So Quick.

Who hasn't put on the hindsight goggles (no they are not like the beer goggles, although some things look better through both) and marvelled at where we've come from and wondered how we got so far, so quickly and still manage to keep pace ? A study on household spending over the last hundred years has brought up fascinating insights that show we should not be complacent about our thinking today and that the speed of our progress causes as many challenges as it does benefits. Advancement we take for granted as the speed of innovation carries all before it, like a Steve Jobs tsunami of information and design.

At the start of last century, 10% of families owned a stove or had electricity, life expectancy was 49 years and phones for most were a thing of the future. By 1930 10% of families owned a refrigerator along with a car and by mid century that included clothes dryers and air conditioning. By the 60s 10% of families had colour TV and dishwashers and the mid 70s saw microwaves in 10% of households. Twenty years ago 10% of families had mobile phones or access to the Internet.

Today that is inverted and 90% of families have everything in the above list. How quickly we adapt, innovate, create and accumulate. The above gives a good indication of how much speed we have picked up, especially in the last decade and the thinking for many is challenging, keeping up with the speed and what the next decade will look like? Will we continue to adapt or will the change be too much, too fast with society fragmenting into the 10% speeding forward and the rest, well, just needing a rest?

One hundred and fifteen years ago, New York journalist David Goodman Croly published a compilation of predictions called "Glimpses of the Future" and looked to the year two thousand as a fulfilment of those predictions. The predictions caused much consternation and excitement among his readers, some who were not prepared for the drastic changes envisioned but others who couldn't wait for technology to speed up. Changes that included seeing a novel presented via voice and character actions, photos available for everyone in their homes and information disseminated by phone and gramophones which Croly described as "the ability of every citizen to get into direct communication with original sources of information".

Must have sounded like a Jules Verne novel for many in 1888. Today nothing seems impossible but keeping up for many seems impossible just as it did in 1888. The speed of innovation sees society grappling with the advancement of technology with the benefits involved while struggling to find solutions that seem to confound all, like global health issues, wars of many kinds on many continents, the saving of one planet and the singular challenge of individuals not coping with change at light speed.

The future view is important and we need to have checks and balances in place, to adjust accordingly and this is where hindsight comes to play finding mistakes made in the past that can help us in the future. We need to see the trends, the cycles, anticipations and
prognostications to lessen the anxiety and emotions so the future remains exciting and not foreboding. In the end, even with all that is available to us David Goodman Croly had it right when he said, "I have no notion of being able to tell what the future has in store for us. The best we can do is to indicate the drift of things".

I don't think I'll down load any Apps this week.