I was at ITS2011 in Tampa last week watching Carlos Dominguez give a presentation about innovation and how the best companies approach it. After giving a handful of examples he asked the crowd “How many of you take time out of your week to actively envision what the future will look like?” Out of the entire crowd, perhaps 5 raised their hands. That’s absolutely horrendous. My parents used to say “What will they think of next?” We’re not in that age anymore. It’s up to us to think of what’s next. At a time when ideas are a commodity and technology is relatively cheap, anybody can come up with and start to build “what’s next.” Five people raising their hand for looking into the future is ridiculous, especially at a technology summit. It should be everyone’s job to examine their own lives and those of their family members and ask “What is too complicated today? What tools do I want to see come to market that make my life easier, more connected, or more effective?”
If you’ve ever tried opening a restaurant in Tampa you should be able to come up with at least two services that would make the process faster and more effective for the restauranteur as well as the City of Tampa. How much of that could also scale to other cities? Probably several. Those are products. That’s the future. It’s not the next Facebook but it’s cost savings for municipalities in a time when they’re looking to cut costs and gain efficiencies.Where else would you start looking?
At ITS2012 can we please have 10 people raising their hands?
