"We're just waiting for your generation to get out of the way so we can get onto what we know has to be done," said my early 30-something relative in a heated rant last week.
He was venting about stalling by older people "who still only use their phone for voice calls." For his generation, the next wave of wealth creation in this part of the world is all about connectivity, data and smart information flows. As he gears up to make that happen, even he fears getting pushed out of date by 20-somethings who haven't heard of phone books or paying to download anything. Also coming up fast are the pre-teen kids, zombie tech rats who think a magazine is a frazzled tablet that doesn't respond when you tap the page. They will never visit a video store or read an encyclopedia. They will judge your age by whether you still use email. You will teach them to stop, look, listen and look up from their mobile devices before they cross the street.
Here come our new customers and employees, leaping over the artifacts of the industrial era, demanding instant response and constantly updated real-time information and who knows what else.
Well, actually, we all have to know what else. At the risk of throwing out the wisdom with the fax machine, I've resolved to try one new technology tool a day for 2012, even if it's just some button on my computer that I have never pushed before. It's my scramble to keep up, but it's also a leap into an exciting world that's rolling out before us every day.
Having a (new to me) iPhone simplifies my job. I'm starting to ask Siri the robot voice ever more personal questions.
"What's a good new year's resolution, Siri?" I asked her. "Sorry, I'm not allowed to give stock tips."
I've finally caught up with my daughter's ability to hold up her mobile device (not really a phone anymore) to hear any tune playing anywhere and identify the artist and song. I've even learned that I don't have to use the "purchase now" option if I want to hear the song again – I can go to one of those online radio stations that houses every song imaginable for free streaming listening anywhere. (I can hear someone saying, "Gee Dad, way to go.")
Giving up my personal privacy to near-monopolies for all this alleged beneficence allows for business models equally as threatening and marvelous.
I find it frustrating that BC Hydro refuses to extol the virtues of smart meters related to, yes, increasing some hydro rates – but also to decreasing them for those who power up in off-peak times.
Shaving the top off those peak-use hours will defer construction of millions of dollars worth of new power-generating capacity. Using smart meters to allow us to feed power into our electric cars in midnight hours and sell it back to the grid during the day could turn every car battery into a temporary power station. I like that.
In the same way smart tolls can reward non-peak-hour car trips, making more space available on congested roads at peak times. Smart applications can connect people wanting rides with screened drivers offering them. But only if you're plugged in and up-to-date.
While I screw up the courage to throw out all my how-to books (one a day?), business spending on mobile advertising has jumped from $416 million in 2009 to more than $1 billion in 2011.
The bright side of all those mobile companies knowing everything about me is that they'll only pitch me products I might actually buy, the same way Chapters-Indigo can do a better job at recommending books I might like to download than a clerk at my late lamented local bookstore ever could.
There's no virtue in this. Someone is making sure it's easier for me to succumb to this new world than to resist. Only Google knows who it is. My search continues. •
