Professional Futurists who work with clients are familiar with the perception pitfalls associated with forecasts and scenarios that deal with the impact of technology.

This is why framing forecasts and scenarios around demographics (life stage), cultural (lifestyle) and market structure transitions are more digestible frameworks for getting clients to challenge their assumptions about transformational changes to their business models.

Why is technology a hard pill to swallow?  A combination of reasons: risks of early adoption, costs associated with implementation and support, lack of  pull demand from existing consumers, accepting small market share profits even with fast growth prospects (et al).   And let’s not forget that technology solutions are sold by deeply embedded vendors who have their own varying self-interests in transitioning old vs new platforms.

A less eloquently stated reason is that the theme of technology (especially ‘digital’ and ‘web’ technology) just scares most people.  Even if we all agree that technology on its own is never a solution, and that there is always a tendency of over-hype it in the short-term, many people struggle to overcome strong negative emotional/gut responses to new technology platforms.

For most audiences technology seems too gimmicky…  too young and hip… too transparent and invasive… or too time consuming.   These are legitimate barriers for getting audiences to see real world applications for customers.

Technology should always be placed in the context of culture, market and regulatory structures.  Without this broader context it will always be easier to roll our eyes than to probe, explore and seek to understand.

To get us to this place of understanding the broader social context of technology we need framers like Kevin Kelly to bring context to the story of technology – past, present and future.

Kevin Kelly:Technology & Foresight Foundations of Social Change & Systems Thinking
Kevin Kelly has spent decades preparing a script to tell  the epic story of technology’s past, present and future.  As a Former Editor of the Whole Earth Review and past Editor of Wired he holds a very unique perspective that spans our recent historical era where technology has become a widely perceived mechanism (and ‘agent’) of change.

I prefer to see Kelly as an informed observer as much as he is arguably a techno-optimist.  And I believe his passion for understanding technology is rooted in the two pillars of foresight/futures studies: social change and systems thinking.

Social Change frameworks (e.g. Progress, Power & Conflict, Evo-Devo, et al) help us understand change and develop the right models for forecasting possible outcomes.  Systems thinking forces us to understand structure and relationships that shape feedback loops (e.g. vicious vs. virtuous) often associated with non-linear change.  Kelly is quick to point out the non-linear aspects of change shaped by emerging technology platforms.

Here are a few of Kevin Kelly’s public lectures on technology.  Each is a variation of his central exploration in understanding the fundamental nature of technology and life in the universe:

TEDxAmsterdam, 2010

Kevin Kelly: Predicting the next 5,000 days of the web
2007 EG conference

Let’s go back further… before TED had exploded in the mainstream world– and we see many of the same messages (and one-liners) that continue to shape Kevin Kelly’s investigation into the human and universal relationship with technology.

Kevin Kelly: How does technology evolve? Like we did

And finally a recent interview on historical foundations of Wired:

Kelly’s current blog Technium

Image Source: Porfolium Flickr Creative Commons