Confessions of a Cybershaman
The dramatic growth of the
Internet has people extrapolating wildly. Every day we see something new and
amazing. Surely, given what we have seen so far, the future is bright! Don't
believe me? Need more details? Just ask your resident visionary.
Predicting the future of
technology has gone from a minor sideline of the scientists and engineers
actively building that future to a discipline of its own. No technology company
worth its salt lacks a full-time visionary on staff. And every marketer and
spinmeister must be a junior visionary. The higher-placed your visionary, the
more visionary your company will seem--so, by all means, promote one to vice
president. Even so, make sure the CEO does the "vision thing" as well.
"Visionary" has even become a profession. (As Hunter S. Thompson once wrote:
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.) Their business cards don't have
"visionary" on them, but these people are not hard to spot. They may be
"fellows" at some impressive-sounding institute you've never heard of before.
Or they might write a magazine column and have recently published a
best-selling book. If you need more vision than that you can subscribe to their
newsletters, attend their elite annual conferences of industry big shots, or
invite them to speak or consult for astronomical fees.
Being a visionary is a new profession, but it is really
just a variant on fortunetelling, which may be the world's oldest. And its
marketing appeal is similar--people will pay for reassurance about the unknown.
The fortunetellers of old had many techniques. Yet the crystal balls and tea
leaves are just apparatus. All fortunetelling, in fact, rests on three
pillars.
First, you must tell people
more or less what you think they want to hear. Second, you must spice your
predictions with drama. Nobody wants a prediction that the future will be more
or less like the present, even if that is, statistically speaking, an excellent
prediction. Predictions must involve either acquiring or losing love, wealth,
or life itself--ideally a combination of all three.
Third,
your predictions must somehow avoid measurement of their accuracy. Many tricks
have been invented to serve this end. Predictions can be vague, for example, or
couched in complicated gibberish. Either way, there is a loophole. And
customers generally don't mind: Seeking advice about the future is more about
relieving insecurity or anxiety than about achieving statistical accuracy.
But being a fortuneteller is harder these days.
Chicken entrails aren't enough--you need to channel the spirit of an
11,000-year-old warrior. Or you become a technological visionary for the
Internet. The techniques of being an Internet visionary are just like those of
lower-tech fortunetellers through the ages. A technological visionary must tell
people what they want to hear, because your company's stock won't rise if you
spout an unpopular vision to analysts. Big shots won't speak at your conference
if you piss them off. Internet visionaries also use standard soap-opera themes.
A popular one: life and death--not of people, but of companies or, even better,
entire industries. Tell 'em that "old media" are going to die. There seems to
be an infinite appetite for this, despite precious little evidence. If you
hurry, you can tell them that "push" will conquer all, but that one's got a
week left at best. Talk like an action hero
so you seem tough and important. And be bold: It is better to predict dramatic
things that don't happen than boring things that do.
Most of
all, being a technological visionary is not about predicting what will actually
happen. This astounded me when I first realized it, and even now I am not
really comfortable with the thought. Technology and engineering are all about
testing hypotheses against reality--aren't they? Yet there is no evidence that
the public or the press holds any technological visionaries accountable. In
fact, many latter-day Internet fortunetellers don't even bother with vagueness
or complicated loopholes. They just baldly spout predictions, certain that
nobody will care if these predictions are true.
Aconfession: I have been accused of being a visionary
myself. And, in all candor, I fit the profile. What can I say in my defense? I
say this: The problem does not rest with us visionaries. Sure, there are a few
bad apples in every crate, and a few legitimate deep thinkers who sometimes get
carried away. But most visionaries are smart and honorable people who are
sincerely interested in the future. The problem is the need that drives people
to visionaries in the first place.
Technology
is driving our lives at a torrid pace. That generates many concerns.
Will my company come through this richer or poorer? Will my job be safe? What
does it all mean? The technology that shapes the modern world is as
incomprehensible to most people as the forces of nature were to a society of
hunter-gatherers. So we turn to technological visionaries as we once turned to
shamans.
This call to play fortuneteller is not easily
refused. A reporter from a major publication cornered me recently, and said:
"Nathan, I only have a couple of minutes. Quick, what is your vision?"
"Twenty-fifteen," I riposted, "but only with my glasses on." Ho ho. But he
didn't want a joke. Nor did he want a carefully constructed set of arguments
projecting current trends, or a well-reasoned strategy. He wanted a sound
bite--something pithy to take out of context.
What does
it matter that you have the whole truth if you can't understand it? In this
context, it is understandable that nobody really cares about a visionary's
track record. If next week's vision is exactly the opposite of this week's,
don't hesitate to tell that one, too. Among modern occupations, only cult
leaders and TV weathermen rival the technological visionary's ability to retain
credibility despite all evidence to the contrary.
There is an antidote to visionary disease. We as a society
have to learn more about the technology that is shaping our lives, and become
more comfortable with it. Few people these days believe that evil spirits cause
illness, that the rain god causes rain, or that electric-light bulbs are
mystical. We do not fear the forces of nature as much as our species once did,
because we understand those forces better. Even if most people don't actually
understand, say, where hurricanes come from, there is widespread comfort with
the notion that some experts do. At the same time, there is widespread
appreciation that even weather experts have their limits, which empowers people
to treat experts as mortals rather than as gods.
One day, the technology that
today creates a market for visionaries will be as mundane as light bulbs.
People who have grown up with that technology will be as comfortable with it as
we are with light bulbs today. They will not be as dependent on cybershamans.
There is a name for the people who will accomplish this daunting task and put
corporate visionaries like me out of business. We call them children. But
they'll have their own fears about the future, and so--my last prediction--the
future of the fortunetelling industry is secure.
