Future, past and Star Trek
I was reading in this week's Economist about the rise of the paperless office. Remember the predictions that digital stuff would reduce the use of paper? Never happened, all that internet content and masses of emails just had the new, cheap printers lots more to print them off.
End of story, another black mark against the futurologists. Or so we thought.
Apparently, use of paper is finally going down as a generation that has grown up in the digital age enters the world of work. The previous generation was too used to it's old habits, it just took a bit more patience to wait for new people without the baggage.
That's a big truth to our approach to new stuff, be it thinking about the future or dealing with new things entering into our own lives - it's always from our own frame of reference. So Star Trek from the 1960S doesn't look like the 23rd century, it looks like the 60S.
Star Trek from the 80S looks, well, 80S.
That's why it's so hard to see into the future - it will be based on what we know now. That's why it's hard to predict how new innovations will work - will people adapt the innovation to how they live now or adapt the innovation?
That's why really creative ads are hard to test - people will judge them based on what they're used to, and why culture (and agencies in particular) take so long to change.
So any change in attitudes, feminism, homosexuality, attitudes to race....whatever... take time since you have to wait for the generations without the baggage to come through first.
It is remarkable how "80s" the 80s version looks with the big shoulders and wrap-around "glasses".
Posted by: andrew | October 11, 2008 at 06:56 PM
“We are so busy measuring public opinion that we forget we can mold it. We are so busy listening to statistics we forget we can create them“
B in DDB
Posted by: Niko | October 13, 2008 at 09:03 AM
I'm just excited that in the future, all captains are bald - there's hope for me yet!
Posted by: Rob @ Cynic | October 13, 2008 at 09:37 PM
I'm struggling to think that far ahead.
I'm just hoping that ads created in a credit crunch, don't look like they were created in a credit crunch.
When time's are a tough, so many clients look backwards for security. All of a sudden, those 80's shoulder pads don't look that bad.
Posted by: Stu | October 13, 2008 at 09:49 PM
Well Stu, Tesco for one might regret their discounter strategy when the lean times end.
It's going to get retro all right. Always does in a crisis. Then again the last crisis gave the hovis bike ad...
Posted by: Rob Mortimer | October 14, 2008 at 10:56 AM