Hello there, welcome to my channel. The No. 1 place for innovators, marketers and entrepreneurs. Today we are going to learn all about the biggest wave transforming humankind.
Imagine for a moment, a 16-year-old teen in Tampa drops her iPod in front of an oncoming truck, or lorry for you Brits. Think of her thought stream. My iPod or my life. My iPod or my life. She decided to jump in front of the truck to save her iPod. OMG!
That fascinating tableau makes you realize how addicted we have become to technology, welcome to the Digital Lifestyle, the marriage of man and machine. I realize that “man” is not politically correct, but I’m sure you like the alliteration as much as I do.
What do I mean by marriage of man and machine? There’s a scientist in the Netherlands who believes that by 2050 we’ll be marrying robots and Massachusetts will be the first state to allow it.
Do you think we’ll find robot love anybody? Do you? Let me give you a piece of advice, don’t knock it until you try it.
Did you catch this CBS News clip? Did you hear what the robot said? Don’t ask me any difficult questions! The robots are already starting to resemble their human counterparts, they’re ready for customer service!
And because they shine at customer interaction, robots are invading the hospitality industry. I took this video of Flippy the hamburger-flipping robot at CaliBurger in Pasadena. Cool huh?
The Pyramid Taproom at the Oakland, California airport used to feature Softbank’s Pepper robot, co-developed with France’s Aldebaran Robotics. Here’s me talking to Pepper.
To give you an inkling of how fast robots are developing, Boston Dynamics just released a video of its Atlas robot showing off some new tricks. Doesn’t this give you shivers?!?
My first reaction was “Holy Crap!” And speaking of crap, did you know that Kohler has introduced the Kohler numi , a toilet with Alexa built-in that promises a fully immersive experience! With built-in speakers, ambient lighting, and Alexa support, why go anywhere else in the house? LOL!
I have dubbed the proliferation of the Alexa-everwhere trend, “Alexified.” One researcher predicts that there will be some 200 MILLION of these smart speakers installed worldwide by yearend 2019.
Robots will take over many jobs in the next few decades that used to be handled by humans. Here are just some of the latest news headlines that provide an inkling of our robotic future.
Now some of you’re probably wondering, what do robots have to do with me? There is a U.K. research firm that believes that robots will replace with lawyers by 2030. That prediction deserves an applause, don’t you think? And my apologies to any legal counsel watching!
Did you see this CNBC survey? Americans are cutting back on travel, food and healthcare in order to afford more gadgets. Food…healthcare, those are core spending categories! Now that’s a huge value change! And consumers are going to have to save up their money because there’s a lot more digital gadgetry coming down the pike.
This OVIS suitcase may well be one of the more useful “robots” shown at the last Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Definitely a status symbol for any frequent flyer. I know you want one!
But the most radical thing I saw at CES was a French company called Spinali Design, which showed off a pair Daisy Dukes that buzz to tell you what direction to walk in. YOUR DREAM HAS COME THROUGH, YOU CAN NOW NAVIGATE LIFE BY THE SEAT OF YOUR PANTS!
The Digital Lifestyle is rewriting the rules of innovation. As technology becomes more tightly interwoven with the fabric of life, the dominant values ruling this tech-infused age are connectivity, convergence and convenience.
Besides iPods and robots, the Digital Lifestyle is spawning a large number of sub-trends, including computers, electronic dance music, social media, which, in turn, has brought us FOMO — the fear of missing out. The Digital Lifestyle is propelling a huge financial wave, dubbed fintech, giving birth to thousands of cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin and Etherium, and a very promising technology offshoot, Blockchain.
Our retail landscape is being transformed by the Retail Apocalypse caused by the onslaught of e-commerce. Health and crime are being disrupted by wearables, some of which are being embedded under the skin, a true marriage of man and machine.
And on the horizon lies artificial intelligence, or machine learning, which will, unquestionably, result in the biggest upheaval in the history of mankind, bigger than electricity and the automobile combined.
So how can you participate in this revolution, what innovations can you bring to market that will leverage those core values mentioned earlier, connectivity, convergence and convenience.
Think of how successful Starbucks has become. In 2009, Starbucks launched a mobile app, which has become a true life style enabler. Coffee is a like crack! I need to find the nearest dealer, right now. I’m having delirious tremors! I’m a funny guy, just ask my parole officer!
Then in 2010, Starbucks introduced free and unfettered Wi-Fi. Now you know why Starbucks has become the unofficial offsite conference room for just about everyone — it offers connectivity, convergence and convenience.
In 2011, Starbucks was first restaurant to debut an electronic payment system.
The bottomline is that Starbucks’ revenues and profits continue to outperform the industry.
As Howard Schultz tells us, loyalty, technology and innovation are fueling the company’s digital flywheel. Digital flywheel? For heaven’s sake, this is a restaurant company!
So that brings up a good question, what business are you in? We are all in technology. And I’m here to fuel your digital flywheel.
If you are still in school, please choose a technology-oriented career as your focus. Learn how to code. Become an engineer, specialize in AI and machine learning.
I recommend you check out General Assembly as a great place to learn about technology. There are 22 locations in the U.S., and schools in the U.K., France, Australia and Singapore.
Bone up on leading-edge technologies like Framer Playground. You can learn about Framer Playground and other languages like Apple’s Swift at Design+Code. I will provide links to both General Assembly and Design+Code in the Description below.
The reason why I recommend that you immerse yourself in these leading-edge technologies is that you need to learn how to speak to a machine. If indeed we are getting married to machines, it’s imperative that we all learn how to improve the human-machine interface, don’t you agree?
There is so much more to cover under the rubric of the Digital Lifestyle but I’ll leave that for future videos.
I hope you found this brief summary of Digital Lifestyle riveting. If you would like to learn more, check out my book, Ubertrends — How Trends And Innovation Are Transforming Our Future on Amazon.com.
And please subscribe to my channel and click the bell to be notified of each new video. I hope you have a great day, a great week and a great year, see you soon digital lifestylers! 🙂
