Blended Futures of Getting old & Organization Innovation

Communications and convenience large (Nasdaq: RIMM) RIM, the maker of the ubiquitous Blackberry, sees a amount of defining traits forward. These mirror the themes of my very own exploration and are cornerstones of the MIT AgeLab

Motley Fool’s Dan Dzombak January 26 article, “4 Important Trends RIM’s Futurist Foresees,” reviews on a converse provided by RIM’s Supervisor of Innovation & Technological innovation Futurist, Joseph Dvorak, PhD. Dr Dvorak identifies four tendencies impacting the foreseeable future of the clever phone:

(1) Getting old entire world: the median age on the world in 2000 was 26, by mid-century it will be 36 and the variety of people today more than 60 will triple — to almost two billion folks

(2) Connectivity: clever telephones, other units and wireless vendors will blur action, place, and drive traits we by now see in social media and interaction

(3) Empowered customers: People will continue on to undertake equipment that help them check and regulate their romantic relationship with companies, e.g., social media that advises on all the things from restaurant choices, to financial providers, to ‘hey, where’s my offer?’

(4)’Values’ paying for (e.g., green individuals). Values purchasing is not just for young children. Where by there is a rise in ‘color causes’ (my phrase) — shopping for inexperienced, supporting pink, and supporting purple — aging toddler boomers are significantly intrigued in their social impression and legacy. That is, ‘what am I contributing and what will I go away at the rear of?’

Perception & Improvements

By yourself these traits are exciting and business enterprise as perfectly as governing administration need to be conscious of their attainable affect on the foreseeable future. Having said that, the upcoming of aging and innovation is a blending of these tendencies – not the extension of any a person.

What happens when older customers are ubiquitously linked, empowered and make order conclusions on values over and above cost and good quality? For example, what may possibly wireless-enabled health or caregiving expert services in the pocket of an ageing boomer look like? Will ubiquitous computing power, social media, and value getting produce digital collaborative networks of company companies for sandwiched boomers now and frail boomers tomorrow? Can you consider the emergence of a 24/7 on-need, always ‘visible’ on your smart mobile phone, environmentally friendly, transportation assistance for a social network of ‘friends?’

The business enterprise option is not to be basically mindful of these developments, but to blend them, envision competing realities and to see these substitute futures as drivers of item and support innovation.