The Five Biggest Changes to our Culture and Economy in My Lifetime

 

 

To deny that technology drives cultural change is deciding to keep our heads in the sand.  Every single change for good or bad creates a cultural shift that cannot be reversed.  Many people try to avoid these changes but ultimately they are left behind.  It not that we must embrace them all right away, but to ignore them is false economy.  These are the FIVE DISRUPTIVE CHANGES IN MY LIFETIME:

Post War Infrastructure Boom

After world war two, infrastructure changes that the Eisenhower administration implemented changed our lives forever.  One was the change from rail travel to air travel.  After the war air travel struggled until 1955 when more people traveled by air than by rail.  Then in 1956 the Boeing 707 passenger jet was introduced. Ten years later I traveled to Europe on a 707.  Unthinkable a decade earlier.  

In 1957 the beginning of the Interstate highway system began. Patterned after the Autobahn that Eisenhower saw in Europe during the war.  

Both of these developments have changed EVERYTHING.  We now travel freely and fast.  Sure there are people who drive back roads to certain destinations. I do some times.  But when I want to get there, I drive the interstate.  This innovation also allowed freight to shift from Train to Truck.  

There are still people who try to travel by rail for nostalgia. That is falling away. Only in certain corridors like the east coast can such travel be used well.

That all happened in the late 1950s and in ten years everything was different.  Your can point to the upheavals in the 1960s and 70s to these changes.

Personal Computers

In 1971 John Blankenbaker's Kenbak-1 was introduced as the first personal computer. Designed before microprocessors were invented, the Kenbak-1 had 256 bytes of memory and featured small and medium scale integrated circuits on a single circuit board.

The breakthrough came however in 1977 as Commodore and Apple introduced the first useful personal  computers.  In ten years the personal computer changed everything.  I had a software company, we built businesses around the personal computer.  By 1987 the ubiquitous nature of the computer dominated all innovation.  Automating everything. Power moved from mainframe to powerful distributed computer processing.  

Sure there are people who tried to do things the old way, but they soon were left on the side of the road.  The computer age was here and everything changed.

The Internet

In 1993 the world wide web was introduced.  The internet of things.  Oh it had existed in rudimentary form but the first web browser was introduced that year.  Soon there were many innovations.  Introductions of browsers, search engines and software that ran inside those browsers.  Fortunes were made and at the end of 1999 the dot com boom busted and fortunes were lost.  But.. not all of them.  In 1998 GOOGLE was born.  Now it is a giant.  I didn't invest.  I thought it would never work.  Was I wrong.  Now Google owns everything is seems.  During those formative years of the internet Amazon, Microsoft and others emerged.  Disruptive technologies that changed everything.  Sure there are people that still use the old ways... when they can find them.  Remember card decks a the public library.  The search engine of its day.  Now gone.

The Smartphone

The first smart phone, the Apple I-Phone was first introduced in 2007.  Now 16 years later it has become an essential extension nearly every person on the planet's life.  Not only as a communication device, but as a text portal, a camera and a million some useful (some not) applications.  You can go to darkest Africa, to Russia, to anywhere and you find these handhelds in every pocket.  To say that they haven't changed everything is intentional blindness.  Not all for better.  Social media has been harmful in some ways, but the capacity to talk directly to anyone on the globe using apps like Whatsapp is a miracle of a combination of technologies.  We aren't  going back.

Ai

Artificial Intelligence.  It's on everyone's mind.  This will once again change everything. It is being implemented at warp speed.  I can't even begin to list the things it can do and is already doing.  Just like with each of the earlier disruptive changes this one will eliminate jobs and create others. It will make millions of people very rich.  Many will be left  behind because they fail to embrace the change.  I certainly can see which jobs are already on the chopping block.  I can also see applications that are going to make our lives so much better.  Don't fear it.  It is the future and we are already there.  You can make a fortune learning to implement and use these new tools. That's what they are.  Tools.  I am a skilled blacksmith. Can make tools with heat, a hammer and anvil.  But why?  CNC and Robotics does it so much better.  My days are over.  Today in my work I use AI almost EVERY DAY.  It is a wonderful device.  I am more efficient and effective because of it.

Conclusion:

You don't have to be first, you can be a slow adapter, but you do need to know there are  billions in fortunes ready to be made right NOW.  Just as there was after air travel replaced trains, the interstate opened up cities across the nation, the personal computer made the adding machine useless, the internet made data and information universally available, the smart phone opened communication to a whole new level and now with AI once more we are on the verge. 

Don't miss it.