In 30 years of predictions did Bill Gates and I get anything right? / ABC WA Drive, Hong Kong 3
Recently the Sydney Morning Herald published an article on the 15 predictions Microsoft’s Bill Gates made in 1999, a list that predates the internet, the smart phone and even the mass adoption of the PC and this prompted this weeks on-air chats around Australia and Asia, looking at what’s come true and what hasn’t.
I couldn’t resist throwing in a couple of my own predictions, the earliest of which dates back to 1981 and the catalyst for my life long obsession with the Future, and that was my absolute belief that there would come a day when every person on the planet would have their own unique phone number, from birth to death, that would reach them anywhere on the planet and a phone that they would carry around with them everywhere to take the call on – I know it’s ridiculous, it’ll never happen!
Anyway back to Bill, he had a pretty good track record with his predictions, which included:
No. 1: Price-comparison sites
No. 2: Mobile devices
No. 3: Instant payments and financing online, and better healthcare through the web.
No. 4: Personal assistants and the internet of things
No. 5: Online home-monitoring
No. 6: Social media
No. 7: Automated promotional offers
No. 8: Live sports discussion sites
No. 9: Smart advertising
No. 10: Links to sites during live TV
No. 11: Online discussion boards
No. 12: Interest-based online sites
No. 13: Project-management software
No. 14: Online recruiting
No. 15: Business community software
Mine aren’t always as sexy (and often specific to a clients industry) and this blog has my foresight’s, writings and media interviews going back to February 2005, so pick a date and story at random and see how I’ve done, but some of the highlights include:
80’s – rise of the mobile, PC and the internet
90’s – rise of online shopping, the demise of travel agents and the rise of online travel bookings, the rise of a digital world to rival the physical
00’s – rise of online community hubs, the move from bricks and mortar to omni-channel retail
10’s – rise of digital concierges (DC’s), machine thinking, objects coming to life, move from health to wellness, connected worlds, driverless cars, less cash economies
20’s – well, that’s a story for next week….
So take a listen now and then let me know your predictions for the next 10 years…
ABC WA Regional Drive – Barry Nicholls – 17th July 2017 (6 mins 32 secs)
Hong Kong Radio 3 – Phil Whelan – 18th July 2017 (12 mins 56 secs).
Recently the Sydney Morning Herald published an article on the 15 predictions Microsoft’s Bill Gates made in 1999, a list that predates the internet, the smart phone and even the mass adoption of the PC and this prompted this weeks on-air chats around Australia and Asia, looking .
When signals like In 30 years of predictions did Bill Gates and I get emerge, organisations that engage early have the advantage of choosing their response rather than reacting to events. That gap between those who prepared and those who did not is where competitive positioning is actually made or lost.
The most important question is not whether In 30 years of predictions did Bill Gates and I get will matter, but how quickly it will matter in your specific context. Leaders benefit most from mapping the ripple effects early — not just the direct impact but the second and third-order consequences that arrive later and hit harder. That is the practical work of foresight.
