Communications and convenience giant RIM (Nasdaq:RIMM), maker of the ubiquitous Blackberry device, sees a number of defining trends ahead. These reflect the themes of my own research and are the cornerstone of the MIT AgeLab
Dan Dzombak reports on Jan. 26 from The Motley Fool, “4 Key Trends RIM’s Futurist Foresees,” about a talk given by Josef Dvorak, RIM’s Director of the Future of Innovation and Technology. Dr. Dvorak identifies four trends affecting the future of smartphones:
(1) The aging world: the average life expectancy on the planet in the year 2000 was 26, by mid-century it will be 36 and the number of people over 60 will have tripled – to nearly two billion;
(ii) Connectivity: Smartphones, other devices, and wireless service providers will obfuscate activity and location and drive trends we already see in social media and interaction;
(3) Empowered Consumers: Consumers will continue to embrace tools that help them monitor and manage their relationships with businesses, for example, social media offering advice on everything from restaurant choices, to financial services, to “Hey, where’s my package?”
(4) Buying “values” (eg, green consumers). Buying values is not just for children. When there’s a rise in “causes of color” (my phraseology)—buying green, supporting pink, helping red—baby boomers are increasingly interested in their social impact and legacy. That is, “What am I going to contribute and what am I going to leave behind?”
Insight and innovations
These trends alone are interesting and business as well as government should be aware of their potential impact on the future. However, the future of aging and innovation is a combination of these trends — not an extension of any one.
What happens when older consumers are ubiquitously connected and empowered and make purchasing decisions based on values beyond cost and quality? For example, what might wirelessly-enabled healthcare services or caregiving look like in the pocket of baby boomers? Will universal computing power, social media, and value procurement create virtual collaborative networking of service providers for today’s confined boomers and tomorrow’s vulnerable workers? Can you imagine the emergence of a 24/7 on-demand transport service, always “visible” on your smartphone, and a green transport service for a social network of “friends”?
The business opportunity is not only to be aware of these trends but to blend them, visualize competing realities and see these alternative futures as drivers of innovation in products and services.