More News

Where Will Technology Take Us? Talking with Michael Rogers…

As Featured in the June 25, 2007 Memberlink

This week, Memberlink spoke with Michael Rogers, Futurist-in-Residence for The New York Times Company and head of Practical Futurist ®—his own speaking, writing, and consulting business in New York. Previously he was Newsweek's technology guru and the vice president of The Washington Post Company's new media division. Michael will be speaking on Monday, July 16, at the AACRAO Technology Conference .

Memberlink: Can you tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do?

Michael: My background combines writing and technology. I've always been interested in science fiction so it seems fitting that I would end up as a futurist. I really emphasize the idea that I'm a practical futurist.

During my 21-year tenure at the Washington Post , I tried to figure out what the next thing would be and then adapt the Post and Newsweek content. It was an interesting learning experience. Sometimes things worked and sometimes you realized that the technology wasn't quite ready for prime time. I'm sure your members run into this often as well. That's when I added the “practical” to “practical futurist.”

When I left the Washington Post , I started my own consulting company. I work mostly with media companies, but increasingly with other industries like insurance and energy. I try to bring a more generalist approach. When you're thinking about what will happen in 2010 or 2012, you need to see the big picture. You can't focus just on the technology, but also on the people who will be using it, as well as the economy and the environment.

Memberlink: I read that you first started working at Rolling Stone , and then at Outside magazine.

Michael: Yep, I started out at Rolling Stone . I studied both physics and creative writing at Stanford University . I thought I would go into the electronics industry and this would help support my writing. I loved to write but didn't think I could make a living at it. In college, though, I started to sell short stories to magazines. When I graduated, I got an offer from Rolling Stone . It seemed like a lot more fun than technology at the time.

It was 10 years later that a friend at Newsweek , who knew of my technology background, asked me to start their technology column. That's when I started to believe that the technology I was writing about was going to fundamentally change media. I became more involved in the corporate side of the Washington Post Company, which owns Newsweek .

In that position, we ended up developing everything, from laser disc to HyperCard, to the old online services like Prodigy and CompuServe, to a bunch of websites. I ended up doing a bit of everything, from software to on-camera hosting.

At the New York Times , I work in Research and Development (R&D) which coordinates with all of the business units. It's very unusual for a media company to have an R&D unit. Our assignment is to look out 18 months to five years. Business units really don't think in those terms. They have shorter timeframes. For example, NYTimes.com is a very sophisticated site and they have a 12-month roadmap that helps them plan their development on things like video and community. The R&D unit looks beyond that.

Right now, we're studying advanced mobile applications because we think that mobile devices are going to be extremely important. Specifically, mobile devices with very high bandwidth and connectivity. These will be laptop replacements. We think the day will come when you use your mobile device as your main computer.

Memberlink: How do you think the technological changes that are affecting society as a whole now and in the near future will impact colleges and universities in the coming years?

Michael: I think the changes that are happening now will change the way we think about information structure. We will have a much more distributed environment. There will no longer be an IT center.

Most broadly, I think more and more services will be in the Internet cloud. I think students will use a variety of mobile devices. Because it's clear that this new generation wants access to anything anytime anywhere.

One of the interesting issues that we're all facing is, as communications options multiply, how to reach all of our students at the same time. I've talked to communications directors on totally wired campuses who have this problem. Every kid has a laptop. You walk into the cafeteria and every student is on their laptop IM'ing each other. Yet we have this paradox where we have an incredibly plugged-in generation but it's very hard to reach them all at one time.

Memberlink: I know text messaging has come up as a response to this.

Michael: Yes, but we're not quite at the point where text messaging is universal. I think that texting will be the de facto way of doing it. But the difficulty is it may end up like e-mail. People ignore e-mail.

Also, right now there's a cost associated with text messaging. So you have to roll it out five years, when texting or some form of mobile-based IMing is free in both directions. At that point, the floodgates will open and text messaging may follow the path of e-mail. That's the bigger issue. Text messaging works now because it's new.

The other big item will be security. That's just not going to go away. Campuses have traditionally been the weak spot in security. In the 80's, that's where viruses were spread. In the 90's, that's where a lot of young hackers got their start playing on the campus computer. I think one of the biggest threats now is organized crime. I'll talk about this at the conference and use some recent examples. But I think these are the issues that will become even bigger in the years to come.

Memberlink: Do you have any thoughts on what will be the next “hot” technologies of concern to institutions?

Michael: I think that we have to figure out how to use social networking really well. We need to look at things like the Facebook platform recently announced. That's certainly what we're thinking about in the media industry as we try to figure out the implications of social networking and how it can be used as a communications medium.

Memberlink: Do you think that Web 2.0 and social networking is the future?

Michael: I think that we're in the middle of a huge bubble right now. When you analyze people's behavior, you see that we are in a phase where social networking and Web 2.0 seem to be the answer to everything. And that's what happens with the Internet—at first, every new idea seems like the ultimate solution. I think we'll come to a point where we accept social networking as one of many tools.

The other thing is that we are mostly watching the behavior of early adopters. They'll try anything and have enormous amounts of free time. I think if you look at the average student – and this seems to be true with our research on the Millennials – their actual behavior is somewhat more conventional than one might think. In some ways their media behavior is not that radically different from that of the Boomer behavior. We're not quite seeing a seismic shift. Fundamentals still apply.

Memberlink: One of your topics is the “next generation.” This is a topic that often comes up in higher education. What are some of your observations?

Michael: One thing that we've seen is that there's almost a generation gap among the Millennials, or the generation born from 1977-1997. The settled Millenials, 20 years old and up, seem to have more conventional boomer-like behavior than their younger brothers and sisters.

For example, we're currently trying to understand if some of the larger behavioral shifts, like the almost obsessive use of social networks, is generational or mostly age-based.

Another interesting discussion is the changing attitudes towards privacy. Are we seeing a real shift in what people will tell about themselves on the Internet? Is it just naiveté? Or is it that this generation has a more fundamental understanding of technology and realizes the more you tell about yourself, the more customization you receive.

Finally there's the whole topic of virtual worlds. The younger generation is growing up with social networking and virtual worlds like Club Penguin and Webkins. One thing that we are seeing that is truly unique and will remain consistent is the ability to form meaningful relationships online. This is really true with the younger side of this generation. I've met some twelve-year olds in Silicon Valley that were best friends and had never met in real life. This is not so much true of those in their 20's and up. And for Boomers, the phenomenon is totally baffling.

Memberlink: How does this relate to the popularity of Second Life?

Michael: With Second Life, we again are watching early adopter behavior. It may or may not translate. Though it's an important piece of the future, it really hasn't gelled yet.

I've also just started writing about telepresence, which is like telecommuting on steroids. Using high-definition video, surround sound audio and higher bandwidth, we can create experiences where people separated by thousands of miles will feel like they are in the same room. That's much farther in the future but in some ways it fits perfectly with this younger generation's ability to form virtual relationships.

Memberlink: This has been a great conversation. Do you have some final words of advice for this audience?

Without giving too much away, I'll say that there are three things that I look at that seem to be true about advancing technology. These are:

Nothing happens as quickly as the experts say it will;
Something is always lost when something is gained; and
The fundamentals always apply.

This is the way that I look at new technologies to figure out what to expect from them. It doesn't change all the rules and it gets hard to remember the fundamentals. You have to continually focus on the business you're in and try not to get distracted by the technology.

For more information on Michael Rogers, visit michaelrogers.com.

Read MSNBC's Practical Futurist column.

Read past Memberlink Featured Articles: