THE MAIN ONE Predictable Thing About Technology

... Is that it's unpredictable.

Making predictions about anything is a tricky business. It's often fraught with problems and compounded by two factors: too many variables and too many people.

Making predictions in the world of technology is approximately as rough as it gets. You visit a trend, a fad, or a new craze, jump on it, extrapolate, and go and get it all totally wrong.

For example, at the turn of the 20th century, it was predicted that passenger air balloon travel - pioneered by the likes of Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin - would be commoditized and become the pre-eminent means of mass transit. In fact, it would be so popular, by the 1980s, people would have their own personal air balloon as their primary method of conveyance.

Obviously, this gaze in to the future didn't take into account the airplane, which end that pearl of foresight.

The primary problem with looking forward is that people take action such painfully straight lines, because the previous example demonstrates. Calling is another useful example; who could have predicted mobile phones at the time Alexander Graham Bell was fussing around with the technological equivalent of paper cups and wet string?

No one could have. Furthermore, how could anyone have predicted these mobile telephones would 1 day have cameras built in? Or that you could send written messages on them? You only have to go back 10 years, and such ideas will be derided as foolish drivel.

The future is really a curly thing, and in the wonderful world of information technology, the driving force behind much of the confusion is convergence.

Now there is a buzzword if I have you ever heard one. And this becomes another big problem with predicting future trends in technology: let's get two awesome gizmos and merge them; people will love it!

Err, no! What drives desire is anyone's guess. What drives need is utility: two very different parts of the mind are increasingly being exercised, here, yet another than the other!

If something doesn't fulfill a practical purpose, then it's neither use nor ornament.

This future-predicting thing is even harder nowadays, but in a means, even probably the most outlandish theory could have its day. Things are changing so quickly that new technologies are emerging literally overnight. And given that people's needs are also changing, evolving, and emerging, who knows?

Going back even more, desire, need - call it what you would - has a common source. The engine of change is people, society, lifestyle, and a requirement to manage, re-route and/or if you need to, delegate all this data and information.

The Apple Newton was way ahead of its time. A bunch of clever guys 'n' gals sat in an area and made a remarkable prediction about how people would "consume" data and information, plus they were right on the money - the only problem being that they were over 10 years early!

Now, people are on the move. People focus on the move, hold down long-distance relationships, work with colleagues across time zones, and manage bank accounts in a cafe while drinking a cup of chai.

The only certainty may be the same one which has been pontificated upon since forever: things change. Things often get together in intriguing, mysterious, and eminently useful ways.

So here's my prediction: things won't be small enough, big enough, fast enough, cool enough, or cheap enough! Am I wrong?

Wayne Smallman may be the man behind Octane Interactive, a web site design [1], web applications development [2] and internet marketing [3] agency based in Yorkshire, England which has been around since 1999.