed while continuing to shrink in size. Mr. Peterson showed images of computer parts now made so small that they fit inside the letter “D” on a coin – but that didn’t compare to the image of a dust mite holding a small computer part!
It’s easy to look backward and see how far we’ve come but it takes imagination to look forward and visualize where we can go. Mr. Peterson’s presentation stimulated our imaginations. It’s only with imagination that we can develop ideas, experiment, make discoveries, and continue to reinvent the way we do business.