documenting the future

Documenting the Future Present

Dr Stephen Dann

Background

• 1993: Wired 1.3 – “This web thing. It’s going to be big”

• 1994: “Contemporary Issues in marketing” – “It’ll never catch on” complain students

Midground

• 1998– Strategic Internet Marketing 1.0

• 2001– Strategic Internet Marketing 2.0

Internet Book are SRS Business

Book lag is not measured in milliseconds

Contract July 2006

Manuscript: July 2009

On shelves for a 2011 class.

How to deal with it all?

Future-proofing is akin to fool-proofing

3 Future Proofing Lessons

• Half-life not Shelf life.

• Soft Technology Predictions– future development of nascent technologies– possible resolution of contentious issues

• intellectual property• privacy• DRM issues

• Assume the worst– 10% survival rate

Tricks

Write the Future

1. Follow the people

2. The old internet is not the new internet

3. Be radicalDoing what fits best, rather than what has always been done, is the radical approach advocated by the Internet

Randall, D. 1997, ‘Consumer strategies for the Internet: Four scenarios’, Long Range Planning, vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 157–68.

Right the Future

4. Be robustGet knocked down, get back up again

• Drink a whiskey drink, • Drink a cider drink, • Drink an energy drink, • Drink another energy drink

5. Focus on the marketsif you’ve got what they want,

they’ll find you.

Where’s the future at?

1. Follow the peopleInnovators are through

Early adopters are passing

Here comes the early majority

2. The old internet is not the new internet

It’s newer, slower, less stable and we couldn’t love it more if we tried.

3. Be radical

Produce something someone wants at a price you both can afford to maintain

4. Be robustLess Market Stability

More Financial uptime

5. Focus on the markets

Solve problems

Create new and wonderful problems.

Above all else…Have fun

Enjoy the Internet as a wildly chaotic landscape while it lasts before it settles down, grows up and becomes as staid and sober a medium as television or radio

Dr Stephen Dann

@stephendann

stephen@stephendann.net

www.stephendann.com