The Future Is Perfect and Here’s Why

I am reading Steven Johnson’s book Future Perfect and I am enjoying his optimism as it relates to the impact of technology in society.

In his book Johnson posits that it is extremely evident that there ARE solutions to the problems and challenges we are facing in society and in the workplace and that those solutions are making themselves more and more evident.

The key Johnson states is that we rely on the power of social and collective idea gathering. Technology has allowed for us to gather more data from more sources and with that data we can make new conclusions and provide new solutions.

A great example is his story of the New York 311 system which provides updates on what is happening in the city. What they have found is that the questions that callers were asking could be identified from various locations and then through the pattern of callers they could locate the solution. Read the book to read more about the ‘maple syrup’ smell mystery in New York and how the 311 system solved the mystery.

Me, I am a natural optimist anyway but I loved the data and the context that Johnson provides in his book. In fact the book asserts that we are not, ‘going to hell in a hand basket’ rather that with the right technology and use of technology we are primed for a future that is even better than we may have imagined.

This does not mean that we can remain apathetic and relax knowing that the future will be fine rather it means that each of us must step up our commitment to the causes that we want to shed light on. We must make a personal commitment to increasing our levels of adaptability and growth.

From my view if the future is going to be perfect we each must take responsibility for ensuring that it does happen.

Check out the book here: http://tinyurl.com/aey43yq