The Speed Of Change

Only Getting Faster

The other night, I was driving back after a gym and grocery run with my youngest in the car. I had tried to do too much too quickly (yes, this is common), and we were going to be about 5 minutes late to pick up my eldest from her gymnastics session. So I dialed up my wife to try to arrange a pick up, as she was closer, while also trying to figure out if I could do everything I needed to do without stopping for gas. All in a neighborhood that I didn't know too well.

One dial, voice mail. Second dial, voice mail. Map application, not working. Now I'm going to be ten minutes late, because I've made the wrong turn. The low gas light is glaring at me, and my stress level is rising. Why can't the tech just work? My phone keeps having calls that don't go through, messages that aren't answered, routine dead spots in my day to day. How much do I have to pay each month for a phone that actually works when I really need it to?

Five minutes later, the mini-crisis was over, with my wife calling me back, having always assumed she was going to pick up the eldest. As my blood pressure went back to normal and the map application kicked in, with the ability to stop and get gas opening up, a few things became clear.

First, that all of that drama was self-inflicted, which was obvious even when it was happening. Just trying to do too much, and expecting to be able to get through a grocery store checkout too quickly. You'd think that I would be smart enough to give myself some leeway, but, well, I'm not.

Second, that this sort of experience was impossible not so very long ago, but that as soon as you get used to the tech working for you... it's intolerable when it does not. Even if you are old enough to remember a time before mobile phones.

Third, it's going to seem charmingly quaint in a very short period of time. Connection maps will improve, the Internet of Things will allow me to know where, say, my wife's car was (i.e., if moving towards the pick up for the eldest, no need to call), the map application won't fail, and even the older model of car that I was driving will have an exact calculation for the remaining gas.

Finally, that as savvy as I may think I am about my capabilities and how the world works, there's still really no hard and fast rule as to when it will all change. If you had asked me if I was going to have this experience an hour before I had it, I would have laughed. No chance! I had this!

How this all relates to marketing and advertising is a bit of a stretch... but there are parallels. The day job now is email, and the way that people interact with that has changed a lot recently, and will just keep changing. The call to action for a great deal of our work is to get the list to view videos, and that's been changing a lot as well. My field is prosperous, but also under a lot of scrutiny, and could change dramatically in the next couple of years. The shifting tech might change as much as the politics, really.

We are living in amazing, and very transitory, times. That's likely to be true for a really long while. What about your world is going to change soon?

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