Distributed: An Exploration of Our Future
Over the past 6 years, I’ve been afforded the tremendous honor to travel the world to discuss our future. Along the journey I’ve asked a few fundamental questions: How do we want to work? What makes us happy? What scares us about what is happening around us? And, who do we Trust?
All of these invariably lead to some very interesting commentary on how we view the products and services we use, and more importantly, the companies that produce them. It’s abundantly clear that many of the things we use today do, in fact, make us less happy. And while we’ve made huge strides in building more usable, simple products over the last 25 years, we haven’t really realized the dream of a connected human world. Part of this is the natural pace of technology evolution and will likely solve itself as we are able to handle more information at scale, everywhere and for everyone. The other part, however, is a bit more unclear. 50% of the problem is directly related to the monetization models in place to sustain the ecosystems we’ve built; for example think search, mobile, social. In short, how businesses make money.
It’s been said, by myself and others, that for the first time in our existence as humans, “what is good for the business is also good for the customer”. And while I agree with part of the thinking of my previous self, the realization of this as a true symbiotic relationship is pretty far off. As humans we gravitate towards products, services, and experiences that feel like extensions of ourselves. Sure, there are certain things we do simply for escapism, but most product choices we make everyday are because we believe them to be vehicles to make it easier to be human.
Mobile is a great use case to explore this thinking. A supercomputer in our pockets has granted us a tremendous amount of autonomy as humans. It has redefined how we work, how we navigate the world, how we date, the list is endless. But at the same time it has removed a lot of our freedom, as we become dependent on it to sustain our lifestyle. That dependence, on it and other platforms like social, has created a new paradigm that is perpendicular to the fundamental things we need: trust, happiness, balance, security, love.
This is not an indictment of the ecosystems built over the last 25 years, it is instead an invitation to think about what we might build next. A Distributed World. One that focuses on meeting humans where they are. Augmenting their lives, not automating them. Delivering relevancy, not personalization. Building sustainability, not fleeting moments of monetization and virality.
Over the next few months, as I take a break from travel, I’ll be exploring the future of Distributed Experience: the next frontier of product. I’ll be looking at a range of topics including but not limited to: Diversity & Inclusion, Machine Learning, The Future of Education & Work, Ecosystem Design, and Privacy Regulation.
If you’d like to be a part of these cycles, please drop me a note. This is in no way comprehensive thought capital, but is instead an open forum for us to arrive at a better future together. Let’s build some great big things.
