Future Shock
January 3, 2011 Over the holidays, I experienced a seismic shift in my life. One of my Christmas presents was a brand new color Nook – an electronic reader similar to Amazon’s Kindle. Although I still love the feel of a new book, I now totally understand the appeal of such a device. My Nook takes up less space in my briefcase and I can switch “books” at the touch of a menu button.
To someone as admittedly old-fashioned as me, this is an eye-opener. It seems like only yesterday (the start of the 2000s, actually) that I was getting used to the idea of having a cell phone with me. That particularly phone weighed around two pounds and could only be used to make phone calls. Today, my compact, lightweight smart phone makes calls, lets me browse the Internet and post messages to my friends in the social media world.
Looking back from the start of 2011, it’s amazing how far technology has advanced since the start of the 21st century. Forget the now seemingly quaint predictions about flying cars and food-in-pill form. Instead, we have instant communications and virtual worlds as part of our everyday lives.
Those in the ag retail world are also familiar with these technology leaps forward. At the start of the century, custom applicators were still steering their rigs by hand and vehicle tracking was spotty at best, dependent upon where you happened to operate. Now, automatic steering systems are virtually standard on all manner of machines and wireless communication is thousand times more reliable than it was.
At the start of a new decade, it’s popular to make predictions what the future holds for the marketplace and world-in-general. Based upon what’s changed over just the last 11 years, I can’t even hazard a good guess. But I’m looking forward to finding out.
Or at least reading about it on my Nook.
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