In a famous scene in the 1967 movie The Graduate, a family friend takes aside Dustin Hoffman’s character, Benjamin Braddock, and whispers in a conspiratorial tone, “Plastics….There’s a great future in plastics.” It seems quaint today, but back then plastics really were new and exciting.
The Industrial Era Ended, and So Will the Digital Era
In fact, we’re already seeing signs of a new era dawning.
July 11, 2018
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Summary.
Every technology follows a path of discovery, engineering, and transformation before becoming quotidian. Today digital technology has transformed much of our world, but if you look closely, you can already see the contours of its inevitable descent into the mundane. As digital technologies and applications mature, we’ll need to push new frontiers of discovery. This means we need to start preparing for a new era of innovation, one in which technologies such as genomics, materials science, and robotics rise to the fore. Just as we still use heavy industry but no longer say we live in the Industrial Era, in the future, we’ll still use digital technologies. They just won’t be the shiny new thing reshaping how business gets done.