Don’t Reinvent, Reimagine

Stop looking to the future through the rear-view mirror

Matt Versi
Jul 10, 2017 · 3 min read

Too many of us look to solving the problems of the future by tinkering with solutions of the past.

This is as true with public policy, education and business, as it is with technology.

It’s not necessarily our fault. The human mind is complex and extremely sophisticated, but struggles for originality.

Take for instance colours. We can all close our eyes and imagine the colour red or blue or green. But if I was to ask you to imagine a new colour, one you’ve never seen before, you couldn’t. Some would even say it’s impossible.

The same goes if I was to ask you to imagine nothingness. The very notion of imagining nothing, is to imagine something, right? Again, impossible.

OK let’s come back down from the clouds.

I’ve come to learn that imagining the future is relative. We all at some stage have pondered what the future will be like. And if you have a business mind, you’ll likely have tried to predict the solutions you can start developing now to the problems you foresee in the future.

Again, the problem with this is relativity. When we imagine our world in the future, we do so with the construct of what is around us now.

For instance, I’m on a bus right now driving through Sydney’s central business district (aka Downtown). Peering outside the window I see the glow of the car lights and the bright street lights from the store fronts and office building.

If I was to imagine the future from looking around me, I’d imagine self driving cars, maybe even flying cars.

I might imagine what people would wear or how the architecture of the buildings would be different.

But those thoughts are all based on what is around me, what I’ve seen already. For an original idea I'd have to think harder, I'd have to remove myself from my surroundings.

When looking for a niche or a gap in the market, those that stand out are the ones who see beyond what is in front of them.

An example of this is Steve Jobs’ thoughts on a stylus for the iPad (something Apple has since, shamefully, introduced).

Jobs wasn’t looking at the iPad as the high-tech replacement for the paper note book. No. He saw the iPad as the first step in the seamless integration between humans and technology. The natural action of touching something with nothing but your finger, and seeing the reaction you wanted manifest out of thin air, before your very eyes.

Jobs saw a world where the distinction between human and technology was indistinguishable. Where our interaction with technology became such a part of us, that all we needed to do was think of it and it would manifest itself. A concept many still struggle with today.

For Jobs, it was like trying to describe the internet to people living in Ancient Rome-their understanding of the future was relative.

As we hurtle towards the future, picking up speed, we will rely on those who see beyond the relative. Those who can imagine the new colours to paint the future.

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