2020 Vision

As we are at the end of our class, it is time to examine how Web 2.0 technologies will continue to change our expectations, how we communicate, how we share information and how the workplace will adapt.  In looking forward just six years, I came across this Internet of Things video post from How Things Work.  The video discusses that by 202050 billion objects will be connected to the Internet, 7.6 billion people will be on earth and 6.6 objects per person will be connected to the internet.  No doubt this level of connection to the devices that shape our world will affect our homes, businesses and classrooms.  But how?  I anticipate that the trend towards increasingly personalized realities and more project based work will continue as a result of being increasingly connected. 

This infographic from Cisco demonstrates the types of new data we can obtain from being increasingly connected to each other, to data, to machines and more.

Collaborative achievements

New collaborative technologies like google documents and their private counterparts in SharePoint make it easier to gain input from colleagues.  And technologies like Skype and various social media platforms give us greater freedom to remotely attend meetings and therefore work wherever and whenever best suits us.  This increasing connection and communication is breaking down previous silos and flattening hierarchies across the globe.  Forbes’ Jacob Morgan discusses, “These new technologies are also allowing simple actions to have big impacts, for example the CEO of a company “liking” or commenting on an idea that an employee might post publicly inside of the company.  These same employees now have a voice within their organizations and have the ability to become leaders without having to be managers.”

Increasing personalization

I expect our environments will continue to become more personalized.  By way of illustration, while I listen to personalized playlists through Spotify now, six years from now it seems likely that my phone will read the weather and my schedule to determine my playlist and then automatically play it in my car/home.  The increasing acceptance, or even expectation, of more personalized environments translates in the workplace by making it easier to work remotely and have increased latitude in the types of hours we choose to work.  The previously mentioned Forbes article goes on to assert that “The idea of “connecting to work” is become more prevalent within organizations as they are starting to allow for more flexible work environments.  With an internet connection you can now access everything you need to get your job done.  The notion of having to work 9-5 and commuting to an office is dead.”  Furthermore, even our news comes to us in more and more personalized formats from RSS feeds we specifically curate for our interests and Google news sites where we can choose the types of stories that are “front page” for us.

Decline of the Renaissance man

Additionally, I anticipate that individuals will have to become more specialized.  I see that trend now and have worked to become more of a specialist than generalist as a result.  The Daily Princetonian columnist Barbara Zhan agrees and recently wrote “Today, the growing population, the Internet and more widespread education have accelerated the rate of advancement in any field exponentially. This in turn makes merely having a workable basis of knowledge in any field much harder. For example, any research chemist nowadays must have extensive training in lab techniques and technology that didn’t exist a hundred years ago, not just theoretical knowledge. A historian has access to more and more documents through electronic means, increasing the detail of his knowledge and thus narrowing his field of study. There is no such thing as a polymath in the modern age; the closest cousin would be a dilettante or a dabbler — a “jack of all trades, but a master of none.”

[Side-bar: long term, perhaps companies and services like Automated Insights which translates data into sentences and paragraphs will make my job obsolete].

Technologies to help us organize information

In 2010, Cisco asserted that by the end of 2011, 20 typical households generated more internet traffic than the entire internet in 2008.  With the internet at our fingertips there is no dearth of information.  What there is is difficulty in harnessing all of it and picking through that which matters to us.  Tools like Flickr, Diigo, social bookmarking and others help us organize our own data and information, but also help us sift through to find what we need.

Additional projections:

·         Big data privacy concerns will likely grow in importance,

·         Protected cloud file sharing will become easier and better adapted for our smartphones and tablets,

·         Wireless connectivity from smartphones with printers will also become simpler,

·         Skype style meetings will become more prevalent

·         We will communicate more with our colleagues via internal social networks like SharePoint Community sites

·         Remote working situations will become more common; increased blurring of lines between work and home life

·         As is espoused in connectivism, I anticipate that documents/work products will become increasingly more collaborative and the result of teams instead of individuals

·         Teaching internet safety will continue to become increasingly important

·         Documents will become less static and incorporate more multimedia and imagery

Though there are and will continue to be great technologies available, technology in and of itself is not the answer.  Bill Gates stated “The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.” I think my best hope is to be an active learner as new technologies replace the old and more and more options become available.  I postulate that the ability to adapt to changing circumstance and suffer through the discomfort of change will be critical to success in 2020. 

Blum, J. (2012, January 26). 10 Tech Trends Defining the Future of Small Business.Entrepreneur.

Morgan, J. (2013, June 20). Five Trends Shaping The Future Of Work. Forbes.

Zahn, B. (2014, January 7). The decline of the Renaissance man. Daily Princetonian.