t’s not only people who are now constantly interacting with each other. Wireless networks will connect not just everyone, but everything. Some forecasts call for over 50 billion devices connected together and communicating back to humans by 2020. This Internet of Everything will create Exabytes of data which will be analyzed, mined and reused to make our lives completely different - again. The time we used to spend on multiple trips to the grocery store for milk, for example, will open up when our refrigerators automatically order that milk for us and it is delivered via an airborne drone, controlled by the wireless Internet. The time we may have lost in our lives will open up when a heart monitor calls a contact center for us when it’s time to wake up and head to the ER, or immediately take a pill to thwart what could have been a fatal heart attack.
The revolution is real, and it is well underway but still at its infant stages. Who, besides a few intrepid visionaries could have predicted how mobile communications would turn the transportation and hospitality industries upside down. Companies like Uber and Airbnb are now valued higher than their traditional counterparts! While new technologies have moved our society along, they have never truly defined what it is to be human. That definition is our job. New networks and the applications that ride on them make nearly anything possible. In the last three decades, we have advanced into a digital era where billions of people are connected and now communicate with each other in unimagined ways with social applications, image sharing, and real time voice and video.
How will this continue to change the way we communicate with one another? Are we connecting in new ways - physiological, emotional, neural and even spiritual?
New neural pathways are created as a result of using the Internet and new relationships are being formed more quickly and by different avenues. Recent research suggests that the evolving brain and brains of next generation humans may interpret digital interaction the same as in-person interaction. Others believe our humanity will be reignited – we may turn a corner and crave real human interaction again.
Concerns are rising about the diminishment of face-to-face communications and the loss of the human voice as masses of humans seem to prefer typing and texting – which are fairly unnatural acts when you step back and think about it. Will new forms of more humanized communications emerge? Will we invent new ways to connect with each other, without “dialing a phone number” or “calling a conference bridge” or “typing a tweet”? Will one gentle touch, tap, swipe or even a soft voice command or a minimal gesture allow us to initiate more human and intuitive conversations?
What sets humans apart from other animals are ideas and language. It is also the speed at which our means of communication changes. Continual connectivity and ubiquitous computing are creating an interesting addictive synergy between humans and computers. Many of us panic when we lose a phone, lose a connection, or lose control of our data.
After a tsunami of mobile communications, applications, and social networking, is it possible that what we may want is less noise and more signal? More context? Easier ways to connect? Transparent, secure access throughout our days? More humanity in our communications.
Do we want our communications to be more deeply felt and understood? Will we create new ways to spend time together, face-to-face with our friends, families and colleagues?
In this series of blog posts, we will explore the options and opportunities. We will conclude with a ten point human communications manifesto. How we communicate will drive how we evolve as people and as a global community, creating real human connections
- See more at: https://www.genband.com/genband-perspectives/communications-without-boundaries#sthash.EwuLr0t9.dpuf