Oh hey, you're back. How was lunch? Did you try that new place? You've got six messages in your inbox, and oh yeah, the future arrived when you were out.
The world is changing. And by changing I mean that things that were parody, satire, and on the cover of supermarket tabloids before lunch are now facts of life. Things that they told you in school were flatly impossible have happened. And capabilities that made no sense to have this morning have become essential business tools.
Don't believe me? Let's review some headlines:
- Amazon is preparing to ship things to you before you order them, delivered by flying robot, probably before you've told anyone you need them.
- Your fridge was sending out spam messages when the door was closed.
- Individual atoms are no longer too small to see.
- Planets around other stars are no longer too far away to see.
Twitter itself, the essential marketing tool of the decade, was absurdist humour right up until it became a reality. The joke about the manager talking to the engineer: "I know that with email I can send a message to anyone on the planet, but how do I send a message to everyone on the planet?" It was funny then, before the future arrived. Mind you, the solar powered flashlight in your camping supplies was a punchline for many years as well, so Twitter is hardly alone in this category.
"But wait", you say, as you read your six messages. "This can't be the future. The houses look the same as they always did, and people still dress the same, and we aren't eating protein pills for lunch."
It's true that the future isn't arriving universally. Things that last a long time, like houses and buildings, tend to keep the landscape from changing too fast. And mainstream fashion is a product of our traditions and our insecurities, so it doesn't change quickly either. And it turns out protein shakes are way tastier than protein pills. But our perception of the rate of change is also clouded by the process of dealing with it. We're stuck in the moment, and since each moment is different anyway, we don't clearly see how much things are changing. Then we look back, and everything has changed.
Here's an example from when this happened less frequently, so you can see what I mean (if you're under 35, you may not understand this). Think back to the moment you started using email for everything. There must have been one. Before email was the standard, you sent paper memos, letters, and talked on the phone a lot, and then after you used email instead of paper, and sent more of them, so you didn't make as many phone calls. But when did that happen? If you're like most people, it sort of just happened and you didn't really notice it. This massive shift from paper to electronic communication, which you were a part of, occurred without really leaving a mark on your life.
It was called a Paradigm Shift. That moment when everything changes, and those changes wash over our lives like an invisible tidal wave, changing everything while you're busy living. It was the big thing in the 1990s. If you could predict one, and get your product in place ahead of it, you were made. But, it turns out that doing so is either a product of genius or luck, neither of which was a wise corporate business plan, so the term faded from use.
But the Paradigm Shifts kept happening anyway. Email, E-Commerce, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, iPods, Smartphones, genetically modified crops, GM Foods. New paradigm shifting products in technology, business, media, entertainment, finance, and communication. The world is changing constantly under our feet, the ripples constantly changing our daily lives without really affecting them. You may be checking out Instagrams of the food served at the restaurant where you're planning to eat dinner tonight, but life really isn't any different than it was yesterday.
The Paradigm Shifts have run together into a continuous, ever-changing Paradigm Slip. The future is here: Hang on.
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