Recently I posted about some of the people I encountered at the NWA Tech Summit and how their point of view was of a wide-eyed kid in a toy store. When I wrote that piece, I’m not sure that my admiration of that ability came through as much as I intended. I’m not sure that I qualified how important it is not to lose that point of view for all of us to be successful in the future.
As “kids” …uh I mean… young adults, we used to dream about what it would be like when we grew up. Space travel, flying cars – all of it. We all probably had a secret hiding spot where we could pretend all the spectacular things we would be doing and what the world would look like. As we grew older, high school started to squeeze that out of us and then we attended universities/other educational establishments or jumped head first into the work world where we were groomed to think creatively about the next 8-10 hours or maybe the next 30-60-90 days, not the next 30-60-90 months or years. As a result, we started to manage our lives based on the easiest short term “relief” rather than the harder long term “pay it forward” solution. Honestly, when you think about changing the world, you are probably only thinking in terms of during your lifetime.
Each generation has a problem with this short-term training. For my generation, our parents left us in front of the TV to give them the moments they needed to recover from the “problems” of the day. Parents of this generation do the same with a plethora of devices as they contemplate how they will fix the “opportunities of the moment.”
I have often turned to high school age young adults when I’m testing emerging technology. Why? Because if it doesn’t meet their expectations/satisfy their imaginations of how the future should look and work, then why do it? They will be the users/clients/customers so if they don’t like it and won’t use it, why make it?
I believe it is our duty to become and create agile future thinkers; to that end, I challenge all of you to talk to young adults about what they think the future looks like. Does that future match your vision? Do you understand it, and can you see it?
If you happen to have a few live-in young adults, rather than everyone focusing on their device, ask them some interesting questions and even draw (digitally now) out the answers. What will it look like when we go to the moon, what does quantum computing mean and how will it change your life? Trust me, you will be surprised at the detail of the answers you get. As a bonus, you might also think a bit differently about what’s next after next.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tom Douglass is the founder and CEO of Catapult Consulting – LLC of Arkansas, an emerging tech, innovation and management consultancy.